Declining to print poems by Ivanov mentioning God. 1924

Maxim Gorky (Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, 1868-1936)
Declining to print poems by Ivanov mentioning God. 1924
Autograph letter signed (‘A. Peshkov’) to Solomon Gitmanovich [Kaplun], Villa il Sorito, Sorrento, 20 December 1924.

In Russian. ²⁄₃ page, 278 x 213mm, on squared paper. Provenance: Hermitage Fine Art, Monaco, 6 July 2019, lot 371.

Kaplun is not to print poems by Ivanov mentioning God. Gorky writes in the course of preparation for the next issue of the periodical Beseda, for which Kaplun was the publisher.

I am returning the proofs. As you can see it was sent very carelessly: half a page is missing, and some pages – four – blank. / This is all very unfortunate.

Just now I responded to your telegram. The complete sonnets by [Vyacheslav] Ivanov are to be printed in issue No. 7, otherwise we will not have any poems in it. We will not however print the poems by Ivanov mentioning God: he has been informed of this...'.

Vyacheslav Ivanov (1866-1949) had only just, in August 1924, been given permission to emigrate from the USSR: officially it was a business trip, as a Soviet representative, but by January 1925 he had formally renounced any intention of returning. He settled in Rome, and published his Roman Sonnets in 1924. Gorky's refusal to publish any of Ivanov's 'poems ... mentioning God' is striking: Ivanov was much preoccupied by religious questions at this time, and converted to the Roman Catholic church in 1926. Their relationship seems to have survived the snub, and Ivanov stayed with Gorky in Sorrento in the late summer of 1925.

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