Understanding the Christian Symbolism of Death in Silver Age Poetry

Introduction . The article is devoted to the analysis of poetic works containing philosophical ideas about dying and death of several representatives of domestic symbolism in fiction of the first quarter of the 20th century in order to search for Christian symbols, contained in them, that take the meaning of death in a certain context. The main tasks of the study include the search for poetic works about dying and death of the most famous poets and religious thinkers of the Silver Age: A.A. Blok, Vyach. I. Ivanov, D.S. Merezhkovsky and A.N. Bely, as well as a religious and philosophical comparison of the ideas contained in their works about death and Christian symbols of death with the idea of death of V.S. Solovyov as the first representative of philosophy and literature of this period. One of the most important research tasks is to identify the features of poetry of symbolism’s representatives of the Silver Age that are not characteristic of Christianity. Materials and Methods . As methods of scientific research, descriptive, historical and hermeneutical methods were used allowing the author to compile as complete a picture of factors that influenced the subject of poetic works of the Silver Age as possible. The appeal to deductive and inductive methods, as well as methods of analysis and comparison, made it possible to highlight the general and special in the poetic works under study. Results . The formation of the interest of Russian poets and religious thinkers of the Silver Age was influenced by several factors of both historical and spiritual nature, the most significant of which was the work of Vyach. S. Solovyov. In the studied works of A.A. Blok, D.S. Merezhkovsky, Vyach. I. Ivanov and A.N. Bely, Christian symbols are established. These symbols take on the meaning of life and death. The philosophical ideas contained in them are distinguished, which diverge from the ideas generally accepted in Christian doctrine. Discussion and Conclusion . The discussion of the significance of religious and philosophical ideas about death, as well as Christian symbolism of death in fiction, is of scientific interest not only for the philosophy of religion, but also for other humanitarian disciplines, as evidenced by the work of sociologist B. Marie and philologist L.V. Garmash.