The silver age of Russian culture is considered one of the most sophisticated eras. According to N. Berdyaev, after a period of decline it was a stage in the rise of philosophy and poetry. The spiritual life of the Silver Age was perceived as an exceptional phenomenon, reflecting the completion of the historical cycle and marking the beginning of a completely new era.
In the nineties of the XI X century, after depression and timelessness, a surge of energy in creativity began. Eighty-poetry poets set the stage for the decadents of the nineties. At the end of the XI X century, new trends began to declare themselves, new mechanisms of their development were determined. One of the new directions has become the avant-garde. The avant-garde was accompanied by a certain lack of demand, "unfulfillment." This reinforced their dramatic nature, the initial disharmony with the surrounding world, which they carried within themselves.
The silver age of Russian culture was characterized by a kind of synthesis of all arts. D. Merezhkovsky called three basic elements characteristic of the turn of the century. To them he attributed symbols, mystical content and the development of artistic sensibility. The silver age in literature was expressed in the transition from realism to symbolism.
In the first decade of the twentieth century, so many poets appeared in the country that the past XI X century in comparison with this period seems deserted. The silver age of Russian culture is considered a difficult and turbulent time. This era was characterized by the coexistence of various directions and currents. Many of them were transient, ephemeral.
The second decade of the twentieth century began with the entry into the literature of the largest poets and prose writers: B. Pasternak, V. Mayakovsky, A. Akhmatova, S. Yesenin, M. Tsvetaeva, A. Tolstoy. Symbolism is replaced by other trends, but its features are visible in such directions as acmeism, futurism, and new peasant poetry.
The silver age of Russian culture is also marked by the emergence of new styles in architecture: neoclassicism, new Russian style, modern. For architects of that time, the architectural idea consisted in an organic connection between form, construction and material. Along with this, the desire for the synthesis of arts is manifested . So, in architecture, the components of sculpture and painting are noticeable.
Despite the fact that the avant-garde in Russia, as well as in the West, sought to absolutize the "I" in creativity, asociality, Russian social cultural soil had a significant impact on the work of avant-garde artists. The avant-garde was faced with the task of expressing spiritual “absolutes” in forms corresponding to the depth of the psyche.
The history of culture in this period is the result of a rather complicated path. Most of the formed directions, circles, and currents turned out to be unstable. This, according to some authors, confirmed the beginning of the collapse of culture, its end.
The need for a fundamentally new artistic and scientific interpretation of reality has become firmly established in the public mind. Both religious and philosophical searches, the formation of a liberal state tradition of orienting oneself on reforms and development, and the formation of a new type of cultural sphere had their influence.
The Silver Age in Russia has become an era of outstanding poets, writers, painters, philosophers, actors, composers. During this period, not a single national culture, except Russian, experienced such a rapid rise. The beginning of the twentieth century is characterized as an alloy of romanticism and realism, the flight of fantasy and science, dreams and reality, due and existing, present and past. This is a peculiar period. This time is perceived differently by different cultural figures. According to some authors, it is this era that represents the time of the formation of a new mentality, the birth of a religious philosophical Renaissance, the liberation of thinking from sociality and politics.