Gippius Z.N. (1869-1945), writer

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GIPPIUS Zinaida Nikolaevna (married name - Merezhkovskaya) (1869-1945), poet, literary critic, prose writer, author of memoirs. Mainly home educated. Her first poems were published in 1888. In 1889 she married D.S. Merezhkovsky and moved to St. Petersburg. Their flats are in the House of Murizi (27/24 Liteiny Avenue), from 1912 - at 83 Sergievskaya (today Tchaikovskogo) Street, which became one of the most popular cultural centres of the 1890-1910s (see Salon Merezhkovsky). Gippius's collection of poems, prose (The Third Book of Stories (St. Petersburg, 1912) was highly controversial) and articles gained wide popularity. In different years she worked as a book reviewer for the journal Mir Iskusstva, joint editor of the journal Novy Put, etc.; in the 1910s many of her works were published in Petersburg periodicals. She organised religious-philosophical meetings (1901-03). In 1908 she published Literary diary under the pen-name Anton Krainy. Gippius' creative and spiritual search was aimed at the overcoming of the gap between individual and common consciousness, the transformation of worn-out forms of private, everyday, public and church life. Many men of letters and philosophers were influenced by Gippius; N.M. Minsky, V.V. Rozanov, A.A. Blok, A. Bely and V.Y. Bryusov among them. Her diaries and the collection Last Poems 1914-1918 (Petrograd, 1918) reveals the total rejection of Bolshevist Revolution of 1917. In the late 1920 Gippius and Merezhkovsky settled in Paris, where Gippius continued writing.

References: Злобин В. А. Тяжелая душа. Вашингтон, 1970; Лавров А. В. З. Н. Гиппиус и ее поэтический дневник // Гиппиус З. Н. Стихотворения. СПб., 1999. С. 5-68; Маковский С. К. На Парнасе Серебряного века. М., 2000. С. 132-185.

T. M. Dvinyatina. Bely Andrey (real name Bugaev Boris Nikolaevich)
Blok G.P.
Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich
Gippius Zinaida Nikolaevna
Merezhkovskaya (look for Gippius Z.N.)
Merezhkovsky Dmitry Sergeevich
Minsky (born Vilenkin) Nikolay Maximovich
Rozanov Vasily Vasilievich
Liteiny Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 24/27
Tchaikovskogo St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 83
Злобин В. А. Тяжелая душа. Вашингтон, 1970
Лавров А. В. З. Н. Гиппиус и ее поэтический дневник // Гиппиус З. Н. Стихотворения. СПб., 1999
Маковский С. К. На Парнасе Серебряного века. М., 2000 Merezhkovsky Salon
Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), journal
Novy Put (New Way), newspaper