Vyacheslav Ivanov stood at the center of Russian Symbolism — quite literally: his Petersburg apartment, the famous "Tower," gathered poets and philosophers every Wednesday. Blok, Bely, Berdyaev, Rozanov — all of them came.
He was born in Moscow in 1866 and studied in Berlin under Mommsen, becoming a specialist in antiquity. He translated Aeschylus and wrote on Dionysus. Then came Rome, Athens, Geneva. When he returned to Russia in 1905, he was already famous.
His collections — Pilot Stars, Cor Ardens — are saturated with mythology and symbol: dense verse that asks for a prepared reader.
In 1924 he left for Italy, converted to Catholicism, and taught in Rome, where he died in 1949. His exchange of letters with Gershenzon, A Correspondence from Two Corners, is a classic of Russian essay writing.