Liia Ermakova’s Report at the Seminar «Magic, Astrology, and Science in Russian Modernism»
On November 14, another session of the regular research seminar «Magic, Astrology, and Science in Russian Modernism» took place. Liia Ermakova made a presentation titled «“The Uncreated Firmament”: Vyacheslav Ivanov and Sergius Bulgakov».
Russian symbolist Vyacheslav Ivanov and religious philosopher Sergius Bulgakov in 1905–1918 were connected by both formal relations and friendship. In 1914 Ivanov published the poem «Mother» («Te glyby chto nezhno zasypali grob...»), with a dedication to Bulgakov. Liia Ermakova presented her analysis of the poem and its draft version, which allows to trace the movement of the poet's creative thought. The biographical context is the death of Bulgakov's mother, — later he described his intimate experience in the «Unfading Light» («Svet Nevecherniy»). Special attention was paid to the symbols and motives typical to Ivanov's poetics, namely the firmament, the underground sun-heart, and the motive of transparency. The intertextual connections of the poem with the philosophical and theological works by S. Bulgakov (primarily with his Sophiology) may be considered as a result of mutual influence and their reliance on common sources.