Viacheslav Ivanov in the 1930s: The Russian Poet as Italian Humanist

Abstract

In the 1930s, Viacheslav Ivanov – erstwhile leader of Russian symbolism – found himself suspended between two totalitarian regimes, Stalin's Soviet Union and Mussolini's Italy. A Soviet citizen living in Italy, he adapted to his new circumstances, converting to Catholicism and embracing Italian cultural traditions, including Petrarch's legacy of transnational humanism. In this period, however, fascist and Nazi thinkers were also claiming humanism for their own nationalist purposes. In his Italian-language writings, Ivanov navigates these dangerous waters by attempting to represent himself as simultaneously national and transnational, and as both a Russian poet and a latter-day Italian humanist.