Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet)

Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov
Vyacheslav Ivanov in 1900
Born	(1866-02-28)28 February 1866 Moscow
Died	16 July 1949(1949-07-16) (aged 83) Rome, Italy
Occupation	poet and playwright
Nationality	Russian
Alma mater	Moscow State University, Berlin University

Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (Russian: Вячесла́в Ива́нович Ива́нов; 28 February [O.S. 16 February] 1866 – 16 July 1949) was a Russian poet and playwright associated with the Russian Symbolist movement. He was also a philosopher, translator, and literary critic.

Born in Moscow, Ivanov graduated from the First Moscow Gymnasium with a gold medal and entered the Moscow University where he studied history and philosophy under Sir Paul Vinogradoff. In 1886 he moved to the Berlin University to study Roman law and economics under Theodor Mommsen. During his stay in Germany, he absorbed the thoughts of Friedrich Nietzsche and German Romantics, notably Novalis and Friedrich Hölderlin.

From 1892, Ivanov studied archaeology in Rome, completing his doctoral dissertation there. In Rome, he met Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal, a poet and translator. Having both received an Orthodox ecclesiastical divorce, they married in 1899, first settling in Athens, then moving to Geneva, and making pilgrimages to Egypt and Palestine. During that period, Ivanov frequently visited Italy, where he studied the Renaissance art. The rugged nature of Lombardy and the Alps became the subject of his first sonnets, which were heavily influenced by the medieval poetry of Catholic mystics.