Zinaida Gippius

Zinaida Nikolayevna Gippius or Hippius (Зинаи́да Никола́евна Ги́ппиус; 20 November 1869 – 9 September 1945) was a Russian poet, playwright, novelist, editor and religious thinker, one of the major figures in Russian symbolism.

Zinaida Gippius was born on 20 November 1869, in Belyov, Tula, the eldest of four sisters.

By this time, Zinaida had already studied for two years at a girls' school in Kiev (1877—1878) and for a year at the Moscow Fischer Gymnasium.

It was only in Borzhomi where her uncle Alexander, a man of considerable means, rented a dacha for her, that she started to get back to normal after the profound shock caused by her beloved father's death.

Zinaida started writing poetry at the age of seven.

"By the year 1880 I was writing verses, being a great believer in 'inspiration', and making it a point never to take my pen away from paper. People around me saw these poems as a sign of my being 'spoiled', but I never tried to conceal them and, of course, I wasn't spoiled at all, what with my religious upbringing," she wrote in 1902 in a letter to Valery Bryusov.

A good-looking girl, Zinaida attracted a lot of attention in Borzhomi, but Merezhkovsky, a well-educated introvert, impressed her first and foremost as a perfect kindred spirit.

Once he proposed, she accepted him without hesitation, and never came to regret what might have seemed a hasty decision.

At the age of 48 Nikolai Gippius died of tuberculosis, and Anastasia Vasilyevna, knowing that all of her girls had inherited a predisposition to the illness that killed him, moved the family southwards, first to Yalta (where Zinaida had medical treatment) then in 1885 to Tiflis, closer to their uncle Alexander Stepanov's home.

She began writing at an early age, and by the time she met Dmitry Merezhkovsky in 1888, she was already a published poet.

By the time she met Dmitry Merezhkovsky in 1888, she was already a published poet.

She became close to the group of authors associated with the renovated Severny Vestnik, where she herself made her major debut as a poet in 1888.

The two were married in 1889.

Gippius published her first book of poetry, Collection of Poems. 1889–1903, in 1903, and her second collection, Collection of Poems. Book 2. 1903-1909, in 1910.

Gippius and Merezhkovsky were married on 8 January 1889, in Tiflis.

They had a short honeymoon tour involving a stay in the Crimea, then returned to Saint Petersburg and moved into a flat in the Muruzi House, which Merezhkovsky's mother had rented and furnished for them as a wedding gift.

Merezhkovsky and Gippius made a pact, each promising to concentrate on what he or she did best, the former on poetry, the latter on prose.

The agreement collapsed as Zinaida translated Lord Byron's Manfred, and Dimitry started working on his debut novel Julian the Apostate.

In Saint Petersburg Gippius joined the Russian Literary Society, became a member of the Shakespearean Circle (the celebrity lawyer Prince Alexander Urusov being its most famous member), and met and befriended Yakov Polonsky, Apollon Maykov, Dmitry Grigorovich, Aleksey Pleshcheyev and Pyotr Veinberg.

In 1890–91 this magazine published her first short stories, "The Ill-Fated One" and "In Moscow".

Then three of her novels, Without the Talisman, The Winner, and Small Waves, appeared in Mir Bozhy.

Seeing the writing of mediocre, generic prose as a commercial enterprise, Gippius treated her poetry differently, as something utterly intimate, calling her verses 'personal prayers'.

Dealing with the darker side of the human soul and exploring sexual ambiguity and narcissism, many of those 'prayers' were considered blasphemous at the time.

Detractors called Gippius a 'demoness', the 'queen of duality', and a 'decadent Madonna'.

Enjoying the notoriety, she exploited her androgynous image, used male clothes and pseudonyms, shocked her guests with insults ('to watch their reaction', as she once explained to Nadezhda Teffi), and for a decade remained the Russian symbol of 'sexual liberation', holding high what she in one of her diary entries termed as the 'cross of sensuality'.

In 1901 all this transformed into the ideology of the "New Church" of which she was the instigator.

In October 1903 the Collection of Poems. 1889–1903, Gippius's first book of poetry, came out; Innokenty Annensky later called the book the "quintessence of fifteen years of Russian modernism."

Valery Bryusov was greatly impressed too, praising the "insurmountable frankness with which she document[ed] the emotional progress of her enslaved soul."

Gippius herself never thought much of the social significance of her published poetry.

In a foreword to her debut collection she wrote: "It is sad to realize that one had to produce something as useless and meaningless as this book. Not that I think poetry to be useless; on the contrary, I am convinced that it is essential, natural and timeless. There were times when poetry was read everywhere and appreciated by everybody. But those times are gone. A modern reader has no use for a book of poetry any more."

After the 1905 Revolution, the Merezhkovskys became critics of Tsarism; they spent several years abroad during this time, including trips for treatment of health issues.

They denounced the 1917 October Revolution, seeing it as a cultural disaster, and in 1919 emigrated to Poland.

After living in Poland they moved to France, and then to Italy, continuing to publish and take part in Russian émigré circles, though Gippius's harsh literary criticism made enemies.

The tragedy of the exiled Russian writer was a major topic for Gippius in emigration, but she also continued to explore mystical and covertly sexual themes, publishing short stories, plays, novels, poetry, and memoirs.

The death of Merezhkovsky in 1941 was a major blow to Gippius, who died a few years later in 1945.

The story of her marriage to Dmitry Merezhkovsky, which lasted 52 years, is described in her unfinished book Dmitry Merezhkovsky (Paris, 1951; Moscow, 1991).

Her father, Nikolai Romanovich Gippius, a respected lawyer and a senior officer in the Russian Senate, was a German-Russian, whose ancestor Adolphus von Gingst, later von Hippius, came to settle in Moscow in the 16th century.

Her mother, Anastasia Vasilyevna ( Stepanova), was the daughter of the Yekaterinburg Chief of Police.

Nikolai Gippius's job entailed constant traveling, and because of this his daughters received little formal education.

Taking lessons from governesses and visiting tutors, they attended schools sporadically in whatever city the family happened to stay for a significant period of time (Saratov, Tula and Kiev, among others).