The Silver Dove

The Silver Dove is a novel by Andrei Bely, published in 1909. In it, the author works through his partly neo-Kantian speculations, abstract reflections and metaphysical inquiries under the impression of the failed revolution of 1905. The work was planned as the first part of an unfinished trilogy, East or West, whose second installment was to be Petersburg. Throughout his literary career Bely was preoccupied with the conflict between East and West, with tensions between the intelligentsia and the folk, and with the struggle between the forces of light and darkness. Virtually every crisis that occupied his mind between 1906 and 1909 is reflected in the novel, from the failure of 1905 to the collapse of his love affair with the wife of Alexander Blok. Before it appeared as a separate book in 1910, it was serialized in the journal Vesy in 1909, coinciding with the publication of Symbolism, a collection of essays in which Bely tried to formulate the Symbolist aesthetic creed.

The plot centres on a secret Russian folk sect called the Doves, similar to the Khlysts who were popular in Russia in the 1900s. In the house of the carpenter Kudeyarov, they hold orgiastic religious gatherings in honour of the Mother of God Matryona, who is expected to give birth to the new Savior. The protagonist, the young poet-philosopher Pyotr Daryalsky, joins the cult and abandons Katya, the symbol of pure and idealized love, for Matryona. Kudeyarov discovers that the lovers' meetings involve more than a spiritual purpose, and that money, eroticism and murderous conspiracies drive the sect. Before he is brutally murdered, Daryalsky believes he is struggling against an occult force.

The novel was well received. Nikolai Berdyaev regarded it as an amazing book that returns to the traditions of great Russian literature on the basis of the achievements of the new art. Its multi-faceted structure, ornamental style, digressions and musical leitmotifs give it a richly varied texture.