“La Prométhéide” by Josephin Péladan and “Prometheus” by Vyacheslav Ivanov: Rosicrucian Subtexts of the Symbolic Tragedy

The Russian symbolism is characterized by a close attention to philosophical and aesthetic and to mystical and esoteric interests of French modernism. One of its most important figures was Josephin Peladan, one of the leaders of French Rosicrucianism. In the beginning of the 1900s, Vyacheslav Ivanov, a "master of Russian symbolism" paid attention to Peladan's works. He published a review about Peladan's drama "Semiramis" in the magazine Vesy in 1904. Right in this period, Ivanov conceived his tragedy "Prometheus" (1915). The aim of this research is to prove the thesis that Ivanov's tragedy is chronologically and conceptually close to Peladan's tragic trilogy La Prometheide made in 1895 (especially to its first part "Prometheus, Bearer of Fire"). Therefore, the material of the research was Ivanov's tragedy "Prometheus" and Peladan's tragedy "Prometheus, Bearer of Fire". In the research, several philological methods were used: comparative, motive, figurative, mythopoetic. The usage of these methods allowed revealing the main common features in these two works explicated on the figurative, motive, thematic and problematic levels. For the comparative analysis of the Russian and French texts, the author used several research works on symbolism, mythology, history of literature and history of religion. The research consisted of the following steps: (1) identification of parts of the texts that have common features on the figurative, motive, thematic and problematic levels; (2) a comparative analysis of the identified features; (3) comclusion on the received data. The result of the research was the identification and description of seven common features in Peladan's and Ivanov's tragedies: (1) the splitting of Zeus's mythological antagonist Prometheus into two hypostases, higher and lower, transcendent and immanent; (2) the image of Prometheus as a demiurge; (3) an anthropological motive of the usage of stolen fire for completing the creation of man; (4) the dualism of the creation determined by Orpheus's anthropology in Ivanov and by the discrepancy between the idea ant its incarnation in Peladan; (5) the motive of Pandora's creation by Prometheus accompanied by the motive of her sacrifice; (6) the anthropological function of Pandora as an ideal model in the creation; (7) the soteriological function of Pandora as a peacemaker between gods and men. The complex of the common features between the two tragedies shows their typological similarity and their genetic relationship which is confirmed by Ivanov's sympathetic attention to Peladan's works right in the period of the formation of his idea of "Prometheus".

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