Materiality.

Abstract

H istorians of Russian literature are wont to assign writers and poets to some definable ideological or aesthetic movement. After his death, Innokenty Annensky was classified as a Symbolist, which is of course essentially correct. But this obscures a good deal, both in his poetry and in his personal relations with other poets of his generation. In Annensky’s own literary and critical articles, Symbolism figures as a very expansive and capacious notion. He considered not only Dostoevsky but even Maksim Gorky to be a Symbolist. In his own poetry he set himself apart from the Russian Symbolists. In his revealing poem “Drugomu” (To the other) Annensky writes about Russian Symbolism with understanding and even admiration, but stresses that his poetry is totally different. His personal attitudes toward individual Symbolist poets were complex: toward Balmont he was benevolent, but slightly mocking; toward Vyacheslav Ivanov, amicable; and toward Me rezh kov sky and Blok, sharply negative. Further, the mature poetry of Annensky’s last period contained certain features which seemed to be close not to Symbolism, but to the movements derived from it—Acmeism and Cubo-Futurism. Akhmatova considered Annensky to be her teacher. She retained this attitude throughout her long poetic career: from reading in proof his Kiparisovyi larets (The cypress chest) in the year of Annensky’s death to dedicating a poem written after World War II to his memory. In addition, the young Vladimir Mayakovsky found Annensky both interesting and essential. According to the memoirs of Kornei Chukovsky, Mayakovsky “very carefully studied” and “continually declaimed to himself” Annensky’s poems. This note is from 1915; it is supported by the mention of Annensky’s name in Mayakovsky’s poem “Nadoelo” (It is tiresome) of 1916. And it is true that the “futuristic” aspect of Annensky’s poetry becomes