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INITIATION DRAMA IN RUSSIAN SYMBOLISM
In Ihe Pythagoreans, great store is set by the problem of the verbal and
the bookish, which also shows an authorial reflection on the avant-garde
experimentations that had taken place in Russian literature shortly before the
play was written. At its core, Bryusov’s great “theorem” of the evolution of
culture, anticipating Eco’s The Name of the Rose, concentrates on the moment
of the destruction, concealment, or loss ofa manuscript of cardinalimportance.
As a rule, from that moment on there is a shift, a change in the cultural
paradigm. A complete or incomplete loss of verbal heritage, inducing oblivion,
is equal to death, as reflected by the protagonist’s fate in the dramatic etude.
Uniquely, in his survey of Pythagoreanism, the Hungarian classical philologist
Karoly Kerényi did not fail to take note of the fact that this particular type
of culture presents itself as a special pattern, where the role of writing is
repositioned. Kerényi arrives at the conclusion that the body of Orphic
religion is made of paper. On the other hand, in contrast with the religion of
the Pythagoreans, Orphism specifically gave preference to the cult of “sacred
books.” In accordance with the Bryusovian model, though the hero’s tragic end
is presented either as the death of a devoted researcher, the “elite” reader, or as
punishment for the vanity and self-sufficiency of the naive or innocent hero,
the concept of culture is primarily inseparable from verbality, since culture is
maintained in a written form, as it is created by the Sacred Logos.
The final scene of the etude concludes with Prognost’s words expressing
discontent in general and simultaneously foretelling “backstage” events that
are about to begin, only now in another dimension, in the consciousness of
the reader or theatre goer. These events are understood as the journey of
the dead in the otherworld.
He is dead. (Thinks)
I esteemed him to be more honourable.
May the Judge of Hell have mercy on him.”8
The Bryusovian conclusion is puzzling, as ever. Is it the thought of
responsibility or the naive vanity and self-sufficiency of the young exegete
that kills Sinaret, who dares to refuse his fellow brethren? A Weltanschauung
resembling traits of Gnostic teachings is manifested in the Pythagorean
concept of death, taken as “the third stage” of initiation. It is envisioned in
Shuré’s book as follows:
What happens at death? At the beginning of the death agony, the soul generally
senses its imminent separation from the body. [...] If it is a holy or pure soul, its
spiritual senses are already awakened by the gradual separation from matter.
28 Ibid., 42.
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