Брюсовские чтения

Abstract

The current, VII academic conference «Brusov Readings» was held in Yerevan on November 17-19, 1983, to celebrate Brusov’s 110th anniversary. The conference was initiated by Yerevan State Pedagogical Institute for Russian and Foreign Languages after Brusov. A solemn sitting was held at the State Academic Theater after G.Sundukyan to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Yerevan State Pedagogical Institute for Russian and Foreign Languages after Brusov and the presentation of the Order of Friendship of Peoples to the Institute. The geography of the Readings was enlarged. In addition to the academics who represented the acknowledged centers for studying Brusov’s creative heritage such as Moscow, Leningrad and Stavropol, specialists from Kiev, Tbilisi, Kishinev, Alma-Ata, Odessa, Gorky, Kamenets-Podolsky, Krasnoyarsk and other USSR cities participated in the VII academic conference «Brusov Readings» as well. To add, the issues referring to the poet’s creative biography, which had not been studied thoroughly, were also considered by the academics. Over 40 reports and statements were presented in the course of the conference. The forum’s materials were included in the almanac «Brusov Readings 1983» published in Yerevan in 1985. The academics dwelled upon the issues referring to ring closure, experiences in a free verse, the critic’s attitude to proletarian poetry and his last poetic almanacs. The participants of the conference construed Brusov’s private relations with N.Petrovskaya, A.Akhmatova, M.Tsvetaeva, as well as his estimations of creative activities of Gogol, Pisarev, Pavlova, etc., from a most peculiar viewpoint. The reports on foreign literature – Shakespeare, Wilde, Goethe’s «Faust», Baudelaire, Verhaeren, are of special interest. The academics not only presented Brusov’s translations of the above-mentioned authors’ works; they also considered the way Brusov perceived and presented their creative activities. As usual the materials published for the first time were also included in the almanac; in particular, «Sonnet on a Poet», the fragments of Brusov’s plays, «Some Reflections on Gogol», sketchbooks, correspondence, reviews on Fofanov, drafts of ironical poems, a draft of a play entitled «Faust in Moscow», commemorative inscriptions, unknown autographs, etc. A book «From ‘’ Vahagn’s Birth’’ up to Paruyr Sevak» was also published in 1983.