Poet, critic, prose writer, editor, and leading organizer of the Russian Symbolist movement, Valerii Briusov began his career amid the conflicting views and values that characterized Russian culture at the turn of the twentieth century. In such a world of reevaluations Briusov saw his own opportunity to dethrone the largely stultified prevailing canons of Russian literature and replace them with what he believed to be its next intended stage, modeled upon western European Decadence. He became the founder and organizer of Russian Decadence, a movement that in its disregard for the established traditions of Russian verse and morality jarred Russian society but gained for Briusov the notoriety--and power--that he craved. Russian Decadence transformed itself into the (eventually) more accepted school of Russian Symbolism, and Valerii "Bezvkusov" (the Tasteless), as an early critic had called him, earned the title of a respected maître (master). For poets younger...