Belyi, A.

Keywords

List of most relevant works associated with Africa

Araby [Arabs], “Utro Rossii”, 05.04.1911

Tunis [Tunisia], “Rech’”, 29.09.1911

Egipet [Egypt], “Sovremennik”, 1912, 5-7

Dervish [The dervish], in Veles. Pervyi al’manakh russkikh I inoslavianskikh pisatelei, Petrograd 1912, p. 83-103

Ofeira. Putevye zametki. Chast’ 1 [Ophir. Travel Notes. Part 1], Moskva 1921 (Berlin 1922)

Puteshestvie na Vostok: Pis’ma Andreia Belogo [A journey to the East: Andrei Belyi’s letters], ed. by N. Kotrelev, in Vostok-Zapad: Issledovaniia. Perevody. Publikatsii, Moskva 1988, p. 143-177

Afrikanskii dnevnik [African diary], in Rossiiskii arkhiv. Istoriia otechestva v svidetel’stvakh i dokumentakh XVIII-XX vv., I, Moskva 1994, p. 330-454

Vaš rytsar’: Pis’ma k M.K. Morozovoi. 1901-1928 [Your knight…: Letters to M.K. Morozova], Moskva 2006Liubliu tebia nezhno… Pis’ma Andreia Belogo k materi (1899-1922) [I love you tenderly… Andrei Belyi’s letters to his mother], Moskva 2013

Overview

One of the main figures of the so-called “young generation” of Russian symbolists, Andrei Belyi (ps. of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev) undertook a journey to Italy and Northern Africa with his partner Asia Turgeneva in 1910-1911. He recorded his fresh impressions along the way, both in short essays published in Russian periodicals, and in letters to his mother and friends. Back in Russia, he worked on a two-volume travelogue: he published the first volume in 1921 with the title Ophir. Travel Notes. Part 1 (republished in a slightly different version in Berlin as Travel Notes. Tome 1. Sicily and Tunisia, 1922). The second volume, The African Diary, remained unpublished since 1994. It is mainly dedicated to Egypt. In addition to the aforementioned publications, the “African theme” appeared in other works by Belyi, too, for instance in the pamphlet A Dwelling in the Kingdom of Shadows (1924).

References

“Belyi, Andrei”, in Russkie pisateli. 1800-1917. Biograficheskii slovar’, t. 1, ed. by P. Nikolaev, Moskva 1990, p. 85-91;

G. Walker, Adumbrations of the End in Andrei Belyi’s Treatment of Africa, “Russian Review”, 2001 (60), 3, p. 381-403;

G. Walker, Andrei Belyi’s Armchair Journey Through the Legendary Land of “Ophir”: Russia, Africa and the Dream of Distance, “Slavic and East Europena Journal”, 2002 (46), 1, p. 47-74;

E. Chach, Egipetskie vpechatleniia Konstantina Bal’monta i Andreia Belogo (k voprosu ob orientalizme v russkoi kul’ture Serebrianogo veka), “Istoriia i kul’tura”, 2010, 8, p. 112-135.

A.F.