Two letters to P.N. Milyukov. 1922-23.

Zinaida Nikolayevna Gippius (1869-1945)
Two letters to P.N. Milyukov. 1922-23.
Two autograph letters (retained drafts, the first incomplete) to Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov, n.p. [Ambroise and Paris], n.d. [18 September 1922 and 17 February 1923]

In Russian. Together four pages, 267 x 205mm, and a smaller fragment, 81 x 206mm. Provenance: Temira Pachmuss (1927-2007, professor of Russian literature at Illinois University at Urbana-Champaign and leading Gippius scholar).

Reflections on the fate of Russia, and on the creation of a 'free Russian Orthodox church'. Gippius begins by discussing the anti-Bolshevik politican Yekaterina Kuskova and her 'contradictions', before lambasting 'Inconsistent Marxists', who 'could, of course, "wish" a political upheaval, even on a slippery slope, they could reach for their dreams at this "opportunity" (the revolution) to try to forcibly impose socialism ... And so it was: we came to a ready made revolution. They picked the power lying in the street. And then they began to issue orders: "create a new world" and "destroy the old one". The first, naturally, failed; the second was more successful'. In the second letter, Gippius continues a dispute with Milyukov about the Merezhkovskys' concept of a 'free Russian Orthodox Church', independent of both a pope and a tsar, and which, unlike the historical church, is 'capable of evolution'. She goes on: 'To your logical question, "where is this church, about which we are talking?" I can only answer "in the future" ...'.

P.N. Milyukov (1859-1943) was a historian and politician, briefly foreign minister in the Provisional Government after the February Revolution in 1917. He escaped into exile, where he remained a prominent anti-Bolshevik figure, with consequent risks: the novelist Vladimir Nabokov's father was killed whilst protecting him from attackers in Berlin in 1922.

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