Andrey Belyy

Andrei Bely (a pseudonym; real name Boris Nikolayevich Bugaev) was a Russian writer, poet, critic, and versifier; one of the leading figures of Russian Symbolism.

He was born into the family of Professor Nikolai Vasilyevich Bugaev, a famous mathematician and philosopher, president of the Moscow Mathematical Society (1891–1903), the most prominent representative of the Moscow philosophical and mathematical school. Until the age of twenty-six, Boris lived in the very center of Moscow, on Arbat Street. The apartment where he spent his childhood and youth is now a memorial apartment. From 1891 to 1899 he studied at the famous Lyceum of L. I. Polivanov, where in the upper classes he became interested in Buddhism and occultism while also studying literature. At that time Dostoevsky, Ibsen, and Nietzsche had a special influence on Boris. While still a schoolboy, he became acquainted with the brother of philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, Mikhail Sergeyevich, who published Solovyov’s works.

During his student years he became acquainted with the “older Symbolists.” From his youth he tried to combine artistic and mystical moods with positivism and an aspiration toward the exact sciences. It was no accident that at Moscow University he chose the natural sciences division of the Faculty of Mathematics, worked on invertebrate zoology, studied Darwin and chemistry, but did not miss a single issue of Mir iskusstva (“World of Art”).

In 1902 Andrei Bely and his friends organized their own literary circle, which became known as the “Argonauts.” In 1904 the “Argonauts” gathered at Astrov’s apartment. At one of the circle’s meetings, it was proposed to publish a literary-philosophical anthology entitled Svobodnaya sovest (“Free Conscience”), and in 1906 two books of this anthology were published.

In 1903 Bely began corresponding with A. A. Blok, and in 1904 they met in person. By then Bely had graduated from the university with distinction. He entered the Faculty of History and Philology in 1904, stopped attending classes