American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Oscar Wilde and the Culture of Russian Modernism

Author(s): Betsy F. Moeller-Sally
Source: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Winter, 1990), pp. 459-472
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/308194
Accessed: 11-09-2019 15:20 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages is collaborating

with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Slavic and East European Journal

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 OSCAR WILDE AND THE CULTURE OF RUSSIAN
MODERNISM

Betsy F. Moeller-Sally, Harvard University

"You should study the peerage, Gerald ... It

the best thing in fiction the English have eve
done."
Oscar Wilde

One trend in recent literary and historical studies has been to examine the
complex interactions between various social discourses and what might be
called the discourse of the self. Everyday behavior is hereby viewed as a
kind of representation of personality-a behavioral text, so to speak. This
approach assumes: 1) that to some extent personality is "fashioned"-to
borrow Stephen Greenblatt's term-from a range of models existing within
a culture; 2) that behavior is a semiotic system and therefore can and must
be "read" like any other code; and 3) that the codes of literature and
society are interactive. From this point of view, literary, historical, and
anthropological studies converge on a new field and mode of inquiry
cultural poetics.1
In the history of Russian culture, the Modernist period is naturally a rich
field for such research, since it was a time when the need for cultural-and
thus personal-transformation was acutely felt among the cultural elite.
Moreover, the creation of the self, of a new self, became inseparable from
the creation of art; indeed, the self constituted a major form of art. As
Vladislav XodaseviE wrote about Symbolism:
Bce BpeMwI OH rlopbIBanc5I CTaTb WKH3HeHHO-TBOpqecKHM MeTOJOM ... .]. 3To 6bIn p5uA
HOHbITOK, HOpoi HCTHHHO repoHnecKHX, HaiTH cnInaB W)K3HH H TBopqecTBa, cBoero poxa
4cHJnocof?cKHt KaMeHb HCKyccTBa. CHMBOJIH3M ynlOHO HCKan B CBOeei cpeae reHH5, KOTpbIlI
cyMen 6bi CJIIHTbI, WI3Hb IH TBOp-eCTBO BOeAiUHO. (8)
Theoretically, then, it should come as no surprise to find that Oscar
Wilde, one of the outstanding proponents and instances of the art of life in
the 1880s and '90s, was very influential as a model of the new, poeticized
life for the Russian modernists. In fact, however, this statement may be
quite unexpected, since Wilde has received virtually no attention in the
critical literature on the period. As we shall see below, many of the contem-
porary statements concerning Wilde reveal an interest precisely in the art

SEEJ, Vol. 34, No. 4 (1990): p. 459-p. 472 459

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
460 Slavic and East European Journal

of his life: his aestheticism, his theatricalization of life, his gospel of culti-
vated individualism, which called for a creation of self as conscious and
artistic as the creation of a poem or of a painting. To give but one example,
in his essay of 1908, "CHMBOJIn3M 1 coBpeMeHHOe pyccKoe IcKyccTBO,"
Andrej Belyj discusses Vjadeslav Ivanov's theories of theurgic art, and
identifies Wilde as a predecessor in the endeavor to make artistic creation
the creation of life:

B. HBaHOB HIneT TOT OcOKyc B HCKyCCTBe, B KOTOpOM, TaK cKa3aTb, nepeKpelHBaa1OTc1s nyHi
xyIom)eCTBeHHOFO TBOpIecTBa; 3TOT qcOKyC HaXOuHT OH B apaMe; B apaMe 3aKJIOeHO Haqajo
6e3KOHeMHoro pacmupeHHa HICKyCCTBa go o6JIaCTm, rae xyio.ecTBeHHOe TBOpqecTBO
CTaHOBHTCAI TBOpqecTBOM )KI43HH. TaKas poJ1b 3a 4CKyCCTBOM Hnp3HBanaaacb YafiinOM;
TOJIbKO copMa I4CHOBeuaHHI YaHuIbAa HHasI [ . . . ]. (Lug, 43)

The present paper, therefore, is intended to serve as an introduction to

the topic of Oscar Wilde and Russian culture in the early modernist pe-
riod.2 Specifically, I will show that the resonance Wilde had in Russian
modernism's identity and ideology manifested itself in part through per-
sonal emulation of Wilde. Wilde became a model for the "new men" of the
1890s and early 1900s, the initiators and bearers of cultural revitalization,
in somewhat the same way as terny'evskij's fictional characters served as
models for the behavior and thinking of progressive men and women of the
1860s.3
Before we can examine the phenomenon of Wildeism (a term used by
contemporaries) in Russia, however, we need to consider the phenomenon
of Oscar Wilde himself. I say the "phenomenon" because, if today we think
of Wilde as a flamboyantly dressed, witty man who wrote a decadent novel
and a couple of drawing-room comedies, and who served a prison term for
homosexuality, we fail to appreciate the extent of his contemporary fame
and influence. For by the early 1890s, Wilde was not only a well-known
author, playwright and dandy, but also a major critic whose works, espe-
cially the collection of essays, Intentions (London, 1891), were known on
the Continent and in the United States as well as in Britain. Indeed, in a
letter written in 1900, Valerij Brjusov defined the times as "the age of Ibsen
and Wilde" (S"erbina, 624). Wilde was in addition an extremely provoca-
tive and controversial critic of Victorian society throughout his adult life;
his last poetic work, the Ballad of Reading Gaol, published after his release
from prison in 1897, was an important literary and social event (Ellmann,
559-61). Wilde's life and writings reveal, furthermore, what Raymond
Williams called "a general humanity which is a real ground for respect"
(172), as well as idealist and even utopian tendencies. Finally, Wilde's
fate-the scandalous trial and imprisonment, the sensation created by The
Ballad of Reading Gaol, and his death in Paris as an impoverished and

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Oscar Wilde and Russian Modernism 461

broken exile-made him extremely attractive in the eyes of Russian

ernists, as we shall see below, in the role of modernist martyr.
What seems to have been most important for the Russians in W
criticism was his insistence on the interdependence between the de
ment of the individual and that of culture as a whole. The central argu
his famous essay, "The Soul of Man under Socialism," was indeed
complete reorganization of society is required for there to be true indi
ism. Wilde's lifelong concern with Christianity-which was clearly a
ated by his Russian audience (see, for example, Belyj, "Venok," 3)
expression here in his interpretation of Christ as the evangelist o
perfection: "he who would lead a Christlike life is he who is perfec
absolutely himself. [ .. ] It does not matter what he is, as long as he
the perfection of the soul that is within him. All imitation in morals an
is wrong" (266).
Art and creative activity in general were central to Wilde's socia
ism. He saw the status of art in society as a gauge of its vitality, and a
that art was "the most intense mode of individualism that the world has
known" (270):

Art is Individualism, and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its
immense value. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny o
habit, and the reduction of man to the level of machine. (272)

The individualism and aestheticism that Wilde upheld as ideals for art and
society were also the basic principles of his own daily life. And just as hi
artistic ideals had their predecessors, so the forms of Wilde's life were rooted
in a tradition of their own: dandyism. Historically, dandyism at its best was
an individual's response to society's demand for conformity-in the 19th
century, to the homogenizing tendencies of bourgeois society and morals
Dandyism confronted bourgeois morality and ideology with its refusal to
glorify labor, to idealize the natural, its rejection of utility, its scorn for the
sacred cow of progress, and the scepticism with which it greeted the grea
liberal ideals of democracy and equality. The dandy felt himself set apart
from society, or above it; his life's task, therefore, was to manifest the dis-
tance he felt. He resisted society by amazing it, shocking it, testing its
tolerance-by persistently going "too far" in his dress, gestures, actions, and
opinions. And, finally, while dandyism was in principle an individualistic
phenomenon, valuing and indeed requiring some degree of originality, lik
any other form of human behavior, it made use of models; as one critic has
put it, "each dandy refers to an ideal, a mythic image that he strives to
inscribe in the reality of his existence" (Lemaire, 11). Or, as Wilde himself
wrote in his essay, "Pen, Pencil and Poison": "Life itself is an art, and has
modes of style no less than the arts that seek to express it" (324).

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
462 Slavic and East European Journal

There is one more point that must be mentioned regarding dandyism-

that its functions and forms are conditoned by historical circumstances.
Dandyism in response to the rise of bourgeois society differs from dandy-
ism in the context of a society in crisis or decay. Aleksandr Blok, for
instance, recognized the social function of dandyism as a form of rejection
of the false ideals and "isms" of the 19th century, although he considered
individualism to be equally misleading (IV, 262). Andrej Belyj's memoirs
contain a suggestive passage in which he quotes Maksimilian Volo'in as
arguing that the European dandy is not what Russians tend to think it is,
that "Wilde himself ended his life a socialist" (Nacalo, 226). Strictly speak-
ing, this is not quite true; Wilde did not die a socialist, and "The Soul of
Man under Socialism" was written a good ten years before his death.
Volo'in was correct, however, in his perception that dandyism, and espe-
cially Wilde's version of it, was playing a new role in society, at once
subversive and constructive.
To sum up, then, the Russian response to Wilde often assumed the outer
form of dandyism, with Wilde as the model that it sought to emulate. As
such, it was a manifestation of non-conformity with conservative norms of
behavior and also a mode of conspicuous, public, self-expression. To the
extent that the self thus expressed was "new," shaped according to new
principles and new models, Wildeism participated in broader efforts on the
part of the Symbolists, among others, to reconstruct and revitalize Russian
culture, principally through transformation of the arts and of social forms.
The three most common ways in which Wilde came to be known in
Russia were: 1) publications of his works in languages other than Russian;
2) publication of his works in Russian; and 3) the dissemination of informa-
tion about him in secondary sources such as articles, book reviews, mono-
graphs, lectures, and rumor. The earliest Russian translation of Wilde that
I know of dates from 1897, when a translation of Lady Windermere's Fan
was published in Teatral.4 It was not until 1903, however, that translation
into Russian began in earnest with "Grif's" deluxe edition of Salome. From
then on, Wilde's works were published frequently in journals and in sepa-
rate editions. In 1906 the first volumes of a HoaHzoe co6paHue co'iuHeHnu'
were published in Moscow.5 A second IHoizoe co6paHue co0uIenuH' ap-
peared only six years later in Petersburg under the editorship of Kornej
Cukovskij. Wilde's works were also translated by such writers as Bal'mont,
Brjusov, Sologub, and Kuzmin. Brjusov's translations of The Ballad of
Reading Gaol and The Duchess of Padua were quite successful commer-
cially and were reprinted several times. Thus, from the first years of the
20th century on, Wilde's works were readily available in Russian, as well as
in English, French, and German; and Wilde found an appreciative, if not
always approving, audience. The painter Mixail Nesterov, for instance, in a
letter of 1906, recommended Wilde to a friend, saying that the English

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Oscar Wilde and Russian Modernism 463

writer was "as debauched as [he was] gifted" (218). By 1907, Kuzmin
had a change of heart and included Wilde in a list of his favorite au
(Malmstad, 126-7). And Nina Petrovskaja wrote in her memoi
Brjusov that:

Hoa6op BOmeMuIHX B MOJly JnHTepaTypHbIX, npoH3BeXeHHHi H 6emeHbnii cnpoc H

IBJIRIJIHCb TOxe 3HaMeHeM BpeMeHH.

Bo3poc He6blBajrIi HHTepec K OcKapy Yaunbbay,-pacKynHnH B MHr <De Profu

<<Bannaxy PeAHHrPCKOi TIopbMbI>, <TIopTpeT 1IopuaHa Fpesi, H <<CanoMeio>>-nocnIenH
oMIeHb aoporne <<pocKOmHbIe H3aHHSI FpHua>>. (778)

It is more difficult to assess the secondary sources on Wilde, since

began tof appear early in the 1890s and subsequently in remarkable
tity. My research thus far, for example, has turned up reviews and artic

on Wilde in Becm-uK Eqponbt, PyccKaR btC.bCJIb, Ce6epH-btl' 6ecm

BecmNuK Jaumepamypbt, PyccKoe 6ozamcm6o, Pycb, PyccKu~ 6ecmr
Hoeoe epe.uz, 3o.tomoe pyHo,6 and in collections of essays by writer
critics such as Konstantin Bal'mont, Zinaida Vengerova and Dio
Monographs on Wilde were written as well, and continued to be pub
into the 1920s.8 While a detailed account of these materials is obvi
beyond the scope of the present paper, I would like to pause on an
article by Prince Sergej Volkonskij, in which he discusses English Aes
cism in general, and Oscar Wilde in particular, as the "caMbII cMeJ
pe3KHH H napagoKcanJIbHbi 13 HHX [i.e. of the 'aesthetes']" (626).
article was published in 1893, thus predating the article by A. Volyn
1895 that G. Ponomareva claimed was the Russian public's introducti
English aesthetic criticism (122-3). Volkonskij sees English Aesthet
as the most excessive Western movement as regards certain aspects
aesthetic platform; he cites as proof their notion of life as a form o
Given the fact that this is one of the earliest Russian mentions of what

would later become "IKH3HeTBopxiecTBo," Volkonskij's remarks are worth

quoting at length:

[... ] HH B KaKOM apyroM o6uLecTse, KpoMe aHrJImHCKOrO, HeMbICJHIMO OTKpIToe npH3HaHHe

TaKOH apTHCTHqecKOH CeKTbI, KaK H3BeCTHbIe B CBOe BpeMB ((esthetics?, KOTOpbIe B CBOeM
nOKIOHeHHH KpaCHBbIM bopMaM JAoxoanHJIH Jo Toro, WTO cmpeAu.rJucb U3 CaMOU 3CU3HU
cbe.lamb c6oezo poca ucKyccmeo; nponoBeAyq ,Heo6xoOHMOCTb nOAHfITb Xyjo)KecTBeHHbIl
BKyC rnaBHbIM o6pa3oM B aOMaIunHei o6cTaHOBKe H COBpeMeHHoHf oaecie, OHHn aeHCTBOBaJIH
co6cTBeHHbIM npHMepoM, catuu 6 cooeUt oco6e eonnou4anu my u.au opyzyio anoxy, nepenu.uan
coomeemcmeeMbtUi KOCmIOA u cKZaa peiu; BseHO 3aHq5TbIe MbICJIbIO O CO6nJIIloeHHH
CKyn6nTYypHOH KpacOTbI, OHH B rOCTIHbIX npunu.uaLU CaUble u3btCKlCHHble nO3bi [. ..
Mocnco 6btao nobymamb, timo oHu 3aaaNucb 14eablO u3 6ceui ceoeui YCU3HU cdeaamb ob H y
cu6yro Kapmuny. (622-23, emphasis mine)

Volkonskij's notions of aesthetic, stylized behavior may be somewhat re-

ductive, but his article did serve to introduce English Aestheticism and
Wilde to Russian readers. It also suggests that English Aestheticism played

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
464 Slavic and East European Journal

a role in the early formulation of the key Symbolist notion of

)KH3HeTBoptIeCTBo and provides historical support for Belyj's association
cited above of Wilde with this concept.
Later on, in the early 20th century, Becbt became Wilde's champion in
Russia. Not only did the journal publish excerpts from a number of Wilde's
works, but it kept him consistently in the news from 1904-1909. Indeed,
the first issue of Becbt in 1904 carried a long article by Konstantin Bal'mont
entitled "Ho13314 OcKapa Yafijn6a," which he had previously given as a
lecture in November of 1903 at a meeting of the Moscow Literary-Artistic
Circle. I would like to examine this essay in some detail, since it is an
important, relatively early formulation of Wilde's biographical legend in
Russia, the widespread view of Wilde as the subject of a quintessentially
modernist "Life."
Bal'mont's image of Wilde is clearly very much in the tradition of mod-
ernist ideology and iconography-especially Bal'mont's own version o
them. To begin with, Bal'mont "reads" Wilde's life in terms of artistic
genres: he speaks of the "poetry" of Wilde's personality, the "drama" and
"tragic beauty" of his fate-terms Wilde himself used, as in De Profundis.
The English poet is portrayed as a great ego, a highly developed personal-
ity rich in experience, unrestricted by societal norms, a man who "lived his
poems"--Wilde's own expression-and whose fate can thus be read as the
tragic fulfilment of his art as well as of his life. Bal'mont shows the reader
how Wilde anticipated, and portrayed in his literary works, different ver
sions of his own downfall, thus demonstrating the wholeness, the indivisibil-
ity, of the poet's life and art. According to Bal'mont, only Nietzsch
surppassed Wilde in the originality of his personality and the wholeness o
his art and fate. He sees it as a perfect indicator of the time that one of
these men went mad and the other was imprisoned (37).
Bal'mont's image of Wilde emphasizes, however, certain elements which
pointedly distinguish the English poet from the stereotype of the Dandy,
the Decadent: what he calls Wilde's "weak human heart" and the Ballad of
Reading Gaol. These testify not only to Wilde's personal suffering, but als
to his compassion for the suffering of others-an emotion quite foreign to
Dorian Gray or the heroes of Huysmans' novels. They serve, therefore, th
important function of redefining and updating the public image of the
decadent or modernist poet; the poet is not, as critics would have it, cut off
from society and its woes, but rather is one whose interaction with, and
critique of, society is unconventional and self-authorized. The poet must b
free to create his own role, rather than to have it dictated to him.
Bal'mont's essay also highlights the element of martyrdom in Wilde's
fate-a crucial point in his biographical legend. For if Wilde was not quite
a "6oro6opeI," one of the typical modernist images of the poet, he cer-
tainly did suffer at the hands of the Philistines. In fact, the author of one of

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Oscar Wilde and Russian Modernism 465

the several published responses to the essay speculated that had the
no scandalous trial and prison sentence, Bal'mont and Becbt would
had no use for Wilde (Starodum, 348). The author, who signed his r
"Starodum," argued that:
CaMoe lIysme, MTO MOKHO AeJIaTb no nOBOAy OcKapa YaAinwna,--3To MOJIaTb
COIHHeHH I ero He CTOJIb 3aMeIaTeJIHbI, npH BceM 6JIecKe ero TBOpsecTBa, wTO6b
pa36opa HeJIb3R G6bhIO O6oAiTHCb, a )KH3Hb eFO He TaKOBa, qTO6bI ee BbIHOCHTb Ha y
(342)

Becbl, however, proved to be of exactly the opposite opinion, and

Bal'mont's article was quickly followed by a review which takes the
mythicization of Wilde one step further.

B HanH 3ara1osHbie HH, KorTja B 9eJIOBe9eCTBe, nOBH~HMOMy, coBepiuaeTCR pe3KHai

noBopOT K HHOMy ncHxoJIorHieCKOMy CTpOIO, BC5 BHYTpeHHII cyhb6a aHTJIHHICKOFO HO3Ta
oco6eHHo noytIHTeJI6Ha B TOM CMblCJIe, MTO OHa 6bJIa KaK 6bi OnbITHbIM npIHMeHeHHeM
3THIeCKHX HI 3CTeTHI9eCKHX TeopIli, KaKHe BO3HHKJIJI npH nepBbIX npH3HaKax 3TOrO
nOBOpoTa IJIII B npeAIyxBCTBHII, Mo)KeT 6blTb yKe He)iaJeKOFO, Bo3po)KQeHHR 9enioBexecKoi
BOJIH K HOBbIM, 6oiee HcepHblBarOIgHM ee iH 6oiee yCTOlIWHBbIM HopbIBaM.9

Thus, by 1904 Wilde had become a nexus of contention between the mod-
ernists, who hailed him as one of their own and considered his life "instruc-
tive," and the conservatives, who disapproved of them all.
That Wilde was viewed by other Symbolists as a figure of some historical
significance is attested by a remark in Kuzmin's diary for 1906, in which he
relates an evening at the "Tower." At the time, Kuzmin disliked Wilde
intensely; Vjadeslav Ivanov, however, seems to have considered Wilde to
be in some way exemplary, since he is said to have put the English poet
"pqnIOM c XpHCTOM" (Dnevnik, 423). Consider, too, the following passage
from one of Ivanov's essays, "O BepnI3He I FeIicMaHce":
1 Beps3H H FefiCMaHC, HMeHHO KaK )ieKa)eHTbI, 6ObIjH KOHKBHCTa~)OpaMH <HoBoro CBeTa>>
coBpeMeHHOi gymua. AJrin o6oix i6eKaIeHTCTBO 6bljO JIOM )KH4UHH H rupHHqHrOM
caMopa3pymeHH. 06a rcKairH y6examia B JOHe LepKBH. HOAo6Ha 3THM AByM yxaCTRM H
ylacTb OcKapa Yahiib)ja. 3TOT He YKpbIJICq B orpagAe noJIO>KHTeJ6HOFO BepoyxeHHR; 3a TO
BCR IH3Hb 6JIaropoHoro neBqa H CMHpeHHOrO MyseHHKa <<P3IHHTCKOII TlOpbMbI>>
o6paTwaIacb B penirnio Foonroc~bI BceIeHCKOIA. (II, 564-5)10

Once again, we see an image of Wilde as a modernist martyr, whose life is

emblematic of the ultimately tragic fate of the modern poet.
Now that we know something of what the Russians made of Wilde, we
may better understand how they used him to make something of them-
selves. There are indications that for some, the decadent, rather than the
aesthetic, aspect of Wilde's art and image were dominant, as in the case of
Aleksandr Dobroljubov. Two memoirists refer to Dobroljubov during his
period of extreme Decadence in the early to mid-1890s in terms of Wilde.
Sergej Makovskij recalls hearing as a schoolboy rumors concerning Dobrol-
jubov's "Wildeism" (Makovskij's word), which involved both his "dandy-

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
466 Slavic and East European Journal

ism," and the "moral dissipation of the clique of decadents to which he

belonged" (147). Vladimir Gippius remembers that Dobroljubov, who
read Wilde in the original, was thought to have talked or driven at least one
young person into suicide, and that he was generally reputed to be a se-
ducer, demon, Satanist, and a "Dorian Gray" (284).
For the most part, however, this kind of "demonic" decadence seems to
have been less influential than Wilde's creed of aestheticism and creative
individualism. In his critique of turn-of-the-century culture, Andrej Belyj,
like the other modernists, emphasizes its stagnation and profound medioc-
rity. The attributes of "KapHaTHJHOCTb," "KaMeHHOCTb" and "HeM3MeHHa5I
KOCHOCTb" appear again and again in relation to 6bIT: "CTaTHKa,
rpeIhB3MTOCTb, pyTHHa, HOuIJrOCTb, OrpaHI4IeHHOCTb Kpyro3opa,-BoT
xTO )1 BbIHeC Ha py6exe IByX cToneTHHi I43 6bITa )IH3HH cpexJHero
MOCKOBCKOFrO npoqeccopa [ ... ]" (Na rubefe, 10). Belyj's memoirs also
give a hint of the role Wilde played in early Modernist efforts to over-
come this social and cultural stagnation, as when he recalls:

[... ] HeKOFr!a MbI FOTOBbl 6blIlH COF.IaCHITbC5I Ha 9TO yroIsHO Ha Hw4me, Ha YaiJIbJa,
aaee... Ha 5IKOBa BeMe, TOJIbKO 6bi Hac OCBO60HIHJIH OT CKa6HqeBCKoro, KapeeBa n
AneKcen BeceJioBcKoro; [... HamH <<yacceHcTHCcKHe> YPOKIH OTqaM HIMeJi TaKOI4
CMbICJI: <BbI Hac ynpeKaeTe B 6e3npHHqHnHoM HOBaTopcTBe, paspymenHe ycToeB IorMaTOB
BeHIHOi My3eHiHOHi KyJbTypbI; xopomo )Ke,---6yjeM <<3a >>3TO Bce; HO Toria noRiaBaiTe
HaCTpoeHHbli CTpoHi,-He npoOKIHCHIHi ycToHi, He UlTaMl, a CTHIJIb, l poIyMaHHbIH 3aHOBo
[ ... 1. (Na rubeze, 6)

Now, Belyj does not go into any detail as to what it was about Wilde that he
was ready to agree to. However, the context of this statement indicates that
Wilde, like Nietzsche, had seemed to offer a new "style" of culture.
Not surprisingly, Wilde's aestheticism, and especially his dandyism,
served as popular models in Modernist circles for what might be called self-
stylization. In Haqa.ao oseca Belyj recalls the fashion in Moscow for paint-
ing houses in style nouveau colors and having dinner-jackets made "a la
Wilde" (109). Nina Petrovskaja writes of the women in the early years of
the 20th century who had dresses made in the style of the Preraphaelites,
while their husbands and cavaliers made themselves portly and sleek "a la
Oscar Wilde" (778). Another of the distinguishing appurtenances of the
Russian dandy was a fancy embroidered waistcoat, of which Kuzmin had, it
is said, three hundred and sixty-five (Malmstad, 108). The fancy waistcoat
found a place in the semiotic system of Russian Cubo-Futurism as well, as
may be seen in many of the photographs of such Futurists as David
Burljuk. Indeed, to a large extent the Futurists owe their famous theatrical-
ity to the theory and practice of the older generation of artists. As Camilla
Gray notes, the Futurists may have parodied the Symbolists by wearing
radishes or spoons in their lapels, rather than lilies and green carnations a
la Wilde and Bal'mont (115); but in such cases their choice of signs reveals

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Oscar Wilde and Russian Modernism 467

an essential continuity that belies their protestations of radical ori

and rejection of Symbolist culture.
Wilde's exquisite appearance was not the only object of Russian
tion; his famous aphoristic style of writing and conversation found its
sian admirers as well. An early indication of this is found in
Brjusov's diary for 1900. Brjusov, who once described himself as a
ful follower of Wilde" (Iz moej iizni, 96), wrote triumphantly that
At the Shesterkins' I saw Mikhail Solovyov (the brother of Vladimir) and his w
Mikhailovna, translator of Ruskin and Wilde. [. .] I acted the "aphorist" very
before them and managed to amaze them. [ . . . ] I saw Durnov a couple of days ag
in great form, put forth better aphorisms than I and better than Wilde, so that I
applauded everything he said. (Diary, 102-3)

The Durnov to whom Brjusov refers is the same to whom Bal'mon

cated EydeM Kcar coani4e just a few years later: "MoxecTy Iyp
co3AasameMy no3My 143 caoei JIHIIHOCTH." It would appear, then, tha
Wilde was one of the "subtexts" for Durnov's poema.
If Brjusov and Durnov delighted in, and imitated, Wilde's mann
conversation, others later on would take a different tack-and an e
one-and simply quote Wilde directly. In describing the public at t
cow Literary-Artistic Circle, Belyj includes the category of dressed
dents with languid faces, bracelets, flowers in their buttonholes and "W
on their [... ] painted lips (Na6alo, 209)." Indeed, Belyj's m
abound with accounts of literary and cultural figures who quoted-
quoted-Wilde in their efforts to establish themselves in the cultura
garde.11
The ego-futurist poet Igor' Severjanin seems to have been one of Wilde's
most consistent imitators in the 20th century; indeed, certain features of
Ego-futurism in general seem to be Wildeism run amok. Kornej Cukovskij
implies as much in a 1914 essay on the Futurists, in which he called
Severjanin and the other Petersburg Ego-futurists a bunch of "Oscar
Wildes" (VI, 215). Gzovskaja remarks that Severjanin "externally imitated
and distantly resembled Oscar Wilde" (116). Kamenskij, too, describes
Severjanin as a "Russian Oscar Wilde" (213). Benedikt Livshits is the most
cutting when he writes:

[Severjanin] seemed to be doing his best to ape Wilde and he looked a bit like him. But how
pitiful this Russian interpretation of Dorian seemed to me! [ ... ] I was amazed by the
slovenliness of the "exquisite muser," by his dirty hands which had not seen soap and water for
a long time, by the lapels of his Wildean frock-coat soaked in creme de violettes. (166)

Once again, we see a link between Futurist and Symbolist practice in their
turning to Wilde as a model for self-dramatization.
Wilde also turns up in memoirs on Mejerxol'd. One memoirist describes a
rehearsal during which Mejerxol'd gave the actors some advice that not only

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
468 Slavic and East European Journal

refers to Wilde, but sounds like a practical application of Wilde's ideas on the
value of role-playing in expanding one's personality: "Ipx4ynaM ce6r K
cucTeMaTraecKOMy 'TeHHLOi 6e.JIeTpcTMKH, MbI pa3BssaeH cBoe
Boo6paxeHHe. Y MeH 6bIJI n epiwo, KorAa 5 yBnjeKajRC YaiJIbjaM. 51 Toraa
c yTpa 0o Be'epa xoAJui 'onIopHbIM" (Sneinickij, 556). It seems that
Mejerxol'd's realization of the role was successful, for another memoirist
relates an encounter with the director in which he was struck by Mejerxol'd's
elegance, the stylish casualness with which he wore his clothes, and which
reminded the author of a character from one of Wilde's plays (Varpaxovskij,
462).
Thus, Russian cultural history confirms Wilde's belief that life imitates
art, and that literature provides modes and models of self-expression for its
readers as well as its creators. And it was indeed, as Brjusov said, the "age
of Ibsen and Wilde." People read Wilde, dressed like Wilde, talked like
Wilde, assumed the same attitudes as Wilde, and quoted him in conversa-
tion and in print. And yet the fate of Wildeism in Russia ultimately resem-
bled that of so many varieties of what Lionel Trilling in Beyond Culture
called "adversary cultures"12: their acceptance in the dominant culture is
followed by their trivialization due to the loss of their oppositional or
subversive power. Consider, for example, Blok's poem "BcTpeqHOIi," writ-
ten in June of 1908, when Wildeism was well under way. The poem, which
is addressed to a married woman to whom the poet has taken a sudden
fancy, begins:

AI TOJIbKO pbItnapb mI nO3T,

IOTOMOK ceBepHOrO cKaRbgaa.
A MyA( TBOAi HOCHT TOMHK YaiARba,
IIIoTJaHACKHA HrIJ3, IBeTHOI KreT ...
TBOAi My)-npe3pHTeJIbHbIA 3CTeT. (II, 84)

Here the circle is completed with the representation in art of an already

aestheticized and stylized social reality. In this case, however, art mocks
reality by contrasting the poet's authenticity, his legitimacy as knight, poet,
and descendent of the northern bard, with the inauthenticity of the disdain-
ful husband, whose little volume of Wilde is more a part of his wardrobe
than of this library.
Belyj describes the same process from a slightly different angle:

[ . .. ] aopHI3M OcKapa YaAinjinba o TOM, TO <<KpoBaBaM Opxwae rpexa>--aTTpH6yT BCMiKOi

<TaJIaHTJIHBO )KH3HH>>, epeca)KeHHbIA B YCJIOBIM 6a6ymIKHHCKOI MopanI, yB~iaajn, HlIero
He poKaam, KpoMe rHHmeHH . . . 3TOi CaMOa MopaJu4; [... ] H 1 Ha6JnoHIaJI:-B 6JeAHbIx
<<)iymax>> B <<CeHax>> CaMbIe 6bITOBbIe HbIIHHKH OTCBeiHBaJn, KaK ... 6pHjnnaHTHKH; HO
yxBaTHr 6pJnnItaHTHKy: OHa OKa3bIBaJaCb HblJIHHKOii. (Na alo, 134-5)

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Oscar Wilde and Russian Modernism 469

Thus, Blok and Belyj testify to the fact that the popularization of Wi
ideas and style had led in some cases to their vulgarization or co-op
For what was distinctive and challenging in the poet himself was d
made banal, when it served not as an ideal, a call to action, but rat
the object of direct imitation. In this respect, the history of Wildeism
be seen as a realization of Baudelaire's paradox that the chief task of
is to invent a stereotype. Yet if for the poets Belyj and Blok the makin
stereotype was cause for scorn and frustration, the cultural historian e
a rather different perspective, since it is through just this kind of
that societies devise for themselves what Hamlet called their "form and
pressure."
In conclusion, Wilde's contribution to Russian modernist culture lies
primarily in the crucial concept of life as art, )KI43HeTBOplecTBo. There are,
however, a number of problems that remain to be explored. For example,
Russian reception of Wilde in relation to Nietzsche would make a produc-
tive topic, since their ideas intersected on certain issues that were central to
avant-garde culture. Also, any study of sexuality in Russian modernism
should examine the connection with Wilde, particularly with respect to the
contemporary fascination with androgyny and to efforts by such modernists
as Kuzmin and Ivanov to create a homoerotic culture.13 In short, Wilde was
implicated in so many aspects of modernist culture that future research is
sure to reveal much not only about his specific influence, but also about the
history of Russian modernism in general.

NOTES

1 One of the leading figures in the field of cultural poetics is Jurij Lotman. Se
his essays, "The Poetics of Everyday Behavior in Eighteenth-Century Russia
and "The Decembrist in Daily Life (Everyday Behavior as a Historical-Psy
Category," in The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History, ed. A. D. Nakhimov
S. Nakhimovsky (Cornell, 1985) and "The Theater and Theatricality as Comp
Early Nineteenth-Century Culture" in Ju. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspenskij, T
ics of Russian Culture, ed. Ann Shukman (Ann Arbor, 1984). Major contribut
study of Russian cultural poetics in the early 19th century have been made
Fanger, The Creation of Nikolai Gogol (Cambridge and London: 1979) and Wi
Todd III, Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin (Cambridge and London
English studies, important work in cultural poetics has been done by Stephen G
See his fine study, Renaissance Self-Fashioning (Chicago and London, 198
essay, "Towards a Poetics of Culture," in The New Historicism, ed. H. Aram V
York and London, 1989). Greenblatt and others have drawn on the work of t
pologist Clifford Geertz, who has developed a semiotic concept of cultur
Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973).
2 While discussion of responses to Wilde in literary works of the time is beyond
the present paper, a partial list of the most obvious works to examine would in

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
470 Slavic and East European Journal

first section of Vladimir Majakovskij's poema, "Hpo W3T," entitled "BajIniaja PeJAHrCKOfi
TIOpbMbI," after Wilde's famous and oft-translated poem; Igor' Severjanin's poem,
"OcKap YaiinbJ (Acco-cOHeT)" (1911), as well as other of his works; and perhaps certain
poems of Innokentij Annenskij, such as "3a6BeeHe" and "J)eKopaqln." I am grateful to
Vladimir Gitin for suggesting the Wilde-Annenskij connection, and for pointing out
Annenskij's letter to S. A. Sokolov, in which he defends himself from the criticism made in
Becbt that he imitated Mereikovskij: "[ ... ] HHKorTja CO3HaTeJIbHO He IHHJI 13 iyxcoro
cTaKaHa .. . Eige XOTb 6bl cKa3aJIH YafiJIba,---TOT B caMOM jAeje Korja-TO MeHI CHJIbHO
3axBaTHJI, HOKa I He yBmenJ, TO HTO OH poTo G6oTCSI epTa m iepe3s FocMaHCa H messe noir

npo61pancA TOJIbKO K HCnOBeganJIbHOi 6y)JKe." Innokentij Annenskij, Knigi otraienij

(Moscow, 1979), 469.
3 On Cerny'evskij, see Irina Paperno, Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism: A Study in
the Semiotics of Behavior (Stanford, 1988).
4 This reference appears in Vesy, 6 (1907), p. 74 in a review by M. Likiardopulo of vol. IV
of Oskar Uajl'd, Polnoe sobranie socinenij (Moscow, 1907).
5 See M. Likiardopulo's reviews of these and other translations in Vesy, 1 (1905); 5, 8, 10
(1906); 2, 6 (1907).
6 Among these are: Ajxenval'd, Ju., review of Wilde's Florentine Tragedy in which he
praises Wilde's "poeticization of reality," Bibliographic section of Russkaja mysl', 11
(1907): 235-6; Ajxenval'd, Ju., "Literaturnye zametki," Russkaja mysl', 5 (1908): 157-
69; Belyj, A., review of Salome, Vesy, 1 (1904): 70; Berg, N., "Poet dobra i zla. Li-
teraturnaja xarakteristika Oskara Uajl'da," Vestnik literatury, 4 (1905); M., "Oskar
Uajl'd i g. Bal'mont," Rus', 11 (1903): 3; Minskij, N., "Ideja Salomei," Zolotoe runo, 6
(1908): 55-8; Red'ko, "Drama mysli i drama vizni Oskara Uajl'da," Russkoe bogatstvo, 2
(1913); Smirnov, A., review of Salome, Novyj put', 2 (1904): 225-6. In 1895, Zinaida
Vengerova reviewed a work often and mistakenly attributed to Wilde, The Green Carna-
tion (London, 1894) in Vestnik Evropy, 11 (1895): 437-43. Vengerova hints that the work
is Wilde's with the remark that it is written by the "samyj blestjavvij iz sovremennyx
anglijskix estetov" and mention of "The Critic as Artist," Salome, and The Portrait of
Dorian Gray. It would seem, then, that Wilde was already sufficiently well known in
Russia for readers to recognize her allusion. See also her reviews of O. Wilde, Die
Herzogin von Padua (Berlin, 1904), in Vestnik Evropy, 1 (1905): 430-7 and of Trois
com'dies (Paris, 1906), in Vestnik Evropy, 6 (1907): 826-33.
7 Bal'mont, K., "O ljubvi," Gornija versiny (Moscow, 1904) and "Ob Uajl'de," Belyja
zarnicy (St. Petersburg, 1908). Vengerova, Z., Literaturnyja xarakteristiki (St. Peters-
burg, 1897) and Anglijskie pisateli XIX veka (St. Petersburg, 1913). Dioneo (I. V.
Sklovskij), Ocerki sovremmenoj Anglii.
8 For example: Abramovi', N. Ja., Religija krasoty i stradanija. 0. Uajl'd i Dostoevskij.
(St. Petersburg, 1909); Aksel'rod, L. I., Moral' i krasota v proizvedenijax Oskara
Uajl'da. (Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 1923); Cukovskij, K., Oskar Uajl'd. (Petersburg, 1922).
9 Review by "M. R." in Vesy, 4 (1904): 66.
10 I am grateful to Michael Wachtel for pointing out this and other references to Wilde by
Symbolist poets and critics.
11 Nacalo veka: 207, 211, 229-30, 266.
12 On the problem of co-optation see also Gerald Graff's essay, "Co-optation," in The New
Historicism, ed. H. Aram Veeser (New York and London: Routledge, Chapman and
Hall, Inc., 1989): 168-81.
13 Lindsay F. Watton III has already done some very interesting work on Kuzmin's and
Ivanov's participation in an informal society, the "Kabadok Gafiza," which consisted
largely of homosexual artists and intellectuals, and which met during the spring and early
summer of 1906. See his unpublished paper entitled "Stylization and Sexuality: Towards a
Contextualized Homoerotic Aesthetic in M.A. Kuzmin's Pre-Revolutionary Lyrics."

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Oscar Wilde and Russian Modernism 471

WORKS CITED

Bal'mont, Konstantin. "Pobzija Oskara Uajl'da." Vesy 1 (1904): 27-40.

Belyj, Andrej. Lug zelenyj: kniga statej. New York and London: Johnson Re
tion, 1967.
.. Nadalo veka. Chicago: Russian Language Specialties, 1966.
. Na rubeze dvux stoletij. 2nd ed. Moscow-Leningrad: Zemlja i fabrika, 1
. "Venok ili venec." Apollon 11 (Oct.-Nov. 1910): 1-4.
Blok, Aleksandr. Sobranie socinenij v -esti tomax. Leningrad: Xudo'estven
1982.
Brjusov, Valerij. The Diary of Valery Bryusov. Ed. and trans. Joan Delan
Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1980.
Iz moej Zizni. Moscow: M. and S. Saba'nikov, 1927.
.. "Pis'ma k A. A. Sesterkinoj (1900-1913)." In kberbina, 622-56.
-. Sobranie sod'inenij v semi tomax. Ed. N. Avukin et al. Moscow: Xu
literatura, 1973.
Cukovskij, Kornej. Sobranie socinenij v s'esti tomax. Ed. S. Krasnova. Moscow
naja literatura, 1966.
Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde. New York: Knopf, 1988.
Gippius, Vladimir. "Aleksandr Dobroljubov." In Vengerov, I, 272-87.
Gray, Camilla. The Russian Experiment in Art 1863-1922. Revised and enlar
Marian Burleigh-Motley. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1986.
Gzovskaja, O. "A. A. Blok v Moskovskom xudo'estvennom teatre." In Orlo
Ivanov, Vjadeslav. Sobranie socinenij, ? vols. Eds. D. V. Ivanov and 0. Deschar
Foyer Oriental Chretien, 1971-.
Kamenskij, Vasilij. Put' 2ntuziasta. Moscow: Federacija, 1931.
Kuzmin, Mixail. "Dnevnik M. A. Kuzmina." Ed. George Cheron. Wiener Slaw
nach 17 (1986): 397-438.
_. Sobranie stixov, 3 vols. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1977.
Lemaire, Michel. Le dandysme de Baudelaire a Mallarme. Montreal: Presses de l'Universit6
de Montreal, 1978.
Livshits, Benedikt. The One and a Half-Eyed Archer. Trans. John Bowlt. Newtonville: Orien-
tal Research Partners, 1977.
Makovskij, Sergej. Portrety sovremennikov. New York: Chekhov, 1955.
Malmstad, John. "Mixail Kuzmin: A Chronicle of His Life and Times." In Sobranie, III, 7-319.
Nesterov, Mixail. Pis'ma. Ed. A. Rusakova. Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1988.
Orlov, Vladimir, comp.. Aleksandr Blok v vospominanijax sovremennikov. 2 vols. Moscow:
Xudo'estvennaja literatura, 1980.
Petrovskaja, Nina. "Iz Vospominanij." In Scerbina, 759-72.
Ponomareva, G. "Annenskij i Uajl'd (Anglijskaja estetskaja kritika i Knigi otraz'enij Annen-
skogo)." Udenye zapiski tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 645 (1983): 121-29.
S&erbina, V., et al., eds. Literaturnoe nasledstvo, 85. Moscow: Nauka, 1976.
Sneinickij, L. "Poslednij god." In Vendrovskaja, 529-69.
Stanjukeviv, V. "Vospominanija o Brjusove." In Sverbina, 713-58.
Starodum [Steikin], N. "iurnal'noe obozrenie. Vesy, janvar'-fevral' 1904 g." Russkij vestnik 3
(1904): 341-49.
Trilling, Lionel. Beyond Culture: Essays on Literature and Learning (New York: Viking Press,
1968).
Varpaxovskij, L. "Zametki prollyx let." In Vendrovskaja, 459-79.
Vendrovskaja, L., ed. Vstredi s Mejerxol'dom: Sbornik vospominanij. Moscow: Vserossijskoe
teatral'noe ob''estvo, 1967.
Vengerov, Semen, ed. Russkaja literatura XX veka. 1890-1910. 3 vols. Moscow: Mir, 1914-16.

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
472 Slavic and East European Journal

Volkonskij, Sergej. "Iskusstvo i nravstvennost'." Vestnik Evropy, 4 (1893): 620-51.

Wilde, Oscar. The Artist as Critic. Ed. Richard Ellmann. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1982.
Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society, 1780-1950. New York: Columbia University Press,
1983.
Xodasevic, Vladislav. Nekropol'. Paris: YMCA-Press, 1976.

This content downloaded from 5.164.192.57 on Wed, 11 Sep 2019 15:20:38 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms