Akhenaten

Politically, Merezhkovsky was opposed to the autocracy of Tsar Nicholas II, but was also an opponent of Bolshevism and the 1917 revolutions. He fled to Paris in 1920, and continued to be active in anti-Communist and esoteric circles there for the rest of his life. Merezhkovsky had a typically Symbolist interest in the occult and alternative forms of Christianity. He sought a synthesis of the sensuality of paganism with the spirituality of Christianity, believing that the ideas of paganism and pre-Christian philosophers could together rejuvenate Christianity. After a second coming of Christ, paganism and Christianity would become apocalyptically resolved, and a Utopian world would result where higher spiritual truths were valued and crass materialism denounced. Merezhkovsky was much influenced by Nietzsche's ideas, and demanded the abolition of all restrictions on the individual, considering art, beauty and sensuality to be more

Plale 6.2

R. S. George, cover art to the English translation of Dmitri Merezhkovsky's novel Akhnaton, c. 1927.

important than prosperity and contentment. He also thought that the immortal perfect being who would synthesise paganism and Christianity would be androgynous, containing all sources of creativity within itself.³¹

In this spiritual and political background, Akhenaten was the perfect subject for Merezhkovsky to show off his literary skills. The facts of Akhenaten's life and reign (derived from Weigall) also gave the opportunity to discuss his theories on religion, pagan eroticism, and sectarian and racial politics.

What strikes one now about Akhnaton King of Egypt are its negative portrayals of Jews. Whether or not Merezhkovsky was himself anti-Semitic, the emigre circles he moved in certainly were. Many emigres believed that the tsar's overthrow was part of a vast Jewish conspiracy, a view notoriously spread by a fabricated book, Protocols of the Elders of Zjon,

which purported to expose a plot by Jews and Masons to destroy Christian Russia and create a world-wide Jewish state. This seemed to be reinforced by the Jewish origins of many Bolshevik revolutionaries.Such views may also relate to Merezhkovsky's occult interests, especially in Theosophy, which argued that Jews and gypsies were degenerate relics of obsolete races. All this makes Merezhkovsky's Akhenaten novel a disturbing read.

Akhnaton King of Egypt is set towards the end of Akhenaten's reign when he is losing control of the political situation. He and his family are becoming unpopular, and there are plots to kill Akhenaten magically. Unusually, Nefertiti figures hardly at all in the novel, perhaps reflecting Russian hatred of the tsarina (as secretly pro-German) during the First World War. Akhenaten is still able to enjoy family life, however. Scenes in the luxurious Amarna palaces are juxtaposed almost filmically with vignettes from the lives of the Jewish slaves in their squalid camp (the workmen's village). This camp, 'the Dirty Jews' Village', is a place of symbolic filth and contagion, situated 'at the bottom of a deep cauldron-shaped hollow' where 'the sun was setting in the red mist, as in a pool of blood'.^u Issachar, a Jewish dissident, plots the assassination of Akhenaten, and tries to stab him during a public appearance. The choice of name may be significant: the biblical Issachar headed one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Issachar fails to kill Akhenaten, is sentenced to be tortured (even though it is forbidden at Akhet- aten), but manages to escape. '"Shame, shame, upon all of us that the vile Jew has been spared!"' says one of Akhenaten's daughters when she hears this news. Merezhkovsky's belief in an apocalyptic second coming are put into the mouth of an anti-Semitic Akhenaten:

We Egyptians despise the Jews, but maybe they know more about the Son than we do: we say about Him 'He was', and they say 'He is to come.' I am the joy of the Sun, Akhnaton? No, notjoy as yet, but sorrow; not the light, but the shadow of the sun that is to rise - the Son!³¹