SOURCE: "The Necessity of Art: The Last Years of Aleksandr Blok," in Lot's Wife and the Venus of Milo: Conflicting Attitudes to the Cultural Heritage in Modern Russia, Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. 29-52.

In the following excerpt, Thomson examines the evolution of Blok's views on culture and the role of the artist in society in terms of the Russian struggle between the intelligentsia and the masses.

 Those who look into the future have no regrets for the past.
—Aleksandr Blok 

 Who will shed tears for the wife in the Book?
For isn't she one of the least of the dead?
But I know that my heart will never forget
That she gave up her life for a single look.
—Anna Akhmatova, 'Lot's Wife' 

If the Symbolists often thought of themselves as intermediaries between different levels of existence, each of which had to be experienced to the full, then...