Zinaida Gippius: a short biography and creativity. Zinaida Gippius: biography, interesting facts, photo Nikolai Gippius

Zinaida Gippius

DECADENT MADONNA

... Contemporaries called her "sylph", "witch" and "Sataness", glorified her literary talent and "Botticelli" beauty, feared her and worshiped her, insulted and sang. All her life she tried to stay in the shadow of a great husband - but she was considered the only real woman writer in Russia, the smartest woman in the empire. Her opinion in the literary world meant extremely much; and the last years of her life she lived in almost complete isolation. She is Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius.

The Gippius family originates from a certain Adolfus von Gingst, who moved from Mecklenburg to Moscow in the 16th century, where he changed his surname to von Gippius and opened the first bookstore in Russia. The family remained predominantly German, although there were marriages with Russians - three-quarters of Russian blood was in the veins of Zinaida Nikolaevna.

Nikolai Romanovich Gippius met his future wife, the beautiful Siberian Anastasia Stepanova, in the city of Belev, Tula province, where he served after graduating from the Faculty of Law. Here, on November 8, 1869, their daughter, named Zinaida, was born. A month and a half after her birth, Nikolai Romanovich was transferred to Tula - this is how constant moving began. After Tula, there was Saratov, then Kharkov, then Petersburg, where Nikolai Romanovich was appointed comrade (that is, deputy) chief prosecutor of the Senate. But he was soon forced to leave this rather high post: the doctors discovered tuberculosis in Nikolai Romanovich and advised him to move to the south. He transferred to the position of chairman of the court in the town of Nizhyn, Chernihiv province. Nizhyn was known only for the fact that Nikolai Gogol was brought up in it.

Zina was sent to the Kyiv Institute for Noble Maidens, but six months later they were taken back: the girl was so homesick that she spent almost all six months in the institute's infirmary. And since there was no women's gymnasium in Nizhyn, Zina studied at home, with teachers from the local Gogol Lyceum. After working in Nizhyn for three years, Nikolai Romanovich caught a bad cold and died in March 1881. The following year, the family - in addition to Zina, there were three more little sisters, a grandmother and an unmarried mother's sister - moved to Moscow.

Here Zina was sent to the Fischer gymnasium. Zina really liked it there, but six months later the doctors discovered tuberculosis in her too - to the horror of her mother, who was afraid of heredity. It was winter. She was forbidden to leave the house. I had to leave the gymnasium. And in the spring, the mother decided that the family needed to live in the Crimea for a year. Thus, homeschooling has become for Zina the only possible path to self-realization. She was never particularly fond of the sciences, but by nature she was endowed with an energetic mind and a desire for spiritual activity. Even in her early youth, Zina began to keep diaries and write poetry - at first comic, parody, on family members. Moreover, she infected the others with this - her aunt, governesses, even her mother. A trip to the Crimea not only satisfied the love of travel that had developed since childhood, but also provided new opportunities for doing what Zina was most interested in: horse riding and literature.

After the Crimea, the family moved to the Caucasus - the mother's brother, Alexander Stepanov, lived there. His material well-being allowed everyone to spend the summer in Borjomi, a resort town not far from Tiflis. The next summer we went to Manglis, where Alexander Stepanovich suddenly died of inflammation of the brain. The Gippiuses were forced to stay in the Caucasus.

Zina conquered the Tiflis youth. A tall, stately beauty with a magnificent golden-red braid below the knee and emerald eyes irresistibly attracted the gazes, thoughts, feelings of everyone who came across her. She was nicknamed the "poetess" - thereby recognizing her literary talent. In the circle that she gathered around her, almost everyone wrote poetry, imitating the most popular at that time Semyon Nadson, who had recently died of consumption, but her poems were the best. In Tiflis, Zina fell into the hands of the St. Petersburg magazine Picturesque Review with an article about Nadson. There, among other things, the name of another young poet, a friend of Nadson, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, was mentioned, and one of his poems was cited. Zina did not like it, but for some reason the name was remembered ...

In the spring of 1888, the Gippiuses and Stepanovs again went to Borjomi. Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky, who travels around the Caucasus after graduating from St. Petersburg University, also comes there. By that time, he had already published his first book of poems and was a fairly well-known poet. As both believed, their meeting was mystical in nature and was predetermined from above. A year later, on January 8, 1889, Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky got married in the Tiflis Church of Michael the Archangel. She was 19 years old, he was 23.

According to the mutual desire of the newlyweds, the wedding was very modest. The bride was in a dark steel suit and a small hat with a pink lining, and the groom was in a frock coat and uniform "Nikolaev" overcoat. There were no guests, no flowers, no prayer service, no wedding feast. In the evening after the wedding, Merezhkovsky went to his hotel, and Zina stayed with her parents. In the morning, her mother woke her up with a cry: “Get up! You are still sleeping, and your husband has already come!” Only then Zina remembered that she got married yesterday ... So a family union was born, which was destined to play a crucial role in the history of Russian culture. They lived together for more than fifty years, not parting for a day.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky came from a wealthy family - his father, Sergei Ivanovich, served at the court of Alexander II and retired with the rank of general. The family had three daughters and six sons, Dmitry - the youngest, mother's favorite. It was thanks to his mother that Dmitry Sergeevich was able to obtain from his father, a rather stingy person, consent to the wedding and material assistance. She also rented and furnished an apartment for the young in St. Petersburg - immediately after the wedding, Zinaida and Dmitry moved here. They lived like this: each had a separate bedroom, his own study - and a common living room, where the spouses met, read each other what was written, exchanged opinions, received guests.

Dmitry Sergeevich's mother died two and a half months after his wedding, on March 20. Sergei Ivanovich, who passionately loved his wife and was indifferent to children, went abroad, where he became interested in spiritualism and practically stopped communicating with his family. An exception was made only for Dmitry - as a favorite of his late wife. Sergei Ivanovich died in 1908 - 19 years later, to the day, after the death of his wife.

Contemporaries argued that the family union of Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky was primarily a spiritual union and was never truly marital. Both denied the physical side of marriage. At the same time, both had hobbies, loves (including same-sex ones), but they only strengthened the family. Zinaida Nikolaevna had many hobbies - she liked to charm men and liked to be charmed. But it never went beyond kissing. Gippius believed that only in a kiss are lovers equal, and in what should follow next, someone will definitely stand above the other. And this Zinaida in no case could not allow. For her, the most important thing has always been the equality and union of souls - but not bodies.

All this allowed ill-wishers to call the marriage of Gippius and Merezhkovsky "the union of a lesbian and a homosexual." Letters were thrown into Merezhkovsky's apartment: "Aphrodite took her revenge on you by sending a hermaphrodite wife."

More often, Gippius had affairs with men. Although they could only be called novels with some stretch. Basically, these are common affairs, letters, conversations that dragged on all night in the Merezhkovskys' house, a few kisses - that's all. In the early 1890s, Zinaida Nikolaevna closely converged with two at once - the symbolist poet Nikolai Minsky and the playwright and prose writer Fyodor Chervinsky, Merezhkovsky's university acquaintance. Minsky loved her passionately - and Gippius only, in her own words, was in love "with herself through him." In 1895, Zinaida Nikolaevna began an affair with Akim Flexer (Volynsky), a well-known critic and ideologist of the Severny Vestnik magazine. The acquaintance was a long time ago. It was Akim Volynsky who first published the poems of Gippius, which no magazine wanted to take. A long cooperation gradually grew into friendship, then into love. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Gippius's feeling for Volynsky was the strongest feeling in the life of Zinaida Nikolaevna. But even with him, she remained herself: most of all, in Akim Lvovich, she was captivated by the fact that he, like her, was going to preserve his “corporal purity” ... As Gippius later wrote, they broke up because of the “impossible Russian language”, which Flexer wrote his critical articles.

In the late 1890s and early 1900s, Gippius was on close terms with the English Baroness Elisabeth von Overbeck. Coming from a family of Russified Germans, she collaborated as a composer with Merezhkovsky - she wrote music for the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles translated by him, which were staged at the Alexandrinsky Theater. Gippius dedicated several poems to Elisabeth von Overbeck. These contemporaries called relations both purely business and frankly love...

Nevertheless, the marriage of Gippius and Merezhkovsky was a truly unique creative union. There are different points of view on who nevertheless was in the lead in it, but they agree on one thing: it was Zinaida who owned those ideas that Merezhkovsky later developed in his works. Without him, all her ideas would have remained only words, and he would have been silent without her. It happened that articles written by Zinaida Nikolaevna were published under the name of Merezhkovsky. There was also such a case: somehow she “gave” Dmitry Sergeevich two poems, which he really liked. Accompanying one of them with a long epigraph from the Apocalypse, Merezhkovsky included them in his collection of poems. But Gippius, "forgetting" about the gift, published these poems in her collection. And although it was immediately clear that the poems were not written by Merezhkovsky - as the poet Gippius was much stronger - she got away with the joke. Nobody noticed.

Zinaida quickly took a prominent place in the literary life of the capital. Already in 1888, she began to publish - her first publication was poetry in the journal Severny Vestnik, then a story in Vestnik Evropy. The family lived almost exclusively on royalties - mainly for critical articles, which both wrote in large numbers. The poems of Zinaida Gippius, like the prose of Dmitry Merezhkovsky, at first did not find publishers - so little did they fit into the then accepted framework of “good literature”, inherited from the liberal criticism of the 1860s. However, decadence gradually comes from the West and takes root on Russian soil, and first of all, such a literary phenomenon as symbolism. Originating in France, symbolism penetrated Russia in the early 1890s and within a few years became the leading style in Russian literature. Gippius and Merezhkovsky are at the origins of symbolism emerging in Russia - together with Nikolai Minsky, Innokenty Annensky, Valery Bryusov, Fyodor Sologub, Konstantin Balmont, they were called "senior symbolists". It was they who took upon themselves the brunt of criticism, which continued to stand on the obsolete positions of populism. After all, the “sixties” believed that the first task of literature was to reveal the ulcers of society, to teach and serve as an example, and any literary work was evaluated not by its artistic merits, but by the idea (ideally, civic accusation) that was found there. The Symbolists fought for the restoration of the aesthetic principle in literature. And they won. The “younger symbolists” of the generation of Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely came to the positions already won for them by their older brothers in writing, and only deepened and expanded the sphere of what they had won.

In the early 1890s, Merezhkovsky began work on the Christ and Antichrist trilogy, first on Julian the Apostate and then on Leonardo da Vinci, his most famous novel. Gathering material for the trilogy, Zinaida Nikolaevna and Dmitry Sergeevich make two trips around Europe. Zinaida first comes to Paris - a city that immediately fascinated her and where the Merezhkovskys would later spend many years. Upon their return, they settled at the corner of Liteiny Prospekt and Panteleimonovskaya Street, in the "Muruzi house" - in a house that, thanks to them, became the center of the literary, artistic, religious and philosophical life of St. Petersburg. Here Zinaida Nikolaevna arranged the most famous literary salon, where many prominent cultural figures of that time gathered.

The cultural environment of the 19th century largely consisted of the activities of various circles - home, friendly, university, formed around the publishing houses of almanacs, magazines, many of which also arose from circles at one time. Meetings at the editorial office of the New Way magazine, evenings of the Mir Iskusstva magazine, Sundays by the writer and philosopher Vasily Rozanov, Wednesdays in the Tower by Vyacheslav Ivanov, Fridays by Nikolai Minsky, Sundays by Fyodor Sologub - the Merezhkovsky couple was an indispensable participant all of these – and many more – gatherings. Their house was also open to guests - poets, writers, artists, religious and political figures. “Culture was truly created here. Everyone here once studied,” wrote Andrei Bely, one of the regular guests of the salon. Gippius was not just a salon owner, gathering interesting people in her house, but an inspirer, instigator and ardent participant in all the discussions that happened, a center of refraction of diverse opinions, judgments, positions. The influence of Gippius on the literary process was recognized by almost all contemporaries. She was called the "decadent Madonna", rumors, gossip, legends swarmed around her, which Gippius not only collected with pleasure, but also actively multiplied. She was very fond of hoaxes. For example, she wrote letters to her husband in different handwriting, as if from fans, in which, depending on the situation, she scolded or praised him. The opponent could be sent a letter written in his own handwriting, in which she continued the discussion that had begun earlier.

She actively participated in the literary and personal lives of her contemporaries. Gradually, acquaintance with Gippius, visits to her salon become mandatory for novice writers of the Symbolist - and not only - sense. With her active assistance, the literary debut of Alexander Blok took place. She brought the novice Osip Mandelstam to the people. She owns the first review of the poems of the then unknown Sergei Yesenin.

She was a famous critic. She usually wrote under male pseudonyms, the most famous of which is Anton Krainy, but everyone knew who was hiding behind these male masks. Insightful, daring, in an ironically aphoristic tone, Gippius wrote about everything that deserved even the slightest attention. They were afraid of her sharp tongue, many hated her, but everyone listened to the opinion of Anton Krainy.

The poems, which she always signed with her name, were written mainly from a male perspective. This was both a share of outrageousness, and the manifestation of her really in some way masculine nature (it was not for nothing that they said that in their family Gippius is the husband, and Merezhkovsky is the wife; she impregnates him, and he bears her ideas), and the game. Zinaida Nikolaevna was unshakably confident in her own exclusivity and significance and tried her best to emphasize this. She allowed herself everything that was forbidden to the rest. She wore men's outfits - they effectively emphasized her undeniable femininity. This is how she was depicted in the famous portrait of Lev Bakst. She loved to play with people, to put peculiar experiments on them. First, it attracts them with an expression of deep interest, charms with its undoubted beauty and charm, and then repels them with arrogance, mockery, cold contempt. With her extraordinary mind, it was not difficult. Her favorite pastimes were to tease people, embarrass them, embarrass them, and watch their reactions. Gippius could receive an unfamiliar person in the bedroom, undressed, or even taking a bath at all. The famous lorgnette, which the short-sighted Zinaida Nikolaevna used with defiant impudence, and a necklace made from the wedding rings of her admirers also entered the story.

Gippius deliberately provoked others to negative feelings towards her. She liked being called a "witch" - this confirmed that the "demonic" image that she intensively cultivated was working successfully. She sewed dresses for herself, at which passers-by looked in bewilderment and horror both in St. Petersburg and in Paris, she obviously used cosmetics indecently - she applied a thick layer of brick-colored powder on her delicate white skin.

Zinaida Gippius, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Dmitry Filosofov

She tried to hide her true face, thus trying to learn not to suffer. Possessing a vulnerable, hypersensitive nature, Gippius deliberately broke, remade herself in order to gain psychological protection, to acquire a shell that protects her soul from damage. And since, as you know, the best way to defend is an attack, Zinaida Nikolaevna chose such a defiant style of behavior ...

A huge place in the value system of Zinaida Gippius was occupied by the problems of spirit and religion. It was Gippius who came up with the idea of ​​the famous Religious and Philosophical Meetings (1901-1903), which played a significant role in the Russian religious revival of the early 20th century. At these meetings, the creative intelligentsia, together with representatives of the official church, discussed issues of faith. Gippius was one of the founding members and an indispensable participant in all meetings.

At the first meeting, she appeared in a deaf black see-through dress with a pink lining. With every movement, the impression of a naked body was created. The church hierarchs present at the meeting were embarrassed and shyly averted their eyes ...

During the preparation of the Religious and Philosophical Meetings, Merezhkovsky and Gippius become close to Dmitry Vasilyevich Filosofov. A cousin and closest friend (and according to some sources, also a lover) of the famous patron of the arts Sergei Diaghilev, he belonged to the World of Art group, with which Zinaida Nikolaevna and Dmitry Sergeevich had long-standing friendly ties. Members of this group were considered followers of the philosopher Vasily Rozanov, but Merezhkovsky's ideas turned out to be closer to Filosofov. The rapprochement was so strong that Gippius, Merezhkovsky and Philosophers even entered into a special "triple" union, reminiscent of marriage, for which a special, jointly developed rite was performed. The union was seen as the germ of a future kind of religious order. The principles of his work were as follows: the external separation of the church from the state and the internal union with Orthodoxy, the goal is the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. It was the activity in this direction that all three perceived as their duty to Russia, contemporaries and subsequent generations. Zinaida Nikolaevna always called this task - the main thing.

However, the discord with the "World of Art" that soon emerged leads to the destruction of this union: a year later, Philosophers returned to Diaghilev, who spent a lot of effort on quarreling his cousin with the Merezhkovskys. Philosophers is said to be sick, Diaghilev hides him in his apartment and stops all attempts by Merezhkovsky to sort things out. Because of this, relations with Diaghilev also cease. Soon he and Philosophers go abroad.

In 1903, meetings were banned by a decree of the Holy Synod.

In the same year, the mother of Zinaida Nikolaevna died. Both she and her sisters were very worried about her death. At that time, Dmitry Sergeevich and Philosophers, who had returned from abroad, were next to her. They got close again. And since then they have not been separated for fifteen years.

Dmitry Vasilyevich was a very handsome, elegant, refined, highly cultured, widely educated, truly religious person. Zinaida Nikolaevna was for some time infatuated with him as a man (it was to him that her only poem written from a woman's face was addressed), but Filosofov rejected her harassment, citing an aversion to any carnal intercourse, and offered a spiritual and friendly union in return. Some thought that he preferred Gippius to Merezhkovsky. Nevertheless, for many years he was the closest friend, colleague and companion of both - both Dmitry Sergeevich and Zinaida Nikolaevna.

In the following years they live together. A lot of time is spent abroad, especially in Paris. However, the events of 1905 found them in St. Petersburg. Having learned about the execution of a peaceful demonstration on January 9 - Bloody Sunday - Merezhkovsky, Gippius,

Philosophers, Andrei Bely and several other acquaintances stage their own demonstration as a sign of protest: they come to the Alexandria Theater (imperial!) in the evening and disrupt the performance.

That evening, the famous actor Nikolai Varlamov, already elderly, was supposed to play. They say he cried backstage: his performances never failed!

From 1906, Merezhkovsky, Gippius and Philosophers lived mainly abroad, most often in Paris and the Riviera. They returned to their homeland just before the start of the World War, in the spring of 1914. For religious reasons, the Merezhkovskys had a purely negative attitude towards any war. Gippius said that war is a desecration of mankind. They saw their patriotism not in praising the power of Russian weapons everywhere, like many then, but in explaining to society where senseless bloodshed could lead. Gippius argued that every war bears in itself the germ of a new war, generated by the national bitterness of the vanquished.

However, over time, she came to the conclusion that only an "honest revolution" could end the war. Like other symbolists, Gippius saw in the revolution a great spiritual upheaval capable of purifying man and creating a new world of spiritual freedom. Therefore, the Merezhkovskys accepted the February Revolution with enthusiasm: the autocracy completely discredited itself, they hated it. They rejoiced that now there are people like them in the government, that there are many of their acquaintances there. But still they understood that the Provisional Government was too weak to retain power. When the October Revolution took place, Zinaida Nikolaevna was horrified: she foresaw that the Russia she loved, in which she lived, was no more. Her diaries of those years are full of fear, disgust, anger - and the smartest assessments of what is happening, the most interesting sketches, the most valuable observations. The Merezhkovskys from the very beginning emphasized their rejection of the new government. Zinaida Nikolaevna openly broke with everyone who began to cooperate with the new government, publicly scolded Blok for his poem "The Twelve", quarreled with Bely and Bryusov. The new power for both Gippius and Merezhkovsky was the embodiment of the "kingdom of the Devil." But the decision to leave is being postponed and postponed. They still hoped for the defeat of the Bolsheviks ... And when they finally decided and Merezhkovsky asked permission to go abroad for treatment, they were categorically forbidden to leave. However, at the end of 1919 they manage to escape from the country. Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius, Dmitry Filosofov and Gippius's secretary Vladimir Zlobin illegally crossed the Polish border near Bobruisk.

First they settled in Minsk, and in early February 1920 they moved to Warsaw. Here they plunged into active political activity among Russian emigrants. The meaning of their life here was the struggle for the freedom of Russia from Bolshevism. Gippius was active in circles close to the Polish government against the possible conclusion of peace with Soviet Russia. She became the editor of the literary department of the Svoboda newspaper, where she published her political poems. Dmitry Filosofov was elected a member of the Russian Committee and became closely associated with Boris Savinkov, a former member of the terrorist "Battle Group" - he led the anti-Bolshevik movement in Poland. Gippius had known Savinkov for a long time - they became close in 1908-1914 in France, where Savinkov then organized meetings of his group. As a result of communication with Gippius and under her undoubted influence, Savinkov wrote the novel Pale Horse, published in 1909 under the pseudonym V. Ropshin. Gippius edited the novel, came up with a title for it, brought the manuscript to Russia and published it in the Russian Thought magazine. In 1917-1918, Gippius pinned special hopes on Savinkov, along with Kerensky, as the spokesman for new ideas and the savior of Russia.

Now Merezhkovsky and Gippius saw such a savior in Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, head of the Polish government. They hoped that by rallying all the anti-Bolshevik forces around Poland, he would rid the world of Bolshevism. However, on October 12, 1920, Poland and Russia signed an armistice. It was officially announced that the Russian people in Poland, on pain of expulsion from the country, were forbidden to criticize the Bolshevik government.

A week later, Gippius, Merezhkovsky and Zlobin left for Paris. Philosophers, who fell under the strongest influence of Savinkov, remained in Warsaw, where he headed the propaganda department in the Russian National Committee of Poland.

Having settled in Paris, where they had an apartment since pre-revolutionary times, the Merezhkovskys resumed their acquaintance with the color of the Russian emigration: Konstantin Balmont, Nikolai Minsky, Ivan Bunin, Ivan Shmelev, Alexander Kuprin, Nikolai Berdyaev and others. Zinaida Nikolaevna again found herself in her element. Again, life was seething around her, she was constantly printed - not only in Russian, but also in German, French, and several Slavic languages. Only more and more bitterness in her words, more and more melancholy, despair and poison in verses...

In 1926, the Merezhkovskys decided to organize the literary and philosophical society "Green Lamp" - a kind of continuation of the society of the same name at the beginning of the 19th century, in which A. S. Pushkin took part. Georgy Ivanov became the president of the society, and Zlobin became the secretary. The Merezhkovskys wanted to create something like an "incubator of ideas", an environment for discussing the most important issues. The society played a prominent role in the intellectual life of the first emigration and for a number of years gathered its best representatives.

The meetings were closed: guests were invited according to the list, each was charged a small fee that went to rent the premises. Ivan Bunin, Boris Zaitsev, Mikhail Aldanov, Alexei Remizov, Nadezhda Teffi, Nikolai Berdyaev and many others were regular participants in the meetings. The existence of the society ceased only with the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

Gippius changed little over the years. And suddenly it turned out that she remained practically alone among the émigré writers: the old generation, her former associates, gradually left the literary scene, many had already died, and she was not close to the new generation, who began their work already in exile. And she herself understood this: in The Shining, a book of poems published in 1938, there was a lot of bitterness, disappointment, loneliness, a sense of loss of the familiar world. And the new world eluded her...

Merezhkovsky, in his hatred of communism, consistently staked on all dictators in Europe. In the late 30s, he became interested in the ideas of fascism, personally met with Mussolini. In him, Merezhkovsky saw a possible savior of Europe from the "communist infection." Zinaida Nikolaevna did not share this idea - any tyrant was disgusting to her.

In 1940 the Merezhkovskys moved to Biarritz. Soon Paris was occupied by the Germans, all Russian magazines and newspapers were closed. The emigrants had to leave literature and only try not to get involved with the occupiers.

Gippius's attitude towards Nazi Germany was ambivalent. On the one hand, she, hating Bolshevism, hoped that Hitler would help crush the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, any kind of despotism was unacceptable to her, she denied war and violence. And although Zinaida Nikolaevna passionately wanted to see Russia free from Bolshevism, she never collaborated with the Nazis. She always remained on the side of Russia.

In the summer of 1941, shortly after the German attack on the USSR, Vladimir Zlobin, together with his German acquaintance, without the knowledge of Gippius, brought Merezhkovsky to the German radio. Thus, they wanted to alleviate the difficult financial situation of Dmitry Sergeyevich and Zinaida Nikolaevna. Merezhkovsky made a speech where he began to compare Hitler with Joan of Arc, called to save the world from the power of the devil, spoke about the victory of spiritual values ​​that German warrior knights carry on their bayonets ... Gippius, having learned about this speech, was seething with anger and indignation . However, she could not leave her husband, especially now. After all, after this speech, almost everyone turned away from them. December 7, 1941 Dmitry Sergeevich died. Only a few people came to see him on his last journey ...

Shortly before his death, he became completely disillusioned with Hitler.

After the death of her husband, Zinaida Nikolaevna was a little out of her mind. At first, she hardly accepted his death, even wanted to commit suicide by jumping out of the window. Then she suddenly calmed down, saying that Dmitry Sergeevich was alive, she even talked to him.

She outlived him by several years. Zinaida Gippius died on September 9, 1945, she was 76. Her death caused a whole explosion of emotions. Those who hated Gippius did not believe in her death, and in order to personally verify that she was dead, they pounded on the coffin with sticks. Those few who respected and appreciated her saw in her death the end of an entire era ... Ivan Bunin, who never came to the funeral - he was terribly afraid of death and everything connected with it - practically did not leave the coffin. She was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, next to her husband Dmitry Merezhkovsky.

The legend is gone. And the descendants were left with several collections of poems, dramas, novels, volumes of critical articles, several books of memoirs - and memory. The memory of a great woman who tried to keep in the shadow of a great husband and lit up Russian literature with the light of her soul.

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Z. GIPPIUS AND D. MEREZHKOVSKY Twenty-two years have passed - not such a long time - but it seems like an eternity - since the death of Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius (she died in Paris on September 9, 1945), and now we have almost nothing about her remember. And how to remember: what do we know about it? some

Z. GIPPIUS AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL Is the problem of evil solvable? In an abstract philosophical order - no. In religion, where it belongs, evil does not exist as a problem: there is a secret of evil, and all that can be said about it is that no one has yet been able to penetrate it. Those who tried

GIPPIUS AND PHILOSOPHOV I In the spring of 1892, Z.N. Gippius another bronchitis. D.S. Merezhkovsky, having obtained money from his father, takes her first to the Riviera, to Nice, and then, when she gets better, briefly to Italy. In Nice, at the dacha of Professor Maxim Kovalevsky - Villa "Elenroc"

Z. GIPPIUS AND THE DEVIL For the first time, Gippius mentions the devil in the poem "Griselda" of 1895. Griselda, waiting in the castle for her husband's return from the war, suffered "unheard of troubles", the "Lord of Evil" himself tried to seduce her. But Satan humbled himself, Griselda defeated, And the enemy

THE LAST DAYS OF D. MEREZHKOVSKY AND Z. GIPPIUS I Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky died suddenly in Paris, on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the day Japan entered World War II. He was in his 77th year. He was not sick. In general, he rarely got sick. Over the last twenty years of his

The Gippius family originates from Adolfus von Gingst, who changed his surname Gingst to von Gippius and moved to Russia (to Moscow) in the 16th century, it seems, from Mecklenburg (von Gippius coat of arms - 1515). Despite such a long stay in Russia, this surname is still mostly German; marriages with Russians did not give strong branches.

My grandfather, Karl-Roman von Gippius, was married to a Muscovite Aristova, Russian. Their first son, Nikolai Romanovich, was my father. He graduated from Moscow University very early and then lived, in view of the onset of tuberculosis, for about two years in Switzerland. Returning, he became a "candidate for judicial positions" in Tula. In the same year he met my mother, whose young brothers also served in Tula in the judicial department.

My maternal grandfather, V. Stepanov, had already died at that time; he was a police chief in Yekaterinburg. Uneducated himself, however, he sent both sons to Kazan University. After his death, the widow with her daughters moved to Tula, to her sons.

My maternal grandmother lived with us all her life. In contrast to my other - Moscow - grandmother, Aristova, who wrote only in French and did not allow herself to be called anything other than grand "maman, this one wore a headscarf to death, could not read, and never even dined with us.

In January 1869 my father got married and left for Belev, Tula province, where he got a job. I was born in Belev, at the end of the same year, 1869, on November 8, and six weeks later my father was again transferred to Tula, as a deputy prosecutor, and my aunt drove me all the way, in her arms, in a wagon.

Since then, our constant moving began: from Tula to Saratov, from Saratov to Kharkov, and each time in the interval we were in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where we stayed for a long time.

I grew up alone. All with the same, eternal nurse, Darya Pavlovna, and then with countless governesses, who did not get along well with me.

In 1877-1878. my father was transferred to St. Petersburg as a comrade of the chief prosecutor of the Senate. But we did not live there for long: my father's tuberculosis immediately worsened, and his transfer was hastily arranged again to the south, to the tiny town of the Chernigov province of Nizhyn, to the post of chairman of the court. I was sent to the Kyiv Institute, but six months later they took me back, because I was very small, terribly bored and spent all the time in the infirmary, where they did not know how to treat me: I did not suffer from anything, except for fever.

At that time there was no women's gymnasium in Nizhyn, and teachers from the Gogol Lyceum came to see me.

Three years later, my father, who was constantly ill, caught a bad cold and died (March 9, 1881) from acute tuberculosis. He died young - he was not yet 35 years old. After him, quite a lot of literary material remained (he wrote for himself, never published). He wrote poetry, translated Lenau and Byron, translated, by the way, the entire Cain.

After the death of my father, my mother and children (at that time I already had three very small sisters) decided to finally move to live in Moscow. The funds turned out to be small, but the family was decent: our grandmother and an unmarried aunt, my mother's sister, also lived with us.

But we did not live in Moscow for more than three years either: my illness, which was suspected to be the onset of hereditary tuberculosis and due to which I had to leave the classical Fischer gymnasium (for some reason my mother sent me there, and I liked the gymnasium), this illness made us first move to Yalta, and then to Tiflis.

We lived in Yalta for a year, at the secluded dacha of A. N. Drashusov, on the way to Uchan-Su. There I had only books, classes with sisters, and endless writings - letters, diaries, poems ... I wrote all sorts of poems, but I read playful ones, and hid or destroyed serious ones.

Even during my father's lifetime, I knew Gogol and Turgenev well. In Moscow, especially during the last year, I re-read all Russian literature and became especially addicted to Dostoevsky. I read randomly, and only two people helped me to sort it out somehow: my uncle from the maternal side, who lived with us for some time (he soon left and died of throat consumption), and a teacher of the last year in Moscow, Nikolai Petrovich (I don’t remember his last name), to which I am still grateful. He brought me new books of magazines, he read the classics to me, and asked serious essays. I remember that he wrote then in Russkiye Vedomosti.

We moved from Yalta to Tiflis partly because my mother's second brother lived there with his family, a well-known Tiflis attorney at law, editor of Novye Obozreniye, which he himself created. Although I recovered, my mother was still afraid to take me north, and my sisters were in poor health.

It turned out to be too late to enter the gymnasium (I was 16 years old), I would not have passed the exam in the last class - my knowledge was too unsystematic. She knew how to do what she liked, but to another she was strangely stupid.

Books - and endless personal, almost always secret, writings - only this one thing mainly occupied me. At one time I became addicted to music (my mother was a good musician), but then I quit, feeling that I would not achieve the “real” here. My character was lively, a little sharp, but sociable, and I was by no means averse to the “fun” of a provincial young lady. But most of all she loved horses, riding; traveled far into the mountains.

My uncle died in the summer. The next summer, 1888, we spent in Borzhom (a summer cottage near Tiflis), and there I met D. S. Merezhkovsky.

At that time, the youth of Tiflis called me a "poetess." The youth of a non-university city are either graduate students or officers. But the officers did not visit us, they seemed to me more rude and stupid than the schoolboys, with whom we were carried away together by the barely dead Nadson; many of them, like me, also wrote poetry. In addition, these were all the comrades of my cousin, with whom I was very friendly.

D. S. Merezhkovsky at that time had just published the first book of his poems. I did not like them, just as he did not like mine, not printed, but memorized by some of my friends. No matter how fond I was of Nadson, I could not write "under Nadson" and I myself did not really like my poems. Yes, they were indeed rather weak and wild.

On the basis of literature, we argued a lot and even quarreled with Merezhkovsky.

He left for Petersburg in September. In November, when I turned 19, I returned to Tiflis; Two months later, on January 8, 1889, we got married and left for Petersburg.

My poems first appeared in print in November 1888 in Severny Vestnik, signed by Z. G.

Following our departure, my mother and her family also left Tiflis, first to Moscow and then to St. Petersburg (where she died in 1903).

My further life in St. Petersburg, literary activity, literary circles, my meetings and relations with writers for more than twenty years - all this could serve as a topic for memoirs and is of little use for an autobiographical note.

In all the years that have passed, Merezhkovsky and I have never parted. Traveled a lot. Lived in Rome. Twice were in Turkey, in Greece.

Merezhkovsky's father was a rather wealthy man (he died a very old man in 1906), but, thanks to his personal qualities and the many daughters and sons, he helped us little, and we lived almost exclusively by literary work. I always wrote poems rarely and little, - only when I could not help but write. I was attracted to prose; The experience of the diaries showed me that there is nothing more boring, painful and unsuccessful than personal prose - I wanted objectivity.

My first story, "A Simple Life" (the title was changed by M. M. Stasyulevich to "Unfortunate"), was published in 1890, I think, in Vestnik Evropy. I wrote novels, the titles of which I don’t even remember, and I published in approximately all the magazines that existed then, large and small. I remember with gratitude the late Scheller, who was so kind and gentle to young writers.

I note that the European "decadence" movement had no effect on me. I was never fond of French poets and read little of them in the 1990s. Actually, it was not decadence that occupied me, but the problem of individualism and all the questions related to it. I loved literature tenderly and jealously, but I never “deified” it: after all, not a person is for her, but she is for a person.

That “dual” worldview that Merezhkovsky experienced at the end of the 90s (“the sky above - the sky below”, the novel by L. da Vinci) was never mine. I remember that during this period we argued and quarreled especially hotly, since I could not accept “duality”, but I could not determine why I did not reconcile with it.

I can also say that I did not have a streak of absolute irreligion at all. The green children's "grandmother's lamp" was soon, of course, obscured by life. But life, constantly confronting me with the mystery of death, with the mystery of the Personality, with the mystery of the beautiful, could not transfer souls to that plane where no “lamps” are lit.

The most striking events of my (and “our”) life of recent years, I consider the organization of the first Religious-Philosophical Meetings (1901-1902), then the publication of the journal “New Way” (1902-1904), the internal experience of the events of 1905 and then our joint trip with DV Filosofov abroad, to Paris, where we lived for more than three years.

There we published a collection in French; of the four articles, two belonged to me: "On Violence" and "What is the strength of the autocracy."

In them, I tried to express, still briefly, still almost in hints, some of the thoughts that occupied me very much and were important for the general structure of my worldview. These private thoughts were subsequently superbly supported, developed and supplemented by my more talented friends, mainly D. S. Merezhkovsky - even, as it were, re-created by him.

In all conscience, I must say that I never denied Merezhkovsky's influence on me, just because I consciously went towards this influence, but in exactly the same way as he went towards mine. From this encounter, a new thought or understanding was often born, which no longer belonged to him or me, perhaps - to "us".

In the same way, however, I went, we went, as far as we could, towards the "influence" of our friend D. V. Filosofov and all those close to me, whose help I remember with great love.

It is almost impossible to write and talk about oneself personally. And to judge oneself, to evaluate oneself in a literary or any other respect - it is impossible at all. This is the business of others. I will only say that I myself attach importance to very few of my words, writings, deeds and thoughts. There are three or four lines of poetry: "... I want something that is not in the world ..."; "... in foggy days - comfort a weak brother, have pity, deceive ..."; “We must drink every cup to the bottom ...”; "Who God does not own, Rock owns..."; "... it was he who did not give me - to be ..." (about a woman). If there are others, I don't remember. I remember these.

I still remember my life-successful thought about the need for Religious-Philosophical Meetings - our magazine "New Way"; I recall my words “it is impossible and necessary” (a vague, but brief and for me clear formula) on the issue of “violence”. What was also important to me was the idea of ​​"the power of the one over the many", of the very principle of autocracy, the eternal, general, anti-religious principle of the man-hero, the man-owner...

The center, the essence of the fundamental worldview, to which the consistent path led me, is inexpressible "only in words." Schematically, partly symbolically, this essence is presented in the form of a comprehensive world Triangle, in the form of a constant co-presence of three Beginnings, inseparable and unmerged, always three - and always constituting One.

The embodiment of this worldview in words and, most importantly, in life is necessary, and it will be. If we can't do it, others will. It's all the same - as long as it was.

Notes:

For the first time in the book: Russian literature of the XX century. 1890-1910. Ed. S. A. Vengerova. T. I. M., 1914.

• ... translated Lenau and Byron, translated ... all of Cain.- Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850) - Austrian romantic poet. George Noel Gordon Byron (1788-1824) was an English Romantic poet. "Cain" (1821) - the philosophical and symbolic mystery of Byron.

Biography

Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius (1869−1945) was from a Russified German family, her father's ancestors moved to Russia in the 19th century; mother is from Siberia. Due to the frequent relocations of the family (her father is a lawyer, he held high positions), Z. Gippius did not receive a systematic education, she attended educational institutions in fits and starts. From childhood she was fond of "writing poetry and secret diaries." In 1889, in Tiflis, she married D. S. Merezhkovsky, with whom she “lived for 52 years, not parting for a single day.” Together with her husband in the same year she moved to St. Petersburg; Here the Merezhkovskys made wide literary acquaintances and soon took a prominent place in the artistic life of the capital.

Poems by Z. Gippius, published in the journal of the “senior” symbolists “Northern Messenger”, - “Song” (“I need something that is not in the world ...”) and “Dedication” (with the lines: “I love myself like God” ) immediately became notorious. In 1904, the Collection of Poems was published. 1889−1893 "and in 1910 -" Collection of poems. Book 2. 1903-1909, combined with the first book by the constancy of themes and images: the spiritual discord of a person who is looking for a higher meaning in everything, a divine justification for a low earthly existence, but who has not found sufficient reasons to reconcile and accept - neither the "heaviness of happiness", nor the renunciation of him.

In 1899-1901 Gippius worked closely with the magazine "World of Art"; in 1901-1904 she was one of the organizers and an active participant in the Religious and Philosophical Meetings and the de facto co-editor of the New Way magazine, where her clever and sharp critical articles are published under the pseudonym Anton Krainiy, and later becomes the leading critic of the Scales magazine (in 1908, selected articles published as a separate book - "Literary Diary").

At the beginning of the century, the Merezhkovsky apartment became one of the centers of the cultural life of St. Petersburg, where young poets underwent a difficult test of personal acquaintance with

"Matressa". Z. Gippius made high, extreme demands of religious service to beauty and truth (“verses are prayers”) to poetry. Collections of short stories by Z. Gippius enjoyed much less success with readers and provoked sharp attacks from critics.

The events of the Revolution of 1905−1907 became a turning point in Z. Gippius' life creative biography. If until that time socio-political issues were outside the sphere of Z. Gippius’s interests, then after January 9, which, according to the writer, “turned” her, actual social problems, “civil motives” become dominant in her work, especially in prose. Z. Gippius and D. Merezhkovsky become irreconcilable opponents of autocracy, fighters against the conservative state system of Russia (“Yes, autocracy comes from the Antichrist,” Gippius writes at that time).

In February 1906 they leave for Paris, where they spend more than two years. Here the Merezhkovskys publish a collection of anti-monarchist articles in French, get closer to the revolutionary circles, maintain relations with B. Savinkov. Passion for politics did not abolish the mystical searches of Z. Gippius: the new slogan - "the religious community" assumed the unification of all the radical forces of the intelligentsia to solve the problem of renewing Russia.

Political predilections are reflected in the literary work of those years; the novels The Devil's Doll (1911) and Roman Tsarevich (1912) are frankly tendentious, "problematic". The dramatically changed life position of Z. Gippius manifested itself in an unusual way during the First World War, when she began to write "common" women's letters stylized as a popular print to soldiers at the front, sometimes putting them in pouches, on behalf of three women ("pseudonyms" - names and surnames three servants Z. Gippius). These poetic messages (“Fly, fly, present, “To the far side”, etc.), which are not of artistic value, had a great public response.

Z. Gippius accepted the October Revolution with hostility (the collection “Last Poems. 1911−1918”, Pg., 1918) and at the beginning of 1920 emigrated with her husband and settled in France. Two more of her poetry collections were published abroad: “Poems. Diary 1911-1921" (Berlin, 1922) and "Shine" (Paris, 1939).

Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius was born on November 20, 1869 in the city of Belev, Tula region of the Russian Empire. Her paternal ancestors were German settlers, and her mother is Siberian.

Unfortunately, due to her father's work and the travels associated with it, Zinaida was never able to receive a permanent education. However, from childhood she was distinguished by an enviable love for literature, wrote poetry and secret diaries.

In 1881, her father died of tuberculosis, and her mother decided to take the whole family to Borjomi. At the age of 18, she met D.S. Merezhkovsky and 2 years later, in 1889, she married him. By the way, their marriage lasted, not much, not a little, 52 years. The Merezhkovskys immediately moved to St. Petersburg, where they soon occupied a prominent place in the cultural life of the capital.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, Zinaida collaborated with the magazine "World of Art", a couple of years later she wrote her harsh critical articles under the pseudonym Anton Krainy. Revolution of 1905-1907 The Merezhkovskys do not accept and act as her clear opponents. In February 1906 they had to leave for Paris, where they spent the next two years of their life together. In France, they did not waste their time, got close to the revolutionary circles and published a collection of anti-monarchist articles in French.

They returned to their homeland only in 1908, but with the outbreak of the First World War, they sharply spoke out against Russia's participation in it. That is the only reason why Zinaida Gippius welcomes the revolution of 1917, hoping that it will put an end to the war. The Merezhkovskys establish close ties with the head of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky, but quickly cease to trust him. In the early 20s, she and her husband had to leave the country and work abroad. Zinaida Nikolaevna died on September 9, 1945. She died away from her homeland, in Paris.

Zinaida Gippius is one of the brightest representatives of the Silver Age of Russian literature. Her marriage to was the most original and creative union in the history of literature. In addition, they are considered the ideologists of Russian symbolism.

The subject of poems by Zinaida Gippius:

Part of the early poems of Zinaida Gippius were full of pessimism and melancholy, which, in other matters, did not last long. Later, one of the critics commented on the poetry of Gippius that the poems of the poetess are the best reflection of the human soul, which is split and helpless, constantly torn somewhere and worried, does not put up with anything and does not calm down.
Zinaida Gippius herself perceived her poems as something more intimate than prose, something that she created specifically for herself in the impulses of a certain mood and desire.

She wrote her poems like a prayer, and considered this the natural state of the soul of any person.
If until now you were not familiar with the work of Zinaida Gippius, then we invite you to this section of our website, where you can enjoy the best poems of the poetess.

... Contemporaries called her "sylph", "witch" and "Sataness", sang of her literary talent and "Botticelli's" beauty, feared her and worshiped her, insulted and sang. All her life she tried to stay in the shadow of a great husband - but she was considered the only real woman writer in Russia, the smartest woman in the empire. Her opinion in the literary world meant extremely much; and the last years of her life she lived in almost complete isolation. She is Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius.

The Gippius family originates from a certain Adolfus von Gingst, who moved from Mecklenburg to Moscow in the 16th century, where he changed his surname to von Gippius and opened the first bookstore in Russia. The family remained predominantly German, although there were marriages with Russians - three-quarters of Russian blood was in the veins of Zinaida Nikolaevna.
Nikolai Romanovich Gippius met his future wife, the beautiful Siberian Anastasia Stepanova, in the city of Belev, Tula province, where he served after graduating from the Faculty of Law. Here, on November 8, 1869, their daughter, named Zinaida, was born. A month and a half after her birth, Nikolai Romanovich was transferred to Tula - this is how constant moving began. After Tula, there was Saratov, then Kharkov, then Petersburg, where Nikolai Romanovich was appointed comrade (deputy) chief prosecutor of the Senate. But he was soon forced to leave this rather high post: the doctors discovered tuberculosis in Nikolai Romanovich and advised him to move to the south. He transferred to the position of chairman of the court in the town of Nizhyn, Chernihiv province. Nizhyn was known only for the fact that Nikolai Gogol was brought up in it.
Zina was sent to the Kyiv Institute for Noble Maidens, but six months later they were taken back: the girl was so homesick that she spent almost all six months in the institute's infirmary. And since there was no women's gymnasium in Nizhyn, Zina studied at home, with teachers from the local Gogol Lyceum.
After working in Nizhyn for three years, Nikolai Romanovich caught a bad cold and died in March 1881. The following year, the family - in addition to Zina, there were three more little sisters, a grandmother and an unmarried mother's sister - moved to Moscow.
Here Zina was sent to the Fischer gymnasium. Zina really liked it there, but six months later the doctors discovered tuberculosis in her too - to the horror of her mother, who was afraid of heredity. It was winter. She was forbidden to leave the house. I had to leave the gymnasium. And in the spring, the mother decided that the family needed to live in the Crimea for a year. Thus, homeschooling has become for Zina the only possible path to self-realization. She was never particularly fond of the sciences, but by nature she was endowed with an energetic mind and a desire for spiritual activity. Even in her early youth, Zina began to keep diaries and write poetry - at first comic, parody, on family members. Moreover, she infected the others with this - her aunt, governesses, even her mother. A trip to the Crimea not only satisfied the love of travel that had developed since childhood, but also provided new opportunities for doing what Zina was most interested in: horse riding and literature.
After the Crimea, the family moved to the Caucasus - the mother's brother, Alexander Stepanov, lived there. His material well-being allowed everyone to spend the summer in Borjomi, a resort town not far from Tiflis. The next summer we went to Manglis, where Alexander Stepanovich suddenly died of inflammation of the brain. The Gippiuses were forced to stay in the Caucasus.
Zina conquered the Tiflis youth. A tall, stately beauty with a magnificent golden-red braid below the knee and emerald eyes irresistibly attracted the gazes, thoughts, feelings of everyone who came across her. She was nicknamed the "poetess" - thereby recognizing her literary talent. In the circle that she gathered around her, almost everyone wrote poetry, imitating the most popular at that time Semyon Nadson, who had recently died of consumption, but her poems were the best. In Tiflis, Zina fell into the hands of the St. Petersburg magazine Picturesque Review with an article about Nadson. There, among other things, the name of another young poet, Nadson's friend, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, was mentioned, and one of his poems was cited. Zina did not like it, but for some reason the name was remembered ...

In the spring of 1888, the Gippiuses and Stepanovs again went to Borjomi. Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky, who travels around the Caucasus after graduating from St. Petersburg University, also comes there. By that time, he had already published his first book of poems and was a fairly well-known poet. As both believed, their meeting was mystical in nature and was predetermined from above. A year later, on January 8, 1889, Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky got married in the Tiflis Church of Michael the Archangel. She was 19 years old, he was 23.
According to the mutual desire of the newlyweds, the wedding was very modest. The bride was in a dark steel suit and a small hat with a pink lining, and the groom was in a frock coat and uniform "Nikolaev" overcoat. There were no guests, no flowers, no prayer service, no wedding feast. In the evening after the wedding, Merezhkovsky went to his hotel, and Zina stayed with her parents. In the morning, her mother woke her up with a cry: “Get up! You are still sleeping, and your husband has already come!” Only then Zina remembered that she got married yesterday ... So a family union was born, which was destined to play a crucial role in the history of Russian culture. They lived together for more than fifty years, not parting for a day.
Dmitry Merezhkovsky came from a wealthy family - his father, Sergei Ivanovich, served at the court of Alexander II and retired with the rank of general. The family had three daughters and six sons, Dmitry - the youngest, mother's favorite. It was thanks to his mother that Dmitry Sergeevich was able to obtain from his father, a rather stingy person, consent to the wedding and material assistance. She also rented and furnished an apartment for the young in St. Petersburg - immediately after the wedding, Zinaida and Dmitry moved here. They lived like this: each had a separate bedroom, his own study - and a common living room, where the spouses met, read each other what was written, exchanged opinions, received guests.
Dmitry Sergeevich's mother died two and a half months after his wedding, on March 20. Sergei Ivanovich, who passionately loved his wife and was indifferent to children, went abroad, where he became interested in spiritualism, and practically stopped communicating with his family. An exception was made only for Dmitry - as a favorite of his late wife. Sergei Ivanovich died in 1908 - 19 years later, to the day, after the death of his wife.
Contemporaries argued that the family union of Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky was primarily a spiritual union, and was never truly marital. Both denied the physical side of marriage. At the same time, both had hobbies, loves (including same-sex ones), but they only strengthened the family. Zinaida Nikolaevna had many hobbies - she liked to charm men and liked to be charmed. But it never went beyond kissing. Gippius believed that only in a kiss are lovers equal, and in what should follow next, someone will definitely stand above the other. And this Zinaida in no case could not allow. For her, the most important thing has always been the equality and union of souls - but not bodies.
All this allowed ill-wishers to call the marriage of Gippius and Merezhkovsky "the union of a lesbian and a homosexual." Letters were thrown into Merezhkovsky's apartment: "Aphrodite took her revenge on you by sending her wife - a hermaphrodite."

More often, Gippius had affairs with men. Although they could only be called novels with some stretch. Basically, these are common affairs, letters, conversations that dragged on all night in the Merezhkovskys' house, a few kisses - that's all. In the early 1890s, Zinaida Nikolaevna closely converged with two at once - the symbolist poet Nikolai Minsky and the playwright and prose writer Fyodor Chervinsky, Merezhkovsky's university acquaintance. Minsky loved her passionately - and Gippius only, in her own words, was in love "with herself through him." In 1895, Zinaida Nikolaevna began an affair with Akim Flexer (Volynsky), a well-known critic and ideologist of the Severny Vestnik magazine. The acquaintance was a long time ago. It was Flexer who first published the poems of Gippius, which no magazine wanted to take. A long cooperation gradually grew into friendship, then into love. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Gippius's feeling for Volynsky was the strongest feeling in the life of Zinaida Nikolaevna. But even with him, she remained herself: most of all, in Akim Lvovich, she was captivated by the fact that he, like her, was going to preserve his "corporal purity" ... As Gippius later wrote, they broke up because of the "impossible Russian language", which Flexer wrote his critical articles.
In the late 1890s and early 1900s, Gippius was on close terms with the English Baroness Elisabeth von Overbeck. Coming from a family of Russified Germans, she collaborated as a composer with Merezhkovsky - she wrote music for the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles translated by him, which were staged at the Alexandrinsky Theater. Gippius dedicated several poems to Elisabeth von Overbeck. These contemporaries called relations both purely business and frankly love...

Nevertheless, the marriage of Gippius and Merezhkovsky was a truly unique creative union. There are different points of view on who nevertheless was in the lead in it, but they agree on one thing: it was Zinaida who owned those ideas that Merezhkovsky later developed in his works. Without him, all her ideas would have remained only words, and he would have been silent without her. It happened that articles written by Zinaida Nikolaevna were published under the name of Merezhkovsky. There was also such a case: somehow she “gave” Dmitry Sergeevich two poems, which he really liked. Accompanying one of them with a long epigraph from the Apocalypse, Merezhkovsky included them in his collection of poems. But Gippius, "forgetting" about the gift, published these poems in her collection. And although it was immediately clear that the poems were not written by Merezhkovsky - as the poet Gippius was much stronger - she got away with the joke. Nobody noticed.
Zinaida quickly took a prominent place in the literary life of the capital. Already in 1888, she began to publish - her first publication was poetry in the journal Severny Vestnik, then a story in Vestnik Evropy. The family lived almost exclusively on royalties - mainly for critical articles, which both wrote in large numbers. The poems of Zinaida Gippius, like the prose of Dmitry Merezhkovsky, at first did not find publishers - so little did they fit into the then accepted framework of “good literature”, inherited from the liberal criticism of the 1860s. However, decadence gradually comes from the West and takes root on Russian soil, primarily such a literary phenomenon as symbolism. Originating in France, symbolism penetrated Russia in the early 1890s, and within a few years became the leading style in Russian literature. Gippius and Merezhkovsky are at the origins of symbolism emerging in Russia - together with Nikolai Minsky, Innokenty Annensky, Valery Bryusov, Fyodor Sologub, Konstantin Balmont, they were called "senior symbolists". It was they who took upon themselves the brunt of criticism, which continued to stand on the obsolete positions of populism. After all, the “sixties” believed that the first task of literature was to reveal the ulcers of society, to teach and serve as an example, and any literary work was evaluated not by its artistic merits, but by the idea (ideally, civic accusatory) that was found there. The Symbolists fought for the restoration of the aesthetic principle in literature. And they won. The “younger symbolists” of the generation of Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely came to the positions already won for them by their older brothers in writing, and only deepened and expanded the sphere of what they had won.
In the early 1890s, Merezhkovsky began work on the Christ and Antichrist trilogy, first on Julian the Apostate and then on Leonardo da Vinci, his most famous novel. Gathering material for the trilogy, Zinaida Nikolaevna and Dmitry Sergeevich make two trips around Europe. Zinaida first comes to Paris - a city that immediately fascinated her, and where the Merezhkovskys would later spend many years. Upon their return, they settled at the corner of Liteiny Prospekt and Panteleimonovskaya Street, in the "Muruzi house" - in a house that, thanks to them, became the center of the literary, artistic, religious and philosophical life of St. Petersburg. Here Zinaida Nikolaevna arranged the most famous literary salon, where many prominent cultural figures of that time gathered.

The cultural environment of the 19th century was largely formed from the activities of various circles - home, friendly, university, formed around the publishing houses of almanacs, magazines, many of which also, at one time, arose from circles. Meetings at the editorial office of the New Way magazine, evenings of the Mir Iskusstva magazine, Sundays by the writer and philosopher Vasily Rozanov, Wednesdays in the Tower by Vyacheslav Ivanov, Fridays by Nikolai Minsky, Resurrections by Fyodor Sologub - the Merezhkovsky couple was an indispensable participant all of these – and many more – gatherings. Their house was also open to guests - poets, writers, artists, religious and political figures. “Culture was truly created here. Everyone here once studied,” wrote Andrei Bely, one of the regular guests of the salon. Gippius was not just a salon owner, gathering interesting people in her house, but an inspirer, instigator and ardent participant in all the discussions that happened, a center of refraction of diverse opinions, judgments, positions. The influence of Gippius on the literary process was recognized by almost all contemporaries. She was called the "decadent Madonna", rumors, gossip, legends swarmed around her, which Gippius not only collected with pleasure, but also actively multiplied. She was very fond of hoaxes. For example, she wrote letters to her husband in different handwriting, as if from fans, in which, depending on the situation, she scolded or praised him. The opponent could write a letter written in his own handwriting, in which she continued the discussion that had begun earlier.
She actively participated in the literary and personal lives of her contemporaries. Gradually, acquaintance with Gippius, visiting her salon becomes mandatory for novice writers of the Symbolist - and not only - sense. With her active assistance, the literary debut of Alexander Blok took place. She brought the novice Osip Mandelstam to the people. She owns the first review of the poems of the then unknown Sergei Yesenin.
She was a famous critic. She usually wrote under male pseudonyms, the most famous of which is Anton Krainy, but everyone knew who was hiding behind these male masks. Insightful, daring, in an ironically aphoristic tone, Gippius wrote about everything that deserved even the slightest attention. They were afraid of her sharp tongue, many hated her, but everyone listened to the opinion of Anton Krainy.
The poems, which she always signed with her name, were written mainly from a male perspective. This was both a share of outrageousness, and the manifestation of her really in some way masculine nature (it was not for nothing that they said that in their family Gippius is the husband, and Merezhkovsky is the wife; she impregnates him, and he bears her ideas), and the game. Zinaida Nikolaevna was unshakably confident in her own exclusivity and significance, and tried her best to emphasize this.
She allowed herself everything that was forbidden to the rest. She wore men's outfits - they effectively emphasized her undeniable femininity.

It was this that depicted her in the famous portrait of Lev Bakst. She loved to play with people, to put peculiar experiments on them. First, it attracts them with an expression of deep interest, charms with its undoubted beauty and charm, and then repels them with arrogance, mockery, cold contempt. With her extraordinary mind, it was not difficult. Her favorite pastimes were to tease people, embarrass them, embarrass them, and watch their reactions. Gippius could receive an unfamiliar person in the bedroom, undressed, or even taking a bath at all. The famous lorgnette, which the short-sighted Zinaida Nikolaevna used with defiant impudence, and a necklace made from the wedding rings of her admirers also entered the story.
Gippius deliberately provoked others to negative feelings towards her. She liked being called a "witch" - this confirmed that the "demonic" image that she intensively cultivated was working successfully. She sewed dresses for herself, at which passers-by looked in bewilderment and horror both in St. Petersburg and in Paris, she obviously used cosmetics indecently - she applied a thick layer of brick-colored powder on her delicate white skin.
She tried to hide her true face, thus trying to learn not to suffer. Possessing a vulnerable, hypersensitive nature, Gippius deliberately broke, remade herself in order to gain psychological protection, to acquire a shell that protects her soul from damage. And since, as you know, the best way to defend is an attack, Zinaida Nikolaevna chose such a defiant style of behavior ...
A huge place in the value system of Zinaida Gippius was occupied by the problems of spirit and religion. It was Gippius who came up with the idea of ​​the famous Religious and Philosophical Meetings (1901-1903), which played a significant role in the Russian religious revival of the early 20th century. At these meetings, the creative intelligentsia, together with representatives of the official church, discussed issues of faith. Gippius was one of the founding members and an indispensable participant in all meetings.
At the first meeting, she appeared in a deaf black see-through dress with a pink lining. With every movement, the impression of a naked body was created. The church hierarchs present at the meeting were embarrassed and shyly averted their eyes ...
During the preparation of the Religious and Philosophical Meetings, Merezhkovsky and Gippius become close to Dmitry Vasilyevich Filosofov. A cousin and closest friend (and according to some sources, also a lover) of the famous patron of the arts Sergei Diaghilev, he belonged to the World of Art group, with which Zinaida Nikolaevna and Dmitry Sergeevich had long-standing friendly ties. Members of this group were considered followers of the philosopher Vasily Rozanov, but Merezhkovsky's ideas turned out to be closer to Filosofov. The rapprochement was so strong that Gippius, Merezhkovsky and Philosophers even entered into a special "triple" union, reminiscent of marriage, for which a special, jointly developed rite was performed. The union was seen as the germ of a future kind of religious order. The principles of his work were as follows: external separation from the state church, and internal union with Orthodoxy, the goal is the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. It was the activity in this direction that all three perceived as their duty to Russia, contemporaries and subsequent generations. Zinaida Nikolaevna always called this task - the main thing.

However, the discord with the "World of Art" that soon emerged leads to the destruction of this union: a year later, Philosophers returned to Diaghilev, who spent a lot of effort on quarreling his cousin with the Merezhkovskys. Philosophers is said to be sick, Diaghilev hides him in his apartment and stops all attempts by Merezhkovsky to sort things out. Because of this, relations with Diaghilev also cease. Soon he and Philosophers go abroad.
In 1903, meetings were banned by a decree of the Holy Synod.
In the same year, the mother of Zinaida Nikolaevna died. Both she and her sisters were very worried about her death. At that time, Dmitry Sergeevich was next to her - and Philosophers, who had returned from abroad. They got close again. And since then they have not been separated for fifteen years.
Dmitry Vasilyevich was a very handsome, elegant, refined, highly cultured, widely educated, truly religious person. Zinaida Nikolaevna was for some time infatuated with him as a man (it was to him that her only poem written from a woman's face was addressed), but Filosofov rejected her harassment, citing an aversion to any carnal intercourse, and offered a spiritual and friendly union in return. Some believed that he preferred Gippius-Merezhkovsky. Nevertheless, for many years he was the closest friend, colleague and companion of both - both Dmitry Sergeevich and Zinaida Nikolaevna.

In the following years they live together. A lot of time is spent abroad, especially in Paris. However, the events of 1905 found them in St. Petersburg. Having learned about the execution of a peaceful demonstration on January 9 - Bloody Sunday - Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Filosofov, Andrei Bely and several other acquaintances stage their own demonstration in protest: having arrived at the Alexandrinsky Theater (imperial!) in the evening, they disrupt the performance.
That evening, the famous actor Nikolai Varlamov, already elderly, was supposed to play. They say he cried backstage: his performances never failed!
From 1906, Merezhkovsky, Gippius and Philosophers lived mainly abroad, most often in Paris and the Riviera. They returned to their homeland just before the start of the World War, in the spring of 1914. For religious reasons, the Merezhkovskys had a purely negative attitude towards any war. Gippius said that war is a desecration of mankind. They saw their patriotism not in praising the power of Russian weapons everywhere, like many then, but in explaining to society where senseless bloodshed could lead. Gippius argued that every war bears in itself the germ of a new war, generated by the national bitterness of the vanquished.
However, over time, she came to the conclusion that only an "honest revolution" could end the war. Like other symbolists, Gippius saw in the revolution a great spiritual upheaval capable of purifying man and creating a new world of spiritual freedom. Therefore, the Merezhkovskys accepted the February Revolution with enthusiasm, the autocracy completely discredited itself, they hated it. They rejoiced that now in the government there are people like them, many of their acquaintances. But still they understood that the Provisional Government was too weak to retain power. When the October Revolution took place, Zinaida Nikolaevna was horrified: she foresaw that the Russia she loved, in which she lived, was no more. Her diaries of those years are full of fear, disgust, anger - and the smartest assessments of what is happening, the most interesting sketches, the most valuable observations. The Merezhkovskys from the very beginning emphasized their rejection of the new government. Zinaida Nikolaevna openly broke with everyone who began to cooperate with the new government, publicly scolded Blok for his poem "The Twelve", quarreled with Bely and Bryusov. The new power for both Gippius and Merezhkovsky was the embodiment of the "kingdom of the Devil." But the decision to leave is being postponed and postponed. They still hoped for the defeat of the Bolsheviks. When they finally decided, and Merezhkovsky asked permission to go abroad for treatment, they were categorically forbidden to leave. However, at the end of 1919 they manage to escape from the country. Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius, Dmitry Filosofov and Gippius' secretary Vladimir Zlobin illegally crossed the Polish border near Bobruisk.
First they settled in Minsk, and in early February 1920 they moved to Warsaw. Here they plunged into active political activity among Russian emigrants. The meaning of their life here was the struggle for the freedom of Russia from Bolshevism. Gippius was active in circles close to the Polish government against the possible conclusion of peace with Soviet Russia. She became the editor of the literary department of the Svoboda newspaper, where she published her political poems. Dmitry Filosofov was elected a member of the Russian Committee and became closely associated with Boris Savinkov, a former member of the terrorist "Battle Group" - he led the anti-Bolshevik movement in Poland. Gippius had known Savinkov for a long time - they became close in 1908-1914, in France, where Savinkov then organized meetings of his group. As a result of communication with Gippius, Savinkov wrote the novel Pale Horse, published in 1909 under the pseudonym V. Ropshin. Gippius edited the novel, came up with a title for it, brought the manuscript to Russia and published it in the Russian Thought magazine. In 1917-18, Gippius pinned special hopes on Savinkov, along with Kerensky, as the spokesmen for new ideas and the saviors of Russia.
Now Merezhkovsky and Gippius saw such a savior in Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, head of the Polish government. They hoped that by rallying all the anti-Bolshevik forces around Poland, he would rid the world of Bolshevism. However, on October 12, 1920, Poland and Russia signed an armistice. It was officially announced that Russian people in Poland, under fear of expulsion from the country, were forbidden to criticize the power of the Bolsheviks.
A week later, Gippius, Merezhkovsky and Zlobin left for Paris. Philosophers, who fell under the strongest influence of Savinkov, remained in Warsaw, where he headed the propaganda department in the Russian National Committee of Poland.
Having settled in Paris, where they had an apartment since pre-revolutionary times, the Merezhkovskys resumed their acquaintance with the color of the Russian emigration: Konstantin Balmont, Nikolai Minsky, Ivan Bunin, Ivan Shmelev, Alexander Kuprin, Nikolai Berdyaev and others. Zinaida Nikolaevna again found herself in her element. Again, life was seething around her, she was constantly printed - not only in Russian, but also in German, French, Slavic languages. Only more and more bitterness in her words, more and more melancholy, despair and poison in verses...

In 1926, the Merezhkovskys decided to organize the literary and philosophical society "Green Lamp" - a kind of continuation of the society of the same name at the beginning of the 19th century, in which A.S. Pushkin. Georgy Ivanov became the president of the society, and Zlobin became the secretary. The Merezhkovskys wanted to create something like an "incubator of ideas", an environment for discussing the most important issues. The society played a prominent role in the intellectual life of the first emigration and for a number of years gathered its best representatives.
The meetings were closed: guests were invited according to the list, each was charged a small fee that went to rent the premises. Ivan Bunin, Boris Zaitsev, Mikhail Aldanov, Alexei Remizov, Nadezhda Teffi, Nikolai Berdyaev and many others were regular participants in the meetings. The existence of the society ceased only with the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
Gippius changed little over the years. And suddenly it turned out that she remained practically alone among the émigré writers: the old generation, her former associates, gradually left the literary scene, many had already died, and she was not close to the new generation, who began their work already in exile. And she herself understood this: in The Shining, a book of poems published in 1938, there was a lot of bitterness, disappointment, loneliness, a sense of loss of the familiar world. And the new world eluded her...
Merezhkovsky, in his hatred of communism, consistently staked on all dictators in Europe. In the late 30s, he became interested in the ideas of fascism, personally met with Mussolini. Merezhkovsky saw in him a possible savior of Europe from the "communist infection". Zinaida Nikolaevna did not share this idea - any tyrant was disgusting to her.
In 1940 the Merezhkovskys moved to Biarritz. Soon Paris was occupied by the Germans, all Russian magazines and newspapers were closed. The emigrants had to leave literature and try not to get involved with the occupiers.
Gippius's attitude towards Nazi Germany was ambivalent. On the one hand, she, hating Bolshevism, hoped that Hitler would help crush the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, any kind of despotism was unacceptable to her, she denied war and violence. And although Zinaida Nikolaevna passionately wanted to see Russia free from Bolshevism, they never collaborated with the Nazis. She always remained on the side of Russia.
In the summer of 1941, shortly after the German attack on the USSR, Vladimir Zlobin, together with his German acquaintance, without the knowledge of Gippius, brought Merezhkovsky to the German radio. Thus, they wanted to alleviate the difficult financial situation of Dmitry Sergeyevich and Zinaida Nikolaevna. Merezhkovsky made a speech where he began to compare Hitler with Joan of Arc, called to save the world from the power of the devil, spoke about the victory of spiritual values ​​that German warrior knights carry on their bayonets ... Gippius, having learned about this speech, was seething with anger and indignation . However, she could not leave her husband, especially now. After all, after this speech, almost everyone turned away from them. December 7, 1941 Dmitry Sergeevich died. Only a few people came to see him on his last journey ...
Shortly before his death, he became completely disillusioned with Hitler.
After the death of her husband, Zinaida Nikolaevna was a little out of her mind. At first, she hardly accepted his death, even wanted to commit suicide by jumping out of the window. Then she suddenly calmed down, saying that Dmitry Sergeevich was alive, she even talked to him.
She outlived him by several years. Zinaida Gippius died on September 9, 1945, she was 76. Her death caused a whole explosion of emotions. Those who hated Gippius did not believe in her death, they came to see for themselves that she was dead, they pounded on the coffin with sticks. Those few who respected and appreciated her saw in her death the end of an entire era ... Ivan Bunin, who never came to the funeral - he was terribly afraid of death and everything connected with it - practically did not leave the coffin. She was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve de Bois, next to her husband Dmitry Merezhkovsky.

The legend is gone. And the descendants were left with several collections of poems, dramas, novels, volumes of critical articles, several books of memoirs - and memory. The memory of a great woman who tried to stay in the shadow of a great husband and lit up Russian literature with the light of her soul...

Perhaps Zinaida Gippius is the most mysterious, ambiguous and extraordinary woman of the Silver Age. But amazing poems she can "forgive" everything.