Cultural Interpretations of Islam in the Literary Works of the Symbolist Ellis (Lev Kobylinsky)

Abstract

This article examines the problem of cultural synthesis in Russia at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries through the prism of the work of Lev Kobylinsky (Ellis) — a Symbolist poet, literary theorist, translator, and mystic whose personality and poetry became a concentrated expression of the key vectors of the era. The insufficient study of the mechanisms of reception and transformation of key concepts from one spiritual tradition within the artistic consciousness of another lends particular relevance and novelty to this research. Despite the scholarly interest in Eastern motifs in Russian literature, the process of meaning formation for new concepts emerging at the intersection of Qur'anic narratives and the Russian poetic tradition requires more systematic analysis. The aim of this article is to identify and analyze the specific features of the representation of Qur'anic motifs in the works of the Symbolist poet Ellis (L.L. Kobylinsky). The authors argue that the aesthetic discourse of the Silver Age functioned as a unique semiotic laboratory in which the encounter between East and West, the classical canon and modernist experiment, generated not a mechanical combination of heterogeneous elements but a new quality — a polyphonic model of meaning generation based on hermeneutic
dialogue. The study places particular emphasis on the reception of the Qur'an in the poetic legacy of Ellis. Based on an analysis of poems from the collection Stigmata («The Enveloping Day,» «The Night of AlQadr,» «The Death of the Bedouin,» and others), the article examines the mechanisms of transformation of Qur'anic motifs — from almost literal adherence to the verses (ayats) to a free Symbolist reinterpretation that intensifies the catastrophic pathos of the Day of Judgment and the mystical resonance of the Night of Decree. It is demonstrated that Ellis's interest in Islam was not driven by an external exoticization of the East but by a
deep metaphysical quest: the poet perceived the Qur'an as part of a unified spiritual experience of humanity, in which eschatology and Sufi psychology resonate with Christian mysticism and the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, of whom Ellis was a follower. The article also traces the connection between Ellis's Qur'anic poems and the theoretical positions of Russian Orientalists (V.M. Alekseev, S.F. Oldenburg) and the philosophical insights of Rabindranath Tagore, thereby situating the poet's work within the broader context of a global intellectual project of civilizational dialogue. The study concludes that Ellis's poetic legacy crystallizes key features of the Silver Age — an aspiration toward spiritual totality, the blurring of boundaries between arts and confessions, and the transformation of life into performance. The investigation of such «borderline» figures is recognized as a methodological necessity for understanding the universal patterns of intercultural dialogue and the phenomenon of the Silver Age in its full complexity and internal contradictions