Читать книгу Rilke alive. Tolstoy and Russia. Dialogues on Art - - Страница 2

The book offered to the reader is in two parts, united by the common theme of «Rilke and Tolstoy».

What is interesting about the first part? It presents for the first time in English translation the chapter ‘Tolstoy and Russia’, taken from Rilke Alive, written by the gifted French writer and translator Maurice Betz, under the impression of unforgettable meetings with the poet in the spring and summer of 1925. Although Betz’s book was published almost a century ago and has since been scrupulously ‘deconstructed’ into quotations by more than one generation of scholars of Rilke’s work, it has lost none of its artistic brilliance. In his book, Betz describes many places, events and people that Rilke told him about. However, the poet’s meeting with Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana occupies a special place in his memoirs.

But what is so interesting about the second part? In it, the contemporary writer Vladislav Tsylyov has tried to recreate, in the form of imaginary dialogues, a conversation that could well have taken place between the two great artists in Yasnaya Polyana, and he has chosen a burning topic – art.