MYSTICS OF PETERSBURG

Evgeny Ivanov - puzzles of biography

The children's writer. A member of the Petrograd religious-philosophical Society and "Volfily". He was arrested 11.12.1929, he was released under a subscription about strict homestaing 03.04.1929, he was sentenced to 3 years of dispatch in North Country. In the reference in Velikiy Ustyug to 1932. After clearing he has returned to Leningrad; worked as the accountant, working, the cashier in Conservatory.
There are the people which destiny - to be in the history - that is called "companions great".

Å. P.Ivanov (1879-1942) known first of all as the best friend of the great Russian poet Alexandr Blok who has told once: "that there live on light such people to live easier: in them - a support".

E.Ivanov understood the position "nearby" and even (in the last years when has started to write memoirs) has turned the initials EPI in cryptonium, read as one of values of the Greek pretext "nearby".

But to name him only "imitator" it would be wrong. He was not from those who imitates, and from those who generates new ideas and new images, but - the sign of amateurs - never finishes nothing.

Ivanov's mother occurred from an old believe family of "Fedoseevsky Soglasie" (orthodox sect). The early died father (the illegal son of writer A.K.Zhukovsky) was, apparently, deeply religious, but the few-church person.

This family feature, on the one hand, has imparted to Evgenie Pavlovichu so called "household piety", and, on the other hand, has open his soul to that is called as "religious searches".

St. Petersburg for Ivanov - a city of the Horseman. Or Horsemen - both Copper Horseman, and Horsemen of the Apocalypse. To this theme it is devoted his famous etude "the Horseman. Something about the city of Petersburg" (1907).

Ivanov understood that often from outside he looks the foolish (it was reflected in his latest memoirs on the Blok).

Ivanov's grandnephew A.Pljushkov (Ugryumov) recollected, addressing to old Petersburgers: "In 1905-1912 you could meet in Petersburg on Zagorodny, Nevsky or in any other street rushing and nothing the person seeing round with red hair fluttering from under a black hat with protruding eyes both sunny-red moustaches and a beard. It was Evgenie Ivanov and his " the Egyptian step ""...

Source: Olga Fetisenko. "From a diary of the Petersburg mystic"