Information about the author:

Abstract:

The French period of D.S. Merezhkovsky needs additional coverage and more detailed research. From a literary point of view, D.S. Merezhkovsky — the author of the article “On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature”, fundamental for the literature of the late 19th century, is known in the period of post-revolutionary (lifetime) emigration by other texts. The corpus of translations of the writer’s works that are directly related to Russian literature and Russian classics includes four major books published during his lifetime: “L’âme de Dostoïevski, le prophète de la révolution russe” (1922), “Compagnons éternels” (1922), “Le mufle-roi. L’avènement du Cham” (1922) and “Gogol et le diable” (1939). In the interwar period, these texts present to the French reader Merezhkovsky’s critical heritage. An extensive number of reviews in the French press (about 30 texts) are published on them. The paper examines this little-known literary heritage in French and provides translations of some excerpts from reviews of the books cited above. Reviews in French can bring some new perspective on Merezhkovsky’s work and on the theme of the Europeanness of the writer.