“Who killed?”. From textological research to the diary of D.S. Merezhkovsky “It Was and Will Be” (1915)

Abstract

The article considers for the first time the note by D.S. Merezhkovsky “Who killed?” (1913), which is included by the author in the collection “It Was and Will Be.Diary. 1910–1914” (1915). The note is considered from the point of view of textual criticism and real commentary. Based on archival materials from the RO IRLI (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the cropped fragment of the text is reconstructed and its dating is specified. Appeal to the newspapers of the period of the trial in the sensational “Beilis case” (“Birzhevye vedomosti”, “Den’”, “Zemshchina”, “Kievlyanin”, “Novoe vremya”, “Rech’”, “Russkie vedomosti”, “Russkoe slovo”, “Utro Rossii”) made it possible to comment on the religious-philosophical, socio-political and legal contexts of the note by D.S. Merezhkovsky. It helped to get closer to establishing its pretexts, previously unknown, and to concretize the sources that the writer used in polemics with his contemporaries, primarily with V.V. Rozanov. Thanks to the periodicals, it was also possible to restore the content and course of the meeting of the St. Petersburg Religious-Philosophical Society of October 19 (November 1), 1913, at which D.S. Merezhkovsky made the report “On the Relation of the Old Testament to Christianity”, which is directly associated with the history of the text “Who killed?”.