In this article, symbolism as a whole is viewed as a logical manifestation of the evolution of world culture and, at the same time, as a unique direction of a new world view and its embodiment in new artistic forms. In the crisis era of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. both Western and Russian symbolists fell into the epicenter of the struggle of dual spiritual morality. The fate and work of the famous Russian symbolist V.Ya. Bryusova - a vivid confirmation of this. "Borrowing" the basic principles of the aesthetics of Western symbolism, V.Ya. Bryusov was able to bring in his national identity, defining the path of artistic innovation in Russian culture of the twentieth century.