The Mystery of Iniquity

There can be little doubt that the name Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin (1872-1936) would be near the top of any list of important twentieth-century Russian writers neglected both in and outside their homeland. Even though he was regarded as an original and major poet by writers as diverse as Briusov, Blok, Gumilev, Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky, Tsvetaeva, and Pasternak, Kuzmin still awaits rehabilitation in the Soviet Union and rediscovery in the West. There are some signs of a partial rehabilitation in Soviet Russia today, but the chances for a full rehabilitation-a major publication of his works-are slight. Obstacles to a Western rediscovery exist as well. Clichés die hard and perhaps no harder than in literary history. Kuzmin himself must share part of the blame for the major one. By writing the article "On Beautiful Clarity" he unwittingly gave critics and literary historians the tag for comments on his verse. That the article is about prose and that Kuzmin chose not to republish it in his one volume of collected essays is ignored

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