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INITIATION DRAMA IN RUSSIAN SYMBOLISM Whereas Bely sought his "way to Damascus," his "brother," Blok made his spiritual way to Damascus, relying on some achievements of August Strindberg’s version of the theme. A follower of Solovyov’s mystic philosophy, Blok was later obsessed with Strindberg’s art, the influence of which can be detected in the drama The Rose and the Cross.* Aware of their spiritual kinship, Blok was fascinated with the Swedish writer’s Inferno, which is permeated with the teachings of Swedenborg and reminiscences of Dante. In his necrology, he regards Strindberg’s workshop as a “laboratory” — a hint at the writer’s interest in alchemy. Blok also inserts in the text an imaginary picture of an old volume covered with dust, which lies there in a corner of the laboratory, affirming that its author was Swedenborg. Strindberg’s The Road to Damascus, a milestone in modernist drama, presents a striving to surpass aesthetics for the sake of the spiritual, the latter completely coinciding with Russian Symbolist poetics, commonly referred to as religious symbolism. In the concluding act of the drama, the protagonist, a once famous author and a version of Everyman modelled on the English medieval mystery play, joins a Catholic monastery and undergoes a ritual of initiation which involves lying in a coffin. Blok studied Strindberg in part because of his deep interest in Swedenborg’s theory of a universal, transcendental language (a kind of metalanguage offering prospects to Symbolists’ ambitious experimentations with the recreation of language), which enables the elect to converse with the otherworldly. Swedenborg is known to relate colloquies with angels and spirits in half-dream trances, including Plato, Luther, etc. His scattered commentaries on this universal means of communication are embedded in his translation of the book of Genesis, which he annotated himself. One can therefore assume that it is not by accident that Blok, in his article On the Present State of Russian Symbolism (1918), addresses the theurgical mission of the poet as the improvement of his ability to perceive the spiritual: “As artists, we must observe all sacred conversations (santa conversazione) and the Antichrist’s dethronement, like Bellini and Beato.”° The higher status of the initiated in the act of the mystery, roles of which are distributed among Aliscan representing the body, Bertran the soul, Gaetan the spirit (all to be united by the Universal Soul, Izora),° is oriented The proposal to write an opera libretto was put forward to Blok by Tereshchenko, a prominent leader of contemporary Russian freemasonry. AaexcaHAp BAoK, Co6paHne counHeHuNn, Vol. 8, MockBa-AeHurpaA, XyAoxKecTBeHHaa AuTepatypa, 1963, 131. Amaya OGoaencka, MmarnHauna roay6oro yBetTka. Apama AaexcaHApa Baoxa Po3a u Kpecr, Europa Orientalis, 29 (2010), 91-92. + 261 + Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 261 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:23
