Temira Pachmuss Books

This volume surveys the Russian effort throughout the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries to unite Russian and Finnish literature. The book discusses various contacts, meetings, disagreements, and conflicts between the Russians and the Finns in their interrelationship in the area of Russian literature and the Russian language. Diverse historical sources and literary documents are cited. It is a study that reveals the Russian literary endeavor in Finland from 1808 to 1956, which glorified the idea of beauty, grace, and refinement, qualities of the artistic temperament stifled by the Bolsheviks.

This book is written in Russian . This book is written for those Russian readers who unjustly pronounced Hippius a typical «Decadent». Canards describing her personality and eccentric behavior were coined and used repeatedly; Critical remarks were passed from person to person without examination: her «sins» and «heresy» were decidedly exaggerated. It is unfortunate that such criticasters were sufficiently powerful to establish a negative tone that has persisted and prevented a fresh approach to an analysis of Hippius the artist. Since Zinaida Hippius belongs to the world by virtue of her artistic talent, an effort has been made in this book to reveal the originality of her personal and poetic universe. She engendered new ideas, took an active part in a spirited exchange of opinions, and played a vital role in the religious renaissance at the beginning of the twentieth century. Always striving toward some spiritual ideal, she stimulated aspirations in writers, composers, artists, and philosophers.