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Abstract:

Andrei Bely began working on his novel “Moscow” under severe ideological restrictions. He was expected to produce a novel that would meet all the requirements of Soviet censorship. In the prefaces to “The Moscow Eccentric,” “Moscow Under Attack” (the first and second parts of the first volume of “Moscow”), and “Masks” (the second volume of “Moscow”), Bely promised to first show “the decay of the foundations of pre-revolutionary life,” then the era of revolution and the new, post-revolutionary, modern Moscow. However, Bely never reached the era of revolution, much less the positive post-revolutionary modernity, in either the first or second volumes of the novel. Instead of depicting the birth of the “new Moscow” as a global center, Bely depicted its demise. The article argues that the writer deliberately sought to circumvent censorship and express not the official view of history, but his own, profoundly catastrophic vision of events. This is supported by drafts of the novel and Bely’s correspondence with Ivanov-Razumnik; the striking images, leitmotifs, and plot lines of “Moscow” are analyzed.

Keywords: Andrei Bely, Soviet censorship, novel “Moscow”, October Revolution, the end of history.