Vassily Rosanov about Dmitry Merezhkovsky and not only him. On the history of two conversations

Abstract

The paper analyzes an article by Vassily Rosanov “Representatives of the ‘new religious consciousness” (1908). The article was published under the pseudonym of V. Varvarin in the newspaper Russkoe slovo (“Russian Word”), it was written in the unusual for Rosanov form of half-fiction. The article describes the ten years ago events which became turning points for the Rosanov’s world view. Those events were the acquaintance with Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius and two conversations about Christianity. Actually, in that article Rosanov reconstructed in details stages of changing his worldview and perception of religion. Notably the decadents and their unorthodox religiosity, debates with positivism, constant stylistic experiments became to him the nearest in thoughts. In the years 1896–1897 Rosanov changed his view upon the gender, marriage, correlations between New and Old Testaments. Rosanov tries to remind in his article about the early century discussions. That is why he opted for the form of estranged narration on himself as a major representatives the new trend of religious seeking. The paper also analyzes as the very mechanism of self-representation and also its purposes and results.