Volume 25, Number 5 · April 6, 1978
Artist of Nightmare
By Helen Muchnic
Andrei Bely: His Life and Works
by Konstantin Mochulsky, translated by Nora Szalavitz
Ardis, 230 pp., $4.95 (paper)
Petersburg
by Andrei Bely, translated, annotated, and introduced by Robert A. Maguire, by John E. Malmstad
Indiana University Press, 356 pp., $17.50
In the intellectually giddy, combative, brilliant period of Russian art at the turn of the century, Andrei Bely was an outstanding figure, the best representative, no doubt, of its ultra-romantic speculations and experiments. He was 'an undisciplined and erratic Ariel,' in D.S. Mirsky's witty characterization, 'a seer and prophet' to some, 'a sort of mystical mountebank' to others.[1] He was a leading exponent and practitioner of Russian Symbolism, and is thought to have exercised an enormous influence on Russian literature. The scientific study of Russian prosody began with him and, in criticism, his work gave rise to the Formalist School. We now have excellent translations of his masterpiece in prose and of the best biography about him to date.
Review, 3716 words
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