Baudelaire in Russia

The works of French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), a revolutionary figure in European literature and one of the most influential figures in the Symbolist movement, were translated into Russian earlier than any other language. Long before the decadents made him a champion of their cause, he had been appropriated in Russia by the revolutionary left.

Adrian Wanner analyzes Baudelaire's reception in Russia from 1852 (the date of the first Russian translation of his work) to the end of the Soviet era in 1991. He discusses Baudelaire's impact on Marxists, Russian populists, decadents, Symbolists, acmeists, and the modernist avant-garde within a general European context, and argues that Baudelaire became a many-faceted mythical presence in Russian literature.