This article is an analysis of an essay written by Zinaida Gippius and published in the spring of 1924 in issue No. 19 of an influential emigration periodical Sovremennye zapiski. Her statement came to light in the historic moment when the white émigrés were firmly convinced that their safe return to Russia was impossible. In her essay, the author characterizes the works of Soviet writers from the perspective of the year 1924 and categorizes them into those who were able to preserve the notion of beauty in the new post-Revolution reality and those who irrevocably lost said concept. In the works of the latter the author notices nothing but the images of the nightmare of the daily life, entirely devoid of any artistic value. Gippius blames Bolshevism for the profound negative consequences of the changes which occurred in Russian culture after 1917.
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