Necropolis is an unconventional literary memoir from Vladislav Khodasevich, hailed by Vladimir Nabokov as "the greatest Russian poet of our time." In each of the book's nine chapters, Khodasevich memorializes a significant figure of Russia's literary Silver Age, and in the process writes an insightful obituary of the era. Written at various times throughout the 1920s and 1930s following the deaths of its subjects, Necropolis is a literary graveyard in which an entire movement, Russian Symbolism, is buried. Recalling Fyodor Sologub, Sergey Esenin, and others, Khodasevich tells the story of how their lives and artworks intertwined, including a notoriously tempestuous love triangle among Nina Petrovskaia, Valery Briusov, and Andrey Bely

Translator's Acknowledgments
Introduction, by David Bethea
Foreword
1. The Death of Renate
2. Bryusov
3. Andrei Bely
4. Muni
5. Gumilyov and Blok
6. Gershenzon
7. Sologub
8. Esenin
9. Gorky
Translator's Notes
Index of Names

Vladislav Khodasevich (1886-1939) was a major figure in twentieth-century Russian poetry as well as an accomplished critic and translator. Born into a Polish Catholic noble family in Moscow, he spent his later life in Berlin and Paris.
Sarah Vitali is a translator and PhD candidate in Slavic languages and literatures at Harvard University.