In March 2024, a poem attributed to Dmitry Merezhkovsky began to spread in social networks. It is represented as a prophetic: the text mentions the “two thousandth” years, when the ruler elected to the throne will defeat the West, “overseas Satan” and “bloodthirsty Europe”. We decided to check whether such verses Merezhkovsky wrote.

In the spring, when the streams open
And the water will fill the rivers,
In distant two thousandth time
Russia will win the West!
The ruler will decide her fate then,
In the sky, God chosen to the throne,
As once in Israel, the Baptist
The people in the deliverance are given!

On March 4, a poem that begins with these lines published in her Telegram channel a member of the Council of the Russian Federation from the annexed Crimea Olga Kovitidi. The mention of the work indicating the authorship of Merezhkovsky is found in many social networks: ""VKontakte" Livejournal, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and on the platform "Zen".

The work of Dmitry Merezhkovsky - the poet, prose writer, philosopher and publicist - has been well studied. The poem about the victory of Russia over the West, which was dispersed in social networks, is dated 1886. At that time, Merezhkovsky was already known as a writer, his first poetic experiments published in 1883 the magazine “Domestic Notes”. However, in none of the collected works there is no viral work - neither in multi -volume 1914nor in subsequent publications.

In the poems in social networks there are many details that cause doubts about the authorship of Merezhkovsky. Firstly, this is the topic itself: the civil lyrics were unusual for the poet in this period, his verses of 1883–1887 are devoted to loneliness, to understand the existence and purpose of mankind. Secondly, in the distributed poem there are many spelling errors (for example, “naises”) and lexical inconsistencies (for example, “banquets” next to the word “feast”).

It was not possible to find any mention of the poem until March 3, 2024. On this day, it appeared on the website "Poems.ru" on the author's page Anatoly Hesse. Now Record removed, but preserved discussion, and with the comments of Hess himself. The chronology is as follows: on March 3, he published a poem “In the spring when the flows open”, signing the text by the name Merezhkovsky. On the same page, Hesse placed his poetic response from the “two thousandths”, in which he celebrated the visionary gift of the poet of the Silver Age. On March 4, the work began to diverge on the Internet, and already on March 5, Hesse changed the signature to the “Unknown Author”.

In a commentary on the site "Poems.ru" of March 7, he once again repeats that he was mistaken.

And already on March 8, the poem was deleted from his page.

At the same time, the version of an unknown author is also not confirmed, since, as indicated above, earlier publications were “verified” to find. With a high degree of probability, Anatoly Hesse is that unknown author.

This is not the first such “prophetic” poem attributed to the famous poet. Earlier on the Internet there were poems supposedly written by Pushkin quarantine and pro Inquiry before Europe, Agnia Barto pro Medvedev and Taras Shevchenko pro Ukrainians. And each time it turned out that real authors are modern bloggers.

Photo on the cover: Wikipedia Commons