IV. The Contradictions of the Northern Pilgrim Dmitry Merezhkovsky

mitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky, the forerunner of the modernist movement in Russia, played a considerable role in Dcreating the image of ancient Rome for the Russian reader. Born in St. Petersburg and educated at St. Petersburg University, Merezhkovsky (1865-1941) embarked on a successful literary career very early. In 1889 he married Zinaida Gippius, an exceptionally talented young poet. They created and maintained a literary salon that influenced the entire literary environment in St. Petersburg, and later in Paris where they emigrated after the Communist take-over. With a degree in history and philosophy, vast traveling experience, and fluency in Greek and Latin, Merezhkovsky was perfectly equipped to contribute to the revival of the symbolism of antiquity, and of ancient Rome in particular. He did so primarily in The Death of the Gods (Smert’ bogov, Julian the Apostate in the English translation)1 and the first part of his renowned historical trilogy entitled Christ and Antichrist (Khristos i Antikhrist), which brought him fame, first outside of Russia, and subsequently in his own country, where a novel on an ancient subject was still a rarity.2 In the trilogy Christ and Antichrist Merezhkovsky formulated his religious and philosophical concept—a concept very insightfully described by Nikolai Berdyayev:

He was possessed by the pathos of globalism, of coercive universalism, typical for the Latin spirit, for the Roman idea. He apparently received this yearning for global unity from Dostoevsky. He perceives the entire world and the whole of world history either as poles, or as aspects of Christ and Antichrist. The whole diversity of the world’s life, the whole immense sphere of relativity is lost from his view, does not interest him, or is 50 Dmitry Merezhkovsky

brought by him to polar depths. In him there is not a grain of Goethean wisdom penetrating the cosmic multitude. 3

Very much the same principle of polarization permeates the three poems that Merezhkovsky dedicated to the topic of ancient Rome.4 “Pantheon” (Panteon), written in 1891 during the poet’s stay in Rome, is structured around two sets of antitheses that lend tension to an otherwise poetically uneventful work. The first opposition is introduced in one of the opening lines:

Путник с печального Севера... в древний вхожу Пантеон.

[A pilgrim from the sad North. . . I am entering the ancient Pantheon.]

This opening introduces the confrontation between the lyrical subject and the symbolism of the Pantheon. When the wayfarer from the North enters this landmark, modern man is confronted with the Roman past, but the ancient (pagan) form of this structure is also confronted with its present Christian content and function. As for many previous visitors, Winckelmann and Goethe the greatest among them, the heritage of Rome is twofold for Merezhkovsky. Seeing Greece in and through Rome, the poet addresses Greek gods. In this relatively short work he twice refers to the image of Olympus. With the theme of the Northern wayfarer in Rome, Merezhkovsky continues the tradition of the European admiratio di Roma literature that was originated by outsiders and cultivated especially by travelers from the North. Goethe in his Roman Elegies repeatedly refers to his lyrical subject’s vantage point:

…his tales about snow, mountains, and houses of wood ( II) ; Oh, how happy I feel in Rome, when I think of the old days Dull gray days, till I fled from the imprisoning north! (VII).5

This topoi, created by Goethe, functioned in Russian literature for some time, perhaps since the first translation of the Roman Elegies by Strygovshchikov in 1840. 6 In “Pantheon” the unique relation between the Northerner and Rome receives a special dimension in the words: “sladostnym strakhom obiat” (embraced by a delightful fear). Muratov, who visited Rome much later, made a similar confession in his famous “Images of Italy.” “This eternal greenery,” he writes, “crowning the hills and