On March 3, 1903, the censor Sokolov submitted a report to the Saint Petersburg Publishing Department, stating: "Konstantin Balmont's book consists of 205 poems [...] From the censorship's point of view all of them are worthy of attention, since they belong to the so-called symbolism, too many of them being erotic, cynical and even sacrilegious.

As a censor I found the book in question exceptionally detrimental and would recommend it to be reported immediately to the General Publishing Dpt., adding the notion that it might be especially harmful for modern times when the majority of readership, young people in particular, are so fond of symbolism.

[5] M.N.Semyonov, Polyakov's relative and associate at the Scorpion, wrote the latter on May 17: "Brother Sergey, things with Let Us Be Like the Sun as they stand now, are appalling.

He planned to involve the avant-garde artist and painter Natalia Goncharova as well as illustrator Lucy Savitskaya in the project[7] but failed apparently find a French publisher.

The critic and biographer M.Stakhova saw the book as an attempt to artistically recreate the cosmogonist picture of the Universe with the Sun at its center; a pantheist Bible of worshipping elements, the Moon and the stars.