In the nearly 30 years at the turn of the19th century and the 20th century, Russia experienced a broad and far-reaching ideological and cultural movement. Its forerunner is the trend of new poetry, followed by comprehensive innovation in the whole field of literature and art, including prose creation, drama art, literary criticism, music and painting. With the change of aesthetic consciousness, art begins to have new meaning. At the same time, various new thoughts of western social philosophy were introduced into Russia, which collided with Russian philosophical tradition, leading to unprecedented prosperity of philosophy and the rise of unique Russian religious philosophy. The prosperity of art and philosophy has promoted the change and creation in other humanities fields. In that exciting era, Russians were endowed with many talents. This is one of the most glorious periods in Russian cultural history. This era is the so-called "Silver Age".
Calling this era the "silver age" is just a concept borrowed from cultural history. As early as the first half of the eighth century BC, hesiod, the earliest poet in ancient Greece after Homer, wrote a masterpiece: the long poem Work and Time. According to the poem, the first human beings created by the gods on Olympus are called "golden race", followed by "silver race", "bronze race", "hero race" and "black iron race", and the corresponding five eras are golden age, silver age, bronze age, hero age and black iron age. The term "five eras" is often used to divide cultural history and literary history. It first appeared in ancient Roman literature. Octavian's reign was called the "golden age" of ancient Roman literature, which was the peak of the creation of great poets such as Virgil, Horace and Ovid. More than 200 years after Octavian's death, that is, the early days of the Roman Empire, was the "silver age" of ancient Roman literature. The literary achievements of this era mainly include Seneca's tragedy, Fidel's fable, novels by Petronie Uss and Aplus, and Macher's inscription. It is not difficult to see that this era in Roman literature is called the "silver age", which seems to indicate that its literary achievements are slightly lower than the "golden age", but it is also quite prominent and eye-catching.
People in the 20th century, first of all Russian writers and critics, used the concept of "silver age" in this sense, trying to mark a certain literary age and its characteristics after the "golden age" of19th century literature.
According to the materials we have seen so far, the concepts of "golden age" and "silver age" were first used by famous Russian religious philosophers, writers and critics in evaluating and studying Russian literature. In an article published in 1909, Ross and Nikolai Nikolai Gogol wrote:
The thoughts of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are more complicated and important. However, the languages of Pushkin and Nikolai Nikolai Gogol are still first-class, which cannot be surpassed. Because of this greatest perfection, their language has won the charm, eternity and certainty like bronze monuments that Russian writers in the silver age such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky never had and will never get. After all, Pushkin and Nikolai Nikolai Gogol were the golden age of Russian literature.
Obviously, Rozanov thought that there was a "golden age" and a "silver age" in Russian literature in the19th century. The former is represented by Pushkin and Nikolai Nikolai Gogol, while the latter is represented by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. This is one of the uses of the concept of "Silver Age" in the study of literary history.
Another usage of the concept of "Silver Age" can be found in the study of Russian poetry history. Some researchers in the history of Russian poetry call that era illuminated by the names of poets Pushkin and lermontov the "golden age" of Russian poetry. And compared the poets A A Fett (1820- 1892), A Ni Maikov (182 1- 1897) and Yapi polonsky (186554). These researchers obviously believe that Russian poetry in the19th century has a "golden age" and a "silver age".