“The tavern locus” in the Russian poetry of the 20th century. Article 1. Symbolism and acmeism

The first of the two related articles concerning the tavern text in the Russian poetry of the 20th century deals with the works of the representatives of symbolism and acmeism. The origins of “the restaurant theme” in Russian poetry are given in short. According to the authors’ hypothesis, the “Tavern of Life” by I. Annensky is the key poem for the tavern text formation in Russian modernism. The authors of the article investigate both relatively early and late texts in order to determine how the tavern text is transformed within the same poetic system. The works of A. Blok, O. Mandelstam, A. Akhmatova, N. Gumilev are used to show the alternation and enrichment of the matrix plot by I. Annensky. The rigid matrix of “tavern motifs”, moving from one text to another, is noted. This general matrix indicates the unity of the tavern text in the works of symbolists and acmeists. Moreover, the poets of the Silver Age often put the tavern motif-image complex through the prism of any philosophical and religious system. They are encountered in a cultural myth of Annensky, folklore and the Orthodox and Christian code of Akhmatova, Solovyov’s philosophy of Blok, the synthesis of these traditions of Gumilev. The authors of the article come to the conclusion that the tavern locus turns out to be a semiotic pattern that structures a certain model of existence. The mythological complex of the feast as death brings forward neo-mythological structures in the tavern text of the poets of Russian modernism.