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Abstract:

This publication features the correspondence of D.S. Merezhkovsky and Z.N. Gippius with N.V. Tchaikovsky of the early 1920s, when they arrived in Paris from Warsaw. In those years Tchaikovsky led the “Union of the reconstruction of Russia”, headed the undercover “Action Centre” and chaired the executive board of the Committee for Aid to Russian Writers and Scholars in France. The functioning of the Committee plays an important part in the correspondence with Tchaikovsky, yet the authors focus on the financial, not the organizational aspect. Gippius compared the activities of the Committee with the Literary Fund supervised by P.I. Weinberg. However, financial conflicts in emigration were evidently more acute and desperate, while aid was needed by the finest representatives of Russian literature and science in exile rather than by novice or poor writers. The Merezhkovskys and Tchaikovsky discussed the possibility of establishing a “Union of the Spirit”, a Russian-French publishing house, hosting meetings of the Society of Friends of Russian literature, a gathering on the occasion of Dostoevsky’s 100th anniversary, etc. The correspondence expands our understanding of the literary life of Russian émigrés in France.