ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: RILKE’S RUSSIAN ENCOUNTER AND THE TRANSFORMATIVE IMPACT ON THE POET Victoria Ingeborg Finney, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Dissertation directed by: Professor Peter U. Beicken Department of Germanic Studies Russian culture had a pivotal role in the development of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetic perception and evolution. As late as 1922, Rilke emphatically claimed that Russian culture made him into what he is. Decades earlier, during his visits to Russia in 1899 and 1900, Rilke encountered many Russians from different walks of life: writers, artists, intellectuals and ordinary folk. Having immersed himself in the study of Russian language, literature, visual arts and religious ritual, Rilke prepared himself for a most intensive acculturation of Russia as a cultural other. This cultural encounter often has been critiqued as shallow and tainted by the poet's preconceived Western ideas. In contrast, by examining opposing critical views, this study investigates, interdisciplinarily and from the perspective of transculturation, how three central concepts of Rilke – poverty, love, and the artist’s role – were substantially transformed by his absorption of Russian cultural and literary discourses. Russia is defined here as a ‘representational space,’ employing Henri Levebvre’s concept of geographical space consisting of both physical attributes and imaginary symbols. Using Wilhelm Dilthey’s concept of ‘lived experience’, the study approaches Rilke’s Russian encounter as a holistic intercultural experience on both conscious and unconscious levels. Incorporating these theoretical aspects into a modified concept of transculturation, the study transcends the question of accuracy of Rilke’s Russian depictions so often raised in biographical studies that insist on positivistic factuality. Instead, approached transculturally, Rilke's Russian encounter highlights the transformative changes that the poet’s subjective perceptions and poetic development underwent. This is enhanced by the references to and analyses of Rilke's works informed by his Russian encounter. Most significantly, Rilke’s transculturation as informed by his transformative Russian encounter generates the development of the concept of a compassionate imagination based on the idea of universal interconnectedness. This fostered Rilke’s unique view of the individual as an integral part of a universal unity, by which the individual is considered inherently worthy regardless of limiting attributes such as social class or gender. This perception channeled Rilke’s idea that the tragedy of the poor and the root of modern inability to love are to be found in the constant construction of identities imposed on an individual by others. For Rilke, after his Russian encounter, art’s purpose was to create awareness of the individual’s place in the universal unity. RILKE’S RUSSIAN ENCOUNTER AND THE TRANSFORMATIVE IMPACT ON THE POET By Victoria I. Finney Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Advisory Committee: Professor Peter U. Beicken, Chair Professor Elke P. Frederiksen Assistant Professor Marianna Landa Professor Rose-Marie G. Oster Professor Lawrence K. Moss, Dean’s Representative ©Copyright by Victoria Ingeborg Finney 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 .................The Physical and Imaginary: Many Aspects of Rilke’s Meaningful Experience of Russia ......................................................................................................... 1 Rilke's Russian Encounters.................................................................................................. 4 Rilke's Russia: Review of the Scholarly Debate................................................................ 15 Metamorphosis Through Cultural Exchange .....................................................................23 Defining Russia as a Space and as a Lived Experience.................................................... 30 Holy Icons, Sacred Space, and the Unity of Opposites...................................................... 35 The Russian Icon.................................................................................................... 36 The Russian "Prophets": Rilke's Encounter of Russian Literary and Philosophical Thought.................................................................................................................. 43 Goal of the Thesis.............................................................................................................. 49 Chapter 2 .......................Russia’s Role in the Metamorphosis of Rilke’s Poverty Concept ........................................................................................................................................... 52 Chapter 3 Easter Bells, Universal Unity, and Altruistic Action: Elements of Russian Culture in Rilke’s Perception of Love ............................................................................. 99 Chapter 4 ............... Rilke the Artist and his Russian Experiences of the Unliterary Kind ......................................................................................................................................... 140 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................176 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 182 ii Chapter 1 The Physical and Imaginary: Many Aspects of Rilke’s Meaningful Experience of Russia Rainer Maria Rilke had a most intensive encounter with Russia and Russian culture immersing himself in the language, literature, visual arts and experiencing the country during his extensive travels in 1899 and 1900. Rilke himself has given emphatic testimony about the importance of his Russian encounter 1 for his identity formation as a poetic being: “[. .] was verdankt ich Rußland, – es hat mich zu dem gemacht, was ich bin, von dort ging ich innerlich aus, alle Heimat meines Instinkts, all mein innerer Ursprung ist dort !” 2. The encounter has been cited in the secondary literature 3 as an essential experience. However, its remarkable transformative impact on the poet’s self- understanding and writing has not been investigated and assessed fully in terms of a cultural encounter of the other. Furthermore, the term ‘Russia’ – both as a space and as an experience – in its significance for Rilke needs a better definition and a further clarification. This study takes issue with the existing scholarship and the often negative views of Rilke’s experience in and perceptions of Russia. Thus, the goal is to re-examine Rilke’s encounter of Russia and the profound and lasting impact this crucial experience 1 Rilke himself referred to his Russian experience, along with his time at the Military Academy as “die beiden bestimmendsten Epochen meines äußeren Lebens” (in a letter of January 12 th, 1922 to Robert Heinz Heygrodt) citing the Russian encounter as the most significant influence on his literary work (Sandford 14). 2 Letter of 21. Jan. 1920 to Leopold v. Schlözer, Briefe II: 51. 3 E.g. Anna Tavis states that Russia “nurtured his talent” ( Rilke’s Russia 1); In a similar way and more positively than in some of his other judgments, Lev Kopelev assesses the wide-ranging impact Rilke’s Russian experience had on the poet: “Alles, was er [Rilke] als ,russische Dinge‘ auffasste [. .] wurde zu Dichtung. Aber seine russischen Erkenntnisse und Erlebnisse blieben nicht allein in Worten gegenwärtig, sondern wirkten auch weiter hinaus, beeinflussten manches von dem, was Rilke in anderen Ländern, in anderen Wirklichkeiten erkannte, erlebte und zur Poesie gestaltete“ (“Rilkes Märchen-Russland” 934); James Rollestone mentions that from Russia like from Rodin Rilke “gains insights essential to his own creativity” (53) 1 had on the poet and the person, his work and worldview. This entails an investigation of Russia not only as a physical reality but also as a cultural space that transformed Rilke’s cultural perception and poetic imagination. In contrast to previous studies, this analysis approaches Rilke’s Russian encounter as a holistic experience that affected the poet both consciously and subconsciously. The question of cultural space and experience will be explored by employing the concept of ‘representational space’ by Henri Lefebvre and Wilhelm Dilthey’s idea of ‘lived experience.’ In addition, a modified concept of transculturation will be used to examine the transformative impact of the encounter on Rilke’s worldview, poetic imagination, and aesthetic stance as a poet. Clearly, Rilke’s Russian encounter significantly changed both his sense of being in the world and his subjectivity while also transforming his creative persona and poetic activity. The Russian encounter impacted his forms of perception and shaped his modes of creativity not only during an early phase but throughout his career. Russia’s importance transformed Rilke’s creative approach to the world and significantly impacted the development of his imagination as a compassionate inquiry springing from the poet’s concentration on the essence of being. Methodologically, Rilke’s Russian encounter cannot be subjected to the approach of traditional biographism which seeks an equation of the life experiences and the literary writings. Rather, a new paradigm of biographical methodology