The Silver Dove

Andrey Biely completed The Silver Dove in 1909, four years after the shattering days of the Russian revolution of 1905. Together with St. Petersburg, this book, into which he poured his effort to give Russian literature a new vocabulary, earned him a reputation of being a Russian James Joyce. In his preface, Harrison Salisbury calls The Silver Dove "a psychic vision of Russia's future," for in its pages Biely created a prophetic allegory of the tragedy which was waiting in the wings for Russia. The Silver Dove is the story of a writer's involvement with a peasant woman who stands under the strange influence of Kudeyarov, a local carpenter and head of a secret sect "The Doves." After many bizarre occurrences, the writer breaks with the carpenter's magical influence and the carpenter arranges for the writer to be murdered. As an allegory, each of its characters stands for one of the major forces which were to shape the fate of Russia in the coming sixty years. The novel has a rich, complex texture, a rhythmical style and many interwoven themes (East vs. West) which add to its contemporary interest. There are superb lyrical descriptions of the countryside as well as of magical and psychic phenomena, but also realistic and ironic comments on characters drawn from various strata of society. None of Biely's prose or novels has been republished in the Soviet Union since 1934.