Authors

Discussion

Russian emigration to Italy included several waves, distinguished by historical and cultural characteristics. Traditional historiography counts three waves: post-revolutionary (from 1920), post-war (after 1945), Cold War period (mainly 1970s). There have been attempts at a different numbering, assigning the first number to the pre-revolutionary emigration (the emblematic figure is Maxim Gorky). Each wave represented the outcome of the next dramatic disruption of the order in the Russian Empire / Soviet Union and entered into a complex relationship with the previous waves. The first emigration, inaccurately called White emigration, carried with it not only the values of the collapsed empire, but also the rudiments of democratic ideals: united by a common rejection of Bolshevism, it had internal conflicts, including those based on nationality. The second emigration, initially called the ‘new’ as opposed to the ‘old’ emigration, the backbone of which was made up of the DPs, consisted of people who had grown up in the Soviet Union but did not want to return there. The worldview contradictions between these first two waves were exacerbated by the use of different orthography of the Russian language. Finally, the third wave brought with it a different culture and other national colours. All three waves in Italy had their own eminent representatives. The first wave represented the elite of the Russian Empire - Rome was considered the most aristocratic among the centers of the Russian diaspora; many representatives of this wave left their memoirs, which we have published (Prince Sergei Scherbatov, Princess Catherine Dabija, Counts Olsufiev). Among the emigrant writers, Vyacheslav Ivanov stood out, but he occupied a special position. In the second wave, the most prolific was the writer Boris Shiryaev, many of whose books we have republished, including his autobiography «DPs in Italy». He had written the conceptual article ‘The Cursed Letter jat’ - about the symbolic conflict between waves of emigration over orthography. Finally, the third wave, had its own historical and cultural position. Among its representatives are Rudolf Nureyev and Joseph Brodsky, who, although they did not settle in Italy, built a developed relationship with that country.