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Title
"A Fullness of Living Forces": Viacheslav Ivanov's Poetics of Theurgy
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9sm0d10w
Author
Riggs, Jeffrey
Publication Date
2018
Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles
“A Fullness of Living Forces”: Viacheslav Ivanov’s Poetics of Theurgy
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy
in Slavic Languages and Literatures
by
Jeffrey T. Riggs
2018
© Copyright by
Jeffrey T. Riggs
2018
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
“A Fullness of Living Forces”: Viacheslav Ivanov’s Poetics of Theurgy
by
Jeffrey T. Riggs
Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of California, Los Angeles, 2018
Professor Ronald W. Vroon, Chair
Developing poetry into a form of theurgy (“divine work,” from the Greek θεουργία) is
perhaps the most heraldically proclaimed yet scantly defined preoccupation of the Russian
Symbolist poet Viacheslav Ivanov (1866-1949). The Symbolist movement’s philosophical
progenitor, Vladimir Solov’ev (1853-1900), sounded the clarion call for theurgic art in his
treatise Crisis of Western Philosophy (1874), however the concept of theurgy dates to late
antiquity, when the Neoplatonist philosophers Iamblichus (c. 245–c. 325 CE) and Proclus (412–
485 CE) posited theurgic ritual as superior to theological discourse. While it has been
established that Ivanov followed Solov’evian paradigms in creating theurgic art, the Neoplatonic
context of Ivanov’s engagement with theurgy has remained hitherto unexplored in Slavist
scholarship.
This dissertation argues for Neoplatonic theurgy as an active constituent in Ivanov’s
poetics and theory of the symbol. Being an accomplished classical historian and philologist as
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well as a poet and theoretician, Ivanov incorporated both Solov’evian and Neoplatonic theurgic
ideas into his highly allusive, richly symbolic, and archaically stylized poetry. Neoplatonism
supplied Ivanov with a notion of the symbol as a conduit of divine mysteries, a mythopoetic
device, and a functional element of ritual practice. With the aid of theurgically charged symbols,
Ivanov sought to construe Dionysus and the Orphic mystery rites associated with him as
predecessors to Christ and the Christian sacraments.
Ivanov’s theurgic project is particularly exemplified by “Suspiria,” a poetic cycle which
draws symbolic parallels between Orphic and Christian rituals. The epigraph to “Psyche,” a
poem contained in the cycle, features a quotation from the Orphic gold tablets (ancient leaves of
gold foil bearing hexametrical post-mortem instructions for initiates into Dionysian mystery
cults), which Ivanov discusses in theurgic terms in his philological treatise Dionysus and
Predionysianism. Cross-referencing Ivanov’s philological and poetic works reveals that his
research on ancient theurgy provided material that he re-deployed as theurgic symbols in his
poetry. The “Suspiria” cycle’s streamlining of Orphic mystery rites with Christian sacraments is
not merely a representation of a historical lineage, but an enactment of theurgic ritual through
symbolic poetry.
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The dissertation of Jeffrey T. Riggs is approved.
David L. Blank
Gail D. Lenhoff
Ronald W. Vroon, Committee Chair
University of California, Los Angeles
2018
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ............................................................................................................................1
Bad Poet or Good Theurgist?
Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................27
“The Symbols Themselves, by Themselves”: Neoplatonic Paradigms for Ivanov’s Theurgy
Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................................59
Bogoděistvie and Teurgiia: Pre-Symbolist Theurgy in Russia
Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................................101
Ivanov’s Religious Philology and the Theurgy of Dionysian and Christian Strast’
Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................................132
Ivanov the Orphic: Initiatory and Sacramental Theurgy in the Poetic Cycle “Suspiria”
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................178
Theurgy Outside the “Decorated Temple of Demons”
Bibliography ..........................................................................................................................192
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JEFFREY T. RIGGS
Education
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Ph.D. Slavic Languages and Literatures (expected June 2018)
Dissertation: “A Fullness of Living Forces”: Viacheslav Ivanov’s Poetics of Theurgy
Chair: Ronald Vroon
Committee: David Blank, Gail Lenhoff
Ph.D. Musicology (expected October 2018)
Dissertation: Rimsky-Korsakov the Antiquarian: Visions and Reconfigurations of the
Slavic Past in the Opera Sadko
Chair: Mitchell Morris
Committee: Robert Fink, Raymond Knapp, Ronald Vroon
New College of Florida (Honors College of Florida)
B.A. (with Honors), Russian Language and Literature, 2006
Publication
Riggs, Jeffrey. “Greco-Slavonic Liturgies in Viacheslav Ivanov’s ‘Suspiria’ Cycle,” in
“On Behalf of All and For All”: The Place of Liturgy in Russian Art and Culture. Edited
by Sean Griffin, Jeffrey Riggs, and Ronald Vroon. UCLA Slavic Studies, New Series:
Slavica (forthcoming).
Invited Conferences
“Bogoděistvie and Teurgiia in Viacheslav Ivanov’s ‘Suspiria’ Cycle.” Presented at the
Annual Conference of the American Association for the Teachers of Slavic and East
European Languages (AATSEEL), February, 2018.
“Nietzschean Inflections in Dmitrii Merezhkovsky’s novoe religioznoe soznanie.”
Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for the Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), January, 2012.
“Obscuring the Lyric Self: Viacheslav Ivanov and the Poetic Problem of Individuation.”
Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for the Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), January, 2011.
“The Musical Divine: Dmitrii Kastal’skii, Early Music, and Russian Metaphysical
Symbolism.” Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for the
Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), December, 2009.
“Native Subtexts: Russian Liturgical Music in Viacheslav Ivanov’s Kormchie zvezdy.”
Presented at the University of Helsinki’s “Russianness” Conference, December, 2009.
v i
“The Center and Periphery of the Symbolist Poetic Text: Viacheslav Ivanov and Valerii
Briusov’s ‘Tvorchestvo.’” Presented at the University of California, Berkeley at the
California Slavic Colloquium, April, 2009.
UCLA Conferences
“The Problem of Musical Representation in Aleksandr Skriabin’s Third Symphony, ‘The
Divine Poem’ (op. 43).” Presented at UCLA’s conference “Scriabin among the
Symbolists: A Centennial Symposium,” March, 2015 (co-organized by me, Ryan Rowen,
and Mitchell Morris).
“Greco-Slavonic Liturgies in Viacheslav Ivanov’s ‘Suspiria’ Cycle.” Presented at
UCLA’s conference “‘On Behalf of All and For All’: The Place of Liturgy in Russian Art
and Culture,” October, 2012 (co-organized by me, Sean Griffin, and Ronald Vroon).
Research Interests
Neoplatonic theurgy in Russian Symbolism
Hellenic strains in early twentieth-century Russian poetry
Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of poetry and music
Folkloric sensibilities in nineteenth-century Russian opera
Courses Taught at UCLA as an Instructor of Record
The History of Electronic Dance Music 2016
Writing about Music 2015
Old-Time and Bluegrass Performance Ensemble 2014-2015
The Beatles 2014
Courses Taught at UCLA as a Teaching Assistant, Associate, and Fellow
Courses in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
Great Russian Novels 2017
Introduction to Russian Civilization 2016
Christianities East and West 2014
The Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel in Translation 2010
Beginning Russian Language 2009-2010
Courses in the Department of Musicology
The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll 2016
Contemporary Jewish and Israeli Music 2016
Film and Music 2015
Music in Los Angeles 2013
The Blues 2013
Writing about Music 2013
vi i
Introduction –
Bad Poet or Good Theurgist?
1. The “Bad Poet”
I recall an informal conversation with a senior colleague several years ago, before I
started working on my dissertation, that has been formative in the development of my work. I
had begun doing research on Neoplatonist philosophy, and had discovered what I thought to be
some astounding parallels with Russian Symbolism that had gone unnoticed in the scholarship
on the Symbolist movement. Over a watery cup of campus store coffee, I excitedly hashed out
my plans for delving into the notion of theurgy in Russian Symbolism further than prior scholars
had attempted. What was needed, I contended, was a thorough investigation of the significance
of the Neoplatonist theurgists to Ivanov and the other classically inclined Symbolists. Upon
exhaustively sketching the trajectory of my proposed work – which would first review the
centrality of the symbol to theurgic Neoplatonism, then uncover the earlier and previously
undetected theurgic strain in Russian culture introduced through the Church Slavonic translations
of the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus, and, finally, apply this philosophically, theologically and
historically broadened framework for theurgy to Ivanov’s early poetry and theory of the symbol
– he emitted a guffaw. Then came the succinct reply: “But you know Ivanov is a bad poet,
right? Why do you need to do all of that background work on a poet who’s not really worth
reading in the first place?” I was left aghast. I rushed to Ivanov’s defense, citing the intricate
referentiality and palimpsestic intertextuality of his poems, his neologistic inventiveness, the
bold programmaticity of his theory, his encyclopaedic knowledge of the classical tradition. All
of this, however, only seemed to reinforce the scorn that my colleague had conveyed by drawing
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