Mining Institute in Saint Petersburg
Mining Institute in Saint Petersburg
Valerian Valerianovich Borodaevsky was born on December 12 (24) 1974 (according to other sources – January 1(13) 1875) in the village of Kshen, Timsky district, Kursk governorate (now Kshen, Orel, Russian Federation). He was raised in the landlord’s family.
Valerian Valerianovich graduated from Kursk real school named after Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov, then he studied at the Mining Institute in Saint Petersburg (1894-1900).
Valerian Valerianovich worked as an engineer in Donbass mines, then as a factory inspector in Pabianice (Poland) and in Samara; here he met Alexandr Bostrom and Aleksei Tolstoy. Since the end of 1908, having decided to devote himself to literature, he lived in his own estate Petropavlovka (Timsky district, Kursk governorate), served in elected land posts, and after February 1917 he was elected commissar of Kursk district council. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Valerian Valerianovich lived in Kursk, worked in Soviet institutes, actively participated in the local Union of Poets.
Borodaevsky’s first poetic performances date back to the late 1890s: the poem Wanderer. Imitation of the Oriental (1899), Anthem of the Dawn (1900). As a poet, he was formed under the influence of Charles Baudelaire’s, as well as Yevgeny Baratynsky and Fedor Tyutcheva. In the same year, he became one of the participants in Saint Petersburg religious and philosophical meetings, however, the literary contacts of Valerian Valerianovich in the 1900s were episodic in nature.
Borodaevsky entered the circle of Petersburg symbolists in 1909, becoming close to Vyacheslav Ivanov, who had a significant impact on his work. He wrote the collection Passion Candles (1909), a small-circulation author’s publication that spoke of the poet’s high poetic culture. Vyacheslav Ivanov published Borodaevsky's book Poems. Elegies, odes, idylls (1909). The book includes many verses from Passion Candles. In 1911, Vyacheslav Ivanov confirmed his serious attitude to the poetic talent of Borodaevsky in a letter to Bryusov. In March 1914, the Musaget publishing house in Moscow published a book of poems by Borodaevsky Secluded Dol.
Borodaevsky’s poems reflected his interest in religious and philosophical problems. But he was better in landscape and love lyrics, combining the severity of form with the naturalness of intonation. Most of his later poems were not published, as there was a tendency to weaken the tension of the poetic structure as well as the "diary" immediacy and unpretentiousness. Valerian Valerianovich also left a short memoir on Alexandr Block (1980).
Valerian Valerianovich belonged to the neoclassical movement that developed within the framework of symbolism in the era of its crisis and collapse when the pathos of innovation was replaced by the pathos of succession. The poet often turned to philosophical and religious searches. In post-revolutionary verses, he combined symbolic vagueness and polysemy with the elements of acmeist pictoriality - "thingness."
In 1905, Valerian Valerianovich married Margarita Andreevna Knyazeva, a woman teacher of the Elizabethan High School. She played an important role in the fate of her husband, completely sharing his views.
Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov 1866 – 1949) was a Russian poet and playwright associated with the Russian Symbolist movement. He was also a philosopher, translator, and literary critic.
