N. A. Klyuev’s Lyrics: Dialog between Philosophy and Poetry

Abstract

The article discusses two major issues: philosophical context of N. A. Klyuev’s lyrics (N. F. Fyodorov’s idea of active Christianity and Vl. S. Solovyov’s idea of unitotality), and the basic concept of the religious philosophy of Klyuev himself. The material for the study are the poems from two collections: “Sosen perezvon” (1912) and “Lesnaya byl” (1913). The central myth in Klyuev’s artistic consciousness of 1910-ies is examined. It is proved that the center of this myth is the poet’s self-interpretation as a coworker of God, whose work is the inner spiritual work, coloured by apocalyptic forebodings of the onset of a new history. Special attention is given to how Klyuev rethinks and tries to overcome creatively the traditional philosophical categories of time, space, death. The research urgency is caused by the fact that it is the first attempt to read the Klyuev’s poetry through the prism of Vl. S. Solovyov’s philosophy of unitotality. It is concluded that the images of nature in Klyuev’s lyrics bear the imprint of Solovyov’s idea of unitotality as “a closed and perfect “whole.”