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LÉNA SZILÁRD as the very beginning of the 20" century. Thus, with the arrival of great technical inventions, he stressed the absolute necessity of introducing moral regulations and distinctive principles and the importance of keeping in mind facts of the times (the invention of dynamite and the experiments of Marie Curie). "Dynamite is only useful in the hands of a morally developed master, but it is devastating in the hands of the comrades. Dynamite is a means to explode granite blocking the way; in the hands of the comrades it is a means to blow up people... Should secret knowledge be grabbed by a morally infirm society, it could blow up mankind and the globe, too." Bely regarded the ethical foundations of the practice of initiation established in ancient Egypt as a pattern for ethic differentiation and distinction. “He who was initiated into the mysteries of Egypt had to remake himself... to have the right to being engaged in Astronomy, Mathematics, Magic, etc. serious studies were granted merely for those whose spirits were elevated.”? In Bely’s opinion, given the conditions of the 20" century, this task could and should be assumed by literature. In contrast with Vjach. Ivanov, who, starting from his interpretation of the Eleusinian mysteries, dreamed of the resurgence of this tradition via the “mystical theatre,” Bely insisted that the perception of the “poetic Word” inaugurate the way to initiation. Essentially, all novels by Bely narrate a successful or unsuccessful approach to the act of initiation, which is drawn up via the juxtaposition of two types of models: Masonic and Rosicrucian. In other words, the perception of a literary text will offer spiritual “ascent” and will lead to the birth of the inner man, preparing the path for transcendence from time into eternity. Bely’s conclusion is illustrated by the end of his protagonist’s earthly life. In his first novel, The Silver Dove, the detailed description of the pitiful death of the hero is contrasted with the novel’s structure of motifs (following the traits of Pythagoreanism and Platonism). Thus, the reader is led beyond the horizons of pragmatic life and into a world connecting time to eternity. In the epilogue of his following novel, entitled Petersburg, Bely stresses that his hero, who stayed next to the Sphinx and the Egyptian Pyramid, is now reading not Kant, but the Ukrainian philosopher Gregory Skovoroda, who was regarded as a Rosicrucian by the Symbolists (perhaps initiated in Tokaj) and who claimed that “the second birth” (that is, the birth of “the inner man” in man) is imperative. This key element was emphasized by Bely in his novels by means of motifs and a structure, reflecting symbolization, which 8 Letter of Andrey Bely to Morozova, January 1913. In Andrey Bely, Vash rytsar (Your Knight), Moscow, Progress-Pleiada, 2006, 240. Andrey Bely, Simvolizm (Symbolism), Moscow, Musaget, 1910, 514. 9 + 276 + Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 276 6 2020. 06.15. 11:04:24
