Viacheslav Ivanov: A Symbolist Life

A poet, scholar, philosopher, religious thinker, translator, and teacher, Viacheslav Ivanov (1866-1949) was one of the most extraordinary figures of Russia’s tumultuous twentieth century. As a young scholar, he worked with European luminaries, studying ancient history with Theodor Mommsen and Sanskrit with Ferdinand de Saussure. Upon returning to Russia in 1905, Ivanov emerged as a major poet and theorist of Russian Symbolism. The Wednesday gatherings in his apartment attracted Alexander Blok, Nikolai Berdiaev, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Osip Mandel’shtam, and Anna Akhmatova. After the Bolshevik Revolution, he worked in the People’s Commissariat for Education, devising utopian plans for Soviet theater. Even so, Lenin personally rejected his application for travel abroad in 1920. Four years later, Ivanov left the Soviet Union for Italy, where he became a Catholic and spent his last years working for Vatican institutions.

This definitive biography of Ivanov tells the full story of his life and work amid the cataclysmic events of his time. Michael Wachtel traces Ivanov’s writings across languages and countries, following his trail through Moscow, St. Petersburg, Baku, Berlin, Paris, London, Geneva, Athens, Pavia, and Rome. Though his life was marked by seemingly contradictory elements, including occult experimentation, belief in Russian Orthodoxy, defense of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and unconventional sexual mores--notably bisexuality and a marriage to his stepdaughter--Wachtel shows how Ivanov reconciled his shifting selves. Revealing Ivanov as a cultural catalyst of wide-ranging influence, this book opens a new window onto twentieth-century Russian and European intellectual life.

Michael Wachtel is professor of Slavic languages and literatures at Princeton University. He is the author of several books on Russian poetry and poetics, including The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry (2004). He has edited volumes of Ivanov’s poetry, correspondence, essays, and scholarship in English, Russian, and German.