The Created Legend

Fyodor Sologub built this Symbolist trilogy on a defiant promise: to take the coarse, poor stuff of ordinary life and shape it into a sweet legend. At its center is Georgy Trirodov, a chemist, poet, and widower who runs an unconventional school for children on the edge of a provincial Russian town. Around him swirl occult experiments, the political violence of the 1905 revolution, and his love for Elisaveta, one of two sisters drawn into his strange orbit. Sologub braids grim social observation with dream, fantasy, and a far-off Mediterranean kingdom that offers Trirodov a crown. The result is one of the odder monuments of Russian modernism. This free PDF and EPUB edition makes the full work available to read.