View source for Mystical Anarchism

{{Short description|Russian Symbolist art movement}}
'''Mystical Anarchism''' was a tendency within the [[Russian Symbolism|Russian Symbolist]] movement after 1906, especially between 1906 and late 1908. It was created and popularized by [[Georgy Chulkov]]. 

In 1906, Chulkov edited ''Fakely'' (''Torches''), an anthology of Symbolist writing, which called on Russian writers to:

:abandon Symbolism and [[Decadent movement|Decadence]] and move forward to "new [[mystical]] experience".<ref>Joan Delaney Grossman. "Rise and Decline of the 'Literary' journal: 1880-1917" in ''Literary Journals in Imperial Russia'', ed. Deborah A. Martinsen, Cambridge University Press, 1997, {{ISBN|0-521-57292-4}}, p.186</ref>

Later in the year Chulkov followed up with a "Mystical Anarchism" manifesto.<ref>''O misticheskom anarkhizme'', 1906, 57p. English translation as ''On Mystical Anarchism'' in ''Russian Titles for the Specialist'' no. 16, Letchworth, Prideaux P., 1971.</ref>

The doctrine has been described as:

:a mish-mash of [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]], [[Alexander Herzen|Herzen]], [[Mikhail Bakunin|Bakunin]], [[Dmitry Merezhkovsky|Merezhkovsky]] (Chulkov was a former editor of ''New Path''), [[Henrik Ibsen|Ibsen]], [[George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron|Byron]], [[utopian socialism]], [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]]'s [[Christian anarchism]], and [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoyevsky]]'s rejection of necessity.<ref>Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. ''New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism'', Penn State Press, 2002, {{ISBN|0-271-02533-6}} p. 42</ref>

[[Alexander Blok]] and especially [[Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet)|Vyacheslav Ivanov]] were supportive of the new doctrine while [[Valery Bryusov]], the editor of the leading Symbolist magazine ''The Balance'', and [[Andrei Bely]] were opposed to it. The resulting controversy raged on the pages of Russian Symbolist magazines until late 1908.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

==See also==
*[[Russian avant-garde]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. "The Transmutation of the Symbolist [[Ethos]]: Mystical Anarchism and the [[Russian Revolution of 1905|Revolution of 1905]]" in ''Slavic Review'' 36, No. 4 (December 1977), pp.&nbsp;608–627.

{{Russian art movements}}
{{Anarchism}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mystical anarchism}}
[[Category:Literary movements]]
[[Category:Modern art]]
[[Category:Anarchist culture]]
[[Category:Russian art movements]]
[[Category:Symbolism (arts)]]
[[Category:Anarchist schools of thought]]

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