The motif of “prophecy of our day” in the “male” and “female” lyrics of Russian modernism (article I)

The motif of prophecy is a notable phenomenon of the Silver Age poetry, rich in eschatological premonitions. It occurs both in the so-called “male” and “female” lyrics. The specific figurative and lexical coincidences, stability and variability in the embodiment and interpretation of the motif of the prediction about of the coming 20th century are analyzed in the poetic works of such authors as K. Sluchevsky, D. Merezhkovsky, A. Blok, М. Voloshin, A. Bely, Y. Kuzmina-Karavaeva, T. Vechorka, Cherubina de Gabriak (E. Dmitrieva), N. Lvova, S. Parnok. The first article reveals the characteristic crosscutting components of the motivic complex common to male authors. There is a chain of sustainable plot nodes which stretches from K. Sluchevsky to later poems of Andrei Bely: the image of the Demon / Satan / Lucifer, allusions to “Revelation”, a description of approaching catastrophe and the fate of man and mankind. Sluchevsky and Blok still see in man the power to prevent the catastrophe, the poems by Voloshin (1917) are already filled with the foreboding of death. On the lexical and stylistic levels, Bely collects, accumulates and records the significant elements of previous texts dealing with the theme of Apocalypse and the prophecy of the 20th century. This motif undergoes the main change in his poem “The First Date”, full of reflections over the era of modernism, and it is a fundamental review of the role of man in the approaching world cataclysm. Instead of being an active and decisive participant, K. Sluchevsky becomes a powerless witness, condemned to death.