First edition in excellent condition with original wrappers . Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, better known by the pen name Andrey Beliy (1880–1934), was a Russian poet; recognised amongst his contemporaries as a major poet of the Russian Symbolist Movement, it is as a critic and novelist that he left a legacy.

Christ Has Risen is a collection of narrative poems written in the first few months after the Bolshevik's revolution. It is often seen as a response to The Twelve by the Russian lyrical poet Alexander Blok, which also places Christian messianic imagery onto the Russian Revolution. Like many his contemporaries, Beliy initially saw the revolution as a hopeful occasion. Stylistically, the poems resemble Vladimir Mayakovsky, in that it is in rhymed free verse.

'The cruel, grotesque part devoted to the crucifixion is powerful, but Beliy's attempt to project the Resurrection on the Bolshevik revolution is a trivial ploy to fuse Mayakovskian rhetoric with symbolist clichés' (Terras).

First edition; 12mo (15 x 11.5 cm); original wrappers printed in black and red, designed by P. Alekseev; stamp to inside back cover; 57, [5] pp; a very good copy.


Terras p.431