Conceptualizing Symbolism: Institutions, publications, readers, and the Russian propagation of an idea

This dissertation advances an approach to Russian Symbolism which demonstrates the relevance of the mechanisms of grouping and publication to the movement's conceptual development. I show the inextricability of Russian Symbolism's physical manifestations as books, almanacs, and journals from its theoretical articulation as an aesthetic common to a limited sphere of authors and readers. The individual chapters of this dissertation examine key turning points in the promotion of a definition of Russian Symbolism which incorporate its conceptual instability into their basic framework. Each chapter focuses on one of three significant spaces of publication--the thick journal, the Symbolist publishing house, and the oeuvre--to illustrate the interaction of a theoretical understanding of "Symbolism" with the production of Russian Symbolism as a tangible object. I seek to supply a new picture of Symbolism in Russia--one that illuminates its carefully staged interaction with the mechanisms of publication and, consequently, the reader.;This dissertation acknowledges the debt Symbolism, taking root in Russia simultaneously as a literary school and as an idea, owes to the journals and publishing houses that embraced it. From the thick journals of the 1890s to the Symbolist presses of the 1900s to the post-Symbolist publications from 1910 on, the Russian Symbolists consistently relied on the intervention of publishers and editors to designate what constitutes "Symbolism." By paying particular attention to the roles of Symbolism's editors and mediators, my dissertation propels lesser studied figures (such as Zinaida Vengerova, Akim Volynskii, and Lev Kobylinskii-Ellis) to the center of Symbolism's development in Russia and offers reevaluations of key poets (notably Valerii Briusov, Andrei Bely, and Aleksandr Blok) as active participants in the shaping and propagation of Symbolism. I consider the dynamics of the institutionalization of Symbolism taken both as a movement and as a concept. Consequently, Symbolism emerges as a complex unity comprised of both concrete models and didactically imposed prescriptions. The theory and practice of "Symbolism" are so tightly bound to one another that only a fully contextualized understanding of the term explains its place in Russian literature and culture.