Previous. Alexander Blok - poet of the "Silver Age"

Alexander Blok was not only a great poet of the era, which we now call the "Silver Age", the creator of the cycles "Poems about the Beautiful Lady", "Snow Mask", "Yambas", "Poems about Russia" of the poem "The Twelve" - ​​and for contemporaries, and for us he remains a man of high spirit, amazing honesty. Blok believed that poetry could change the world if their creators were pure enough in spirit. And the fact that bloody tragedies began to shake the world with the beginning of the twentieth century, he put, in particular, himself to blame. I offer you a film about Alexander Blok and a short essay about this mysterious poet, for whom poetry was not just literature, but Service.

Among the poets of the beginning of the 20th century, talented and bright, Alexander Blok somehow stood apart. He rarely went where all the poets of the "Silver Age" went: at the religious and philosophical meetings at Merezhkovsky's, in the "Stray Dog" cabaret, where all the bohemians of St. Petersburg gathered after 1912. He eschewed noisy gatherings, literary debates, spoke little and argued, because he did not like to "talk about the unsaid." And in general, against the background of emotional, even exalted colleagues in the pen, he struck with restraint and some kind of self-absorption, as if guarding some secret that he carried in himself. Nevertheless, he was treated with special respect, as evidenced by the memoirs of his contemporaries. It was amazing how differently they saw him, how difficult it was to betray even the idea of ​​​​his appearance. Someone called Blok very handsome, someone spoke of a motionless face, as if carved from stone. Andrei Bely wrote about the luminosity of this face, as if covered with a golden-pink tan. Zinaida Gippius found in him something sweet, childlike. The main lady of literary Petersburg, who judged her contemporaries very sharply, Gippius wrote about Blok almost tenderly. Chukovsky recalled a special magic that emanated from this man. And his friend, then enemy, rival in love, Andrei Bely, after his death, will write an autobiographical trilogy, where he will continue to sort things out with him, the deceased, again and again.

It is surprising that in the era of the "Silver Age", the time of talented people, even brilliant, but noisy, emotional, explosive, prone to a bohemian lifestyle, this silent person was recognized as the greatest authority. And the point is not only in poetic genius, but also in the uniqueness of Blok's personality. There was something in him from a mysterious medieval knight, or this Pushkin's "poor knight":

There lived a poor knight in the world,

Silent and simple

Looks gloomy and pale,

Bold and direct in spirit

He had one vision, incomprehensible to the mind ...

A vision or a dream of a vision - this was the beginning of Blok's youth. Then everyone dreamed of revelations. The youth raved about the poet, philosopher, mystic Vladimir Solovyov, who, among other works, wrote the poem "Three Dates", where he described three mystical meetings when a woman appeared to him, whom he considered Sophia the Wise. For Blok, acquaintance with Solovyov's work was a shock.

Those vague dreams, signs in nature that worried him, about which he did not tell anyone, suddenly received an explanation, a justification. From Blok's notebooks, September 1901: “In the Sign I saw a prophetic dream. Something broke in time. And she clearly appeared to me ... and the secret was revealed. I saw the family leave, and I remained at the door in front of them. She stood up to meet me and said a strange word that I love her. I, holding the volume of Solovyov in my hand. I gave it to her, and suddenly I see that this is no longer poetry, but a small German book ... "

Blok had no doubt that this was the same woman who appeared to Solovyov three times, he did not doubt the reality of this event and was waiting for it, in reality. He believed that his poems were a mystical phenomenon. “This is a diary in which God allowed me to express myself in verse.” In it first — expectation of a miraculous event. Then pain and despair, when something happened in the world, pink dawns went out. Then whirlwinds and blizzards appeared in his poems. And then everything fell silent, and Blok repeated in different verses “ How hard it is for a dead man among people, said the soul is dead .

And then the body died. No one could say why Blok died at only 40 years old. Or maybe it was just that rare case. , when the body simply dies, abandoned by the light of heaven. After 1914, he wrote almost nothing, but reworked and reworked his youthful "Poems about the Beautiful Lady". He recognized their immaturity. But he still thought it was the best he had written. He even mentioned to someone that he did not consider himself their author, that they were dictated to him from above. In "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" there is some special tension, purification before her arrival.

I anticipate you. Years pass by

All in the guise of one I foresee You.

The whole horizon is on fire - and unbearably clear,

And silently I wait, longing and loving.

However, someone can say that "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" were created in the period. When Blok was in love with Lyubochka Mendeleeva, his future wife. And these verses are addressed to her. In her memoirs, Lyubov Dmitrievna writes that often, when Blok read his poems to her, she suspected that they were addressed to her, but with a jealous feeling she did not find herself in his Lady. She was a very earthly girl - ruddy, with a thick braid, there was nothing in her from the incorporeal Lady. This annoyed her, and once she even decided to break up with him, writing in a letter: “You look at me as some kind of abstract idea, you imagine all sorts of unnecessary things about me, and behind this fiction, which is alive only in your imagination, you they didn’t notice me, a living person with a living soul.”

She did not send this letter to him, just as Blok did not send the letter that he wrote to her at the same time, in case of a break: “My life, i.e. the ability to live is inconceivable without some Spirit coming from you, which I vaguely feel. If we are divided in thoughts or separated in life, my strength weakens, only longing remains. In their lives there will be different periods - and bright young joy, and betrayal, and misunderstanding. Blok will write one day: “Lyuba brought her mother to illness. Lyuba created that unbearable complexity and tediousness of relations, which is now. Lyuba is a terrible message on earth in order to torment and destroy earthly values ​​... But the years 1898-1902 made me unable to part with her and love her. These were just the years of the Beautiful Lady, the premonitions and insights that they experienced together, when her strength, energy were needed for him.

Blok was a man of another world, he thought and felt differently, and we should not try to explain him. It's just that in his poems it will not be clear before us that the image of the beloved woman, or the image of the Majestic Wife, will flicker. He lived in another dimension, saw as reality what seems to us fantastic visions. But if you accept Blok, you must also accept the reality of his visions and mystical experiences.

He has an amazing article On the current state of symbolism» It is about the world of his poetry, about the reality that he considers the only one, and which gives meaning to his work. He writes in it about worlds in the light of a radiant sword, about purple-lilac worlds “The golden sword flares up dazzlingly and pierces the heart of the poet. Already beginning to see through the face among the heavenly roses. A dialogue arises... But, as if jealous of the poet, someone suddenly cuts off the golden thread. The blade of the radiant sword fades and ceases to be felt in the heart. Worlds that have been pierced with golden light lose their purple hue, as blue-lilac dusk bursts through a broken dam. And the face that appeared among the roses disappeared. And in its place is a dead doll.

The poet is surrounded by demons, they are submissive to the will of the poet, in those purple worlds, they scour in search of the best jewelry, so that with their help the poet creates an earthly miracle, a beautiful doll, "The Stranger". Blok was often asked why his Beautiful Lady turned into a Stranger? He kept silent. He could not explain to everyone he met that this was the essence of his spiritual drama. He once wrote: “Oh. how I will fall and sadly, and low, without overcoming deathly dreams ... ”I didn’t overcome it, I couldn’t be clean and high enough or what? But who ever thought about what worlds poetry comes from, if they are beautiful? Block only. And in this high spiritual exactingness lies his greatness. They say he loved only his youthful poems. We can't help but admire his Stranger.

"The Stranger" was written in 1906. Troubled, troubling times. Bloody events of the first Russian revolution. Blok will write about the real life of Russia at the beginning of the century, but he is more concerned about shifts in that other dimension, which he perceived as reality. And he considered the storms of earthly life an echo of storms there. He is sure: "Just as something broke in us, so it broke in Russia." I almost blamed myself for the Russian tragedy. And one more woeful phrase of Blok: "We were prophets, we wished to become poets."

In 1907, the cycle of poems "The Snow Mask" was born. They are also dedicated to the woman with whom Blok was in love in the cold snowstorm of 1907 - Natalya Nikolaevna Volokhova, an actress of the Komissarzhevskaya theater, a beautiful woman with "winged eyes". In that blizzard of winter, his "Balaganchik" was staged in the theater. There were many young people around, carnivals were organized, sleigh rides along the snow-covered streets, and Blok was cheerful. And in his poems of this period - a blizzard, a snowstorm, cold and confusion.

And again, sparkling from a cup of wine,

You put fear in my heart

With your innocent smile

In heavy snake hair.

I'm overturned in dark jets

And I breathe in again, not loving,

Forgotten dream about kisses

About snow blizzards around you.

It is unlikely that these poems are directly connected with N. N. Volokhova. This blizzard was in Blok's soul, which lived its own, separate life. Returning to the article on symbolism, here is another quote: “Art is hell. No wonder Bryusov bequeathed to the artist: "like Dante, the underground flame should burn your cheeks." Only one who has a companion, a teacher and a guiding dream of one that will lead where the teacher does not dare to enter can go through countless circles of hell ... One way or another, the purple worlds swept over Lermontov, who threw himself under the gun of his own will. And Gogol, who burned himself, floundering in the velvet paws of a spider. And he described his fate in verse:

How did it happen, how did it happen?
I was poor, weak and small.
But the greatness of some mystery
It opened up to me before the time
I have known the High.
Unworthy slave, treasure
without keeping those handed to me,
I was a king and a random guard.
Hosts of fierce monsters
They ran into me.

And at the end there are these lines:

I don't hide in front of you
Look at me:
I'm standing in the fire
Burnt with tongues
Underworld fire.

It is interesting that Andrei Bely, recalling the young Blok, writes about the golden-pink haze of his face. Then he wrote that Blok's face was, as it were, burned. And Blok wrote about the same thing: “We are offered: sing, be merry, but our faces are burned by the lilac dusk.” But in that lilac twilight music sounded, poems were born. Either disastrous and tragic, or full of quiet sadness.

There were bursts of feelings, impulses for life, joy:

Oh, I want to live crazy

All that exists is to perpetuate,

Impersonal - incarnate,

Unfulfilled - to embody!

Blok will sensitively capture the music of the elements and embody it in poetry. Love is part of the world element. And the Carmen cycle will be born.

Oh yes, love is free like a bird
Yes, it doesn't matter - I'm yours!
Yes, I still dream
Your camp, your fire!

He will hear the whirlwinds of the elements in history, and they will sound in his cycle “On the Kulikovo Field”

And eternal battle! Rest only in our dreams

Through blood and dust...

Flying, flying steppe mare

And crushes the feather grass ...

And then the music began to subside, the “iron day” came and it fell silent .. Only once did the swirling element sound in his poems: in the poem “The Twelve”. After writing it, he exclaimed: "Today I am a genius." The poem was not liked by either the right or the left. The Bolsheviks did not want to recognize revolution in this demonic whirlwind, their opponents decided that Blok had sold himself to the Reds. And he just heard and recorded the music for the last time, which he used to catch in the world.

Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
A person does not stand on his feet.
Wind, wind -
In all God's world!

The element of the revolution, albeit a terrible element, was replaced by world vulgarity, so disastrous for the poet. And the soul died.

How hard it is to walk among people
And pretend to be invincible
And about the game of tragic passions
To narrate to those who have not yet lived.

And peering into your nightmare,
Build to find feelings in a discordant whirlwind,
To the pale glow of art
Learned life disastrous fire!

The epigraph to this Blok poem was a line from Fet: "There's a man on fire" . We think that poetry is a cozy light on which you can warm your hands in the cold, your soul in sadness. And poetry can be a terrible fire that burns those who come too close. Those who fly into this flame are mad, but they are the best of those who have lived on earth.

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1. Milestones in the work of the poet of the "Silver Age"

BLOK Alexander Alexandrovich, Russian poet, was born on November 16 (28), 1880, in St. Petersburg.

He began his poetic activity in the spirit of symbolism (“Poems about the Beautiful Lady”, 1904), the feeling of the crisis of which he proclaimed in the drama “Puppet Show” (1906).

Blok's lyrics, close to music in their "spontaneity", were formed under the influence of the romance. Through the deepening of social trends (the cycle "City", 1904-1908), the comprehension of the "terrible world" (the cycle of the same name, 1908-1916), the awareness of the tragedy of modern man (the play "Rose and Cross", 1912-1913) came to the idea of ​​the inevitability of "retribution "(the cycle of the same name 1907-1913; the cycle "Yamba", 1907-1914; the poem "Retribution", 1910-1921). The main themes of poetry were resolved in the Motherland cycle (1907-1916).

He tried to comprehend the October Revolution in the poem "The Twelve" (1918), journalism. The rethinking of the revolutionary events and the fate of Russia was accompanied by a deep creative crisis and depression.

2. Family. Childhood and education

Father, Alexander Lvovich Blok, - lawyer, professor of law at Warsaw University, mother, Alexandra Andreevna, nee Beketova (in her second marriage Kublitskaya-Piottukh) - translator, daughter of the rector of St. Petersburg University A. N. Beketov and translator E. N. Beketova .

Blok's early years were spent in his grandfather's house. Among the brightest childhood and adolescent impressions are the annual summer months in the Beketovs' Shakhmatovo estate near Moscow. In 1897, during a trip to the resort of Bad Nauheim (Germany), he experienced the first youthful passion of K. M. Sadovskaya, to whom he devoted a number of poems, which were then included in the Ante Lucem cycle (1898-1900) and in the collection Beyond the Past Days (1920 ), as well as the cycle "After twelve years" (1909-14). After graduating from the Vvedensky gymnasium in St. Petersburg, in 1898 he entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, but in 1901 he transferred to the historical and philological faculty (he graduated in 1906 in the Slavic-Russian department). Among the professors under whom Blok studied are F. F. Zelinsky, A. I. Sobolevsky, I. A. Shlyapkin, S. F. Platonov, A. I. Vvedensky, V. K. Ernshtedt, B. V. Warneke. In 1903 he married the daughter of D. I. Mendeleev, Lyubov Dmitrievna.

3. Creative debut

He began writing poetry at the age of 5, but conscious adherence to his vocation begins in 1900-01. The most important literary and philosophical traditions that influenced the formation of a creative individuality are the teachings of Plato, the lyrics and philosophy of V. S. Solovyov, and the poetry of A. A. Fet.

In March 1902, he met Z. N. Gippius and D. S. Merezhkovsky, who had an enormous influence on him; in their journal "New Way" (1903, No. 3) Blok made his creative debut as a poet and critic.

In January 1903 he entered into correspondence, in 1904 he personally met A. Bely, who became the poet closest to him from the younger symbolists. In 1903, the "Literary and Artistic Collection: Poems of Students of the Imperial St. Petersburg University" was published, in which three of Blok's poems were published; in the same year, Blok's cycle "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" (the title was proposed by V. Ya. Bryusov) was published in the 3rd book of the almanac "Northern Flowers".

In March 1904, he began work on the book "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" (1904, on the title page - 1905). The traditional romantic theme of love-service received in "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" that new content that was introduced into it by the ideas of Vl. Solovyov about merging with the Eternal Feminine in the Divine All-Unity, about overcoming the alienation of the individual from the world whole through a love feeling. The myth of Sophia, becoming the theme of lyrical poems, transforms beyond recognition in the inner world of the cycle the traditional natural, and in particular, the "lunar" symbolism and paraphernalia (the heroine appears above, in the evening sky, she is white, a source of light, scatters pearls, emerges, disappears after sunrise, etc.).

4. Participation in the literary process 1905-09

"Poems about the Beautiful Lady" revealed the tragic impracticability of "Soloviev's" life harmony (the motives of "blasphemous" doubts about one's own "calling" and about her beloved, who is able to "change her appearance"), putting the poet before the need to search for other, more direct relationships with the world. The events of the 1905-07 revolution played a special role in shaping Blok's worldview, exposing the spontaneous, catastrophic nature of life. The theme of “elements” penetrates into the lyrics of this time and becomes the leading one (images of a snowstorm, blizzards, motifs of freemen, vagrancy).

The image of the central heroine changes dramatically: the Beautiful Lady is replaced by the demonic Stranger, the Snow Mask, the schismatic gypsy Faina. Blok is actively involved in literary everyday life, published in all symbolist magazines (“Questions of Life”, “Scales”, “Pass”, “Golden Fleece”), almanacs, newspapers (“Word”, “Speech”, “Hour”, etc. ), acts not only as a poet, but also as a playwright and literary critic (since 1907 he has been in charge of the critical department in the Golden Fleece), unexpectedly for fellow symbolists, revealing interest and closeness to the traditions of democratic literature.

Contacts in the literary and theatrical environment are becoming more and more diverse: Blok visits the “Club of the Young”, which united writers close to the “new art” (V.V. Gippius, S.M. Gorodetsky, E.P. Ivanov, L.D. Semenov, A. A. Kondratiev and others). Since 1905, he has been visiting "Wednesdays" on the "tower" of Vyach. I. Ivanov, since 1906 - "Saturdays" in the theater of V. F. Komissarzhevskaya, where V. E. Meyerhold staged his first play "Balaganchik" (1906). The actress of this theater N. N. Volokhova becomes the subject of his stormy passion, the book of poems "Snow Mask" (1907), the cycle "Faina" (1906-08) are dedicated to her; her features - a "tall beauty" in "elastic black silks" with "shining eyes" - determine the appearance of "natural" heroines in the lyrics of this period, in "The Tale of the One Who Would Not Understand Her" (1907), in the plays " Stranger", "King in the Square" (both 1906), "Song of Fate" (1908). Collections of poems (Unexpected Joy, 1907; Earth in the Snow, 1908), plays (Lyric Dramas, 1908) are published.

Blok publishes critical articles, makes presentations at the St. Petersburg Religious and Philosophical Society (Russia and the Intelligentsia, 1908, Elements and Culture, 1909). The problem of “the people and the intelligentsia”, which is key to the work of this period, determines the sound of all the topics developed in his articles and poems: the crisis of individualism, the place of the artist in the modern world, etc. His poems about Russia, in particular the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” ( 1908), combine the images of the motherland and the beloved (Wife, Bride), imparting a special intimate intonation to patriotic motives. The controversy around articles about Russia and the intelligentsia, their generally negative assessment in criticism and journalism, the increasing realization by Blok himself that a direct appeal to a wide democratic audience did not take place, leads him in 1909 to a gradual disappointment in the results of journalistic activity.

5. The crisis of symbolism and creativity 1910-17

The period of “revaluation of values” becomes for Blok a trip to Italy in the spring and summer of 1909. Against the backdrop of political reaction in Russia and the atmosphere of complacent European philistinism, high classical art becomes the only saving value, which, as he later recalled, “burnt” him on an Italian trip. This set of moods is reflected not only in the Italian Poems cycle (1909) and the unfinished book of prose essays The Lightning of Art (1909-20), but also in the report On the Current State of Russian Symbolism (April 1910). Drawing a line under the history of the development of symbolism as a strictly defined school, Blok stated the end and exhaustion of a huge stage of his own creative and life path and the need for a “spiritual diet”, “courageous apprenticeship” and “self-deepening”.

Receiving an inheritance after the death of his father at the end of 1909 freed Blok for a long time from worries about literary earnings and made it possible to concentrate on a few major artistic ideas. Having distanced himself from active publicistic activity and participation in the life of literary and theatrical bohemia, from 1910 he began to work on the great epic poem "Retribution" (which was not completed).

In 1912-13 he wrote the play The Rose and the Cross. After the publication of the collection Night Hours in 1911, Blok revised his five books of poetry into a three-volume collection of poems (vols. 1-3, 1911-12). Since that time, Blok's poetry exists in the reader's mind as a single "lyrical trilogy", a unique "novel in verse", creating a "myth about the path". During the life of the poet, the three-volume edition was reprinted in 1916 and in 1918-21. In 1921, Blok began preparing a new edition, but managed to finish only the 1st volume. Each subsequent edition includes everything significant that was created between editions: the cycle "Carmen" (1914), dedicated to the singer L. A. Andreeva-Delmas, the poem "The Nightingale Garden" (1915), poems from the collections "Yamba" (1919) , "Gray Morning" (1920).

Since the autumn of 1914, Blok has been working on the publication of Apollon Grigoriev's Poems (1916) as a compiler, author of an introductory article, and commentator. On July 7, 1916, he was drafted into the army, served as a timekeeper in the 13th engineering and construction squad of the Zemsky and City Unions near Pinsk. After the February Revolution of 1917, Blok returned to Petrograd and became a member of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission to investigate the crimes of the tsarist government as an editor of verbatim records. The materials of the investigation were summarized by him in the book The Last Days of Imperial Power (1921, published posthumously).

6. Philosophy of culture and poetic creativity in 1917-21

After the October Revolution, Blok unambiguously declared his position by answering the questionnaire "Can the intelligentsia work with the Bolsheviks" - "Can and must", publishing in January 1918 in the Left Socialist-Revolutionary newspaper "Znamya Truda" a series of articles "Russia and the intelligentsia", which opened with the article "Intelligentsia and Revolution", and a month later - the poem "The Twelve" and the poem "Scythians". Blok's position provoked a sharp rebuke from Z. N. Gippius, D. S. Merezhkovsky, F. Sologub, Vyach. Ivanov, G. I. Chulkov, V. Piast, A. A. Akhmatova, M. M. Prishvin, Yu. I. Aikhenvald, I. G. Ehrenburg and others. , with noticeable caution spoke about the alienness of the poem to the Bolshevik ideas about the revolution (L. D. Trotsky, A. V. Lunacharsky, V. M. Friche). The greatest bewilderment was caused by the figure of Christ in the finale of the poem "The Twelve". However, contemporary criticism of Blok did not notice the rhythmic parallelism and the echo of motives with Pushkin's "Demons" and did not appreciate the role of the national myth of demonism for understanding the meaning of the poem.

After The Twelve and The Scythians, Blok wrote comic poems “just in case”, preparing the last edition of the “lyrical trilogy”, but did not create new original poems until 1921. At the same time, from 1918, a new upsurge in prose creativity began. The poet makes cultural-philosophical reports at meetings of Volfila - the Free Philosophical Association ("The collapse of humanism" - 1919, "Vladimir Solovyov and our days" - 1920), at the School of Journalism ("Katilina" - 1918), writes lyrical fragments (" Neither Dreams nor Reality”, “Confessions of a Pagan”), feuilletons (“Russian Dandies”, “Compatriots”, “Answer to the Question about the Red Seal”).

A huge amount of what was written is connected with Blok's service activities: after the revolution, for the first time in his life, he was forced to look not only for literary earnings, but also for public service.

In September 1917 he became a member of the Theater and Literature Commission, from the beginning of 1918 he collaborated with the Theater Department of the People's Commissariat for Education, in April 1919 he transferred to the Bolshoi Drama Theater. At the same time he became a member of the editorial board of the publishing house "World Literature" under the leadership of M. Gorky, from 1920 - chairman of the Petrograd branch of the Union of Poets.

Initially, Blok's participation in cultural and educational institutions was motivated by convictions about the duty of the intelligentsia to the people. However, the sharp discrepancy between the poet's ideas about the "cleansing revolutionary element" and the bloody everyday life of the advancing totalitarian bureaucratic regime led to increasing disappointment in what was happening and forced the poet to seek spiritual support again. In his articles and diary entries, the motive of the catacomb existence of culture appears. Blok's thoughts about the indestructibility of true culture and about the "secret freedom" of the artist, resisting the attempts of the "new mob" to encroach on it, were expressed in the speech "On the Appointment of the Poet" at the evening in memory of A. S. Pushkin and in the poem "Pushkin House" (February 1921), which became his artistic and human testament.

In April 1921, the growing depression turns into a mental disorder, accompanied by heart disease. On August 7, Blok died. In obituaries and posthumous memoirs, his words from a speech dedicated to Pushkin about the “lack of air” that kills poets were constantly repeated.

List of used literature

1. Anikeev A.P. Russian poets of the Silver Age. -M.: Thought, 2003

2. Magomedova D. M. Block Alexander Alexandrovich. -M.: Enlightenment, 1981

3. Russian literature. Encyclopedia for children. -M.: Avanta +, 2004

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How does Russia appear in the lyrics of A.A. Blok? Blok called his work the process of "incarnation". Three stages of this process were reflected in the poet's poems, in his poetic trilogy. The first was the worship of the ideal - the "Beautiful Lady". The second is life disappointment. Russia appears in Blok's lyrics from a completely new, unexpected side. The experiences of the lyrical hero are very personal, intimate. Russia is life itself, it is inseparable from the heart of the poet: “My Russia, my life, shall we toil together?” This is a rhetorical question, the answer is clear: together. The theme of Russia is central in the work of A.A. Blok. The different guises in which she appears in the poet's lyrics reflect her inconsistency, her dramatic history, her unchanging appeal.

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The homeland was initially perceived by Blok in a somewhat mystical way: I slumber - and behind the slumber is a mystery, And Russia secretly honors, She is extraordinary even in dreams, I won’t touch her clothes ... But already in 1908 he wrote the poem “Russia” without the slightest touch of mysticism : ... Russia, impoverished Russia, Your gray huts are for me, Your wind songs are for me - Like the first tears of love! ..

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Beautiful Lady in the lyrics of A.A. Blok. I anticipate you. Years pass by All in the guise of one I foresee You. The fate of Alexander Blok is full of extremes, sometimes even unexpected ones. It has a thirst for life and despondency, a frantic search for truth and disappointment, love and suffering. From the age of 18, Blok seriously prepares himself as an actor. He performs tragic roles: Romeo, Hamlet, Chatsky, the Miserly Knight .. This tragedy was attractive to Blok. In this society, he meets Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva and becomes interested in her. The theatrical stage, built in the village barn, is extended into life, relations with Mendeleeva become a continuation of the theatrical action. The image of the Unearthly friend, the Queen, which arose earlier in Blok's work, under the influence of the impression made on the poet by Lyubov Dmitrievna, takes shape and is artistically fixed in these years as the image of the Beautiful Lady. There was a discovery of a new big theme, which not only determined in many respects the nature of Blok's further poetic work. The Beautiful Lady is not only a symbol of ideal unity and harmony, she owns the secret of life balance, hidden from those living on Earth.

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Love is a rite of service to something higher... Love is drawn by Blok as a rite of service to something higher; the girl, to whom his love experiences are addressed, is transformed into a “Beautiful Lady”, embodying the “living soul of the world”: I enter dark temples, I perform a poor rite. There I wait for the Beautiful Lady In the flickering of red lamps. A love experience is encrypted as a kind of mystical act: I, a boy, light candles, ... Submissive to a gentle look, Fire is a censer on the shore. Admiring the secret beauty She is without thoughts and without speech And behind the church fence On that shore laughs... I throw white flowers...

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The image of the Beautiful Lady was created on the basis of real earthly impressions. It was a path, relatively speaking, from the “earthly” to the “unearthly”. It was this fact that played a decisive role in Blok's creative evolution, because it made it possible to get out of mysticism and abstraction. After all, the root cause of all further reincarnations turned out to be precisely the sphere of real life, genuine relationships and feelings. The image of the Beautiful Lady goes through a complex path of modifications: the earthly appearance of L.D. Mendeleeva evokes associations with the heroine of youthful poems, whose image, in turn, grows into the image of the Beautiful Lady, but in combination with the idea of ​​a living person. Closed inside his own self, the lyrical hero of Blok longs for liberation, light, freedom, spring, and this thirst mates with the appearance of his “beloved”, “queen”, who is destined to open the way for him “from darkness to light”: ... Oh, believe! I will give my life to you, When you open the doors to a new temple to the impassive poet, You show the way from darkness to light! ..

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The poems about the Beautiful Lady clearly revealed the tragic impossibility of living harmony. Blok has motives of “blasphemous” doubts not only about his own vocation, but also about his beloved, who is able to “change her appearance”: ... How clear is the horizon! And radiance is near. But I'm afraid: you will change your appearance.

Alexander Blok - the poet of the "Silver Age". In the history of the formation of true true Russian culture, the "Silver Age" occupies one of the special places. Alexander Blok, in turn, is the brightest representative of this time.

The first collection of poems The first volume () Cycle "Crossroads"; Cycle "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" Third volume () "It's all about Russia" Second volume () Cycle "Bubbles of the Earth"; Cycle "City"

Blok reveals the main meaning of the stages of the path he has traveled and the content of each of the books of the trilogy: ... this is my path, now that it has been completed, I am firmly convinced that this is due and that all the poems together are a trilogy of incarnation (from a moment of too bright light through the necessary swampy forest to despair, curses, retribution * and ... to the birth of a social person, an artist, courageously looking into the face of the world ..).

The story of earthly, quite real love is transformed into a romantic-symbolic mystical-philosophical myth. It has its own plot and its own plot. The basis of the plot is the opposition of the earthly (lyrical hero) to the heavenly (Beautiful Lady) and at the same time the desire for their connection, meeting, as a result of which the transformation of the world should come, complete harmony. However, the lyrical plot complicates and dramatizes the plot. From poem to poem, there is a change in the mood of the hero: bright hopes and doubts about them, expectation of love and fear of its collapse, faith in the immutability of the image of the Virgin and the assumption that it can be distorted (But it’s scary to me: You will change the appearance).

“I enter dark temples…” What is the emotional atmosphere of the poem? By what means is it created? What are the subject matter of the poem, its colors? What is the lyrical hero of the poem? Is the appearance of the Beautiful Lady traced? By what means is her image created?

The name proposed by us, SYMBOLISM, is the only suitable name for the new school, only it conveys without distortion the creative spirit of modern art September 18, 1886 Paris. Le Figaro Newspaper Jean Moreas "Manifesto of Symbolism" Jean Moreas "Manifesto of Symbolism" Human perception of the world is imperfect, therefore the depicted reality is erroneous Human perception of the world is imperfect, therefore the depicted reality is erroneous The secrets of the world can only be comprehended emotionally and intuitively The secrets of the world can be comprehended only emotionally and intuitively Reflection of this “higher truth” and at the same time the way to comprehend it is a hint symbolThe reflection of this “higher truth” and at the same time the way to comprehend it is a hint symbol From the history of symbolism

Autumn motif 1899 Elegies in painting What kind of painting do you imagine with this title? What is the difference between content and title? What is the significance of the autumn motif in the work? there is no historical specificity (“this is just a beautiful era”) the color is built on the consonance of large color spots soft muted color oval motif musicality of lines

“... everyone was always in love: if not really, then at least they assured themselves that they were in love; they fanned the slightest spark of something similar to love with all their might,” wrote Vladislav Khodasevich about his contemporaries-poets. Indeed, the poets of the Silver Age lived in love, breathed love. Their complex relationship did not allow them to drown out the most important thing - the ability to feel, to feel the world, as contradictory as it is. Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov, Georgy Ivanov and Irina Odoevtseva, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lilya Brik, Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan - reading these love stories, at some point it becomes terrifying from the mere thought that a person can simultaneously experience, experience so many ambiguous emotions .

A series: Idols. great love stories

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by the LitRes company.

Alexander Blok

"Impossible Happiness"

“I met Blok for the first time in the spring of 1907, in St. Petersburg. A high forehead, slightly curly hair, transparent, coldish eyes and a general appearance - a young man, a page, a poet. He wore low turn-down collars, showed his neck openly - and it suited him. He read poetry with his own tinge, slightly nasal and separating himself from those who listened - with a chill. He himself was foggy, as if drunk, ”wrote Boris Zaitsev (writer and translator) about the poet Alexander Blok.

Alexander Blok was born in St. Petersburg on November 16 (28), 1880. From birth, he was surrounded by his grandmother, great-grandmother, aunts, nannies ... Boundless adoration. Friends claimed that he knew no one more dear than his mother: the bonds that connected them never broke, as did mutual concern, and sometimes anxiety. For Blok, the attitude towards every woman was an echo of that "insecurity" and youthful tenderness, which was so naturally expressed in a children's poem written at the age of 5:

Zaya is gray, Zaya is cute,

I love you.

For you in the garden

I'm hoarding cabbage, -

and years later may have led to feelings of vulnerability and emptiness.

In 1897, Blok was seventeen years old, he went with his mother to Bad Nauheim, a water resort in Germany. He was very good-looking, thoughtful and silent, somewhat old-fashioned. By the way, he was never characterized by curiosity, a thirst for knowledge. He was little fascinated by other people's thoughts - rather his own feelings. In Germany, he met Xenia Sadonskaya, a beautiful married woman. In the pleasant atmosphere of a secular resort, he experienced his first love. However, Blok's youthful poems are often banal, too dreamy. And only by 1898 he discovered the poetry of Vladimir Solovyov, inextricably linked with the image of Eternal Femininity.

By the time of his meeting with Lyubov Mendeleeva (daughter of the famous chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev), Blok was strongly fascinated by mystical teachings. Once, being in a state close to a trance, he saw her on the street, walking from Andreevskaya Square. Blok followed her, trying to remain unnoticed. Then he described this walk in an encrypted poem "Five Secret Curves" - about the five streets of Vasilyevsky Island, along which she walked. Then another chance meeting - on the balcony of the Maly Theater. For any mystic, coincidences are not just an accident, they are a manifestation of the divine will. That winter, Blok wandered around St. Petersburg in search of great love.

The real image of his beloved girl was idealized by him and merged with Solovyov's idea of ​​Eternal Femininity. This was manifested in his works, later collected in the collection Poems about the Beautiful Lady. Such a fusion of the earthly and the divine in love for a woman was not the invention of the poet - and before him there were troubadours, Dante, Petrarch, the German romantic Novalis. But only Blok managed to really connect with his beloved - and from his own experience to understand what tragedy this could lead to.

Lyubov Dmitrievna herself, in contrast to her idealized image, was a sober and balanced person. It was even said that although she was beautiful, she was "too ordinary." She remained a stranger to mysticism and abstract reasoning, and in her character was the absolute opposite of the restless Blok. When he tried to instill in her his concepts of the “ineffable,” she could calmly remark: “Please, no mysticism!” (The well-known poetess, smart, caustic Zinaida Gippuis, could not keep silent about the poet’s favorite word: “I wanted to pull the “unsayable” by the ears and put it on the ground!”) In general, Blok was in an unfortunate position: Lyubov Dmitrievna, the one whom he made the heroine of her mythology, refused the role intended for her. This continued until November 1902.

On the night of November 7-8, female students arranged a charity ball in the hall of the Noble Assembly. Lyubov Dmitrievna came with two friends, in a Parisian blue dress. As soon as Blok appeared in the hall, he, without hesitation, went to the place where she was sitting. After the ball, he proposed to her.

In the Main building of the university on the Mendeleevskaya Line, there is still a small university church. Alexander Blok got engaged here. The young poet lived in the rector's house from childhood, and when he decided to marry, he wrote a petition addressed to the rector, his grandfather: “I have the honor to humbly ask Your Excellency for permission to marry Lyubov Mendeleeva. Second-year student of the Faculty of History and Philology Alexander Blok.

In January 1904, six months after the wedding, the young couple moved to Moscow. They all seemed like a friendly couple. One day, a graceful young lady and a curly young man with a “strong waist” rang the doorbell of the apartment where the poet Andrei Bely lived with his mother. A true Petersburger, a secular, somewhat retarded Blok was ushered into the living room, where, needlessly fussing, jumping up and down, bending all over, now growing up, now shrinking before our eyes, Bely greeted them noisily. After a whole year of constant correspondence, two years during which they exchanged poems, the poets immediately became the closest friends, spiritual "brothers". According to the old custom, they even exchanged shirts, and now Bely was walking around in a beautiful shirt embroidered with swans, which Lyubov Dmitrievna had embroidered for her husband. She turned out to be the center of mutual attention. In the slightest of her actions, both friends saw a prophetic meaning. Was she wearing red today? Did you change your hairstyle? In general, all poets fell in love with Lyubov Dmitrievna, supporting the cult of Eternal Femininity and the image that Blok created with his own poems.

Andrei Bely was distinguished by a rare spontaneity. Simply and soberly, he confessed his own sins, realized his main weakness - the inability to say "yes" or "no." And he was also in a hurry to confess to Blok his feelings for Lyubov Dmitrievna. The atmosphere thickened. The harmony was broken, but the friendship did not fall apart. The summer has passed. Before leaving, Andrei Bely poured out his soul with endless explanations. All that Blok could advise was to put an end to falling in love as soon as possible. So did Lyubov Dmitrievna. White promised.

And Blok was already twenty-six years old. In his letters, poems, articles, there was a constant melancholy. Nondescript chess landscapes, dirty crossroads of St. Petersburg served as a poignant backdrop for his new poems. In this frenzy, he met another woman, the Stranger, this time accessible, whom everyone could see, touch, love. Blok was seriously carried away by Natalya Volokhova, an actress of the Meyerhold Theater. "Snow Mask" and "Faina" are poems dedicated to her.

Blok is carried away again and again. About his women, he frankly, even in a somewhat childish way, wrote to his mother: “Mom ... I spent an extraordinary night with a very beautiful woman ... But after the vicissitudes, I found myself at 4 o’clock in the morning in some hotel with this woman, and returned home at nine. Since 1906, Blok often visited "Saturdays" at the Komissarzhevskaya Theater, and Lyubov Dmitrievna received an engagement, performed with part of the troupe in the provinces. Blok wrote "Puppet Show", his first play, in which the Beautiful Lady is already made of cardboard, and the sad Pierrot is waiting for his Columbine, which is taken from him by the Harlequin. Now Blok and Lyubov Dmitrievna lived "each his own special life." Evenings of meetings in their house, however, continued, but were already devoid of their former charm. Blok often turned out to be distracted, often drunk, Bely's visits did not please him, family life went wrong. Lyubov Dmitrievna confessed to Bely that "she suffered a lot in the previous year, and that she herself does not know how she survived." Blok said bitterly that "they had crossed the Rubicon." Despising old-fashioned conventions, Lyubov Dmitrievna and Natalya Volokhova got along very well with each other, they even frankly admitted that they were good friends. The provincial Muscovite Bely did not like this at all, he believed that Blok had turned his life into a theater. Bely and Blok often quarreled, 1906 - 1907 - a time of constant discord and reconciliation, Bely once even challenged a friend to a duel, then demanded an explanation in order to forgive and receive forgiveness.

Ozerki ... Ozerki is one of the historical districts of St. Petersburg to this day, now very well-maintained, with the metro station of the same name. But at the beginning of the 20th century, only a modest holiday village was located in this place, where there was not even a railway station. Meanwhile, it was here that Alexander Blok often walked. From the letter of the poet, written in the summer of 1911: “Suddenly I saw a poster in Ozerki: a gypsy concert. I felt that fate was here ... - I stayed in Ozerki. And indeed, they sang, God knows what, completely tore the heart; and at night in Petersburg, in the pouring rain, on the platform, that gypsy woman, in whom, in fact, it was all about, let me kiss her hand - swarthy, with long fingers - all in armor from prickly rings. Then I staggered in the street, dragged myself wet to the Aquarium, where they went to sing, looked into the eyes of a gypsy and trudged home.

And guttural sounds

Let's go

Like silver swarthy hands

Wrapped around…

Delirium of madness and passion,

Brad of love...

Impossible happiness!

In Russia, the nineteenth century became the century of tragic destinies, and the twentieth - the century of suicides and premature deaths. There are no calm faces among Russian poets. Who died from a broken heart, who from a bullet. Kondraty Ryleev was hanged. On the verge of death at the age of seventy, Afanasy Fet tried to rip open his stomach. Apollon Grigoriev died from poverty and drunkenness. According to Nina Berberova, “Blok’s drunkenness was strikingly different from Grigoriev’s. Grigoriev drank bitter to forget his poverty. Blok's head always remained clear. It was not wine that destroyed him, but despair. In his poems, letters, articles, diaries and even photographs, an ever-growing, mortal, relentless longing shines through, as if all twenty-four years of his life were a constant mental anguish. His laughter ceased, and his smile disappeared.

Symbolism, like other trends in poetry and literature of the early 20th century, created a new model of life and culture, but "the paradox was that this same culture testified to the immersion of the century into darkness." Poets suffered, feeling death, while accepting death, as well as the tragic feeling of being "the last in a row." According to Blok, "there was a man - and there was no man, there was a crappy sluggish flesh and a smoldering little soul." Perhaps this was also explained by what Anna Akhmatova wrote about in 1911 poems “I came here, a loafer ...”. "Secret-wise idleness," grandiose metaphysical idleness, is the other side of poetry. However, is not such a recognition of themselves as poets a desperate cry for themselves, selflessly sacrificing themselves to their art? The task set by the Symbolists is grandiose in scope - not only to introduce a new direction in versification, but to invent a system of symbols that would recreate reality not with words, but with myths, turn to religion, look for meanings in other areas.

Lyubov Dmitrievna spent more and more time on tour. On rare free days, she came to St. Petersburg, where her husband was waiting for her. He prepared, bought flowers, "put things in order in his soul." His wife appeared animated, until night they chatted, merrily dined. But sometimes he waited in vain. “Something infinitely difficult happens all the time in my life. Lyuba is deceiving me again, ”Blok wrote at that time. During the years of her absence, he often visited the Musical Drama Theater. Here he met Lyubov Delmas. Tall, thin, with red hair, green eyes, an unusual posture. Blok fell in love with her at first sight, dedicated the singer "Carmen" - one of the parts of the third book of poems. This love was unlike Blok's previous hobbies. If with Natalia Volokhova - gypsies, madness, music, a break (they parted without even saying goodbye), now instead of crazy passions - devoted friendship, peaceful walks, quiet evenings.

In July 1916 Blok was drafted into the army. Ten kilometers from the front, he commanded a sapper unit. Then the revolution. Lyubov Dmitrievna was with him, but he still felt more and more lost, growing old. And women still admired him. Delmas visited him, friends, unfamiliar ladies wrote letters. Every night strange female shadows loomed under the windows. But they were of little interest to him. "L. Delmas sent Lyuba a letter and flour, on the occasion of my name day tomorrow. Yes, personal life has already turned into one humiliation, and this is noticeable as soon as work is interrupted, ”wrote Blok.

In an era of devastation and death, he somehow remained himself. According to contemporaries, he forced himself to hear even the "music of the revolution", and Russia became his new lady of the heart. In the poem "The Twelve" Blok with a strange zeal describes not only the soldiers (who at that time really marched through the streets, crushed, killed, raped), but "puts in front of them" the same "feminine ghost" - Jesus Christ. “In a white halo of roses - in front - Jesus Christ,” the poem ends. Zinaida Gippius, with her characteristic perspicacity, believed that Blok "did not even understand the blasphemy of his poem", "he could not even be blamed for this." Many contemporaries were so indignant at Blok's revolutionary lyrics that they stopped greeting him. Seeing Zinaida Gippius in a tram, Blok asked: “Will you give me a hand?” “Personally, yes. Only personally. Not publicly,” she replied.

There were other opinions about the poem. Boris Zaitsev, for example, wrote:

“The appearance of Christ leading his twelve apostles-murderers, Christ not only “in a white halo of roses”, but also with a “bloody flag” - there is a certain “yes”. You can argue like this: there are twelve destroyers of the old (and sinful), also sinful, covered in blood, polluted. Yet they are led, though blind, by some spirit of truth. They themselves will perish, but they will perish for a great cause, for the liberation of “these little ones”—and Christ blesses this. He will forgive them their blood and murders, as he forgave the thief on the cross. Therefore, “yes” to them and “yes” to their cause. What is not a thought and what is not a theme for a poem?

Vladislav Khodasevich recalled how Blok attended one of the evenings, in the "House of Writers", where they held a celebration in memory of Pushkin. The speeches were preceded by brief statements by various organizations about the form in which they intend to celebrate the Pushkin Days in the future. Among the delegates was also an official representative of the government, a certain Christie, ex officio the head of the so-called academic center. When he was given the floor, he stood up, blushed and said the following: "Russian society should not assume that in everything related to the perpetuation of the memory of Pushkin, it will not encounter obstacles from the workers' and peasants' power." Laughter ran through the hall. Blok lifted his face and looked at Christy with a wry smile. He was the last to read his inspired word about Pushkin. Khodasevich recalled that he wore a black jacket over a white turtleneck sweater. All wiry and dry, with a weathered reddish face, he looked like a fisherman. He spoke in a muffled voice, chopping off the words, thrusting his hands into his pockets. Turning his head towards Christie, Blok rapped out: "The officials are our rabble, the rabble of yesterday and today." White-faced, Christie fidgeted in his chair, and before leaving he said loudly: "I did not expect such tactlessness from Blok." According to Khodasevich, “in the mouth of Blok, the speech sounded not as tactlessness, but as a deep tragedy, partly repentance. The author of The Twelve bequeathed to Russian society and Russian literature to preserve Pushkin's last legacy - freedom, at least "secret". And as he spoke, it was felt like the wall between him and the hall was crumbling. In the applause that accompanied him, there was an enlightened joy that always accompanied reconciliation with a loved one.

In his Pushkin speech, exactly six months before his death, Blok said: “Peace and freedom. They are necessary for the poet to release harmony. But peace and will are also taken away. Not external peace, but creative. And the poet dies because he has nothing else to breathe: life has lost its meaning.

Blok was exceptionally truthful, they even said that he "breathed the truth." The surrounding life was for him, according to contemporaries, unsaid, unfinished, incomprehensible. Perhaps that is why he invented his own language, the meaning of which is not in words, but "between or near words."

Alexander Blok enjoyed great respect and influence among contemporary poets. Sergei Yesenin asked for his recommendations to the literary world, Georgy Ivanov constantly borrowed money, many stayed at his house. Russian poets idolized his work.

The last years of Blok's life were terrible. He was seriously ill. As contemporaries said, it seemed that he "did not have enough air." As if after the "Twelve" came darkness and emptiness. In one of his speeches (in the communist House of Press), they directly shouted to him: “Dead man! Dead man! After which he did not live long. In August 1921, on Nikitskaya, in the window of the Writers' Shop, a mourning poster appeared: “Alexander Alexandrovich Blok has died. The All-Russian Union of Writers invites you to a memorial service at the Church of St. Nicholas on Sands, by 2.30 pm. According to Boris Zaitsev, “this poster looked to the south, to the sun. The young ladies of Moscow sadly looked at him from the street.

Ironically, or rather, by divine intent, probably, the name of Blok is associated with the brightest, purest, most beautiful in Russian poetry. His image remained a strange, mysterious, tragic shadow, which were his poems.

Your name is a bird in your hand

Your name is ice on the tongue

One single movement of the lips

Your name is five letters.

Ball caught on the fly

Silver bell in the mouth

A stone thrown into a quiet pond

Sigh like your name is.

In the light clicking of night hooves

Your loud name thunders.

And call him to our temple

A loud clicking trigger.

Your name - oh, you can't! -

Your name is a kiss in the eyes

In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids,

Your name is a kiss in the snow.

Key, icy, blue sip…

With your name - sleep is deep.

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The following excerpt from the book Love of the Poets of the Silver Age (Nina Shcherbak, 2012) provided by our book partner -