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The article explores the engagement of Australian poet A. D. Hope with Russian literature and argues for its centrality in Hope's thinking in the last three decades of his poetry. The author discusses Hope's essays, epistolary correspondences, and the notebooks archived at the National Library of Australia to trace Hope's familiarity with the Russian language, his translation projects, and the Russian essays Hope includes in his book "The New Cratylus: Notes on the Craft of Poetry."

The article discusses the development of Russian symbolism in literature with a focus on the influence of poet Dmitrii Merezhkovsky. The poet's book of verse "Simvoly" or "Symbols" which was published in 1892 is discussed. Topics include a mystical or religious slant on idealism in literary symbols and the continuity of thematic motifs in translations. Merezhkovsky's poetic technique in three collections of verse, "Simvoly," Stikhotvoreniia," and "Novye Stikhotvoreniia," is compared. His lectures "O prichinakh upadka i o novykh techeniiakh v sovremennoi russkoi literature" or "The Reasons for the Decline and the New Currents in Contemporary Russian Literature" are mentioned.