(Non-)Homeric Quotations in Dmitrii Merezhkovskii’s Novel about Julian the Apostate

This article offers a textual and comparative commentary on two quotations from Homer’s epic poems that appear in Dmitrii Merezhkovskii’s novel The Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate: on Il. 5. 83 (given in Greek with a Russian translation) and on Od. 14. 57–58 (only in Russian). An analysis of the Russian writer’s drafts allows us to establish that these verses, as well as their translations, were borrowed through intermediary texts. The results of the comparison of the places containing Homeric lines (in the novel, historical sources, as well as in the works of J. von Eichendorff, H. Ibsen, F. Dahn, G. Vidal, used as additional material for comparison) and the analysis of their role in the architectonics of the first part of the trilogy Christ and Antichrist demonstrate how Merezhkovskii, changing the form and meaning of the used quotations, integrates them in the artistic structure of his work. Hexameter Il. 5. 83 acquires the meaning of a mystical verbal formula and becomes the central element of a plot system that is fractal in its type (it repeatedly reproduces the three phases of initiation), which conveys the formation of Julian as an apostate emperor. The stylistic accent of this verse can be defined as one of the sources of the imagery of Merezhkovskii’s work: Russian variants corresponding to the Greek πορφύρεος and semantically related lexemes are used here in the same way as this adjective is used in the Iliad, and appear in key episodes. The verses Od. 14. 57–58, which concentrate on the common values of Greco-Roman paganism and Christianity, also acquire additional significance, supporting the line of comparison between Julian and Odysseus, who is striving to return to his homeland.