group of poets who championed 'art for art's sake,' such as the gifted Athanasius Fet-Shenshin, nor the dominant practitioners of 'civic poetry,' led by Nekrasov, left much of lasting value. The poetic muse had to wait for more propitious circumstances.
These circumstances emerged around 1900 with the dawning of the 'silver age.' Foreshadowed by certain literary critics and poets in the 1890's, the new period has often been dated from the appearance in 1898 of a seminal periodical,
In literature, the new trends resulted in a great revival of poetry and literary criticism, although some remarkable prose was also produced, for example, by Boris Bugaev, known as Andrei Bely. Among the poets, the symbolist Alexander Blok, who lived from 1880 to 1921 and wrote verses of stunning magic and melody to the mysterious Unknown Lady and on other topics, has been justly considered the greatest of the age and one of the greatest in all Russian literature. But Russia suddenly acquired many brilliant poets; other symbolists, for example, Innokentii Annensky, Bely, Valery Briusov, and Constantine Balmont; 'acmeists,' such as Nicholas
Gumilev and Osip Mandelstam; futurists, such as Velemir Khlebnikov and Vladimir Maiakovsky; or peasant poets, such as Serge Esenin. The poet and novelist Boris Pasternak, who died in 1960, and the poetess Anna Akhmatova, who lived until 1966 as probably the last Russian poet of the first rank, also belong fully to the 'silver age.' In literary criticism, too, the new trends continued to enrich Russian culture after 1917, producing notably an interesting school of formalist critics, until destroyed by Soviet regimentation and 'socialist realism.'
In art, as in literature, 'realism' dominated the second half of the nineteenth century, only to be enriched and in large part replaced by the varied new currents of the 'silver age.' In painting the decisive turning to realism can even be precisely dated: in 1863 fourteen young painters, led by Ivan Kramskoy and constituting the entire graduating class of the Academy of Arts, refused to paint their examination assignment, 'A Feast in Valhalla.' Breaking with the stifling academic tradition, they insisted on painting realistic pictures. Several years later they organized popular circulating exhibitions of their works and came to be known as the 'itinerants.' With new painters joining the movement and its influence spreading, 'critical realism' asserted itself in Russian art just as it had in Russian literary criticism and literature. In accord with the spirit of the age, the 'itinerants' and their disciples believed that content was more important than form, that art had to serve the higher purpose of educating the masses and championing their interests, and they depicted such topics as the exploitation of the poor, the drunken clergy, and the brutal police. Basil Vereshchiagin, for example, observed wars at firsthand until he went down with the battleship
The development of music followed a somewhat different pattern. It, too, responded to the demands of the age, as seen, for example, in Modest
Musorgsky's emphasis on content, realism, and closeness to the masses. Music, however, by its very nature could not be squeezed into the framework of critical realism, and fortunately it attracted much original talent in Russia at the time. The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed a great spread of musical interest and education in the empire, with a conservatory established in St. Petersburg in 1862, headed by the noted composer and magnificent pianist Anton Rubinstein, another one in Moscow in 1866, headed by Anton Rubinstein's younger brother, Nicholas, and still other musical schools in other cities in subsequent years. Moreover, quite a number of outstanding Russian composers came to the fore at that time. The most prominent of them included Peter Tchaikovsky and
The 'silver age' brought a renaissance in the fine arts as well as in literature. In music, where Alexander Scriabin initiated the change, it marked the appearance of the genius of Igor Stravinsky and of other brilliant young composers. In a sense, the new ballet masterpieces, for example, Stravinsky's
Diaghilev's ballets made such a stunning impression in the West in part because of the superb decor and staging. Benois, Constantine Korovin, and other gifted artists of the 'silver age' created a school of stage painting that gave Russia world leadership in that field and added immeasurably to operatic and theatrical productions as well as to the ballet. Other Russian artists, notably Marc Chagall and Basil Kandinsky, broke much more radically with the established standards and became leaders of modernism in painting. Still another remarkable development in the 'silver age' was the rediscovery of icon painting: both a physical rediscovery, because ancient icons had become dark, been overlaid with metal, or even painted over, and began to be restored to their original condition only around 1900; and an artistic rediscovery, because these icons were newly appreciated, adding to the culture and the creative influences of the period.
Theater, like the ballet a combination of arts, also developed splendidly in the 'silver age.' In addition to the fine imperial theaters, private ones came into prominence. The Moscow Art Theater, directed by Constantine Stanislavsky who emphasized psychological realism, achieved the greatest and most sustained fame and exercised the strongest influence on acting in Russia and abroad. But it is important to realize that it represented only one current in the theatrical life of a period remarkable for its variety, vitality, and experimentation. Russian art as well as Russian literature in the 'silver age' formed an inseparable part of the art and literature of the West, profiting hugely, for example, from literary trends in France or from German thought, and in turn contributing to virtually every form of literary and artistic argument and creative expression. In a sense, Russian culture was never more 'Western' than on the eve of 1917.
