Andrey Bely as an Artist vis-à-vis Aleksandr Golovin: How the Cover of the Journal Dreamers Was Created

Abstract

Samuil Alyanski, the owner and founder of the Alkonost publishing house (1918–1923), as early as 1918 had decided to issue a journal called Dreamers’ Notes, meant to bring together the Symbolist writers remaining in Russia after the October Revolution, primarily Aleksandr Blok, Vyacheslav Ivanov, and Andrei Bely. Despite the generally accepted view based on the memoirs of Alyanski, Andrei Bely played a leading role in the creation of the journal including the design of the cover commissioned by Alyanski from the famous Modernist artist Aleksandr Golovin. This article analyzes the sketches that Andrei Bely proposed as an idea for the journal cover as well as establishing their connection with the writer’s visionary drawings from the period of life when he was close to Rudolf Steiner and with book graphics from the period of his collaboration with the publishing house Alkonost. At first cursory glance, there is little in common between the cover of Dreamers’ Notes drawn by Golovin in the Modernist style and the sketches of Andrei Bely who was trying to make the journal а platform for Anthroposophy. However, as demonstrated in the article, all of Bely’s ideas were utilized by Golovin in creating his own artistic masterpiece.

Andrei Bely1 (1881–1934) was a writer who could draw well and he enjoyed it very much. His artistic heritage is considerable and very diverse2. To date, this point has not been fully understood, nor has it been identified and described in its entirety. Even a brief glance at Bely’s drawings, however, shows that their nature differs from that of other writers who also drew in their free time, such as Mikhail Lermontov or Maximilian Voloshin. The connection between his drawings and texts was fundamental for Bely. The majority of his drawings may be said to represent a continuation of his texts, or the preparation of his texts in a more compact and vivid way than words.

Two examples are the beautiful landscapes of Georgia and Armenia made by Bely at the same time that he was writing the travelogue book Wind from the Caucasus in 1927 and the feature story “Armenia” in 1928 (Ohta 2008). The autobiographical sketch Line of Life (1927) hanging on the wall in the exhibition of Andrei Bely’s Memorial Apartment is connected with his correspondence with Ivanov-Razumnik and, of course, with his prose memoirs (Bely 2010). His historiosophical and culturological sketches were intended to explain the main ideas of the treatise The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul (Bely 2020; Odesskiy and Spivak 2020).

Where the texts and sketches are most closely linked, the works could be called book graphics—if Andrei Bely had been a professional artist. These are, for example, his illustrations to the novels Petersburg and Moscow (Nasedkina 2020) and for the essay Glossolalia (Glukhova 2005; Glukhova 2008)—the explanatory sketches for his lectures, drafts of posters, programs (Glukhova and Torshilov 2020), and book covers.

This last is considered to be the most conceptual. Namely, the sketches of book covers in concentrated form express the author’s message to the reader and provide guidelines to a complex perception to the text concealed under the cover. Such drawings despite their artistic imperfections are deeply imbued with ideology and can be regarded as programmatic works of Bely.

Let us pay attention, as an example, to the group of drawings connected with the activities of the last Symbolists’ publishing house Alkonost (1918–1923)3—first and foremost to the sketches for the cover of the journal Dreamers’ Notes drawn by Bely and, at first glance, not at all useful to Samuil Mironovich Alyanski (1891–1974), the founder of the publishing house and the publisher of the journal. As it is known, all six issues of the journal have a cover illustrated by the famous theatre artist Alexandr Yakovlevich Golovin (1863–1930) (Figure 1).

At the center of attention in our article will be this cover by Golovin. At the beginning both the proposed ideas and those rejected for the cover of the Dreamers’ Notes Journal will be considered by relying on Alyanski’s memoirs. Then, we will move on to a detailed analysis of the journal cover drafts that were made by Andrei Bely and we will try to understand whether Golovin used them in his work. With the help of Andrei Bely’s drafts we will attempt to decipher what Goloivin depicted in his cover.

However, let us first concentrate on the role of Andrei Bely in the creation of the Dreamers’ Notes.

In June 1918 in Soviet Petrograd the publishing house Alkonost appeared. The young enthusiast S.M. Alyanski intended to unite the Symbolist writers whose works he admired around Alkonost. He had actually managed to establish contact with Alexandr Blok, whom Alyanski worshiped, as well as with Andrei Bely and Vyacheslav Ivanov to whom he reached out on Blok’s recommendation. All three supported the new undertaking and offered manuscripts of their books for publication. Alkonost’s publishing portfolio started to be quickly replenished with the works of other writers.

Traditionally, the unification of the Symbolist writers existed not on the basis or not to a great extent on the publishing house, but rather on the basis of the almanac or the journal published by this publishing house. Both the journal Libra and the almanac Northern Flowers were published by the publishing house Skorpion, and the publishing houses Grif and Sirin published journals with the same names. The publishing house Musaget published the magazine Works and Days. In planning to publish a journal, Alyanski consciously focused on pre-revolutionary traditions of Symbolist book publishing (Spivak 2008).

The first issue of Dreamers’ Notes appeared in May 1919. It is noteworthy that already in August 1918 Alyanski had begun to look actively for contributions.

We know about the creation of Dreamers’ Notes as well as about the history of Alkonost mostly from the rather brief memoirs of S.M. Alyanski:

The name of the journal of the publishing house Alkonost had been extensively discussed by the writers of Petersburg and Moscow. Many names had been suggested and ultimately they agreed to accept the name suggested by Blok—Dreamers’ Notes. In proposing such a name for the journal Blok would say that it corresponded to the works of Alkonost’s writers addressing the future.

(Alyanski 1969, c. 66)4

We have no reasons to doubt the authenticity of information presented by Alyanski—he was better informed than others of the details of the story of his most famous venture. Nevertheless, doubts still appear. The reminiscences of Alyanski first appeared in 1969, some fifty years had transpired between the event and its description… It is not just the enormous time gap. It was the time of the Soviet dictatorship. Having survived these dangerous years Alyanski distinguished himself by his discretion in describing the events of Soviet literary history. In this regard we must not forget that Alyanski’s book was published by the publishing house, Children’s Literature (Detskaja Literatura) for which the entertainment factor and emotionality were more important than truth and depth in presenting the material. It was not that Alyanski consciously deceived the reader, but he was silent about many things, sidestepped many details, and oversimplified much. One could hardly envy Alyanski’s position as a memoir-writer. In fact, among the major writers gathered around Alkonost, the majority of the names were fully or partially banned (V.I. Ivanov, A.M. Remizov, Andrei Bely), and Alyanski had already said a few kind words about them.

Among them only Blok was permitted to be the subject of study and promotion. It was, namely, Blok with whom Alyanski was close during the last years of the life of the poet, and Alyanski’s reminiscences were mostly devoted to him (they are called My Encounters with Aleksandr Blok). That is why the memoirist speaks about Alkonost and Dreamers’ Notes mostly in connection with Blok. He intentionally recounts the entire history of publishing with Blok at its center.

Nevertheless, as recently published papers devoted to the epistolary heritage of Alyanski, Bely, and Ivanov-Razumnik have clearly shown, the role of Blok in the creation of Alkonost in the publisher’s memoirs was greatly exaggerated. It seems that the centricity of Blok in Alyanski’s story about the birth of Dreamers’ Notes is likewise exaggerated.

It was Bely who during the whole preparatory period consistently acted as a promoter of Dreamers’ Notes and tried to persuade his friends to support Alyanski’s journal. “Dear Razumnik Vasilyevich,— he addressed Ivanov-Razumnik, “Could you please write something for Dreamers’ Notes…” (Bely and Ivanov-Razumnik 1998, p. 174–Letter from 12 March 1919).

Blok was among those whom he literally enticed into the journal.

Dear Sasha,

If you wrote for the Dreamers’ Notes, it would be so important. If you, Razumnik Vas[ilyevich], Vyacheslav [Ivanov] and I were to write about the most important issues now and they resonated with each other, Dreamers’ Notes, providing the 6th and the 7th issues came out, would become the spirit of the epoch.

The stars seem to be on their side so that something real could grow out of this gathering around Dreamers’ Notes… It is not because I want to write much there I’m looking at them as if it were my most important business, but because we can meet there.

My dear, dear, one— write back to me: take the Dreamers’ Notes to your heart. Let them be our common “child”; I’m convinced as never before—this is very important: it’s important that they exist.

(Bely and Blok 2001, pp. 519–20–Letter from 12 March 1919)5

Alyanski’s assertion that it was Blok who gave the journal the name Dreamers’ Notes; “he said that it corresponds to the work of the Alkonost writers addressed to the future” appears particularly dubious. It was not Blok, but Bely (to the greatest extent at that time) who was characterized by thinking in terms of temporal layers and epochs, operating and juggling with categories of the past, the present and especially the future. It is noteworthy that Bely was consistently working on the idea of movement from the past to the future applying it to the mission of Alkonost.

He publicly announced this in connection with the nine-month anniversary of the publishing house celebrated at the beginning of March 1919. In the album created by Alyanski especially for this occasion6 Bely left a lengthy congratulatory message, the main idea of which consists in this “address to the future”:

The line of evolution “→” consists of a series of interruptions; at the point of an interruption there is a catastrophe; within the catastrophe falls a new impulse… After the fall of Troy Aeneas sets out on a journey so that his descendants could found the Rome of the future era.

At the present moment we must take the best of the dying Troy and carry it to other epochs; and—we must pass over our heritage to the next generations; combining the gifts of the past era and its fruits with the garden of the future which is beginning to bloom–represents a true process of dedication. We, Aeneases emerge from Troy: the path—is long… On what shall we sail? Alkonost has a heavy burden: to complete this voyage. Samuil Mironovich, there are many storms ahead: one can lose one’s way; stay the course!

I join those congratulating Alkonost on one condition; these are not cheers to the hero of the anniversary who has completed his journey; these are cheers “Bon voyage!“… And onward! Years lay ahead of us.

Andrei Bely. Moscow. 8 March 1919.7

Bely finished his album note with a clarifying drawing in which Alkonost is depicted as a boat sailing through rough waters. It has left the shore of the “Old Era” where only the ruins remain, depicted schematically (“The Fall of the Old”), and is heading towards the coast of the “New Era” that is symbolically presented as a lighthouse, giving off the “new light”. The ship Alkonost is showing the way to the “New Era,” “the new impulse” emanating directly from the “Kingdom of the Spirit”… (Figure 2).

In a letter from 15 December 1918 Alyanski addressed Bely with a request. “Can you suggest the name for a journal” (Bely and Alyanski 2002, p. 77). It is difficult to imagine that Bely, being at the origins of the almanac’s idea and so ardently engaging into the work of uniting the literary community around Alkonost would be indifferent to such a proposal. Yes, it was precisely Bely (not Blok or Vyacheslav Ivanov) from whom Alyanski ordered the “Introduction” for the first issue of Dreamers’ Notes in which the ideological program of the journal would be outlined: “… I would like to have your introductory article on the governing programmatic content; so that we can put our little journal on tracks, animate it and show it the way” (Bely and Alyanski 2002, p. 77).

Thus, Bely can be called the key figure of Dreamers’ Notes, Alyanski’s main assistant in preparing the journal for publication. He was deeply involved both in the process of developing the concept of the journal, as well as in the search for concrete forms of manifesting its main idea. The journal cover was one of the most important elements of such a manifestation. Alyanski’s memoirs, however, make no mention of Bely’s involvement in the developmental concept of the cover. Nor do they mention the drawings by Bely preserved in the Russian State Archives of Literature and Arts (further RGALI) and the V. I. Dal State Museum of the History of Russian Literature (further GLM). Nonetheless, the process of creation of the journal cover was described by Alyanski in great detail.

Alyanski, as usual, begins with Blok.

We had to order the cover, choose the artist.

Having consulted with Blok I named the artist Golovin. I thought it would be a good idea to depict a theater curtain that could serve as a front door to the journal. And who could make a theater curtain better than Golovin? The last theatre curtains of Golovin for the plays staged by Meyerhold came to my mind: Don Juan and Masquerade in the Alexandria theatre, Boris Godunov in the Mariinsky theatre, and we decided to ask Vsevolod Emilievich [Meyerhold] to introduce us to Golovin.

Meyerhold was glad to find an excuse to see Golovin and suggested: “Let’s go to Golovin, all three of us! Aleksandr Yakovlevich will be glad. By the way, we can see what he is working on, this old man.

We agreed to go the next Sunday. Golovin lived outside the city in Tsarskoe Selo near St. Petersburg (now the town of Pushkin). Blok could not go and the two of us went together with Meyerhold.

(Alyanski 1969, p. 88)8

The first idea of the cover suggested a theater curtain. There was certainly some logic in this idea–although it was not very original. Golovin was primarily an artist of the theater, and his famous curtains were known and loved by everybody. The theater curtain was often used for the design of covers, for example, in the edition of the famous Lyrical Dramas by A.A. Blok (Blok 1908) (Figure 3) or Cor Ardens by V.I. Ivanov (Ivanov 1911) (Figure 4). The author of both works of art was K.A. Somov. Golovin himself had used this technique brilliantly when he designed a periodical—Journal of Doctor Lapertutto, The Love of Three Oranges. Golovin designed the cover for the issues of 1915 and 1916 (Figure 5). The publisher-editor of that journal was V.E. Meyerhold, and the editor of the poetry section was A.A. Blok. The draft, preparatory materials for Alyanski’s memoirs found in his daughter’s collection confirm that it, the Journal of Doctor Lapertutto was meant to serve as a model to be emulated.

… From all the covers that I have seen during the last years I particularly liked the covers of A.Y. Golovin for the journal of Doctor Lapertutto (V.E. Meyerhold) The Love of Three Oranges. There was a theater curtain depicted with two characters from the play by Carlo Gozzi. At that time I was under the charm of Golovin’s theatre curtains for Lermontov’s Masquerade9.

Taking this into account, it seems rather strange that Blok–if he had been interested in Dreamers’ Notes at all—could have supported the idea of the theatre curtain, as not only did it not possess any originality, but it also bordered on blatant plagiarism. Blok might have agreed with Alyanski’s words without thinking and not using his imagination. No wonder, he did not go to Golovin to discuss this idea.

Still, Meyerhold’s negative reaction to the “curtain idea” seems quite justified. It is highly unlikely that he could like the idea of literal repetition (in fact stealing) of a cover from his own journal and on top of it made by his artist, A.Y. Golovin. He did, however, find some more delicate and wiser arguments for Golovin:

On the train Vsevolod Emilievich was asking about Dreamers’ Notes, about who and what would get published and what cover we were considering. When he found out about our intention to make the cover a curtain, he exclaimed:

“Why should it be a curtain? You’re not going to publish only plays in the journal?”And he added: “No, leave the curtain to the theater, you have to think of a plot connected with the name of the journal—Dreamers’ Notes.

(Alyanski 1969, p. 90)10

As follows from Alyanski’s memoirs, Meyerhold not only criticized the “curtain idea,” but he tried to replace it with something else as quickly as possible:

“We must think what they are like, today’s dreamers. I think, that while they’re still closely connected with the past, they’re only dreaming of the future…”

This was how Meyerhold was conceptualizing the dreamers first on the train, and then—as we were walking along the paths of Tsarskoe Selo. When we approached the house where Golovin lived, he said: “I think, I’ve got an idea! Let’s discuss it with Golovin”.

(Alyanski 1969, p. 90)11

Meyerhold’s attempts to invent something more original and worthy than the “curtain idea” continued in the home of the artist:

We found Aleksandr Yakovlevich Golovin at his easel—he was drawing a still life Flowers in a Vase. Golovin was glad to see Meyerhold, they kissed each other as friends and exchanged friendly hugs at great length.

Having introduced me, Meyerhold told us about Blok’s request and Alkonost. Having criticized the idea with the curtain he started walking around the room impulsively, fantasizing aloud the idea of the cover.

“Do you remember Daumier’s lithograph The Stamp Lover? That Stamp Lover bears great resemblance to our today’s dreamer”.

(Alyanski 1969, p. 90)12

It is difficult to say in the end how much The Stamp Lover (1856–1860) of the French artist Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) influenced the final work of Golovin (Figure 6a,b)13. Possibly the headgear and partly the type of clothing was borrowed from Daumier. The perspective of the “dreamer” is essentially different, although by a strong stretch of the imagination, one can find some overlap. Yet, the spaces in which these characters of Daumier and Golovin are placed are strikingly different: instead of the cramped dark room of The Stamp Lover—there is a magnificent panorama of a city and sky lying in front of the reader’s eyes.

If Alyanski is to be believed, “the contents of the picture” were designed by Meyerhold “on the spot”.

It seems to me that we must draw the following picture: the dreamer must be standing on a very high rock with his back turned to the viewer. In front of him (beneath his legs) lies a huge industrial city. Roofs, roofs, roofs… and somewhere industrial chimneys. Over the roofs smoke is being trapped which is merged with clouds on the horizon and there, further on, through the smoke and clouds one can faintly see the bright city of the future.

(Alyanski 1969, p. 91)14

He also played the role of an impromptu “dreamer” to illustrate his idea sitting for Golovin, while he was painting from him the figure for the cover:

Having told us the main idea of the picture, Meyerhold turned to Golovin asking him to take a pencil and a sheet of paper and make a drawing of him being in the same posture as of the dreamer in the cover of the journal.

Meyerhold walked up to the door, stood with his face to it, his back to the artist, put his hands into the pockets of his jacket, first shrinking himself and then stretching out and stood without moving for a few minutes while Golovin did the sketch.

I ended up as an accidental witness to the mysterious creative process of the two outstanding artists.

(Alyanski 1969, p. 91)15

Blok, as it follows again from Alyanski’s story, readily agreed with the new concept of the cover:

In the evening I was telling Blok in great detail what I heard and saw. Blok was smiling, and when I finished, he said:

“I wish I had gone with you and seen everything with my own eyes. As for the plot devised by Meyerhold, I think it’s interesting and his thoughts are more profound than our curtain. One thing is certain: the cover will show a lot of talent. Congratulations”.

(Alyanski 1969, p. 91)16

The obvious merit of Alyanski’s story is its entertaining character, dynamism, and coherence. However, on a closer look, quite a number of things in this story seem highly unlikely—either because memory failed the memoirist or he sacrificed much to ideology and artistry.

What remains unclear is the origin of the strange imagery that gushes forth from Meyerhold on the train trip to Golovin’s house. Although Meyerhold sympathized with Alyanski’s undertaking, he never published anything in Dreamers’ Notes. It is even less comprehensible how the sketches for the journal cover made by Bely could be “attached” to this dynamic narrative. It is obvious that Bely did not make them for his enjoyment or admiration. The sketches were accompanied by an explanation, at the end of each there is a signature of the author of the idea (“A. B”.). Such a presentation of the sheets with drawings unambiguously indicates that they were meant for discussion, maybe even not necessarily in the presence of Bely himself. It goes without saying that these clarifying notes were addressed to Alyanski himself. However, Alyanski, as noted earlier, does not mention Bely’s sketches at all nor Bely’s or anyone else’s involvement in the discussion of the cover.

It is noteworthy that in the journal version of Alyanski’s memoirs there is a phrase that did not make it into the book: “A question of the cover arose. It appeared irrelevant to give this publication a Constructivist or Cubist cover (which was fashionable at that time)” (Alyanski 1976).

It seems that those words of Alyanski stricken from the final version of the memoirs are a clear indication of the fact that even before his visit to Golovin not only was the hackneyed idea of the “theater curtain” discussed in the Alkonost circles, but other variants of presenting Dreamers’ Notes—that were more closely connected with the name of the journal, so as with the more pressing tendencies of painting than Golovin’s Modernism.

To whom from Alyanski’s entourage could “a Constructivist or Cubist cover” come to mind? It seems that the author of this idea could only be Meyerhold, the recognized father of “Theatrical Constructivism” who in his own productions had replaced the Modernist A.Y. Golovin with L.S. Popova—an artist who left a notable trace in the history of the Russian Cubism and Constructivism. This makes us question even more the veracity of the story vividly described by Alyanski of the “mysterious creative process of the two outstanding artists” to which he had been an “accidental witness”.

As for Bely, he was known by his own words to be rather hostile to Cubism, as well as to Constructivism. It is hardly worthwhile to regard and classify his nonprofessional artistic works in the context of painting trends existing at his time. It is obvious, however, that Bely’s sketches are closer to the Avant-garde art than to the Modernism in line with which Golovin used to work.

In any case, Alyanski’s slip of the tongue in the journal variant of his memoirs shows that the question of the journal’s cover was being discussed. It is possible that Bely’s sketches were those that were suggested for discussion as a variant of the journal cover or as an alternative to the “theater curtain,” which Alyanski kept quiet about either intentionally or out of forgetfulness.

In this regard, it makes sense to address Bely’s sketches of the Dreamers’ Notes cover that remained outside the publisher’s memoirs. We will consider three drawings that are kept in the writer’s fund in RGALI (Fund 53. Inventory 1. Storage Unit 62—Figure 7, Figure 8 and Figure 9).

We will also consider the following additional drawing from the State Literary Museum (GLM; KP-9670/36—Figure 10), which can be attached to this series of sketches.

Even from a cursory look at the preserved sketches their connection with Anthroposophy becomes clear. This comes as no wonder, taking into account Bely’s desire to use Dreamers’ Notes as a platform to promote R. Steiner’s ideas. Bely had tried to express his Anthroposophical ideas not through text, but through drawing earlier. This practice can be traced to the period of his study in the esoteric school. Recall that in 1913, Bely was accepted into the esoteric school, members of which under the leadership of their teacher mastered the details of occult practices and were following the path towards initiation. Bely achieved huge success within the shortest time: he mastered, according to his own witness, the technique of “exiting” his physical body, attained the ability to see “landscapes of the spiritual world” and behold the “life of angelic hierarchies” (Bely 2016a, p. 143) etc. According to his own account, in this initial period of active esoteric practice he was under such an enormous impression from the new experience that he was unable to express it through words and was searching for an alternative. Here, his artistic self came to help: Bely started to draw much, implementing his experiences not in words but with the help of pencils and paints. This period seems the most productive in the biography of Bely-the-artist (Spivak 2006). “Day after day I color images drawn by me (symbols of my spiritual knowledge) … they’re not drawings but copies of what I beheld spiritually…” (Bely 2016a, p. 143)17—he recalled. Characteristic examples of the “symbols of my spiritual knowledge” are the pictures left by Bely in Dornach and now kept in the archives (Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung). The images inscribed there can undoubtedly be called visionary (Figure 11, Figure 12 and Figure 13)18.

Bely’s inability to express his visionary experience obtained during his esoteric scholarship proved to be only temporary. From the middle of the 1910s Bely consistently made more or less successful attempts to lay out his Anthroposophical revelations in reports, lectures, articles, and philosophical essays and treatises, as well as to incorporate them into his works of art both in prose and poetry.

Some of his texts or individual parts of texts are direct textual commentaries to the drawings of “spiritual revelations” made by him earlier.

For example, his poem “Spirit” written in Arlesheim in 1914 can be viewed as an explanation of his two visionary drawings (Figure 11 and Figure 12).

• I was falling asleep… (striving thoughts
• Were dashing in some spirals;
• Opening in the conscious sense
• The unrevealed to consciousness height)—
• And I saw the spirit… It appeared like a spark
• Like lightning, his elusive face
• And two wings—the drilling spirals—
• Tore the distance with a bloody sparkling.
(Bely 2006, p. 399)19

Two other drawings needing clarification were placed by Bely on a single sheet (Figure 13). On the left an arrow—a new-born child raised into the starry sky surrounded by three spiritual creatures; a human on the right with streams bursting through upward and downward from the top of his head. It is the image of an enlightened person who, like Bely himself, having followed Steiner’s instructions, has achieved the knowledge of higher worlds. As a partial commentary to both drawings are the stanzas from the programmatic poem of 1918 “Anthroposophy”.

• … A glistening beam from the starry hilt,
• Like a swift sword;
• My poor mind falls upon my embarrassed brothers’ feet
• Falls down from my shoulders.
• I’m beheaded in the engulfing light
• Of the radiant eyes.
• Between us—He stands Unrecognized, being the Third:
• Be not afraid of us.
• We flared up, but we went out for the earth.
• We’re a silent verse.
• We are forming a sunny manger.
• The infant is in it.
(Bely 2006, p. 411)20

It is important to mention that this Anthroposophist writer perceived World War I and the Revolution as a global crisis and at the same time as a collective initiation mystery21. In these conditions Bely saw his sacred mission to be the initiator of Steiner’s ideas into the public consciousness that in his opinion could point to ways out of the crisis, thus providing a chance for the salvation of Russia, humanity, and the whole world.

It is significant that Bely used the experience of Steiner’s esoteric school not only for writing his “textual” works proposed to Alyanski for publication (the long short story “Notes of an Eccentric”, the essay “Crisis of Life”, some articles for Dreamer’s Notes, and others), but he also used it in his drawings directly or indirectly connected with Alyanski’s publishing house.

So, for example, the creature named Alkonost depicted in Alyanski’s Anniversary album on 8 March 1919 (Figure 14) is composed in the same style as “spiritual creatures” in the pictures from Dornach (Figure 11 and Figure 12).

They resemble the picturesque vignettes made by Bely for the manuscript of his collection of poems called “Verses…” kept in the Manuscript Department of the Russian State Library (F. 25. Box. 37. Storage Unit 13—Figure 15) and his drawings of theses to the lecture “Light from the Future” (3 February 1918)22, and the characters that literally flooded the cover sketch to the poem The First Encounter made by Bely in 1921 (RGALI. Fond 53. Inventory 1. Storage Unit 7—Figure 16).

Alkonosts both from Alyanski’s album and from the cover of The First Encounter acquired some anthropomorphic (or angelopomorphic) form though their origin, which seems obvious. These forms derived from those “symbols of spiritual knowledge” that Bely depicted during his anthroposophical discipleship in the esoteric school of Steiner. We can speak, as it seems, about stages of “humanization” of the symbols: from the visionary drawings of Dornach to the vignettes from the handwritten book, kept in the Russian State Library—to the Alkonosts, inspired by Alyanski.

A similar and even more close connection of the images from the Anthroposophical texts and Bely’s visionary drawings can be followed in the sketches to the cover of Dreamers’ Notes.

In the first sketch, as follows from the explanatory note at the top right hand of the picture, “a dreamer is depicted; his feminine soul (men have a feminine kind of soul, women—a masculine one) precedes the spiritual creature” (Figure 7). Bely tried to draw the process of departing from one’s physical body into the spiritual world and the encounter with spiritual substances and spiritual creatures—that was exactly what he had learned in Steiner’s esoteric school and what he described in his story “Yogi” (1918). Remember that the special exercises practiced by the main character of the story Ivan Ivanovich Korobkin for many years led to the following effect:

Stretching on his back and with closed eyes he was lying motionless; the imaginary screwball in his head was revolving in a spiral hit the… bones of the skull, the skull bursting and the contents of the head… in the sensation were expanding infinitely; first it felt as if a tiara had been put on his head; then the tiara would grow into his head and expand into a huge tower….

(Bely 1995, p. 304)23

It seems that Bely tried to depict a spiritual “tiara” extending from the crown of the “dreamer’s” head. A most detailed description of the process of the soul’s “departing” from the body in the story “Yogi”culminates exactly as shown in the given sketch of the cover.

Ivan Ivanovich’s soul broke away from the earthly, cloudy sphere … (it broke away from the top of his own head) and—there proceeded the union of the person with the spirit ….

(Bely 1995, p. 307)24

We see something of a similar kind in the above-mentioned visionary sketches of Bely, for example, in the image of an initiated person with a hole at the top of his head (Figure 13 on the right of the sheet).

The second and the third sketches of the cover can be regarded as invariants composed from the same formative elements: 1. a tower, 2. three creatures, 3. a setting sun (Figure 8 and Figure 9). The similarities between these two sketches with the visionary drawing, placed on the left of the sheet in the same drawing (Figure 13) are indisputable. In both drawings we see the joyous “trinity” (astrologers-sorcerers-angels) standing on the tower, rising high above the earth. The difference is that in the sketches to Dreamers’ Notes the trinity’s attention is concentrated on the descending sun, but in the visionary picture it is on the infant lying like Jesus Christ in the scenes of “The Birth of Christ” or “The Adoration of the Magi”. It appears that both the “infant” and the “sun” have a spiritual nature and both symbolically denote one and the same phenomenon—the so-called “Christ Impulse”. Steiner’s followers associated with the “Christ Impulse” the beginning of a new era, the birth of a new man and the awakening in each person of a “larger” spiritual “I” (Bely 2000).

Strange as it might seem, from the notes on the sheets with sketches it follows that Bely first tried to render expressively not so much the “dreamers,” but rather the tower on which they rise above the world. The tower in the second drawing (Figure 8) colored in black ink seemed to look neither good nor high enough, that is why he drew it again in pencil in the top right corner of the sheet accompanying the duplicate with a note: “It’s good-for-nothing, given just for the shape of the tower. A.B”. The note in the third sketch (Figure 9) shows that Bely continued his work to perfect an object that was so important for him: “A tower on which dreamers are standing is better just because of its outline and a different shape…”.

Naturally, a question arises about the origin of this strange “tower” that Bely wanted so stubbornly to place on the journal cover.

The answer to this question, it seems, is contained again in the description of the occult visions and experiences that Ivan Ivanovich Korobkin, the character of the story “Yogi”, feels while departing from his body.

Here by an act of will I felt like a powerful, bright point tearing everything and it felt like a shock; the body lying amid the sheets cracked as if it had been a pod and Ivan Ivanovich Korobkin got the opportunity to move over a tremendous tower (from the heart —through the throat—to the hole at the top of his head); he felt like he was running inside the tower—on the staircase: from one step to another (from an organ to an organ); and he ran out onto the terrace of a most magnificent tower (outside his physical body or body of elements). It turned out that he was surrounded by celestial space sparkling with stars….

(Bely 1995, p. 305)25

It is remarkable that it is on the very “tower” that the hero-mystic is coming to at the last stage of his initiation.

Meanwhile: the true Ivan Ivanovich Korobkin, having risen to the terrace of the huge tower stood leaning on the railing and looking at the worlds of stars moving from one place to another in the sky; his star was rushing towards him … to carry him forever to the awaiting … Teacher.

(Bely 1995, p. 308)26

No less important is that the image of “tiara” from the first sketch and the image of the “tower” which is central for the other two sketches are very closely connected: “The tiara was growing together with the head and stretching into an enormously high tower…” (Bely 1995, p. 304). Both images have a visionary character and depict other stages of the same process of initiation coming one after another: first the perception of one’s head as a tiara stretching from the opening in head, and then—after exiting one’s physical body—the feeling of a self standing “on the terrace of a huge tower,” rising above the earthly world. It is significant in this plan that even having been concentrated on the image of a “tower”, Bely was far from abandoning the image of “tiara”. This becomes obvious when closely looking at the second and third sketches: on the heads of the “dreamers” standing on the tower Bely imposed tiaras.

The connection of the head (with a hole on the top) and a tower on top of which there is something mysterious happening is clearly seen in another visionary drawing of Bely preserved in the collection of the Memorial Apartment of Andrei Bely (1910-s)27—Figure 17), in it we can see that the head is actually the tower.

All of these images (the head—the tiara—the tower) reflect the stages of the initiation process. These spiritual creatures—according to Bely’s definition in the story “Yogi” are the “starry birds” that fly down from the celestial spheres. The encounter of the hero on the way of initiation with them occurs as follows:

He turned out to be surrounded by celestial space sparkling with stars, but the peculiar features of these stars were that they were fluttering rapidly like birds; approaching the terrace where Korobkin was contemplating them being himself freed from his body, they became many-feathered creatures; they were pouring fountains of lights from the center, like feathers; and one creature there—a starry bird (Ivan Ivanovich’s star) descended upon him, embracing him with the raging fire of its wings; and—it took him away; one could feel the boiling water burning the whole body of Ivan Ivanovich; the feeling in his hands was transformed into the sensation of the star’s wings embracing him and lighting the fires; and Ivan Ivanovich Korobkin was flying through all into the sparklers, brocades or gold-cloths, shrouds made from the space of shining substances—into Nothing in the middle of which the very Old, Forgotten Acquaintance primordially meeting us says: “Behold, I am Coming!”.

(Bely 1995, p. 306)28

One of Bely’s drawings of the period of his study at the esoteric school is in full conformity with this description. The drawing shows a tower rising amid the celestial sphere and the winged “trinity,” standing on its terrace beholding “worlds of stars moving in space” similar to that of Ivan Ivanovich Korobkin (Figure 13, from the left side of the sheet). There is also a star in the picture of the “enlightened one” with his skull opened to “the spiritual world” (Figure 13, from the right side of the sheet).

Bely also presented the “spiritual creature” in the form of a heavenly star in the sketches of the journal cover. In all three sketches, it is not just a star but rather a radiating sun. In the first sketch, to emphasize the spiritual and mystical natures of the sun Bely also endows it with wings. In the third picture, he places a star and a crescent into the hands of each “dreamer”. In order to dispel the doubts about the scene being set in the celestial space, Bely lets a string of clouds flow along the lower edge of a third sheet for illustrative purposes (Figure 9), and the tower on which “the dreamers” adorned in tiaras are meeting the sun that rises high above them.

It is possible that one more drawing can be regarded as the sketch for the cover of the Dreamer’s Notes that entered the collection of the GLM (Figure 10). The museum’s “Record of Entries” reveals to us that this drawing was given to the museum not by some random individual but by Alyanski himself—the Alkonost’s publisher. This fact alone allows us to place this drawing of Bely from the GLM in the series together with the other journal cover sketches. In fact, if we take into account the source of entry, while analyzing the drawing from GLM, it turns out that the people happily walking with their hands raised are not the revolutionary people (in the GLM the picture is called the “revolutionary allegory”) but the very dreamers that, as Bely explained in Alyanski’s album, are harmoniously moving from the past to the future, to the Kingdom of Spirit. According to the posture of the dreamers, they are joyfully welcoming the Sun of the “New Era” drawn in the same style as in the sketches from RGALI.

Both in the first sketch and in the picture from the GLM, the sun is not only radiant but also winged, which points to its spiritual, divine, rather than astronomical nature. Unlike the sketches from RGALI, in the GLM drawing the “dreamers” are placed not onto some high place beyond the clouds and not on the terrace of a huge tower, but, on the contrary, they are trapped in a deep gorge between two high rocks. From the earthly depth they are carried away to the radiant and winged sun, turning their faces and joyfully raising their extended arms. Nevertheless, they are still on the earth. One may think that the deep gorge (or chasm) is a metaphor for this crisis, the condition of being unenlightened by Anthroposophy in which all humanity found itself and from which, in Bely’s conviction, humanity must escape.

Bely placed one of the “dreamers” higher than the others. That is why he sees further as if showing the others the way, calling them to follow him to the sun and light (to be understood as—to the Kingdom of Spirit). How did this advanced dreamer emerge from the gorge? Where does he have to climb to get closer to the winged sun? He has not yet overcome even half of the sheer cliff, but at the end of the climb he will find himself on a high plateau depicted by Bely resembling extremely that “terrace with a tremendous tower” analyzed before.

It would seem that the drawing from the GLM consists of the same structure-forming elements as the sketches from RGALI: a dreamer or a group of dreamers; the symbol of the forthcoming Kingdom of Spirit in the form of the radiant and/or winged sun and, finally, the symbol of rising/ascension to the world of Spirit in the form of “tiara” and a “tower” or plateau on a high rock. All can be traced to the visionary drawings from the period of Bely’s discipleship at the esoteric school of Steiner and various images connected with the “way of initiation”. The fact that Bely suggested for the cover of Dreamer’s Notes drawings of such a kind indicates his desire to unite authors under the banner of Anthroposophy. However, it is possible that the Anthroposophical ideology, too obviously expressed, resulted in the end not just with Alyanski’s rejection of these sketches but even keeping silent about them in the memoirs.

Comparing the sketches from RGALI with the drawing from the GLM we can assume that there was a certain sequence in which they were made and it is possible to follow the logic of processing them.

It seems that chronologically the first was an openly Anthroposophical sketch with the picture of a dreamer from which extends the “soul–tiara” from the top of his head (Figure 7). Leaving to the side its artistic merits (or to be more exact its shocking defects), one can suppose that Alyanski did not quite like the images for being too esoteric.

It appears that after it comes a sketch with a low tower, the outlines of which did not suit Bely himself: in the upper corner he tried to draw in pencil a tower with the correct form (Figure 8). One might suppose that this was the very pencil sketch that the writer took as the basis of the next, third sketch (Figure 9). In both sketches with “towers,” the Anthroposophical idea, as we have tried to show, is fully present, but the images in which it is expressed are simpler and can be perceived not only in a specifically Anthroposophical way, but rather in a way that is generally cultural (for example, in the context of the “Argonautic” solar myth of Bely the Symbolist). This symbolism could have been more comprehensible and familiar to Alyanski and his authors.

In the chronologically last created sketch (the sketch from GLM—Figure 10), the Anthroposophical ideology and imagery are even more blatant. Variants of its interpretation may be rather diverse: from the “Argonautism” to “the revolutionary allegory”. This begs the idea that in the process of considering the sketches for the cover of Dreamers’ Notes Bely tried to make the Anthroposophical ideology less openly demonstrative, and he tried to transform his visionary imagery into general cultural and universally understandable symbols.

Was it Bely himself who came to think that it is necessary to visually reduce the Anthroposophical layer or Alyanski who encouraged him to do this? It appears that the second variant is more plausible. Was it not Alyanski primarily to whom Bely addressed his clarifying notes in the sketches? Furthermore, how else could the last sketch be “set aside” in the publisher’s archives?

Consequently, there is the undeniable fact—the existence of Bely’s sketches for the cover of Dreamers’ Notes. We have revealed their genetic ties with the esoteric, visionary experience of Bely-the-Anthroposophist, reflected in his sketches and works of the 1910s. We have tried to prove that Alyanski was aware of Bely’s artistic and ideological projects.

However there is another, even more irrefutable fact–the cover was drawn by A.Y. Golovin. According to M.A. Chegodaeva’s characterization, the writer had done a “very ‘artistic world-like’, strictly graphical, decorative work”; “with ‘Modernist’-styled printed letters with serpentine leaves and a fine black and yellow frame and with a beautiful sophisticated composition through the entire cover: on a bare, cracked rock overgrown with thorns stands the Poet with his back to us, a scroll of papers in his pocket, thoughtfully looking down at the gloomy black multi-storied city cloaked in grey waves of smoke from factory chimneys and above them—visions of antique temples and dancing muses” (Chegodaeva 2002, p. 291).

So were Bely’s sketches decisively rejected or did they just happened to be unneeded? Or was the idea proposed by Bely replaced with Meyerhold—Golovin’s idea so picturesquely described in Alyanski’s memoirs? Such things happen quite often in publishing and writing practices; however, such an inviting assumption seems to us to be too hasty and—incorrect.

In order that these two undeniable facts cease to contradict each other, we must first of all try to distance ourselves from the diametrically opposed manners of style (Bely’s and Golovin’s) and compare the rough sketches with the journal’s cover without bias.

Again we introduce a quotation from Alyanski’s memoirs that explains the idea as if it was proposed by Meyerhold to Golovin:

… one must draw such a picture: a dreamer seems to be standing on a very high rock with his back to the viewer. In front of him (under his feet) is spread out a large industrial city. Roofs, roofs, roofs… and somewhere industrial chimneys. Over the roofs smoke is being trapped which is merged with clouds on the horizon and there, further on, through the smoke and clouds one can faintly see the bright city of the future.

It was precisely this idea that was embodied by Golovin (Figure 1): a “dreamer” is depicted on the cover. He is placed by the artist on the terrace of a rock from whose height he is looking at the dark, dusty present and he foresees the bright future in the heavenly distances.

However, the very idea to place the dreamer on a terrace of a high rock (in the same way as its embodiment in the Golovin’s drawing) is enormously puzzling. There is not such a tall observation deck in either St. Petersburg or Moscow. This rock dominating the city, where did it come from?

It seems to us that this mysterious rock with a “dreamer” on a high terrace, came to Golovin directly from Bely’s sketches and is in fact a variant of Bely’s “tower” recaptured in the Modernist way. Here, the key is the third sketch in which the tower rises over the carefully detailed cloud bank (Figure 9), and, of course, the drawing from the GLM in which the transition from the image of the “tower” to the image of the “rock” occurred (Figure 10).

Other constituent elements of the cover are obviously taken from the same source—from Bely’s sketches. For example, in the upper right-hand corner of the cover the rising sun is shining—the same sun that figures in all of Bely’s sketches. Only the sun in Bely’s sketches acts as a compositional center, whereas in Golovin’s drawing it is moved to the periphery.

In addition, if we look closely at the upper right-hand corner of the cover (Figure 18), we can find some kind of architectural construction: is it a sanctuary, an antique temple? Or is it the very “Temple” at the threshold of which, according to Bely-the-Anthroposophist, humanity is standing and entrance into which Bely was actively encouraging?

Three fantastic creatures are bathing against the background of the temple and practically dissolving into three fantastical creatures. One can certainly try to discover their mythological names, but it seems more productive to turn for an answer to Bely. It cannot be excluded that in the upper right-hand corner Golovin depicted in his own way those three “dreamers” that are present in the second and the third sketches of Bely (Figure 8 and Figure 9). Obviously, the architectural structure and “the spiritual creatures” in the rays of the rising sun on Bely’s journal cover made by Golovin symbolize “the bright city of the future,” or—as Andrei Bely would have put it—“The Solar City”. It is remarkable that it was Bely who proclaimed “The Solar City” to be the central image of the dreamer’s “fantasy” and his final goal. He devoted to this topic his essay “Utopia,” written specially for Dreamers’ Notes in 1919:

The “fantasy” will come true… the dreamer will shout: The City of the Sun of Campanella has descended, and here we are—in the Solar City!

By the word of the dreamer we will step into the Solar City.

Its Kingdom will last forever!.

(Bely 1921, p. 144)29

At first glance, only one figurative element of the cover is missing from the sketches by Bely: the dark shrouds of smoke covering the city below the rock, and the light, sunny shrouds in the heavenly perspective in which the dreamer foresees the future. In Alyanski’s memoirs this element is highlighted as a formative one: “Over the roofs assembles the smoke that transforms into clouds on the horizon. And there, further, through the smoke and the clouds lurks the bright city of the future”.

Actually, in Bely’s sketches the “smoke that is transformed into clouds on the horizon” is not gathering, but that dark, dirty smoke is wreathing at the foot of the high tower in the drawing from the period of Bely’s esoteric practice. It is that very drawing, as we were trying to show earlier, which was in its turn the visionary prototype of Bely’s “tower” sketches (Figure 13). As on Golovin’s cover, in that very drawing the dark smoke of the “lower part” is juxtaposed to the bright air of the “upper part”. The dark shrouds on the cover wreathing over the roofs of the houses are transforming into the light sunny shrouds, though in the visionary drawing as an antithesis to the dark smoke there is provided at the foot of the tower a heavenly sphere covered with azure clouds and with soaring stars.

If we take into account this visionary drawing, one of the sketches can be looked at in a different way. In it there are also curling clouds at the foot of the tower, though not yet colored. From the context one can suppose that they were meant to be dark and weighty.

Moreover, Bely presented an extensive explanation of these “cloudy” images, as well as their mutual metamorphoses in his short story “Yogi”:

But as Russia was melting while boiling… while in Moscow yellowish-brown clouds of dust were flying and stinging your eyes and papers started twirling… he addressed his colleagues with a phrase that sounded strange:

“Yes, yes, yes—the air is pure and radiant”.

However, he was obviously speaking not about the air inside the museum which was definitely full of dust; he spoke neither about the air on the street, nor did he speak about the air on the field. As for the air about which Ivan Ivanovich Korobkin was shouting at the absolutely wrong time, this air was in the country of thoughts and feelings, where he travelled every day; that country of thinking and feeling was actually the air and light, and he clearly saw that this country became obscure and faded before the Revolution; clouds of oppressive smoke broke out into the light playing here; only from the time of the Revolution had he noticed the clearness of the atmosphere (the wreathing clouds of smoke came down, they covered the surface of our life like a residue causing the collapse of it: this dust dampened down by the rain is deposited on the surface of things leaving its spots on them; and the cleansed air shines radiantly).

His words referred to this state of the atmosphere: “The air is pure and radiant”.

(Bely 1995, p. 303)30

One can conclude that indeed Bely’s ideas and sketches were used by Golovin for creating the famous cover of the journal Dreamers’ Notes, which is known worldwide. It was only that the Anthroposophical ideas were alien to Golovin, and the stylistically unacceptable sketches were re-structured, translated into the language of Modernism and Symbolism.

We have not found any evidence of private communication between Andrei Bely and Golovin which, however, does not preclude the stated assumptions. Bely’s sketches or his ideas could have reached the artist through Alyanski who had come to Moscow in the first decade of March in 1919. In his “Perspective to the Diary” from March 1919, Bely wrote: “The appearance of Alyanski, a number of organiz[ational] talks about the journal Dreamers’ Notes” (Bely 2016b, p. 450). One of the topics of such “organizational talks” could well have been the concept of the cover.