Alexey Remizov in the symbolist magazine “Vesy”: to the history of cooperation

The paper reveals the history of the relations of Alexey M. Remizov’s and the symbolists’ magazine “Vesy” (1903-1909) in the context of the periodical editorial policy and from the standpoint of the artist’s aesthetic values. The documentary basis of Remizov’s relationship with the magazine’s board can be considered his correspondence with Valery Bryusov, as well as fragments of the epistolary heritage of both a personal nature (letters to his wife Seraphima Remizova-Dovgello) and official correspondence with leading employees of St. Petersburg press. The contacts of the novice writer with Moscow and St. Petersburg symbolists, his gradual entry into the circle of modernist writers contributed to some extent to the formation of his artistic guidelines and poetics of his works in the framework of decadent aesthetics. Invited by Valery Bryusov, Remizov published the reviews of the cultural life in the provinces and in the capital for several years, most often anonymously, in the magazine’s sections “Chronicle,” “On Life,” and “Miscellaneous”. His literary works sent to the editorial board did not pass the censorship and were not accepted for publication because of the hostile attitude of the magazine’s owner S. A. Polyakov. Remizov’s attempts to become a permanent member of the “Vesy” staff for six years did not yield a positive outcome. However, they showed the independence of the author’s position from the editorial policy of the magazine in his choice of artistic priorities and contributed to the formation of the writer’s literary personality outside the ideological and aesthetic program of the symbolists.

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