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Opening remarks at the Russian Academy of Arts [Bryusov]

Introductory speech at the Russian Academy of Art Sciences.

Published according to: “Valery Bryusov. Collection dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the birth of the poet "- M., 1924.

Comrades and citizens, tomorrow there will be a public public honoring of Valery Yakovlevich, to which the Soviet Government and, in particular, the People's Commissariat for Education, join with all their hearts, and I personally will have the opportunity to speak at that time with a characterization that covers the many-sided figure of Valery Yakovlevich to the best of my ability. Today I do not intend to bother you with any introductory word and would only like to note that the merits of Valery Yakovlevich in the past benefit enormously in our eyes from the role that he played in the last years after the revolution for, perhaps, a real genuine understanding of the relationship between individual elements. His outstanding poetry becomes fully felt in its place only from the point of view of the social, political and cultural development of this highly significant personality for our time. Valery Yakovlevich undoubtedly not only inscribed his name in large letters in the history of Russian literature, but also helped each of us to comprehend the values endlessly depicted by him. If at present not everyone understands these values, it means that the time has not come when they will be understood. It was not for nothing that Valery Yakovlevich wrote, while still very young, in his articles that he dedicates his works not even to the future generation, but to eternity and art. And in another place, in a conversation with some great artists, he repeated that from all eras only the works of art of this era quite firmly remain.

And indeed, in the face of all the further development of human culture as a whole, the era in which Valery Yakovlevich lived and worked, to which his main works belong, turned out to be, despite all the turbidity that aroused darkness in the hearts of many, nevertheless such that crowned itself with unfading beauty, and most of all with the hands of artists and writers, namely with the work of Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov.

And besides, we see him fortunately among us in the fullness of his strength and flourishing and in the midst of talented artistic, scientific and scientific work, and we can expect from those long years that lie ahead of him, still new phases in the development of his remarkable creativity, which not only will bring out its old visible and secret phases, but perhaps they will turn out to be even more excellent. We sincerely wish Valery Yakovlevich further work, now, against the backdrop of the statehood and the public, to which he wholeheartedly joined shortly after the coup. I ask all those present to join in my applause for one of the greatest writers of our time and one of the greatest poets of Russian literature, Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov.