Chapter 4 The War: Act III (1917-1918) The February Revolution of the Spirit The entries in Zinaida Gippius’ diary make it possible to follow the course of the February revolution in Petrograd day by day. Aware of the historical signif- icance of the events, Gippius recorded what she saw and heard several times a day, from the first street riots on 23 February to the abdication of the Tsar and the formation of the Provisional Government on 2 March. For the time being the centre of action was not the battle lines but the cities of Petrograd and Moscow. Writers like Gippius and Briusov went out among the crowds, at- tended demonstrations and meetings and talked to soldiers and workers. The atmosphere was electrifying. Gippius felt this initial stage of the revolution to be “bright as the first moments of love”.1 Blok, who had arranged a swift return from the front, walked the streets of Petrograd as if in a dream, intoxicated by the freedom and joy.2 The sight of disciplined revolutionary soldiers filled the usually reserved Merezhkovskii with rapture.3 Sologub felt as if he was in a temple when watching “the good-natured faces” around him. People appeared to be completely changed and class barriers seemed to have disappeared.4 As in 1914, there was again the feeling of a wonderful, instantaneous metamor- phosis, bordering on a metaphysical miracle. The rapprochment between the revolutionary authorities and the intelli- gentsia was a sign of the times. The new Minister of Justice, Aleksandr Keren- skii, was a close friend of Merezhkovskii and Gippius, and during his time in power he was to visit them several times on dramatic occasions.5 Blok also found he had an acquaintance in the Provisional Government, Mikhail 1 Gippius, Zhivye litsa, vol. I, p. 163. 2 Blok, Sobr. soch., vol. VIII, p. 480. 3 Gippius, Zhivye litsa, vol. I, p. 292. 4 Fedor Sologub, “Preobrazhenie”, Birzhevye vedomosti 5.3.1917 16120; Fedor Sologub, “Liturgiia”, Birzhevye vedomosti 8.3.1917 16124. 5 Another close friend, Anton Kartashev, was appointed Over-Procurator of the Holy Synod in August 1917 and later Minister of Religion in the Provisional Government. Through him Merezhkovskii and Gippius were able to work for a separation of the church from the state, an issue which was debated also in the Religious-Philosophical Society. (Pachmuss, Intellect and Ideas in Action, p. 646.) © KoninklijkeBrillNV,Leiden,2018 | DOI10.1163/9789004366817_006 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.Ben Hellman - 9789004366817 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 09:07:45AM via free access TheWar:ActIII(1917-1918) 259 Tereshchenko, the Minister of Finance. Tereshchenko was a sugar millionaire from the Ukraine, who had been elected to the State Duma five years pre- viously as an independent liberal. His ministerial post has since been seen as a manifestation of masonic patronage,6 but Blok knew him as a generous supporter of the arts, with a genuine interest in poetry, theatre and ballet. Tereshchenko had been the proprietor of the publishing house Sirin, which had brought out works by the symbolists before the war, including poetry by Blok and Belyi’s novel Petersburg. Blok sent Tereshchenko a congratulatory telegram from Pinsk. The rapid collapse of the Russian autocracy came as a surprise, but even so the writers were not slow to give their interpretation of events. Views on the immediate significance of the revolution could differ, but the general at- titude was enthusiastic. Bal’mont, Briusov, Gippius, Ivanov and Sologub cel- ebrated the revolution in poems. Merezhkovskii offered the Provisional Gov- ernment indirect support in the form of a booklet about the Decembrists. His idea was to reduce tensions within the army by showing the soldiers that the first Russian revolutionaries had been officers and aristocrats. During a visit on 12 March Merezhkovskii was asked personally by Kerenskii to write the book. The First-Born Children of Freedom (Perventsy svobody) was published in an edition of one million copies just a few weeks later, and it reached an even broader audience through the family journal Niva. In his dedication, Merezhkovskii called Kerenskii the ideological successor of the Decembrists and, consequently, the rightful leader for the present day. In a situation of “dual power” – divided between the Provisional Government and the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies – the symbolists initially chose to support Kerenskii and the government. The interest that some of the symbolists took in the question of a new national anthem was indicative of the change in their social role. The com- poser Aleksandr Grechaninov was the first to realize that Vasilii Zhukovskii’s “God Save the Tsar” (“Bozhe tsaria khrani…”) had become outdated and needed to be replaced. In Fedor Sologub’s “Anthem” (“Gimn”) of 1914 he found the sonorous lines, “Long live Russia,/ the great country!” (“Da zdravstvuet Rossiia,/ Velikaia strana!”),7 but dissatisfied with the rest of the text, he asked another symbolist, Konstantin Bal’mont, to write some new stanzas. The choice of poet was not accidental. The poems that Bal’mont had published in the Moscow newspapers Utro Rossii and Russkoe slovo revealed a desire to 6 Raymond Pearson, The Russian Moderates and the Crisis of Russian Tsarism 1914-1917 (London, 1977), p. 172. 7 Sologub, “Gimn”, Voina, p. 5. First publ. in Otechestvo 4 (1915). Ben Hellman - 9789004366817 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 09:07:45AM via free access 260 Chapter4 become the voice of the new era. A broadsheet with Bal’mont’s and Grechani- nov’s “Anthem of Free Russia” (“Gimn svobodnoi Rossii”), now opening with the line “Long live Russia,/ the free country!”, was on sale one day later.8 On 13 March it was performed at the re-opening of the Bolshoi theatre.9 The an- them became popular and might eventually have been given official recog- nition, if it had not been for the October revolution. Still, Bal’mont did have competitors. One of them was Viacheslav Ivanov, who nursed hopes of hav- ing his own “Anthem” (“Gimn”) accepted as Russia’s national anthem.10 Peace, freedom, unity and labour were the main themes of Ivanov’s text, while a ref- erence to Holy Russia added a religious and historical dimension. In his al- ternative title, “A Chorale of the New Russia” (“Khorovaia pesn’ novoi Rossii”), Ivanov indicated that he had given a poetic formulation to his dream of an or- ganic, national type of democracy, in which the poet would have a prominent role. In “Anthem” the poet is assigned the role of a rhapsodist, with the assem- bly echoing his words in chorus. This was in line with Ivanov’s aspiration to renew Ancient Greek drama as a form of cultic act, where the people would play the chorus. Valerii Briusov, who probably found Bal’mont’s text too commonplace and Ivanov’s “Anthem” too elitist, discussed the issue in an article dated 22 March. His outspoken idealism and lack of chauvinism testify to the changes that Briusov was going through at this time. It was of primary importance for Briusov that the new national anthem should be an anthem for the whole of Russia and not only for Russians, something which meant, for example, excluding references to Orthodoxy. The themes of military greatness and geo- graphical vastness had likewise to be rejected. What should be dealt with was the struggle for freedom throughout history, responsiblity for the national her- itage, and, above all, “the brotherhood of Russia’s peoples, collective labour for the common good, the call for ‘peace for the whole world’”.11 Briusov never ac- tually wrote a text that would have corresponded to his demands. In the event, none of the symbolists wrote Russia’s new anthem. The course of events made the whole issue sink into oblivion, turning it into another example of the gap between the symbolist “legend in the making” and reality. The symbolists did not limit themselves to pondering the immediate politi- cal and social significance of the February revolution. The connection between 8 A.T. Grechaninov, Moia zhizn’ (New York, [1951]), p. 108. 9 “V Bol’shom teatre”, Utro Rossii 14.3.1917 70. The music is said to be La Marseillaise. 10 Ivanov, Sobr. soch., vol. IV, p. 60 (“Gimn”). See Ivanova, p. 74. 11 Valerii Briusov, “O novom russkom gimne: Prolegomeny”, in Vetv’: Sbornik Kluba moskov- skikh pisatelei (Moscow, 1917), p. 259. Ben Hellman - 9789004366817 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 09:07:45AM via free access TheWar:ActIII(1917-1918) 261 current events and the anticipated revolution of the spirit emerged as a vital issue. The sudden and peaceful character of the February revolution could be seen as confirmation of the unique, messianic status of the Russian people. Seen from this viewpoint the national uprising and the birth of a new Rus- sia were but the prelude to a string of universal events leading up to the final spiritual transfiguration of man. The revolutionary mood had already been strong in the symbolist camp prior to the February revolution. Viacheslav Ivanov was an exception in this respect. In his wartime articles he had not touched upon the future of autoc- racy, but one of his 1915 laments for fallen soldiers included a conspicuous prayer for the prosperity of the Tsar, “the Sovereign of our dear Fatherland”.12 A neo-Slavophile orientation had replaced Ivanov’s revolutionary mood of 1905. Against this background, the political results of the February revolu- tion could not inspire him, but he was still prepared to share the joy of his fellow poets.