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Vol. I · 2026
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Tier B
Writers & Intellectuals · France · Russian Empire

Dmitry Merezhkovsky

Дмитрий Мережковский

St Petersburg-born Symbolist novelist and critic, repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize, who died in Paris

🇫🇷 Fame: France🇷🇺 Origin: Russian Empire🔗 Connection: Lived under Russian or Soviet rule🗣 Russian: Fluent
DM
Profile #273
ProfessionWriter
Russian originSt. PetersburgRussian Empire
ConnectionLived under Russian or Soviet ruleSergey Ivanovich Merezhkovsky; Varvara V…
RussianFluent
CategoryWriters & IntellectualsTier B
Biography

Dmitry Merezhkovsky — writer with roots in the Russian Empire

Dmitry Merezhkovsky (14 August 1865, St Petersburg – 9 December 1941, Paris) was a Russian poet, novelist, critic and religious thinker. He co-founded Russian Symbolism, and his 1892 lecture is widely regarded as an early manifesto of the movement. He married the poet Zinaida Gippius in 1889. Sources give nine or ten nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He left Russia in December 1919 and lived in France until his death.

Russian Connection

Tracing the roots — St. Petersburg

Born in St Petersburg in 1865, the son of a senior official, Merezhkovsky lived in Russia until December 1919, when he left via Minsk, Vilno and Warsaw and settled in France.

Family Tree
Subject
Dmitry Merezhkovsky🇫🇷 France
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Self (born there)
Sergey Ivanovich Merezhkovsky
Varvara Vasilyevna Merezhkovskaya (née Chesnokova)
↑
Origin
St. Petersburg🇷🇺 Russian Empire
Historical context
Russian Empire · c. 1721–1917
Map of the Russian Empire

St. Petersburg. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.

Map: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
Key Achievements

A career defined by ambition

01
Christ and Antichrist trilogy (1895–1904)
02
Co-founder of Russian Symbolism; his 1892 lecture is regarded as an early manifesto of the movement
03
Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine or ten times between 1914 and 1937 (sources differ)
04
Left Russia in December 1919; lived in France until his death in 1941
05
Critical studies of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (1900–1901) and of Gogol

"God and the devil are the two faces of the infinite."

Dmitry Merezhkovsky
Russian diasporaborn in Russia/USSRRussian Empire rootsRussian speaker
Sources