Vesy was a Russian symbolist

Russian Symbolism

Russian symbolism was an intellectual and artistic movement predominant at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It represented the Russian branch of the symbolist movement in European art, and was mostly known for its contributions to Russian poetry.-Russian symbolism in...

 magazine published in Moscow from 1904 to 1909, with the financial backing of philanthropist S. A. Polyakov. It was edited by the major symbolist writer Valery Bryusov

Valery Bryusov

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov was a Russian poet, prose writer, dramatist, translator, critic and historian. He was one of the principal members of the Russian Symbolist movement.-Biography:...

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History

Vesy was the leading literary magazine of the Russian symbolist movement. The first issue featured Bryusov's The Keys of Mysteries, a major statement of symbolist doctrine. It reported on contemporary art and literature in Western Europe, and had many foreign correspondents. It was originally created as a magazine of criticism and information, but in 1906 it was expanded to include poetry and prose. Vesy published the works of all the major Russian symbolists, including Alexander Blok

Alexander Blok

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok was a Russian lyrical poet.-Life and career:Blok was born in Saint Petersburg, into a sophisticated and intellectual family. Some of his relatives were literary men, his father being a law professor in Warsaw, and his maternal grandfather the rector of Saint Petersburg...

, Andrei Bely

Andrei Bely

Andrei Bely was the pseudonym of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev , a Russian novelist, poet, theorist, and literary critic. His novel Petersburg was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the four greatest novels of the 20th century.-Biography:...

, Zinaida Gippius

Zinaida Gippius

Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius, was a Russian poet, playwright, editor, short story writer and religious thinker, regarded as a co-founder of Russian symbolism and seen as "one of the most enigmatic and intelligent women of her time in Russia"....

, Konstantin Balmont

Konstantin Balmont

Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont was a Russian symbolist poet, translator, one of the major figures of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.-Biography:Konstantin Balmont was born in v...

, Fyodor Sologub

Fyodor Sologub

Fyodor Sologub was a Russian Symbolist poet, novelist, playwright and essayist. He was the first writer to introduce the morbid, pessimistic elements characteristic of European fin de siècle literature and philosophy into Russian prose.-Early life:...

, Vyacheslav Ivanov

Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov

Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov was a Russian poet and playwright associated with the Russian Symbolist movement. He was also a philosopher, translator, and literary critic.-Early life:...

, and those of Bryusov himself, along with the works of other major writers close to the symbolist movement, like Maximilian Voloshin

Maximilian Voloshin

Maximilian Alexandrovich Kirienko-Voloshin was a Russian poet and famous Freemason. He was one of the significant representatives of the Symbolist movement in Russian culture and literature...

 and Mikhail Kuzmin

Mikhail Kuzmin

Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin was a Russian poet, musician and novelist, a prominent contributor to the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.Born into a noble family in Yaroslavl, Kuzmin grew up in St. Petersburg and studied music at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov...

. Vesy also published a wide variety of translations.

Vesy was lavishly designed and illustrated, often by artists of the World of Art

Mir iskusstva

Mir iskusstva was a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, which was a major influence on the Russians who helped revolutionize European art during the first decade of the 20th century. From 1909, many of the miriskusniki also contributed to the Ballets Russes...

movement. Bryusov's critical writing offered models of clarity and skill, and his scholarly editorial approach had a major impact on Russian editorial practice in the early twentieth century. Eventually the magazine served as a medium for disputes between symbolists like Bely and Ivanov who wanted to make symbolism a religious and cultural movement, and those who saw symbolism strictly as an artistic movement. Vesy was published during the most productive years of Russian symbolism.