E. SHAKHMATOVA, Candidate of Art History

The Silver Age is a phenomenon of Russian culture at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. in various fields of art-in music, painting, architecture, theater, literature... - presented a huge variety of various styles and trends, among which, perhaps, it makes no sense to identify the leading ones, since this diversity was the main difference of the era.

The stressful feeling of crisis at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries filled the Silver Age with a powerful energy of overcoming, which rushed in all directions, and first of all, to the first foundations of being, to a sense of unity and harmony. If in the field of philosophy this was expressed by an appeal to the idea of unity, and in the field of art - to the search for synthesis, then at the everyday level it was manifested in overcoming the ties imposed by the Christian religion and morality on the relationship between the sexes.

It is precisely the disagreement with the Christian position of the sinfulness of the physical principle that leads D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius and V. Rozanov to the idea of the Third Testament. Silver Age Eros, like art, rejects conventional attitudes and turns to pre-Christian and extra-Christian traditions. The ancient roots of Silver Age erotology are obvious and have repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers, while the connection with Eastern teachings is still terra incognita for our science.

THE WEST LEARNS FROM THE EAST

The culture of the East, unlike the Christian religion, has never considered the bodily as sinful. Man and nature form a single continuum. The natural act of continuing life is equivalent to renewing the natural cycle. This topic was not forbidden, and philosophical thought addressed it without any embarrassment.

The law of karma in Hinduism did not prohibit bliss and pleasure, sensual pleasures. The god of love, Kama, has received great attention from Indian poets and playwrights. He was depicted as sending arrows into the hearts of men, and no mortal could ignore his will. In the second century BC, the Indian physician Mallanaga Vatsyayana wrote the poem " Kama Sutra "based on the sculptural images of the Black Pagoda temple. In a poetic form, he outlined the culture of sexual life, the relationship between husband and wife, methods and ways to enhance physical beauty and sensual pleasures. The philosopher Shankara wrote commentaries on this treatise.

The religious and philosophical concept of Tantrism is based on the highest and most universal form of Hinduism, which emerged in the first centuries AD and incorporated many ancient rites and beliefs, including paleotic fertility cults, mystical cults, the teachings of the Vedas, Yogic sutras, Upanishads, sacred prostitution, early Buddhism, Tibetan shamanism, and secular tradition "Kama Sutras", etc., contain the idea of a human microcosm and the idea of a female and male energy principle. The ideas of Tantrism are imbued with works of religious and erotic content by Bihari Lal (XVII century), Chintamani (XVII century), Bharatchandro Rai (XVIII century), Rangin (early XIX century), Jan Sahab (XIX century).

Chinese culture perceived the world as the harmony of a two-pronged absolute, existing on the basis of the unchanging cosmic law of evolution, or Tao. Instructions about love in China have been spread for a long time. Great importance was attached to the harmony of male and female principles (Yang - Yin). Taoists held the view that sexual harmony leads to union with the infinite power of nature, which also has sexual traits. The earth is the feminine yin element, and the sky is the symbol of the masculine yang principle; the interaction between them makes up the world as a whole. The earliest extant Chinese erotic work, The Treatise of the One Who Has Penetrated the Mystery, dates from the fourth and seventh centuries A.D. and is very similar in its thoroughness to the Indian Kama Sutra. Taoist beliefs related to a particular ritual practice, in some detail

similar to Tantric prescriptions. The old Chinese painting was very explicit, showing the connection between a man and a woman without any hesitation, focusing the "male jade rod" and the "female jade door"¹.

The Arabs, who occupied part of India in the eighth century, might have adopted the ideas of Tantrism. In the Middle East, the cheerful cult of love was represented by the fairy tales of the Arabian Nights. It was a cult of physical love as the sweetest delicacy of life. Even in paradise, faithful Muslims can expect beautiful Houris. In the XV-XVI centuries, this bodily cult was described in the treatise of Sheikh Tunis Nafzawi "The Fragrant Garden". This book came to Europe through Maupassant, who received it from an officer of the French colonial army who fought in Algeria. The translation of the treatise into European languages caused a real shock to the well-meaning public with its frankness.

Of course, the Christian culture did not allow anything like this. The Kama Sutra was first described by the English scholar Aufrecht in the book Catalog of Love (translated from Sanskrit), published in Oxford in 1859, and since then has been reprinted several times. In 1883, the Kama Sutra was published by F. Arbuthnot and R. Burton, a traveler, political figure, orientalist, known for his translation of the fairy tales of the Thousand and One Nights. The best translation was published in 1907 by R. Schmidt, where the most explicit passages were given in Latin. At the same time, a book by German Professor A. Weber on the history of Indian literature was published. The East was a common European hobby.

Emerging books and translations into European languages immediately became popular among the spiritual elite. M. Voloshin wrote in his diary of June 23, 1904, during his stay in Paris: "I bought the Kama Sutra"². K. Balmont admired the passion of the Hindu fantasy, its truly cosmic infatuation, which is an integral feature of this people, and as an example of love lyrics, he gave a description of a perfect woman whose name is "Kama Sutra". Padmini (lotus woman-according to the typology of the Kama Sutra): "She is beautiful, like an unopened lotus, like pleasure. She has a slender figure and the tread of a swan. Her voice is like the song of a bird beckoning another, her words are like a sweet catfish. A breath of musk emanates from her, and a golden bee flies after her, circling over her like a flower hiding the delicate smell of honey. Her sensuous lips are as pink as the corollas of an unflowered flower, or as red as red fruit. Her white teeth are like Arabian pearls; she smiles and they are like a pearl rosary set in coral. Graceful as an airy petal, she loves white clothes, white flowers, beautiful jewelry and rich outfits. " ³

Great interest was aroused by the pantheistic ideas of Sufism, its teaching about intuitive self-knowledge as the highest and only kind of knowledge, about the contemplation of God by going deeper into oneself, detachment from everything that happens, about the unity of the personal Self and the all-encompassing God. The Western consciousness actively accepted the Sufi idea of the emanation, i.e., the outflow, descent of the divine light as the universal cause of the formation of all reality and the embodiment of the essence of the "One" in the diverse phenomena of the world. Sufism fancifully combined elements of a wide variety of beliefs and teachings, ranging from the mythological and mystical elements of Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Christianity, Manichaeism, Islam to philosophical and pantheistic ideas coming from Greek Neoplatonism. "In general," states the Encyclopedia of Tantra, "Sufism can be called an 'Islamic Tantra', or a Muslim offshoot of Tantrism: most of the Sufi mystical doctrines and techniques are clearly borrowed from the Tantric tradition. " ⁴

Sufi poetry used mystical symbols that might otherwise have gone unnoticed in a different cultural tradition. It was not about drinking wine; it drew images of wine and earthly love for the ultimate goal, for which decency and virtue had to be sacrificed. Wine ceased to be a material substance, becoming a symbol of the ecstasy of Divine love. However, the Western consciousness, for the most part, perceived the culture of the East in accordance with its own needs. The cult of wine and love was in demand in the first place, as it directly correlated with the Nietzschean idea of the death of the harsh God of European culture and the orgiastic Dionysian principle.

Nietzsche's ideas about the superman shaking off the dust of European culture inspired the creative intelligentsia to search for other sources of inspiration. Andrey Bely noted the cross-cultural significance of Nietzsche's work: "Before Nietzsche, an impenetrable abyss separated the ancient Aryan titans from the New Aryan culture. Between the most brilliant lyrical sigh of Goethe (that greatest lyricist) and the thunderclap of some Shankara or Patanjali - what a gulf! After Nietzsche, this chasm no longer exists. Zarathustra (meaning Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" - E. S.) is the legitimate successor of Goethe's lyrics; but it is also the successor of Vedanta. Nietzsche in German culture revived everything that is still alive for us in the East: it is ridiculous now to connect the East with the West, when Nietzsche's very personality embodied this connection. 5

SUFI FEASTS IN HAFIZ

The Silver Age worldview was permeated with sophisticated eroticism. According to E. Fuchs, author of The Illustrated History of Morals: "Creative epochs are thoroughly imbued and saturated with eroticism and sensuality. For the concepts of "creative" and" sensual " are equivalent. Eroticism and sensuality are only physical expressions of creative power. Every revolutionary epoch is therefore at the same time an epoch of enormous erotic tension"⁶. Eroticism of the Silver Age, paying tribute to the pan-European passion for the East, was often painted in oriental tones. Thus, eroticism was one of the main themes that were addressed in one form or another at many famous poetic "mediums" of Vyacheslav Ivanov in his apartment, nicknamed "The Tower". This issue was considered in all-round aspects. In the summer of 1906, a short story by L. D. Zinovieva-Annibal, Vyach's wife, was published. Ivanova, "Thirty-three freaks", which touches on the theme of same-sex love. In January 1907, a book of poems by Vyach was published. Ivanov's "Eros", and a month later Maximilian Voloshin's report "The Ways of Eros" took place in the "Tower".

M. Voloshin in the review noted: "The book of Vyacheslav Ivanov - a book of spells summoning an ancient god to earth"⁷. And further in his review, Voloshin expresses ideas drawn from E. Blavatsky: "The secret is that the gods live, breathe and feed on human love. The ladder of nature is as follows: minerals give off light; plants breathe in light and give off oxygen; people breathe oxygen and radiate love. Human love is to the gods what light is to plants and oxygen is to men. Eros-the Bee flies around the flower garden of human hearts and feeds the gods with the collected honey of love. 8

Love for Vyach. Ivanova was a means of overcoming the duality inherent both in man himself (separation into two sexes) and in nature (light and darkness, top and bottom, Cosmos and chaos). Each act of love was considered as a new step on the path of knowledge of Eternal Beauty and finding a complete Universe. This perception of love is typical of Tantrism. The word tantra comes from the Sanskrit root tan, which means " to expand." Thus, the teaching of Tantrism provided man with a method of expanding consciousness and abilities. The problem of expanding consciousness in the second half of the nineteenth century was very acute among decadents in the West. It was proposed to solve it with the help of drugs, alcohol, and mystical revelations. The sphere of intimate relationships between the sexes was not left without attention.

In parallel with the usual "environments", the idea was born to arrange a kind of continuation for a select, narrow circle of initiates. "We have a plot that you must not tell anyone about," Zinoviev-Annibal wrote to M. M. Zamyatnina, " to arrange a Persian, Gafisa tavern: very intimate, very bold, in costumes, on carpets, philosophical, artistic and erotic."⁹. This" conspiracy " was originally imbued with the spirit of mystification (what is the East without mystery?) and a dangerous game on the edge of what is allowed.

So, under the shadow of Hafiz, Sufi feasts were held in the "Tower". One of the rooms, the so-called "orange", was " decorated in the oriental style: no furniture, mattresses covered with fabrics, carpets, pillows on the floor near the walls. Everything is fun, joyful and colorful " ¹⁰. And in this oriental setting, reminiscent of the frivolities of the Arabian Nights, costumed improvisations were played out. L. D. Zinovieva-Annibal bought a large number of beautiful fabrics during her travels abroad, and the Hafizites invented luxurious draperies from these pieces of cloth. All the participants of" Gafiz " received new names, under which they later appeared in this circle: Ivanov was called El-Rumi or Hyperion ¹¹, Zinoviev-Annibal-Diotima, Berdyaev-Solomon, Kuzmin-Antinous or Harikle, Somov-Aladdin, Nouvel-Petronius, Corsair or Renouveau, Bakst-Apelles, Gorodetsky "Zane or Hermes, Auslander or Ganymede. The choice of pseudonyms was a characteristic mixture of names of Greco-Roman antiquity with characters from the Arabian Nights, biblical sages and Sufi poets. The quintessence of different cultures was a kind of fusion of "mystical energetism", which Vy. Ivanov preached to the Hafizites.

Subsequently, this circle broke up into even more intimate meetings: after the "Gafiz" stood out from the "symposium" - only for men, Zinovieva-Annibal organized a "Fias" - only for women (these meetings were attended by M. V. Sabashnikova, the wife of M. Voloshin, who received the name Primavera because of the similarity with the figures Botticelli, and L. D. Blok-Beatrice).

The Hafizites felt the Messianic essence of their playful game: improvising, they tried to develop the beginnings of a new art and, moreover, a new human relationship. Thus, describing in a letter to M. M. Zamyatnina the visit to the" Tower " of M. Gorky, Vyach. Ivanov reported:"...Then Gorky went on to say that there is nothing but art in Russia, that we are the "most interesting" people in Russia here, that we are its "government" here, that we are too modest, that we play down our importance too much (!), that we should rule imperiously, that our theater should be carried out on a huge scale - in St. Petersburg, in Moscow, everywhere at the same time-etc."¹².

"GAFIZ" HAS SOMEHOW MOVED TOO MUCH INTO LIFE"

Poems, wine, snacks with cheese and sweets on bedding, playing flutes, raptures, kisses, the fragrance of oriental aromas, conversations on various topics, including mystical and erotic, regrets about the lack of free women, hetaera women, rumors that Ivanov's "naked women from good society dance". recently married"¹³ - this ecstatic state of living in an imaginary world was necessary for the Hafizites to achieve the necessary creative atmosphere. It is no accident that in one of his letters to Zamyatnina with a description of Zinoviev's "Gafiz"-Annibal upo-

She introduced the term "Maya" to Indian philosophy, defining it as "the cover of the colored world" ¹⁴.

Life is an illusion, if that is the case, wouldn't it be better to create illusions yourself, although these illusions often became too real, causing the Hafizites not illusory suffering at all. Elegiac moods were replaced by sadomasochism, reaching the stage where there is no longer any wisdom, no madness, no virtue, no sin. Rumi, a Persian mystic and poet of the 13th century, whose name Vyach chose as a mask for himself. Ivanov, in the Poem on the Hidden Meaning, gave instructions in the spirit of Indian philosophy: "Do not tear your wings, but banish from your heart the love of the world. To start a war, it requires an enemy, if there is no enemy, war is impossible. Without passion, submission to God is impossible. If you don't have the will, then you don't have the patience, if you don't have the enemy, then what's the use of a squad? See that you don't turn yourself into a eunuch, don't become a monk, because renunciation and abstinence are a counterbalance to passion. If passion does not exist, it is impossible to refrain from it. "¹⁵

The Great Truth revealed to the Hafizites was that the initiate can do whatever he wants and say whatever comes into his head; others may consider his actions immoral and his words meaningless, but he is absolutely free, because in the face of the Great Truth, all human concepts and words are meaningless and futile. "Gafiz somehow freezes. He has moved too much into life, " ¹⁶ Zinovieva-Annibal said. Flirting with Eros has led to problems that are not compatible with conventional morality.

Margarita Sabashnikova wrote about this period of her life in the book of memoirs "Green Snake": "After Max's report on Eros, which was a success of the scandal (it was made "pour epater les bourgeois") and with which I could not agree in my heart, I discovered that I could no longer say"we" about myself and Max. It was not an easy recognition; it became unbearable, perhaps only because I was filled and encouraged by the happy feeling of friendship with Lydia (Zinovieva-Annibal) and Vyacheslav (Ivanov); with them I considered myself in complete unity. It soon became clear to me that Vyacheslav loved me. I mentioned this to Lydia, adding:: "I have to leave." But it had been for a long time, and she answered: "You have entered our lives and belong to us. If you leave, there will always be something dead between us. We both can't live without you anymore." Then the three of us talked. They had a strange idea: when two people are as close together as they are, they can both love the other person. Such love is the beginning of a new human community, even a church, in which Eros is incarnated in flesh and blood. "¹⁷

Maximilian Voloshin took a sacrificial position in this difficult erotic duel. He felt himself in relation to Vyach. Ivanov is a disciple whose duties include unquestioning submission to the guru.

Many famous people were searching for a new human community at this time. Suffice it to recall the triple alliance of Merezhkovsky, Gippius and Filosofov. V. Solovyov's idea that in the ideal love of two ("the secret of two") there is always a third (Deity), expressed by him in the "Meaning of love", thoroughly transformed in the real reality of the Silver Age.

The idea of an erotic trinity was in the atmosphere of the era, and the banal triangle in relationships found a deep philosophical justification. Vyach. Ivanov saw culture as the "ladder of Eros in the hierarchy of reverence"¹⁸. The cult of love preached by him, as an endless search for the integral Absolute, demanded the release of "the desires of the dark herds".

Rumors about a special relationship that is not approved by the church, surrounded by Vyach. M. Voloshin in his diary recorded Bryusov's answer to Ellis-Kobylyansky, who was perplexed why Vyacheslav Ivanov was so enthusiastic about Gorodetsky. "Bryusov answered him:" You know, Lev Lvovich, you can't be so naive. Who doesn't know what kind of relationship Vyach is in. Ivanov and Gorodetsky?" Ellis didn't quite believe it and asked Nouvel when he arrived. The latter laughed in his face: "You are quite a naive child, despite your bare skull. Our lives - mine, Kuzmin's, Diaghilev's, Vyacheslav Ivanov's, Gorodetsky's-are quite well known to everyone in St. Petersburg. "¹⁹

There were Tantric sects in Europe, which showed great interest in the Eastern teachings and the practices of expanding consciousness that they offered. In these sects, homosexuality was often practiced, since in India hermaphrodites, homosexuals and transvestites were considered sacred embodiments of the androgynous hypostasis of Shiva-Shakti and played a special role in magical rituals. There is also ample evidence that Sufism's sexual techniques are based on homosexual intercourse. The higher gods of antiquity were initially androgynous, i.e., bisexual, or, in other words, two - pronged. The myth of two-pronged passionate love is reflected in

the ancient Greek legend of Hermes Aphrodite: a beautiful young man aroused the nymph's desire, but did not respond to her pleas. Then the nymph begged the gods to unite her life with her beloved, making them one being.

The theme of androgyny is constantly present in the literature of the Silver Age: "We will never get tired of praying to you, / A wondrous God-being is unthinkable," says Gumilev, understanding this prayer as sacrificial coitus:

  
  
 20  
  Like a phoenix out of the flame, the Androgynous rose  
  up, strange and bright from the mad bed

^{; Let two perish, that one may live}

. 
 
 

The erotic experiments of the Hafizites were close in spirit to the worldview of Tantrism and, like the philosophy of Tantra itself, were distinguished by duality. The behavior of the hafizites was not only a "slap in the face to public taste", but also a test for the ability to become a superman: "am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?" Paradoxical behavior in gaining holiness is noted by the Indian parable of the Buddha, who asked the saint what he wanted to be before reaching final perfection-2 times a demon or 6 times an angel and the saint replied: of course, twice by a demon. M. Voloshin recalls this parable in his diary. Vyach. Ivanov in his article "Nietzsche and Dionysus", considering the question of morality, about the position beyond "good and evil", notes that this problem " in the religious aspect coincides with the principle of mystical sanctity and freedom, as expressed by Christian ethics by transferring the moral criterion from the empirical world to the realm of intelligible will, and the ancient Indian wisdom is the esoteric resolution of the "awakened one" from all evaluations and norms of everyday morality. "²¹

Vyach felt the ambivalence of his position. Ivanov, having placed the poem "Doppelganger" in the collection "Eros": "dark comrade" locks the author's Ego in an underground crypt, offers him bread and wine (symbols of the Christian sacrament), and in return requires songs and fun; at sunset, the doppelganger descends into the crypt and praises the sun together with the prisoner; to the question " who are you? "should be the answer: "The doppelganger is yours. Contempt is my name. " ²²

The duality of consciousness is obvious: on the one hand, cheerful songs in honor of the sun and round-the-clock fun, which, due to its excess, becomes like sophisticated torture, and on the other hand, darkness, crypt, imprisonment, ascetic food. The prisoner is offered not bread and water, which would be quite appropriate for the position of a prisoner, but bread and wine, the body and flesh of Christ! - and the whole European culture becomes a prison. The result of duality is self-condemnation. A conscious break with the Christian tradition had a painful effect on the psyche of the turn-of-the-century generation. The Nietzschean challenge to the world and the calm attitude of the enlightened Eastern sage, superimposed on the eternal duality of the Russian consciousness, eventually led to the fact that" Hafiz" turned "into life", bringing chaos and even death into it. Wife Vyach. Ivanova Lidiya Zinovieva-Annibal died suddenly of scarlet fever on October 17, 1907. A. R. Mintslova commented on this tragic event:: "And Lydia didn't die, but left. But there was a real whirlwind that could have killed us all. " ²³

THE GODS BREATHE HUMAN LOVE

Silver Age philosophy gave the question of gender a universal dimension. "Gender is a cosmic force," N. Berdyaev argued, " and only in the cosmic aspect can it be comprehended. There is a floor... the point of intersection of man with the cosmos, the microcosm with the macrocosm. Not only in man, but also in the cosmos, there is a sexual separation of male and female and their sexual union... In the world order, the masculine is primarily the anthropological, human principle, while the feminine is the natural, cosmic principle... For truly neither man nor woman is the image and likeness of God, but only an androgynous, virgo-young man, a complete bisexual person. "²⁴

In its perception of Eros, the Silver Age was close to Tantrism, in which love is a cosmic act that establishes the moment of union with the Universe and achieving complete spiritual liberation from the fetters of reason. V. Rozanov preached the cosmic perception of physical love in the era of the Silver Age, and although his associates in the Religious and Philosophical Society were unanimous in their opinion about the need to reform Christianity on gender issues, nevertheless, his proposal to grant newlyweds the right to stay for the first time after the wedding where they were married caused confusion and an explosion of rage. 25^{" I imagined the night, and the half of the temple with an open dome, under the stars, in the midst of which small trees and flowers rise up, planted in the soil along paths, from which the floorboards of the floor are removed and black earth is poured. Here, among the flowers and trees and under the stars, in nature and at the same time in the temple, young people spend a week, two, three, four ... (...) They stay here until they are clearly pregnant. (...) Is not the proclamation made at our divine service?: "I tell you that the Kingdom of God is like a Bridal Chamber..."..Can it be that what the very essence of what the Savior taught (the Kingdom of God) is compared to - is it really base, dirty, and unworthy that we should adapt a part of our church-by decorating it with trees, flowers, and a swimming pool-to this image in the mouth of the Savior?! To bring the Wedding Hall into our church was my idea}, " V. Rozanov explained his position.

In Tantrism, such ideas are not blasphemous. The Khajuraho Temple complex is known all over the world for its stone sculptures that openly depict tantric ways of love. "Christianity should at least partially become phallic (children, divorce, i.e., ordering the family and thickening its layer, increasing the number of families)," V. Rozanov believed.

Christian culture has imposed many prohibitions on the sexual sphere, but as for tantra, it openly looks at the natural manifestation of instincts. A well-known researcher of Indian culture, author of the "Encyclopedia of Yoga" G. Ferstein notes that Tantrism went beyond Freudian " sublimation "and suggests its own term - "superlimation". If sublimation is the result of society's behavioral standards, then superlimation "is based on enlightening consciousness to the level of a psychosomatic process that makes possible sublimation itself-the result of the process of activating prana and kundalini"²⁷.

One thing is certain-Tantrism was not free from extremes and simplistic interpretation, in it

there has always been a fine line between free will and debauchery, rising above the accepted norms of morality and true immortality, passionate worship of the goddess in human form and self-indulgence.

AXIOM OF THE SECRET DOCTRINE

M. Kuzmin's poem "The First Adam"indicates the closeness of the ideas of Tantrism to the circle of Hafizites:

  
  
 Yoni-doves, Yoni's bowels, 
 Oh, John of the Jordan streams! 
 Myrtle cypresses, Cybeline cedars, 
 Milky Mother, Marguerite of the seas! 
  
 Went out the gate, not feeling the Will,  
 Wet brought out a wave cradle.  
 Shore and wind to me! What else is more important?  
 To the heart of the middle sun hops. 
  
 Growth - to the top sowing!  
 Remembrance - to the lower waters!  
 Smokes conjure the Deylfi maiden,  
 bearing trunk is the first Adam! 
  
 

The word "yoni" in Sanskrit means female genitals, a symbol of the female universe and the divine generating power. In the teachings of Hindu tantras, a woman has always been considered the embodiment of divine feminine energy. Phallic cults are better known than the Yoni cult. However, archaeological excavations indicate that the worship of the female sexual organ has a more ancient origin. The bisexual unity of original humanity is an axiom of the Secret Doctrine. As H. P. Blavatsky writes: "Esotericism knows no gender. His Supreme Deity is as sexless as formless; neither Father nor Mother. And his first manifested beings, both heavenly and earthly, only gradually become androgynous, in order to finally separate into two principles. "²⁸

M. Kuzmin describes in the esoteric language of vague metaphors the moment of separation of the dual deity into two principles of nature - male and female. The act of birth in Tantrism was considered the first initiation, the first sexual initiation into the Yoni cult. In cosmic terms, the toponymy of the female body is described: the sacred myrtle groves of the goddess Aphrodite, who was called Kyprida, as she emerged from the foam of the sea off the island of Cyprus. According to one version, it was born from the blood of Uranus castrated by the Crown, which fell into the sea and formed foam. Aphrodite is the goddess of marriage and childbirth, and this brought her closer to the Great Mother of the gods Cybele, who demanded from her servants unquestioning submission, oblivion in mad delight and ecstasy. Cybele is a dark and terrible goddess. The neophyte who decided to become a priest of her cult was obliged to completely submit to her, renounce worldly life, performing the rite of castration. "Cybele cedars" - a grove of blood offerings to the insatiable goddess.

All the high gods of antiquity are sons of the mother before they become sons of the father. This is what the ancient myths of Egypt and India say. The mother first gives birth to her husband, and then makes him a father, begetting a son from him. The mention of the Jordan refers to the rituals of the Gnostic sects of the early Christian period. Crossing the Jordan meant gaining gnosis. "Jordan jets" can be interpreted as a metaphor for ejaculation; "downstream" - normal ejaculation that causes birth and death (the Jordan flows into the Dead Sea!), and " Growth - to the upper sowing!", or" upper current "" Encyclopedia of Tantra "suggests to be interpreted as" preservation of semen during sexual intercourse and converting it into sexual energy " ²⁹.

Literary critic N. Bogomolov, in his analysis of Kuzmina's poem, notes the ambiguity of all possible allusions: "Combining within one poem the sacred Hindu symbol yoni, depicted as female genitalia, John the Baptist, Venus Aphrodite, Cybele, the prophet Jonah (...) Adam, represented in the form of a clearly phallic "God-bearing trunk" - all this demonstrates the possibilities of Kuzmin's new poetics, which allows the attentive reader not only to limit himself to the realities directly mentioned in the poem and expand the semantic space, interpreting them in a sedate way, but also to draw into the orbit of his attention the "Secret Doctrine" of E. L. Blavatsky with the androgynous Adam-Kadmon described there, sonnets of Vyach. Ivanova from the cycle " Golden Veils "(which is clearly hinted at by the name Margarita) or Voloshin's poem "Cave"³⁰.

Tantrists and representatives of other esoteric sects worshiped the Supreme in the person of the Great Mother Goddess. The term "yoni" has acquired a sacred cosmic meaning and has become a symbol of all things. This term has many allegorical names, which were used in order to make the secret text inaccessible to the uninitiated. In encrypted form in a poem-

The Kuzmin Research Institute describes the process of the appearance of the first Adam. The God-bearing trunk is a symbolic definition of a phallus, or lingam, in Tantric terminology. Indian cosmogonic mythology explains the origin of the universe from the seed shed by the lingam of the god Shiva. Worship of the Shiva lingam, which is called "self-created", is one of the most common cults in India: Hindus decorate sacred sculptures with flowers, paint them with fresh ochre, pour ghee, honey, and sugar cane juice. Chapter 14 of the Mahanirvana Tantra states that a person who "builds a shivalinga undoubtedly deserves ten million times more reward than one who distributes all his gold to the poor and sick..." ³¹ and the Gupta Sadhana Tantra emphasizes that shivalinga worship contributes to the attainment of eternity. F. Sologub dedicated his poem to this cult ³²:

  
  
 I was awakened early by your voice, O Brahma!  
 I walked through the dewy meadows,  
 up the steps of the high temple  
 And kissed the sacred Linga. 
  
 It is laid on patterned fabrics  
 covering the ancient altar.  
 It is guarded by a naked and black  
 king crowned with a diadem. 
  
 The sacred Lingam is brightly gilded,  
 black, huge, and straight.  
 I will cover the Linga with a reddened lotus,  
 temple with scents. 
  
 To the altar, the veil, the Lingam  
 I will reveal what I love sweetly.  
 Together with Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma, I  
 implore with a Fragrant prayer. 
  
 

The mystical worldview of the turn of the century was associated with the philosophical insights of Russian "cosmism". "The strongest aspect of most of the occult teachings," N. Berdyaev noted, " is the doctrine of the cosmicity of man, this is the knowledge of the big man. Only mystics were well aware that everything that happens in a person has a world significance and is imprinted on the cosmos. They knew that the soul elements of man are cosmic, that in man all the layers of the world, the whole composition of the world, can be discovered. Mysticism has always been profoundly opposed to psychologism, which sees in man a closed individual being, a fractional part of the world. Man is not a fractional part of the universe, not a fragment of it, but a whole small universe that includes all the qualities of the big universe, imprints on it and imprints it on itself. The psychology of mystics is always cosmic. "³³

Eros of the Silver Age, following the East, saw in the nature of love a cosmic force and deified the mystical act of merging two opposing natural principles. The search for the lost integrity of being and consciousness led to the need to remove the veil from the most intimate issue of European culture-the question of gender.

¹ Chinese Eros (Comp. A. I. Kobzev). Moscow, 1993.

^{Voloshin M.} 2 Autobiographical prose. Diaries, Moscow, 1991, p. 199.

^{Balmont K.} 3 The Spaniard-song / / Balmont K. Poems. Translations. Articles. Moscow, 1990, p. 412.

⁴ Encyclopedia of Tantra (Alchemy of ecstasy), Moscow, 1999, p. 431.

^{Bely A.} 5 Friedrich Nietzsche // Symbolism as a worldview, Moscow, 1994, p. 180.

^{fuchs E.} 6 Illustrated history of customs. The Renaissance Era, Moscow, 1993, p. 116.

^{Voloshin M.} 7 Faces of Creativity, L., 1988, p. 480.

⁸ Ibid., p. 482.

⁹ Cit. in: Bogomolov N. A. Mikhail Kuzmin: articles and materials, Moscow, 1995, p. 70.

^{Ivanova L.} 10 Memoirs. A book about my father. Paris, 1990, p. 15.

¹¹ Hyperion - one of the six titans, and also one of the later names of the god Apollo-Helios.

^{Bogomolov N. A.} 12 Decree. op. p. 69.

¹³ A. A. Smirnov's letter to Nouvel. - Quoted from the book: Bogomolovs. Decree, op. cit., p. 347.

¹⁴ Cit. in: Serebryany vek v Rossii [Silver Age in Russia], Moscow, 1993, p. 188.

¹⁵ Sufi Wisdom, Moscow, 2002, p. 223.

¹⁶ Cit. from the book: Bogomolov N. A. Edict. soch., p. 75.

^{Margarita Voloshina} 17 (M. V. Sabashnikova). The green snake. Istoriya odnoi zhizni [The History of one life], Moscow, 1993, p. 161.

^{Ivanov Vyach.} 18 Sobr. soch. Vol. 3, Brussels, 1979, p. 386.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 269.

^{Gumilev N.} 20 Androgin / Pearls / / Izbrannoe. Krasnoyarsk Book Publishing House, 1989, p. 78.

^{Ivanov Vyach.} 21 Rodnoe i ekumenskoe [Native and Universal], Moscow, 1994, p. 31.

^{Ivanov Vyach.} 22 Eros. Moscow, 1991, p. 34.

^{Voloshin M.} 23 Autobiographical prose. Diaries, Moscow, 1991, pp. 274, 282.

^Berdyaev 24 Ya. Philosophy of freedom. Smysl tvorchestva [Meaning of Creativity], Moscow, 1989, pp. 402-403.

^{Rozanov V. V.} 25 About yourself and your life, Moscow, 1990, pp. 185-186.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 227.

^{Ferstein Georg.} 27 Tantra. Moscow, 1990 p. 325.

^{Blavatsky E. P.} 28 The Secret Doctrine. Minsk, 1997. Vol. 1, p. 187.

²⁹ Encyclopedia of Tantra, p. 473.

^{Bogomolov N. A.} 30 Russkaya literatura pervoi treti XX veka [Russian literature of the first third of the XX century]. Portraits. Problems. Search results. Tomsk, 1999, p. 252.

³¹ Encyclopedia of Tantra..., p. 509.

^{Sologub Fedor.} 32 Poems. L., Sov. writer, 1978, p. 338.

^{Berdyaev N.} 33 Edict. soch., p. 299.

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