Vyacheslav Ivanov and S. N. Trubetskoy: two views on the continuity of antiquity and Christianity

In Russia, the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries was marked by the growing influence of Friedrich Nietzsche, who dreamed of returning to the Hellenic paganism. The response to the spread of such ideas was the search for spiritual bonds connecting Athens and Jerusalem. S. N. Trubetskoy, for example, came to the conclusion that the Orphic Mysteries prepared the ancient world for the adoption of Christianity. These ideas, expressed in the book «Metaphysics in Ancient Greece», then creatively used the poet and theorist of symbolism Vyacheslav Ivanov in his works on the religion of Dionysus. In his works on classical Philology, however, the name of S. N. Trubetskoy was never mentioned. The fact is that the theorist of symbolism saw in the Hellenic religion a living likeness of the Old Testament. S. N. Trubetskoy, on the contrary, recognized only the external similarity of pagan sacraments and Christianity, emphasizing their essential differences. His conclusions called into question the key provisions of Ivanov’s concept.