Andrey Bely’s last public appearance (1933). Tactics of self-description

Abstract

The article deals with the last public performance of Andrey Belу – an evening with the poet organized on February 11, 1933 in the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. Memories of those who were there and a review  of the evening published in the newspaper “Vechernyaya Moskva” allow reconstructing the atmosphere of that event. The Program of the evening, drawn up by Bely for the approval of the theses of his speech by the organs of political control, shows that the writer tried, on the one hand, to present himself as a real Soviet writer, enthusiastically fulfilling the tasks set by the Communist Party, and, on the other hand, to remain true to himself, to defend the right to freedom of creative work in general and, above all, to freedom of creative experiment. Servile in form, the Program covered Bely’s intention to tell about the features of his new novel “Masks”.