Severny Vestnik
"Russkaya Mysl" released "The Family Idyll" (Semeynaya idillia, 1890), a year later another symbolic poem "Death" (Smert) appeared in "Severny Vestnik". In 1891 Merezhkovsky and Gippius made their first journey to Europe, staying mostly in Italy and France; the poem "End of the Century" (Konetz Veka) inspired by the European trip, came out two years later. On their return home the couple stayed for a while in Guppius' dacha at Vyshny Volochyok; it was here that Merezhkovsky started working on his first novel, "The Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate". A year later it was finished, but by this time the situation with "Severny Vestnik" had changed: outraged by Akim Volynsky's intrusive editorial methods, Merezhkovsky severed ties with the magazine, at least for a while. In the late 1891 he published his translation of Sophocles' "Antigone" in "Vestnik Evropy", part of Goethe's "Faustus" (in "Russkoye Obozrenye") and Euripides' "Hyppolite" (in "Vestnik Evropy" again). The latter came out in 1893, after the couple's second trip to Europe where their first encounter with Dmitry Filosofov occurred. Merezhkovsky's vivid impressions of Greece and the subsequent spurt of the new ideas provided the foundation for his second novel.