Siberia as a symbolistic topos: Shadows and echoes (1904) by Pyotr L. Dravert

Purpose. Pyotr L. Dravert is a Russian geologist, mineralogist, and a poet connected with Siberia and Urals by his scientific and artistic interests. The studies of Pyotr L. Dravert’s works usually proceed in two directions: either “scientific” or “Siberian”, as it was defined by Efim I. Belenkiy. Boris Ya. Buchstab pointed out the unity of two manifestations of a Dravert’s creative personality: the scientist and the poet. However, the formation of his original poetics was strongly influenced by Russian symbolism (which was noticed in works by Elena I. Dergacheva-Skop, Yury V. Shatin etc.) and this point has been little studied.Results. The article is devoted to Dravert's first collection of poems Shadows and Echoes (Kazan, 1904) in the context of main works of Russian symbolism. Dravert's poetry can be presented as a unique case of the “Siberian text” where the semiotics of space correlates with the artistic discoveries of the Fin de Siècle.