The Literary Image of Dervish in Ivan Bunin and Andrey Bely’s Poetics

Abstract

The mysterious East with its representations of Qur'anic and Sufi imagery and allegories was an important conceptual dominant in The Silver Age of Russian poetry. In the present article we analysed the poetic image of Dervish appearing in literary works of Ivan Bunin (traveller's essay “The Bird’s Shadow”, poems “Temjid”, “The Pilgrim”, “The Beggar”) and in Andrei Bely’s travel literature (essay “Dervish”, travel notes “African Diary”). Both authors, being influenced by their travels throughout countries of Eastern Muslim at the beginning of the 20th century, succeeded to capture and include in their poetical system not only the geo-ethnographic and cultural component of this region, but also the Sufi-mystical images and allegories. Being both an exotic and ethnographic image, the Dervish represents a symbolic manifestation of high spirituality, one’s inner faith in truth, soul searching and renunciation of material world in an attempt to merge with the Absolute. 

Extended abstract:

The image of the East is one of the conceptual dominants in Silver Age poetry, which depicts it in the images and allegories of the Qur'an and the Sufis. This article examines the image of the dervish, introduced into Russian literature as an ethnographic detail since the 18th century, through travel notes and poems of Ivan Bunin (“The Shadow of the Bird”, “Tamjid”, “Pilgrim”, “Pauper”) and Andrei Bely (“Dervish”, “African Diary”). The extent of Bunin’s and Bely’s spiritual quest led them to travel to the countries of the Muslim Orient, where they learned about the history, culture and religion of the countries they visited. Both reflected this fact in their works. The proposed article hypothesises that the Qur'anic motifs and images, especially the image of the dervish, in the artistic world of I. Bunin and A. Bely are symbols that reveal the ideological ideas and express the inner quest of the artists. We have taken it upon themselves to examine the philosophical, aesthetic and artistic embodiment of the dervish image in the works of Ivan Bunin (both prose and poetry) and in the travel literature of A. Bely, in juxtaposition with the conceptual meanings of the Qur'an and Sufi doctrines. The methodological framework for the study of the works is based on the elements of the literary and linguistic-cultural approach. The analysis of the works has shown that the oriental images and Qur'anic motifs in the art world of I. Bunin and A. Bely are filled with a particular philosophical content that serves as an expression of the search for truth and self-cognition. Through participation in Sufi activities, the authors came into contact with the fundamentals of a particular mystical doctrine, which had a philosophical and aesthetic effect on their worldview and spiritual beliefs. Therefore, the image of the dervish acquires a special symbolic content and conceptualisation. In Bunin’s poetics, a dervish is a symbol of man's inner faith in truth and his striving for spiritual fusion with the Absolute. From the category of the exotic and ethnographic image, A. Bely’s dervish acquires the symbolic content of the connection between times and self-cognition and becomes a benchmark of inspiration and high spirituality that will accompany him throughout his life. The colouristic and tonal vocabulary creates an extraordinary vividness of the dervish image. The perception of the cultural and religious realities of the East leads to spiritual search and self-reflection.