Viacheslav Ivanov

A poet, scholar, philosopher, religious thinker, translator, and teacher, Viacheslav Ivanov (18661949) was one of the most extraordinary figures of Russias tumultuous twentieth century. As a young scholar, he worked with European luminaries, studying ancient history with Theodor Mommsen and Sanskrit with Ferdinand de Saussure. Upon returning to Russia in 1905, Ivanov emerged as a major poet and theorist of Russian Symbolism. The Wednesday gatherings in his apartment attracted Alexander Blok, Nikolai Berdiaev, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Osip Mandelshtam, and Anna Akhmatova. After the Bolshevik Revolution, he worked in the Peoples Commissariat for Education, devising utopian plans for Soviet theater. Even so, Lenin personally rejected his application for travel abroad in 1920. Four years later, Ivanov left the Soviet Union for Italy, where he became a Catholic and spent his last years working for Vatican institutions. This definitive biography of Ivanov tells the full story of his life and work amid the cataclysmic events of his time. Michael Wachtel traces Ivanovs writings across languages and countries, following his trail through Moscow, St. Petersburg, Baku, Berlin, Paris, London, Geneva, Athens, Pavia, and Rome. Though his life was marked by seemingly contradictory elements, including occult experimentation, belief in Russian Orthodoxy, defense of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and unconventional sexual moresnotably bisexuality and a marriage to his stepdaughterWachtel shows how Ivanov reconciled his shifting selves. Revealing Ivanov as a cultural catalyst of wide-ranging influence, this book opens a new window onto twentieth-century Russian and European intellectual life.