Famous for its representatives. Their names, along with their unforgettable works, are known to everyone who considers themselves even a little connoisseur of literature. There are poets whose poems are remembered against their will. This includes Fyodor Sologub. A short biography, an overview of creativity and a description of the direction in which the poems were created awaits you below.

About the writer

Fyodor Sologub is a Russian writer, poet, publicist, translator and teacher. He was one of the brightest representatives Silver Age and an apologist for Russian symbolism. His work is so extraordinary and ambiguous that many critics still cannot come to the only correct interpretations of the images and heroes created by the poet. Sologub, whose biography and work are still the subject of study and search for new symbols, is a multifaceted creator of poetry and prose. His poems amaze with their motifs of loneliness, mysticism and mystery, and his novels attract attention, shock and do not let go until the last page.

History of the nickname

The poet's real name is Fedor Kuzmich Teternikov.

The Northern Messenger magazine has become launching pad for the poet. In the 90s years XIX centuries, Sologub's poetry was published in this publication, and in large volumes.

The role of a symbolist poet required a sonorous name. The editorial staff of the magazine came up with the first variants of pseudonyms, among which the option “Sollogub” was proposed. This surname was borne by a noble family, the prominent representative of which was Vladimir Sollogub, a writer and prose writer. To make differences, Fedor decides to remove one letter.

In 1893, the magazine published the poem “Creativity,” signed under the pseudonym Fyodor Sologub. The writer's biography hides many events in which members of the editorial board of this magazine took part. The Northern Messenger gave the poet a worthy incentive for development and growth.

Fyodor Sologub, short biography. Childhood

The writer was born on March 1, 1863 in St. Petersburg. His father was from the Poltava province.

The family lived very poorly, the father was a serf and made his living as a tailor.

The parents of the future poet were educated; there were books in the house, and the father taught the children to read and write, played for them, talked about the theater and passed on those grains of knowledge about world culture and literature that he had.

When, two years after Fyodor’s birth, his little sister was born, the family’s life became more difficult financially. The family was finally driven into poverty by the death of their father in 1867. The mother was left with the children in her arms, without a means of subsistence. She was forced to become a servant in rich family. In this noble Agapov family, a young poet grew up, to whom the aristocrats treated him favorably, helped his self-education, and shared rare books, which Sologub was very keen on. The poet's biography will further be rich in random people and meetings that helped him overcome life's obstacles and find himself.

However, there were also dark sides in the poet's childhood at the Agapovs' house. The world of books, science and music that young Fyodor became familiar with in the house contrasted incredibly sharply with the atmosphere of the smoky kitchen and laundry room in heavy steam, where his mother worked until she completely lost her strength to feed her children. Sometimes she took out her fatigue on her children, even going so far as to beat her for the slightest disobedience. Later the writer would write the story “Consolation”, in which he would express the severity of his shattered childhood world. Sologub reluctantly recalled this in his memoirs; a short biography of the poet often misses these moments, but they are necessary to depict a complete picture of his life and development.

Works that showed the way to the poet

The poet's wife, compiling his biography, talked about three books that Fyodor read in his childhood.

These are "Don Quixote" by Cervantes, Shakespeare and "Robinson Crusoe" by Defoe. The impression from what he read was so strong for a very young boy that it gave rise to a talent that was destined to blossom in mature age and create a great poet working under the pseudonym Sologub. A short biography written by his wife said that these books were "a kind of gospel."

But the work of Pushkin and Lermontov, its main motives were alien to young Sologub. N. was much closer to him in spirit, the images of the poor man and his difficult fate were transformed and found their place and reflection in future poetry successor. In his youth, Fyodor Sologub was amazed at the realism with which Nekrasov described the experiences and suffering of the common man.

The work of S. Nadson also had a significant influence on the formation of the writer’s worldview and talent.

Youth and self-discovery

The poet's youth was influenced by world literature and Russian classics, which he had the opportunity to read. It was thanks to this opportunity that young Sologub was able to develop his talent (the biography written by the poet’s wife gives a very clear idea of ​​this).

At the age of fifteen, Fyodor Sologub became a student at the Teachers' Institute in St. Petersburg. The young poet came here with ambiguous thoughts and thanks to the patronage of the Agapov family and teacher Fyodor, he discerned in the boy a sharp mind and a talent that required cutting. Literally the first classes opened up a completely new world for the poet. new world creativity and freedom.

The director of the institute was K.K. Saint-Hilaire, a highly educated man with progressive and innovative views. Thanks to his enthusiasm, the most advanced teachers of the time were attracted to teaching. Among the students, most of whom were from wealthy families, Fedor was a complete stranger. He was not attracted to student gatherings and festivities. While his classmates were having fun, he was translating classics and taking his first steps in prose. With the beginning of his studies at the institute, Sologub will begin the novel “Night Dews”. The poet's biography will tell us that he will never finish this novel, but it will be a good attempt that will enrich him with experience.

In 1882, the future symbolist writer graduated with honors from the institute and left for the remote village of Kresttsy. He will take his mother and sister Olga with him. Here he found work as a teacher, as well as ten years of wandering around the provinces: Velikiye Luki and Vytegra were the temporary home of the writer and his family.

Here, in the “bear corner,” the writer suffered madly from his loneliness and the “provincial swamp.” Later he will write about this, saying that the teacher is doomed to loneliness and misunderstanding.

First steps in poetry

The poet's first poems appeared, according to some sources, when he was a twelve-year-old boy. Fyodor Sologub (whose biography tells little about his development as an author) in adulthood often recalled with bitterness the hardships of his youth, when there was no support and understanding, and he had to achieve everything himself.

With all his might, young Fyodor was sure that he was destined to become a poet, and he swore to himself that he would not give up his calling, no matter how difficult it might be for him. And fate did not skimp on trials. If we don’t talk about the material difficulties in which the writer’s orphaned family lived, there was also a lot of moral torment for the gifted young man. He lived with his mother and sister in a provincial town, where there were fewer opportunities than obstacles. His poems were published in weak provincial magazines with a limited number of readers, fame and recognition still did not come to the poet.

"Northern Herald"

The year 1891 became a turning point for the poet, when fate brought him to the capital and gave him a completely random meeting with Nikolai Maksimovich Minsky, a representative of the so-called mystical symbolism. The significance of this meeting was that, despite the short communication, F. Sologub (the biography written by the poet’s wife vividly describes this meeting) would leave Minsky his small collection of poems (literally a couple of hundred early poems). This year was the year of the birth and transformation of the already known magazine “Northern Herald”. Its creators: N. Minsky, Z. Gippius and A. Volynsky were busy searching for works that would be a worthy illustration of N. Minsky’s newly-minted manifesto “In the light of conscience...”. Surprisingly, the young poetry of Sologub turned out to be appropriate, which helped to design the editorial magazine, and to the young poet finally allowed us to establish ourselves in the mainstream of symbolism.

Maturity

In the fall of 1892, Fyodor Sologub moved to St. Petersburg. After the province that almost destroyed him, he breaks into the Symbolist society with his innovation and desire to create.

Here he finds a position as a teacher at the city Nativity School. While coming to life here, the writer softened many scenes of his brilliant but difficult novels “The Little Demon” and “Heavy Dreams.” And the place of action of his works was transferred to the “provincial cities”, but for some reason not to the capital, in which he spent all his maturity and loved with all his soul.

“Northern Messenger” becomes for the writer both a place of learning and a means through which his poems finally become known.

In 1908 Sologub Fedor Kuzmich (the writer’s biography does not adequately describe this life stage) leaves his teaching career and marries Anastasia Chebotarevskaya, a writer and translator.

In 1913, with his wife, he went on a trip to the cities of Russia, visiting almost four dozen of them.

In 1918, the poet had the honor of being chairman of the Union of Workers of Fiction.

On December 5, 1927, the writer passed away at the age of sixty-four, leaving behind a huge legacy of the brightest poetry and prose of symbolism.

Brief overview of creativity

The work of the poet and writer is rich and multifaceted. Although critics themselves later attributed his poetry and prose to symbolism, many features of his works go beyond this direction.

Fyodor Kuzmich began his Sologub (a short biography written by Anastasia Chebotareva talks about this) with poetry.

Later, at the teacher's institute, he makes an attempt to create a prose epic, “Night Dew.” Around the same time, the poem “Loneliness” was born, which was never destined to be published.

The poet's poems are published in the St. Petersburg Severny Vestnik.

In 1902, the writer completed work on his novel “The Little Demon.” The work tells about the insane, unhealthy soul of the sadistic teacher Ardalyon Peredonov. Because of its frankness and “riskiness,” the novel was doomed to “life on the table.” However, in 1905, the magazine “Problems of Life” began to publish the work. Due to the closure of the magazine, publications were cut short, which did not give the novel the opportunity to fully reveal itself.

In 1907, “The Little Demon” was finally published in full and from that time to the present day remains one of the most famous and studied books in Russian literature.

The main motives of F. Sologub's poetry

Despite the fact that the writer’s novels occupy a worthy place in the world of literature, his poetry is no less interesting for its originality and unusually light, airy style.

It is this lightness of syllable that strikes Sologub. The writer's biography is full of his creative quests and experiences that are reflected in the poems, they are easy and read in one breath.

The main theme of the poems is the themes of sadness, suffering, existence without meaning and purpose of life, characteristic of symbolism and decadence.

Mystical themes of the influence of higher powers on life can be traced in the poems “Devil's Swing” and “One-Eyed Dashing.” Also, the weakness of man, his powerlessness in the face of life’s obstacles runs through all of Sologub’s poetry.

Finally

We briefly told you about the writer who left a literary legacy that can safely be put on a par with Blok and Tolstoy. Fyodor Sologub (biography and creativity, photo of the writer - all this is in the article) is a writer and poet, prose writer and playwright who reflected the dark sides of life in his work. But he did it so skillfully and interestingly that his works are read in one breath and remain in memory forever.

Fyodor Sologub short biography and Interesting Facts from the life of a prominent representative of the Silver Age are presented in this article.

Biography of Fyodor Sologub briefly

The future writer Fyodor Sologub, whose real name was Teternikov Fyodor Kuzmich, was born in 1863 in St. Petersburg into the family of a shoemaker. Thanks to his mother he received excellent education at the Teachers' Institute.

After graduating from school, Fedor began working as a teacher in a small town. Later, having advanced a little in his career, he works as an inspector of primary schools and was transferred to St. Petersburg. In parallel with this, he writes the novel “The Little Demon,” which brought him popularity. Fyodor Sologub leaves the teaching service because he can live peacefully on his literary earnings.

When the revolution began, in 1905 he was quite revolutionary, but in 1917 he changed his mind and showed extreme hostility towards the Bolshevik regime.

During Civil War he is in dire need, but, nevertheless, he had no intention of leaving Russia. But rebellion and intolerance towards communist power forced him to ask the authorities for permission to travel abroad. Permission was obtained after much ordeal - the departure date was set for September 25, 1921. But this was not destined to happen - on September 23, his wife, writer Chebotarevskaya Anastasia, committed suicide. After this, the writer did not want to leave his homeland.

In 1926 he was elected chairman of the Petrograd Writers' Union. But, despite this, his new works were not published. He barely made ends meet, making a profit only from public poetry readings. The writer died on December 5, 1927.

Fedor Sologub interesting facts

• The artistic factor of the writer’s creativity is a contemptuous attitude towards life. His works are dominated by the cult of death and disappearances, and life is presented as a long path of suffering.
• Since the boy lost his father early, his mother was forced to become a servant. She became irritable and often took it out on her son. This was significantly reflected in Sologub’s work.
• The writer worked as a teacher for 25 years. And during this period he showed himself to be a strict teacher. Many note that he loved to read notations.
• His wife, Anastasia, suffered from acute psychological illnesses, which led to her suicide.
• Before coming to power, Sologubov was engaged in publishing a magazine, which he himself founded. In parallel with this, he lectured publicly in France and Germany.

FEDOR SOLOGUB (1863-1927)

The poet, prose writer, playwright, translator, symbolist theorist F. Sologub is associated with the classics in his creative work, but he presented the problems of life, the meaning of creativity and solutions differently than his predecessors. artistic tasks. The realities of art in his works are combined with phenomena of reality and fantasy. Behind the first plan of his narration of life events is another plan, a mysterious one, which ultimately determines the movement of events. As a philosopher, Sologub sought to express the essence of “things in themselves”, ideas beyond sensory perceptions. His style is largely intuitive, art world he builds by combining elements of impressionism, expressionism, mysticism, naturalism and various space-time layers. Critics who did not understand the playful manner of this modernist’s work perceived his works as “devilishness”, “fooling”.

Creative biography and artistic world of F. Sologub

The childhood and youth of Fyodor Sologub (Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov) were difficult. The father, a tailor, died when his son was four and his daughter two years old. After this, almost until her death in 1884, the mother worked in a wealthy family as “one servant.” In the manor's house, high school student and then student Fedya Teternikov could visit the "hall" in which literary and musical evenings were held, communicate with celebrities, read in the family library, could use the master's private box in the theater, naturally, while remaining the "cook's son" . It is possible that the dual consciousness inherent in Sologub’s characters is partly due to the ambiguous social status the future writer himself at the beginning of his adult life.

Sologub had to “split into two” later, “making his way into the people” on the pedagogical path. After graduating from the Teachers' Institute in 1882, he taught for a quarter of a century natural sciences in provincial and then in capital schools and gymnasiums, wrote a geometry textbook, while his soul was drawn to fine literature. Before returning to St. Petersburg in 1893, he published his poems and translations. The French “damned” books he loved are still published in translations by Sologub, a teacher from Russian outback. Sologub was called “Russian Verdun” in literary circles. He also translated from English, German, and Ukrainian. The first novel, “Heavy Dreams” (1882-1894, published in 1895), about the dramatic life of a teacher in a provincial town, was almost entirely written in the provinces.

However, Fedya Teternikov felt himself a poet and prose writer very early. He wrote his first poems at the age of 12, and at 16 he began working on a novel in the genre of a family chronicle. However, Sologub won a place on the literary Olympus for a long time and with difficulty. The novel “Poems: Book One” (1895), “Shadows: Stories and Poems” (1896) had already been published, the name had already become familiar on the pages of fashion magazines such as “Northern Herald”, “World of Art”, “ New way", "Golden Fleece", "Pass", " Northern flowers“, but there was still no recognition. It came only with the publication of the novel “The Little Demon” (1907)2. Later, this success overshadowed Sologub’s other perfect creations.

The list of magazines to which the recent provincial contributed his works speaks volumes about his established literary taste. Together with other senior symbolists, Sologub created paradigms of “new art,” while at the same time, in the camp of close artists, he, like no one else, expressed a decadent worldview3. The symbolists strove for the divine absolute, the all-conquering beauty of truth, goodness, justice, believing in the future unity, overcoming the evil of the empirical world. Sologub followed his own religious and aesthetic path, bypassing Sofia. It is noteworthy that in his poems there is an unnamed female figure endowed with mystical power. But Sologubov’s “She” is contradictory, harsh... Solovyov’s “flower of foreign lands” is “crumpled” (“On the sand of whimsical roads...”, 1896). “She” may be associated with “obsessions of evil” (“Every day, at the appointed hour...”, 1894), at best “does not regret, but spares” (“Your names are not false...”, 1896) , rarely “comforts” (“You came to me more than once...”, 1897), does not forgive love for an “earthly wife” (“I cheated on you, unearthly...”, 1896).

A lot has been said about Sologub’s “innate” decadence, but there is another side to this problem. The authors of the statements looked at his artistic world through the prism of the classics, and there is a bit of limitation in their assessments. Sologub began a different art, in which, among other innovations, reality and the realities of previous fine literature are almost balanced in their meaning for the artist. Overcoming the mimetic, he moved toward “playful art.”

An example of Sologub's misunderstanding is the discussions around the theme of death in his work. For decades, critics have been outraged by the “poeticization of death.” Very few allowed another version of the author’s interpretation of death - a “bridge”, a “transition” from the empirical world to another. Sologub creates a virtual world where life and death have a special aesthetic dimension3. He absolutizes the mythologies of immortality that live in the subconscious, in the beliefs of tribes that cry at birth and rejoice at the death of a person, in religious teachings. The writings grow from the idea of ​​the transmigration of the soul, genetic memory about past life1. The thought that real life there is hell is an axiom, just like the fact that man is a martyr and creator of suffering2. This idea is clearly visible in the finale of the poem “To me horrible dream dreamed..." (1895), where the lyrical hero has the very opportunity to continue earthly life perceives as a “cruel” proposal:

And, having finished the long journey, I began to die, And I hear the cruel judgment: “Rise up, live again!”

The only thing that Sologub contrasts with “life, rough and poor” is a dream. In a dream, he overcomes the “innate” decadence: the objective world is nothing, the subjective world is everything. His goodies attracts something that does not exist in the world. 3. N. Gippius noted: “Dream and reality are in eternal attraction and in eternal struggle- this is the tragedy of Sologub." Dream, art, beauty - his formula of the trinity, in which "art... is highest form life." In his imagination, the artist created the happiest "country of love and peace" on the planet Oil, illuminated by the "beautiful star" Mair. The heroes of his prose also dream of living on this planet. The lyrical cycle "Star Mair" (1898-1901) is one of the most spiritual in our poetry.

Sologub is rare case long life in art without any visible evolution of ideological and aesthetic views - only the mastery of words has evolved. In his rich poetic heritage infrequently, but there are quite bright poems: “Believe, the bloodthirsty idol will fall, / Our world will become free and happy...”; “No, it’s not just grief, - / There is in the world...” (1887, 1895). “O Rus'! exhausted in anguish, / I compose hymns to you. / There is no dearer land in the world, / O my homeland!..” - with these words begin the heartfelt “Hymns to the Motherland” (1903), going back to poetic tradition XIX century Nekrasov’s motifs are recognized, denouncing “humble little people” (“The Eighties”, 1892), social inequality: “Here at the ostentatious window / Stands, admiring, a poor boy...” (1892). There is a poetic confession of “faith in man,” ending with the words: “But still joyful hope / There is a place in my heart!” (“I am also the son of a sick century...”, 1892). In Sologub one can find a Fetov-Bunin declaration of love, as he put it, for “living beauty” - nature:

And how joyful I am of the sands, the bushes, and the peaceful plain, and the clay tender with moisture, and the colorful bugs.

(“What is most dear to me in life?..”, 1889)

However, this pathos rarely fuels Sologubov's verse. His lyrical hero is characterized by the confession: “Oh death! I am yours. Everywhere I see / You alone, and I hate / The charms of the earth...” (1894). His vision of life is conveyed by the extended poetic metaphor “Devil's Swing” (1907).

V. F. Khodasevich explained these paradoxes of his contemporary: “Sologub knows how to love life and admire it, but only to the extent that he contemplates it without regard to the “ladder of perfections”.”

Sologub did not think of phenomena outside the dialectic of antinomic principles. Like Nietzsche's Zarathustra, in their struggle he sees the guarantee of the “movement of things,” the dramatic mode of life. I think this largely explains his shocking poetic vacillation between light and darkness, God and Satan. “I will glorify you, my father / In reproach to the unjust day, / I will raise blasphemy over the world, / And by tempting I will seduce” - this is how Sologub’s lyrical hero addresses the Devil (“When I swam in a stormy sea...”, 1902). And he also claims:

To encroach on the truth of God is the same as crucifying Christ, to block the immaculate lips with earthly lies.

("I know with the last knowledge..." from the collection "Incense", 1921)

Sologub's poetry is philosophical; It is difficult to find an analogy for the worldview expressed in it. As the author admitted, in his poems he “opens his soul,” and without attention to the makeup of his soul, it is difficult to understand and love them. Amazes apparent simplicity this poetry of a limited range of ideas, without minorities, allegories, almost without metaphors, and - an abundance of phrases spoken language, clarity of judgment. There are almost no complex epithets; the range of others is limited. Key words: tired, pale, poor, sick, angry, cold, quiet - determine the corresponding mood. Sologubov’s stanzas really resemble “crystals in severity<...>lines." Why did they attract admirers, artists from I. Annensky to M. Gorky? First of all - the music of verse and only then, probably, the original interpretation of the obvious and hidden paradoxes of life.

The structure-forming device of this poetry - “unadorned music” - is repetition. The author addresses him at different levels: thematic, lexical, sound. Many poems are in the nature of divination and spells. The latter can convince of the incredible, even of the “charm of death”, the deliverer from an evil life. This is facilitated by rich rhyme, sophisticated metric and stanza, an appeal - rare in Russian poetry - to solid poetic form, triolet. As V. Ya. Bryusov noted, in Sologub’s rhyme not only the supporting consonant is coordinated, but also the previous vowel, and in the first volume of his works “there are more than a hundred different meters and stanza structures in 177 poems.” The poet himself, he understands what talent and “tireless labor” gave birth to “Sologubov’s simplicity”, calls it “Pushkin’s”.

Sologub's poetry reflected his knowledge of history, literature, mythology, religion, science - culture in in a broad sense. For this he was “one of our own” for the Acmeists too.

The one returning from paradise looked at the overturned jug. There is only one moment in the desert, And there the centuries flowed, burning.<...>

How long has Kazan been dark?

Was a haven of inspiration

And he shook the edge of Euclid

Our Lobachevsky, bright genius!

(“On an overturned jug...”, 1923)

These stanzas were born of the author’s “extraordinary interest” in the problems of the structure of the world, astronomy, the fourth dimension, and the principle of relativity3. The impetus for poetic reflections on the limits of knowledge and the significance of Einstein’s discoveries is the Muslim legend that in an earthly moment, during which the water did not have time to pour out of the vessel, the Prophet accomplished his wonderful travels, had 70 thousand conversations with Allah.

For a quarter of a century, Sologub walked toward prosperity and the opportunity to devote himself to his main business. This was facilitated by his marriage to the writer Anastasia Chebotarevskaya in 1908. Their house became literary salon, and the “seer” Sologub is a trendsetter1. His poetry collections “The Serpent: Poems, Book Six” (1907), “The Circle of Flame” (1908), collections of stories “Rotting Masks” (1907), “The Book of Separations” (1908), “The Book of Charms” (1909) were published. In 1913, a collection of works was published in 12 volumes; in 1913, a 20-volume collection of works began to appear (for a number of reasons, some volumes were not published). But the prosperity did not last long. After the October Revolution of 1917, Sologub fell into the category of semi-banned writers whose worldview did not correspond to the “normative” one. In a relatively liberal period for publishing, his collections “Blue Sky”, “One Love”, “Cathedral Annunciation”, “Incense” (all - 1921), “Road Fire”, “Pipe”, “The Magical Cup” (all -1922), "Great Good News" (1923). However, later, until the beginning of the 1990s, when Sologub’s books began to be published in significant editions, isolated cases of publication of his lyrics and “The Little Demon” were noted, while the novel was subjected to a vulgar sociological interpretation. In general, Sologub’s work was assessed negatively, and Sologub studies almost disappeared for seven decades.

Russian poet, writer, playwright, publicist. One of the most prominent representatives symbolism and the Fin de siècle that swept the whole of Europe.

Fyodor Sologub was born in St. Petersburg into the family of a tailor, former peasant of the Poltava province Kuzma Afanasyevich Teternikov. Two years later, the writer’s sister, Olga, was born. The family lived poorly, a situation that worsened when Fyodor's father died in 1867. The mother was forced to return “as a mere servant” to the Agapov family, St. Petersburg nobles, for whom she had once served. The future writer spent his entire childhood and adolescence in the Agapov family. The future writer felt his poetic gift at the age of twelve, and the first completed poems that have reached us date back to 1878. In the same year, Fyodor Teternikov entered the St. Petersburg Teachers' Institute. He studied and lived at the institute (the institution was on a boarding basis) for four years. After graduating from the institute in June 1882, he, taking his mother and sister, went to teach in the northern provinces - first in Krestsy, then in Velikiye Luki (in 1885) and Vytegra (in 1889) - in total after spending ten years in the provinces.

Service in the province (1882-1892)

Sologub spent three years in Kresttsy (Novgorod province), being a teacher at the Krestetsky Public School. He continued to write poetry and began work on a novel (the future “Heavy Dreams”), which took almost a decade. The young poet’s first publication was the fable “The Fox and the Hedgehog,” published in children's magazine“Spring” January 28, 1884, signed by “Ternikov”; this date was the beginning literary activity Fyodor Sologub. In subsequent years, several more poems were published in small newspapers and magazines.

The delay in Sologub's literary path was due to complete cultural isolation - he felt that he could no longer write in the wilderness, in social and cultural loneliness. The poet dreamed of returning to St. Petersburg, where he could fully realize his talent. But Teternikov did not manage to transfer to the capital for a long time; Only in the fall of 1892 was he able to move permanently to St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, Sologub was appointed as a teacher at the Rozhdestvensky City School on Peski.

In St. Petersburg (1893-1906)

The Northern Messenger magazine played a special role in Sologub’s biography. It was there that he began to publish widely in the 1890s: in addition to poems, his first stories, a novel, translations from Verlaine, and reviews were published. And actually “Fyodor Sologub” himself - a pseudonym - was invented by the editorial office of the magazine, at the insistence of Minsky. Volynsky suggested: “Sollogub,” a surname that at that time evoked an association with the famous aristocratic family to which the fiction writer Vladimir Sollogub belonged; To distinguish it, one letter “l” was removed from the pseudonym. The pseudonym first appeared in print in 1893 in the April issue of the magazine “Northern Herald” (it signed the poem “Creativity”).

In 1896, Fyodor Sologub’s first three books were published: “Poems, Book One,” the novel “Heavy Dreams” and “Shadows” (a combined collection of stories and the second book of poems). Sologub published all three books himself in a small, although usual at that time, circulation.

The novel “Heavy Dreams” was begun in Krestsy back in 1883. The strong realism of “Heavy Dreams,” which paints everyday pictures of the province, is combined with a ghostly, intoxicating atmosphere of half-dreams, half-realities, filled with erotic dreams and attacks of fear. The novel took a long time to write and was completed only in St. Petersburg in 1894.

In April 1897, a split occurred between the editors of Severny Vestnik and Sologub. The writer began to collaborate with the magazine “North”. At the beginning of 1899, Sologub transferred from Rozhdestvensky to Andreevsky City School for Vasilyevsky Island. There he became not only a teacher, but also an inspector with a government-owned apartment at the school according to his status.

In 1904, the Third and Fourth Books of Poems were published, collecting poems from the turn of the century under one cover. “Collected Poems 1897-1903” was a kind of boundary between decadence and the subsequent symbolism of Sologub, in which the symbols of Sologub the poet were established. At the same time, in Sologub’s decadence and symbolism there was no sharp and disharmonious accumulation of aesthetic paradoxes or deliberate mystery or understatement. On the contrary, Sologub strove for extreme clarity and precision - both in lyricism and in prose.

A difficult period in Sologub’s work was the years 1902-1904. One after another, his inspirations and philosophical moods give way, enriching his lyrics with new images, symbols, which will then be repeatedly evoked in his own creative system. “In the very style of his writings there is some kind of charm of death,” wrote Korney Chukovsky. “These frozen, quiet, even lines, this, as we have seen, the soundlessness of all his words - isn’t this the source of Sologubov’s special beauty, which will be sensed by everyone who is given the ability to sense beauty?” The symbol of “comforting death” was expressed especially clearly in the stories that made up the book “The Sting of Death,” published in September 1904. The main characters of the book were children or teenagers. Unlike “Shadows,” the first book of stories (1896), general madness recedes before an alluring, not so much terrible, but truly “comforting” death. At the same time, the poet turns to Satan, but in it he sees not a curse and denial of God, but an identical opposite, necessary and also helping those who need it. Sologub’s philosophy of that time was most fully expressed by him in the essay “Ya. A book of perfect self-affirmation”, published in February 1906 in the magazine “Golden Fleece”. Consistently proceeding from his philosophy, Sologub then wrote the mysteries “Liturgy for Me” (1906), “Longing for Other Beings” (1907) and came to the idea of ​​a “theater of one will” and his cherished symbol - “a legend in the making.” The poetic myth about the Serpent is associated with the theomachism of that period - “The Heavenly Serpent”, “the evil and vengeful Dragon” - this is how the sun is called, embodying evil and earthly hardships in the “Serpent” cycle and prose of 1902-1906. Eighteen Poems different years(mainly 1902-1904), in which the “serpent” symbol is in charge, were compiled by Sologub into the “Serpent” cycle, which was published as a separate publication as the sixth book of poems in March 1907.

In 1904, Fyodor Sologub entered into a permanent cooperation agreement with Novosti and Birzhevaya Gazeta. It lasted just under a year, during which about seventy articles were published, and dozens more remained unpublished. The range of topics that Sologub touched on in his journalism was formed both by his official activities and by the most pressing issues of the time: school, children, Russo-Japanese War, international situation, revolution, Jewish rights.

During the First Russian Revolution of 1905-06. Sologub's political tales, published in revolutionary magazines, enjoyed great success. “Fairy tales” are a special genre for Fyodor Sologub. Brief, with a simple and witty plot, often beautiful prose poems, and sometimes repulsive with their stuffy reality, they were written for adults, although Sologub liberally used children's vocabulary and techniques of children's fairy tales. In 1905, Sologub collected part of the fairy tales published by that time in the “Book of Fairy Tales” (Grif publishing house), and the “political fairy tales” written at the same time were included in the book of the same name, published in the fall of 1906. In addition to newspaper articles and “fairy tales,” Sologub responded to the revolution with his fifth book of poems, “Motherland.” It was published in April 1906.

Tour of Russia 1913-1917

On the background increased interest society to the new art and to the writings of the author of “The Legend in the Making,” in particular, Fyodor Sologub conceived a series of trips around the country with poetry readings and lectures on the new art, which promoted the principles of symbolism. After thorough preparation and the premiere of the lecture “The Art of Our Days” on March 1, 1913 in St. Petersburg, the Sologubs went on tour together with Igor Severyanin. Their trip to Russian cities lasted more than a month (from Vilna to Simferopol and Tiflis.

The main theses of the lecture “The Art of Our Days” were compiled by Chebotarevskaya, who diligently organized the credo of Sologubov’s aesthetics according to his articles. At the same time, the previous works of D. S. Merezhkovsky, N. Minsky, V. I. Ivanov, A. Bely, K. D. Balmont and V. Ya. Bryusov were taken into account. Sologub develops the idea of ​​the relationship between art and life. According to him, true art influences life, makes a person look at life with already experienced images, but it also encourages action. Without art, life becomes just everyday life, but with art, the transformation of life itself begins, that is, creativity. And it, if sincere, will always be ethically justified - thus morality becomes dependent on aesthetics.

After the first performances, it turned out that Sologub’s lectures were not very well received, despite being sold out in many cities. Reviews of the speeches in the press were also ambiguous: some did not accept Sologub’s views at all, some wrote about them as a beautiful fiction, and everyone reproached the lecturer for his reluctance to somehow establish contact with the public. And the reading of poetry by Igor Severyanin, who completed Sologub’s lectures on the first tour, was generally considered by observers as a deliberate mockery of literature and listeners. “Sologub,” wrote Vladimir Gippius, “decided to express a confession of symbolism with his lecture... and made a stern and gloomy speech... The abyss between this sad man and youth, hesitantly or indifferently, applauded him is deep.” Sologub, who carefully monitored all comments about himself in the press, was aware of such assessments of the lecture, but did not try to change anything in the nature of the speeches. The tours were resumed and continued until the spring of 1914, ending with a series of lectures in Berlin and Paris.

The success of the lectures prompted Fyodor Sologub to expand his cultural activities, which resulted in the founding of his own magazine “Diaries of Writers” and the society “Art for All”. Sologub also took part in the Russian Society for the Study of Jewish Life, created jointly with Leonid Andreev and Maxim Gorky. Jewish question always interested the writer: back in his articles of 1905, Sologub called for the eradication of all official anti-Semitism, and in 1908, Sologub began the novel “Substituted” (not completed) - on the topic of the relationship between Jews and knights in medieval Germany. In the winter of 1915, Sologub, on behalf of the Society, went to a meeting with Grigory Rasputin in order to find out about his attitude towards Jews (why he turned from an anti-Semite into a supporter of Jewish full rights). One of the fruits of the “Society for the Study of Jewish Life” was the collection “Shield” (1915), in which Sologub’s articles on the Jewish question were published.

First world war Fyodor Sologub perceived it as a fatal sign that could bring many instructive, useful fruits for Russian society, as a means of awakening the consciousness of the nation in the Russian people. However, by 1917, Sologub had lost faith in such a mystical quality of war for Russia, having become convinced that there was no spirit in this war in society. You can trace the writer’s attitude to the war and various social issues from the articles that Sologub published weekly in the Birzhevye Vedomosti.

The pathos of Sologub’s military journalism formed the basis of the lecture “Russia in Dreams and Expectations”, with which Sologub gave in 1915-1917. traveled throughout the Russian Empire, from Vitebsk to Irkutsk. Like the previous one, “The Art of Our Days”, new lecture caused exactly the opposite reactions. Cool assessments of the performances again prevailed in the provincial press. Often lectures were prohibited. But most of the performances were a success, and as always, the youth were especially sensitive.

In addition, the poet also responded to the war with a book of poems “War” (1915) and a collection of short stories “The Ardent Year” (1916), which received extremely lukewarm reviews in the press. The poems and stories were intended to support the spirit and strengthen hope for victory, but their content turned out to be artificial, often tinged with sentimentality, so unusual for Fyodor Sologub.

Years of revolution (1917-1921)

The February Revolution, which brought down the monarchy and created the preconditions for democratic transformation Russian Empire, Fedor Sologub was greeted with enthusiasm and high hopes. He, like other cultural figures, was worried about what would happen to art in the new situation, who would curate it and on whose behalf. So on March 12, 1917, the Union of Artists was formed, lively participation in whose work Fyodor Sologub took part. However, soon the Union of Artists focused on the struggle for influence in the cabinet of the newly created Ministry of Arts, the presence of which Sologub especially opposed.

Since the summer of 1917, Sologub's newspaper articles took on an openly anti-Bolshevik character. If earlier Sologub entered into relations with the Bolsheviks, then from the position of a “common enemy” (tsarism), in addition, we must not forget that Anastasia Chebotarevskaya was actively connected with the revolutionary environment (her brother was executed, another was exiled, and her sister was relative of Lunacharsky). This explains the contacts of the Sologubs with the left (especially abroad, where in 1911-1914 Sologub met with Trotsky, Lunacharsky, etc.), concerts in favor of the exiled Bolsheviks.

Returning from his dacha to Petrograd at the end of August, Sologub continued to work in the Union of Artists, where he headed the literary curia, taking part in the preparation for the convening of the Council of Artists. At the same time, Sologub, in his journalism, conveyed his premonition of trouble, trying to arouse the civic feelings of his compatriots, especially those in power (a little later, Sologub admits that he was mistaken in Kerensky and General Kornilov: the first, in his words, turned out to be “a chatterbox who told Russia off” , the latter was a “straightforward, honest man”).

Sologub’s articles and speeches, which became rare after the October Revolution, were devoted to freedom of speech, as well as the integrity and inviolability of Constituent Assembly in view of the threat of its dispersal. Sologub reacted with unconditional hostility to the Bolshevik coup and the subsequent robbery. Throughout the winter and spring of 1918, Sologub took every opportunity to publish “educational” articles directed against the abolition of copyright, the liquidation of the Academy of Arts and the destruction of monuments.

“Rations, firewood, standing in the herring corridors... Apparently, all this was more difficult for him than for anyone else. This was the time when we, writers, scientists, all turned into lecturers, and monetary unit replaced rations. Sologub did not give lectures, he lived by selling things,” L. M. Kleinbort recalled about life in that era. One way or another, the rations that these organizations issued to writers recognized by the “law” were insufficient, and in conditions of the absolute impossibility of publishing, Sologub himself began to make books of his poems and distribute them through Bookstore Writers. Usually 5-7 copies of the book were written by hand and sold for seven thousand rubles.

This impossibility of existence ultimately prompted Fyodor Sologub, who was fundamentally against emigration, to apply to the Soviet government in December 1919 for permission to leave. But nothing followed. Six months later, Sologub wrote a new petition, this time addressed personally to Lenin. Then, in addition to Sologub, the issue of going abroad was resolved with Blok, whose serious illness did not respond to any treatment in Russia. Considerations in the cases of Sologub and Blok were delayed. In mid-July 1921, Sologub finally received a positive letter from Trotsky, but the departure was again disrupted. In the end, permission was received, and departure to Revel was planned for September 25, 1921. However, the agonizing wait, interrupted by unfulfilled promises, broke the psyche of Sologub’s wife, who was prone to madness. It was at this time that she had an attack of illness. On the evening of September 23, 1921, taking advantage of the servants’ oversight and the absence of Sologub, who had gone to get bromine for her, Chebotarevskaya went to her sister on Petrograd side. But before reaching just a few meters from her house, she threw herself off the Tuchkov Bridge into the Zhdanovka River. The death of his wife for Fyodor Sologub turned into an unbearable grief, which the writer did not overcome until the end of his days. Sologub will constantly turn to her memory in his work in the remaining years. After the death of his wife, Sologub no longer wanted to leave Russia.

Last years (1921-1927)

In mid-1921, the Soviet government issued several decrees that marked the beginning of the New Age economic policy, after which publishing and printing activities immediately revived, and foreign contacts were restored. At the same time, new books by Fyodor Sologub appeared: first in Germany and Estonia and then in Soviet Russia.

The first of these books by Sologub was the novel “The Snake Charmer,” published in the early summer of 1921 in Berlin. The novel was written intermittently from 1911 to 1918 and became the last in the writer’s work. Inheriting the realistic and even narrative of the previous novel, “Sweeter than Poison,” “The Snake Charmer” turned out to be strangely far from everything that Sologub had previously written. The plot of the novel boiled down to simple feudal relations between bar and workers, which unfolded in the picturesque expanses of the Volga. The first post-revolutionary book of poems, “The Blue Sky,” was published in September 1921 in Estonia (where the Sologubs were trying to go at that time). In “Blue Sky” Sologub selected unpublished poems from 1916-21. The same publishing house published Sologub's last collection of stories, “Numbered Days.”

From the end of 1921, Sologub’s books began to be published in Soviet Russia: the poetry collections “Incense” (1921), “One Love” (1921), “Road Fire” (1922), “Cathedral Blaze” (1922), “The Magical Cup” were published "(1922), the novel "The Snake Charmer" (1921), a separate illustrated edition of the short story "The Queen of Kisses" (1921), translations (Honoré de Balzac, Paul Verlaine, Heinrich von Kleist). New books of poetry defined the same moods outlined in “The Blue Sky.” Along with the prevailing poems of recent years, those that were written several decades ago were also placed. The collection “The Magical Cup” especially stood out for its integrity.

Fyodor Sologub remained in the USSR and continued to work fruitfully, wrote a lot - but everything was “on the table”: he was not published. In order to continue his active literary work in such conditions, Sologub threw himself headlong into the work of the St. Petersburg Union of Writers (in January 1926, Sologub was elected chairman of the Union). Activities in the Writers' Union allowed Sologub to overcome loneliness, filling all his time, and expand his social circle: after all, by that time almost all former major writers and poets pre-revolutionary Russia, to which Sologub belonged, ended up abroad.

The last major social event in the life of Fyodor Sologub was the celebration of his anniversary - the fortieth anniversary of literary activity - celebrated on February 11, 1924. The celebration, organized by the writer’s friends, took place in the hall of the Alexandrinsky Theater. E. Zamyatin, M. Kuzmin, Andrei Bely, O. Mandelstam gave speeches on stage; among the organizers of the celebration are A. Akhmatova, Akim Volynsky, V. Rozhdestvensky. As one of the guests noted, everything went so great, “as if everyone had forgotten that they were living under Soviet rule.” This celebration paradoxically turned out to be the farewell of Russian literature to Fyodor Sologub: none of the congratulators at the time, as well as the poet himself, imagined that after the holiday not a single new book of his would be published. There was hope for translations, which Sologub was busy with in 1923-1924, but most of them did not see the light of day during Sologub’s lifetime.

In the mid-20s. Sologub returned to public speaking and reading poetry. As a rule, they took place in the form of “writers’ evenings”, where, along with Sologub, A. A. Akhmatova, E. Zamyatin, A. N. Tolstoy, M. Zoshchenko, V. Rozhdestvensky, K. Fedin, K. Vaginov and others performed. . New poems by Sologub could only be heard from the lips of the author of St. Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo stages ( summer months 1924-1927 Sologub spent time in Tsarskoe Selo), since they did not appear in print. At the same time, at the beginning of 1925 and the spring of 1926, Sologub wrote about a dozen anti-Soviet fables, they were read only in narrow circle. According to R.V. Ivanov-Razumnik, “Sologub fiercely hated until the end of his days Soviet power, and did not call the Bolsheviks anything other than “stupid-minded.” As an internal opposition to the regime (especially after the issue of emigration disappeared) there was a rejection of the new spelling and the new style of chronology in creativity and personal correspondence. Having little hope for the publication of his books, Sologub nevertheless himself, shortly before his death, compiled two collections of poems from 1925-27. - “Atoll” and “Grumant”.

In May 1927, in the midst of work on the novel in verse “Grigory Kazarin,” Fyodor Sologub became seriously ill. He had been ill for a long time, and the disease had been more or less suppressed before, but now the complication turned out to be incurable. Since the summer, the writer almost never got out of bed. In the fall, the disease began to worsen. The poet died long and painfully. The poet's last poems were dated October 1, 1927.

Fyodor Sologub (real name Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov; 1863-1927) - Russian poet, writer, playwright, publicist. One of the most prominent representatives of symbolism and the Silver Age.
Fyodor Sologub was born in St. Petersburg into the family of a tailor, former peasant of the Poltava province Kuzma Afanasyevich Teternikov. Two years later, the writer’s sister, Olga, was born. Fyodor Teternikov's childhood passed where many of the heroes of his beloved Dostoevsky were raised - at the very bottom of life. The father is the illegitimate son of a Poltava landowner and a serf. After the abolition of serfdom, Teternikov settled in St. Petersburg and took up tailoring, but his life was cut short by consumption in 1867. Fyodor's mother, left with two children in her arms, entered the service. Fyodor and his sister were almost pupils in the family of a collegiate assessor who died early, where it was customary to read, play music, and attend theaters. At the same time, the maid's children strictly had to know their place. The mother worked hard, taking out her fatigue and irritation on her children. Therefore, the lyrical hero of Teternikov’s very first poems is a barefoot, whipped boy. They spanked and beat him both at school and at home, although there was no reason - he studied well and did all the assigned work around the house.
From his very first experiments, the poet was characterized by a prosaic attitude to the lyrical plot, scenes or arguments more familiar to a realistic story or novel, attention to everyday details that are not distinguished by poetry, transparent simple comparisons. These are stories in verse, dark and heavy, in some ways close to Chekhov’s, non-poetic descriptions and feelings.
Drunkenness, gluttony, gossip, dirty connections - everything that is accepted as entertainment in a provincial town does not bypass Fedor. But with this barren life he manages to combine literary creativity. In 1884, he managed to publish the poem “The Fox and the Hedgehog” in the St. Petersburg magazine “Spring”. He dreamed of making money in literature, of writing an innovative textbook on mathematics, of how he would breathe light and love into the souls of his students. However, a gloomy life surrounds the provincial dreamer on all sides. The feeling of the heaviness and hopelessness of life - “sick days”, “barefootness”, “persistent need”, “colorless life” - is ultimately transformed in the poems of the late 80s. into semi-folklore fantasy visions - “the dashingly inevitable”, “the evil mara” (this is a Slavic witch who sucks the blood of those sleeping at night). Motives for death appear, but this is not a transition to better world, but the desire to hide, to hide from this world.
1891 can be considered a turning point in Teternikov’s fate, when he met Nikolai Maksimovich Minsky, a philosopher and symbolist poet who became seriously interested in his work. At the same time, serious changes took place in Fyodor’s life: in 1892 he became a mathematics teacher at the Rozhdestvensky City School in St. Petersburg, then moved to the St. Andrew’s School, where he later became an inspector. Now the vile province is over: the difficult life experience will be melted into prose (first of all, it will be the novel “Heavy Dreams”, 1883-1894). Teternikov becomes an employee of Severny Vestnik, Minsky introduces him to the circle of “senior symbolists”.
Now Teternikov’s literary fate is forever associated with the names of Z. Gippius, K. Balmont, D. Merezhkovsky. There they came up with the pseudonym “Sologub”, which became the poet’s new name. Mandelstam was surprised at Sologub, who replaced Teternikov’s “real and “similar” surname with an absurd and pretentious pseudonym.” Of course, Mandelstam, who was not burdened by his bohemian poverty, found it difficult to understand the barefoot cook’s son, who had finally donned the count’s name (albeit with one “l” - to distinguish himself).
Lyrical hero Sologub's poetry is in many ways small man Gogol, Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Chekhov. In his poetry one can easily find hysterical poverty, eternal fear of life, love-hate, one’s own smallness, humiliation, and sorrow. There are also images directly borrowed from Dostoevsky: for example, in the poem “Every day, at the appointed hour...” (1894) Nastasya Filippovna is depicted.
The 90s begin. XIX century- the entire Russian intelligentsia is raving about Schopenhauer. A contemptuous attitude towards life becomes an artistic factor in Sologub’s work. It leads him to the cult of death, disappearance; life seems more and more like a path of suffering.
Completed in 1894, the novel “Heavy Dreams” amazingly combines the leading traditions of Russian literature (the gymnasium teacher - an autobiographical image - is opposed to the vile provincial society) and the motives of decadence: the desire to escape from life, the perception of life as a disgusting whirlwind that has no purpose, no meaning, which, if it brings joy, is in perverted, painful forms.
The eternal teaching of Russian literature has always been extremely close to Sologub, since in his everyday life he remained largely a gymnasium teacher - strict, sarcastic, touchy... (25 years of his life were devoted to teaching). Many memoirists note his quarrelsomeness, arrogance (the origins of which lie in provincial shyness), the hypnotic effect on others, and the constant desire (and ability) to read notation.
Despite his sarcastic attitude towards the idea of ​​changing life for the better through some kind of activity, Sologub’s inherent desire to teach, insist, and impose his point of view sometimes prevailed in Sologub, which often led him to participate in public activities (to which he was completely alien, as philosopher). Thus, in 1903, having become an employee of the “News and Exchange Newspaper” publication, Sologub devoted many articles to school topics and problems of improving education in Russia.
One of the most serious themes of his prose work is the unbearable childhood suffering for him, as for Dostoevsky. Children in Sologub's prose, as a rule, act as innocent victims of perverted torture, and adults, often teachers, are the executioners (for example, the story “The Worm”).
The novel “The Little Demon” (1892-1902), published in the journal “Questions of Life,” brought Sologub all-Russian fame. The hero of Peredonov's novel (naturally, a teacher at a provincial gymnasium) and the creepy creation of his sick imagination - Nedotykomka - became favorite characters of literary criticism. In the article “The Navy Charms of a Small Demon,” K. Chukovsky remarked about Peredonov: “He, like Sologub, like Gogol once, is sick of the world,” using the word “nausea” in relation to life 24 years before Sartre’s “Nausea” a novel that became an artistic presentation of the worldview of existentialism.
Life, so unflatteringly depicted by Sologub in the novel, hastened to take revenge on him. In 1907, his sister Olga Kuzminichna, whom he loved and revered extremely, and with whom he never parted, died. At the same time, while in service, the writer was asked to resign. In poems of this period appears new metaphor life - “Devil's Swing” (title famous poem 1907). The alternation of dark and light periods of life makes Sologub want to leave, hide, hide. It's no longer about have a wonderful life another, but about waiting for the hour when it will be possible to escape from the mediocre rotation into another, equally inhospitable monastery.
In 1908, a collection of poems, “The Flame Circle,” was published, embodying all of Sologub’s mathematical symbolism, his desire to see a sign, a drawing, a design in everything. The poet said that if he started from the beginning life path, then I would become a specialist in mathematics or theoretical physics.
The collection “The Flame Circle”, even more than the previous one (“The Serpent”, 1907), expresses the author’s philosophical concepts in symbolic images. It consists of several story cycles expressing the “eternal return” of Schopenhauer’s philosophy and the “eternal teaching” inherent in Sologub, a student of Chekhov, Dostoevsky, and Gogol. He shares with the reader his life experience, with his disgust and nausea and explains how to endure it, how to get through it... The names of the cycles express the stages of the spiritual life of Sologubov’s existential man: “The Faces of Experiences” - “Earthly Imprisonment” - “Network of Death” - “Smoky Incense” - “ Transfiguration" - "Silent Valley" - "United Will" - "Last Consolation".
Meanwhile, in the same 1908, the life of Fyodor Kuzmich again entered a bright streak - he happily married Anastasia Yakovlevna Chebotarevskaya. This is a highly educated woman, writer, literary critic, translator of Maeterlinck, Stendhal, Maupassant, Mirbeau. Sologub changed his apartment, appearance (shaved), lifestyle (Chebotarevskaya is the landlady secular salon- visits, evenings, vibrant social life). Together with her husband, Chebotarevskaya wrote plays, they published the magazine “Diaries of Writers,” they traveled, rushed around with various ideas, and had a wide circle of acquaintances.
Sologub’s novel-trilogy “Navy Chari” appeared in the almanac “Rosehip” (1907-1909). Critics were suspicious of this version of "Demons".
In 1911, Anastasia Chebotarevskaya published a collection of articles, lovingly compiled by her, “About Fyodor Sologub,” where among the authors were Ivanov-Razumnik, L. Shestov, Z. Gippius, I. Annensky, M. Gershenzon, M. Voloshin, Andrei Bely, G. Chulkov and others. Active social and literary activities, journalism and speeches, trips around Russia, a trip abroad with his wife, made in 1914 - all this filled Sologub’s life to the brim.
After October revolution(which, unlike the February one, he perceived very skeptically) the situation has changed. Financial difficulties arose, publishing became scarce, and the writer switched almost entirely to translations. My wife developed mental illness- She couldn’t stand the sudden change that happened to the world around her.
In 1920, Sologub asked Lenin for permission to travel abroad, but did not receive it. In September 1921, a tragedy occurred: Anastasia committed suicide by drowning herself in the river, and only months later the body was found. Many poems of 1921 are dedicated to the death of his wife (“Took away my soul...”, “No one looks in the mirror...”, “The crazy luminary of existence...”, etc.). Oddly enough, Sologub with his almost loving relationship He did not intend to follow his wife to death; he intended to drag out the hard labor of life to the end. He learned at a young age to enjoy suffering.
At the end of his life, Sologub took up social activities at the Union of Leningrad Writers, he even became chairman of the board. It is being published again, and the 40th anniversary of literary activity is widely celebrated. Soon the debilitating illness did its job; on December 5, 1927, this singer of “dead and forever weary worlds” died, as I. Ehrenburg said about him.