Alexander block literary direction. Brief biography of Alexander Blok

Blok Alexander Alexandrovich was born in St. Petersburg on November 28, 1880. His father was Alexander Lvovich Blok, who worked as a professor at Warsaw University, and his mother was the translator Alexandra Andreevna Beketova, whose father was the rector of St. Petersburg University.

The mother of the future poet married her first husband at the age of eighteen, and soon after the birth of the boy, she decided to break all ties with her unloved husband. Subsequently, the poet's parents practically did not communicate with each other.

In those days, divorces were rare and condemned by society, but in 1889, the self-sufficient and purposeful Alexandra Blok ensured that the Holy Governing Synod officially terminated her marriage to Alexander Lvovich. Soon after, the daughter of the famous Russian botanist remarried for true love: an officer of the guard Kublitsky-Piottukh. Alexandra Andreevna did not change her son's surname to her own or to the intricate surname of her stepfather, and the future poet remained Blok.

Sasha spent his childhood years in his grandfather's house. In the summer he left for Shakhmatovo for a long time and carried warm memories of the time spent there throughout his life. Moreover, Alexander Blok lived with his mother and her new husband on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.

Between the future poet and his mother there has always been an incomprehensible spiritual connection. It was she who opened the works of Baudelaire, Polonsky, Verlaine, Fet and other famous poets to Sasha. Alexandra Andreevna and her young son studied together new trends in philosophy and poetry, carried on enthusiastic conversations about the latest political and cultural news. Subsequently, Alexander Blok first of all read his works to his mother and it was from her that he sought consolation, understanding and support.

In 1889, the boy began to study at the Vvedensky gymnasium. Some time later, when Sasha was already 16 years old, he went on a trip abroad with his mother and spent some time in the city of Bad Nauheim, a popular German resort of those times. Despite his young age, on vacation he selflessly fell in love with Ksenia Sadovskaya, who at that time was 37 years old. Naturally, about any relationship of a teenager with grown woman there was no speech. However, the charming Ksenia Sadovskaya, her image, imprinted in Blok's memory, later became his inspiration when writing many works.

In 1898, Alexander completed his studies at the gymnasium and successfully passed the entrance exams to St. Petersburg University, choosing jurisprudence for his career. Three years after that, he nevertheless transferred to the historical and philological department, choosing for himself the Slavic-Russian direction. The poet completed his studies at the university in 1906. At the time of receipt higher education he met Alexei Remizov, Sergei Gorodetsky, and also became friends with Sergei Solovyov, who was his second cousin.

The beginning of creativity

The Blok family, especially on the maternal side, continued a highly cultured family, which could not but affect Alexander. From a young age, he enthusiastically read numerous books, was fond of the theater and even attended the corresponding circle in St. Petersburg, and also tried his hand at poetry. The boy wrote his first uncomplicated works at the age of five, and at adolescence he, in the company of his brothers, was enthusiastically engaged in writing a handwritten journal.

An important event in the early 1900s for Alexander Alexandrovich was his marriage to Lyubov Mendeleeva, who was the daughter of an eminent Russian scientist. The relationship between the young spouses was complex and peculiar, but filled with love and passion. Lyubov Dmitrievna also became a source of inspiration and a prototype for a number of characters in the poet's works.

You can talk about a full-fledged creative career of Blok starting from 1900-1901. At that time, Alexander Alexandrovich became an even more devoted admirer of the work of Afanasy Fet, as well as the lyrics and even the teachings of Plato. In addition, fate brought him together with Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius, in whose journal, under the name "New Way", Blok took his first steps as a poet and critic.

At an early stage of his creative development Alexander Alexandrovich realized that the direction in literature close to his liking was symbolism. This movement, which pierced all varieties of culture, was distinguished by innovation, a desire for experimentation, a love of mystery and understatement. In St. Petersburg, the symbolists close to him in spirit were the above-mentioned Gippius and Merezhkovsky, and in Moscow - Valery Bryusov. It is noteworthy that around the time when Blok began to publish in the St. Petersburg "New Way", his works began to be printed in the Moscow almanac called "Northern Flowers".

A special place in the heart of Alexander Blok was occupied by a circle of young admirers and followers of Vladimir Solovyov, organized in Moscow. The role of a kind of leader of this circle was assumed by Andrei Bely, at that time an aspiring prose writer and poet. Andrei became a close friend of Alexander Alexandrovich, and members of the literary circle became one of the most devoted and enthusiastic admirers of his work.

In 1903, in the almanac "Northern Flowers", a cycle of Blok's works entitled "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" was printed. At the same time, three poems by the young rhymer were included in the collection of works by students of the Imperial St. Petersburg University. In his first famous cycle, Blok presents a woman as a natural source of light and purity, and raises the question of how much a real love feeling brings an individual person closer to the whole world.

Revolution of 1905-1907

The revolutionary events became for Alexander Alexandrovich the personification of the spontaneous, disordered nature of life and quite significantly influenced his creative views. The beautiful Lady in his thoughts and poems was replaced by the images of a blizzard, snowstorm and vagrancy, the bold and ambiguous Faina, the Snow Mask and the Stranger. Love poems faded into the background.

Dramaturgy and interaction with the theater at that time also fascinated the poet. The first play, written by Alexander Alexandrovich, was called "Balaganchik" and was composed by Vsevolod Meyerhold in the theater of Vera Komissarzhevskaya in 1906.

At the same time, Blok, who, idolizing his wife, did not refuse the opportunity to have tender feelings for other women, inflamed with passion for N.N. Volokhova, theater actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya. The image of the beautiful Volokhova soon filled Blok's philosophical poems: it was to her that the poet dedicated the cycle "Faina" and the book "Snow Mask", the heroines of the plays "Song of Fate" and "The King on the Square" were copied from her.

Late 1900s main theme Blok's work was the problem of the ratio of the common people and the intelligentsia in the domestic society. In the poems of this period, one can trace a vivid crisis of individualism and attempts to determine the place of the creator in the real world. At the same time, Alexander Alexandrovich associated the Motherland with the image of his beloved wife, which is why his patriotic poems acquired a special, deeply personal individuality.

Rejection of symbolism

The year 1909 was very difficult for Alexander Blok: his father died that year, with whom he still maintained a fairly warm relationship, as well as the newborn child of the poet and his wife Lyudmila. However, the impressive legacy that Alexander Blok Sr. left to his son allowed him to forget about financial difficulties and focus on major creative projects.

In the same year, the poet visited Italy, and the foreign atmosphere further pushed him to reassess the values that had developed earlier. This internal struggle is told in the cycle “Italian Poems”, as well as prose essays from the book “Lightning of Art”. In the end, Blok came to the conclusion that symbolism, as a school with strictly defined rules, had exhausted itself for him, and from now on he felt the need for self-deepening and a “spiritual diet”.

Focusing on great literary works, Alexander Alexandrovich gradually began to devote less and less time to journalistic work and appearances at diverse events that were in vogue among the poetic bohemia of those times.

In 1910, the author began to compose an epic poem called "Retribution", which he was not destined to finish. Between 1912 and 1913 he wrote the well-known play The Rose and the Cross. And in 1911, Blok, taking as a basis five of his books with poetry, compiled a collection of works in three volumes, which was reprinted several times.

October Revolution

The Soviet government did not evoke such a negative attitude from Alexander Blok as it did from many other poets of the Silver Age. At a time when Julius Aikhenvald, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and many others criticized the Bolsheviks who came to power with might and main, Blok agreed to cooperate with the new government leadership.

The name of the poet, who by that time was quite well known to the public, was actively used by the authorities for their own purposes. Among other things, Alexander Alexandrovich was constantly appointed to positions of no interest to him in various commissions and institutions.

It was during that period that the poem "Scythians" and the famous poem "The Twelve" were written. The last image of the "Twelve": Jesus Christ, who was at the head of a procession of twelve soldiers of the Red Army - caused a real resonance in the literary world. Although this work is now considered one of the best creations of the “Silver Age” of Russian poetry, most of Blok’s contemporaries spoke about the poem, especially about the image of Jesus, in an extremely negative way.

Personal life

The first and only wife of Blok is Lyubov Mendeleev, with whom he was madly in love and whom he considered his real destiny. The wife was support and support for the writer, as well as an unchanging muse.

However, the poet's ideas about marriage were rather peculiar: firstly, he was categorically against bodily intimacy, singing spiritual love. Secondly, until the last years of his life, Blok did not consider it shameful to fall in love with other representatives of the fair sex, although his women never mattered to him as much as his wife. However, Lyubov Mendeleev also allowed herself to be carried away by other men.

The children of the Blok couple, alas, did not appear: the child, born after one of the few joint nights of Alexander and Lyubov, turned out to be too weak and did not survive. Nevertheless, Blok left quite a lot of relatives both in Russia and in Europe.

Death of poet

After the October Revolution, there were by no means only interesting facts from the life of Alexander Alexandrovich. Loaded with an incredible amount of duties, not belonging to himself, he began to get very sick. Blok developed asthma, cardiovascular disease, began to form mental disorders. In 1920, the author fell ill with scurvy.

At the same time, the poet also experienced a period financial difficulties.

Exhausted by poverty and numerous illnesses, he passed away on August 7, 1921, while in his apartment in St. Petersburg. The cause of death is inflammation of the heart valves. The funeral and burial service of the poet was performed by Archpriest Alexei Zapadalov, Blok's grave is located at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery.

Shortly before his death, the writer tried to get permission to travel abroad for treatment, but he was refused. They say that after that, Blok, being in a sober mind and sound mind, destroyed his notes and, in principle, did not take any medicine, or even food. For a long time there were also rumors that before his death, Alexander Alexandrovich went crazy and raved about whether all copies of his poem "The Twelve" had been destroyed. However, these rumors have not been confirmed.

Alexander Blok is considered one of the most brilliant representatives of Russian poetry. His large works, as well as small poems (“Factory”, “Night street lamp pharmacy”, “In a restaurant”, “Dilapidated hut” and others), have become part of the cultural heritage of our people.

Alexander Blok was born in St. Petersburg on November 16/28, 1880. Living together little Sasha's parents did not work out, his mother Alexandra Andreevna left her husband Alexander Lvovich.

Sasha spent his childhood in St. Petersburg, and every summer he went to his grandfather (on his mother's side) to the Shakhmatovo estate, which is located in the Moscow region. The boy's grandfather was a famous scientist, rector of St. Petersburg University, and his name was Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov.

Sasha started writing poetry early, he was 5 years old. I went to high school at the age of 9. He read a lot and enthusiastically, published children's handwritten magazines. In his youth, he staged amateur performances with friends. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Law (1898).

Three years later he transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology. In their student years, Alexander was far from politics, his passion was ancient philosophy.

In 1903 he married a daughter, Lyubov Dmitrievna. He dedicated his first collection of poems, Poems about a Beautiful Lady, to her. At the beginning of the creative path, a passion for philosophy makes itself felt. His poems are about eternal femininity, about the soul. Alexander Blok is a romantic and symbolist.

And the revolution in Russia is changing the themes of Blok's poems. He saw destruction in the revolution, but expressed sympathy for the insurgent people. He began to write poems about nature, poems about the war sound tragic.

In 1909, having buried his father, the poet began work on the poem "Retribution". He wrote the poem until the end of his life, but did not complete it. Poverty, poverty and trouble, all this worried Blok, he was worried about society. He believed that everything in Russia would be fine, the future would be wonderful.

In 1916, he was drafted into the army. He served as a timekeeper in the construction of roads, and did not take part in hostilities. In March 17 he returned home. In 1918, the poem "The Twelve", the poem "Scythians" and the article "Intelligentsia and Revolution" will be published. These works created the glory of the Bolshevik Blok. Well, he himself thought that the revolution would bring fair new relations to life, he believed in it. And when it started, I was very disappointed and felt a great responsibility for my works of the 18th year.

In the last years of his life, he almost did not write poetry, he acted as a critic and publicist. Alexander Blok died on August 7, 1921.

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/

Introduction

3. "Post-revolutionary" Block

4. New twist

5. Blok's late lyrics

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

Blok's upbringing is inseparable from the "noble pampering" emphasized by him, from sensitive perception, which determined the long absence of "life experiences", naivety in everyday life and politics. But Blok owes the same upbringing to the fact that from early childhood he lived in an atmosphere of vivid cultural impressions. Especially important for him were the "lyrical waves", "running" from Russian poetry of the 19th century. - Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, Tyutchev, Polonsky.

1. Blok's first poetic experiments

poetry lyrics block post-revolutionary

The first childhood impressions of Alexander Aleksandrovich Blok (1880-1921) are connected with the house of his maternal grandfather, the rector of St. Petersburg University, the famous botanist A. N. Beketov. "Beketov's house" for Blok is a world of great significance, an object of love and forever preserved bright memories. Therefore, he becomes the prototype of one of the key symbols of Blok's creativity - that "only" House in the world, which must be abandoned in the name of the sorrowful, but high-minded "earthly journey".

"Beketov's world" is the world of the liberal-humanistic culture of noblemen-intellectuals, who sympathetically followed the democratic movement of the 60-80s. and constituting its legally active periphery. Blok later saw the charm of this world in its "nobility", in human warmth, which in the public sphere was manifested by "philanthropy", the pathos of the victim, "co-crucifixion". That is why the intimate theme of leaving the House later merged in Blok with criticism of liberal humanism of the 19th century.

Another important sign of the life of the Beketovs is the intensity of spiritual searches, high culture. Grandfather, scientist and public figure; grandmother, E. G. Beketova, translator from English, French and others European languages; aunts (poetess E. A. Krasnova; children's writer and translator M. A. Beketova, future biographer of Blok); finally, the poet's mother, A. A. Blok, who was also engaged in literary work - all these were gifted people, widely educated, who loved and understood the word.

Blok's first poetic experiments (1898-1900), which he later partially combined into the cycle "Before the Light", speak of his blood connection with Russian lyrics and the importance of the European poetic tradition for him (H. Heine, romantically interpreted Shakespeare, etc.) . The perception of the world by the young Blok was determined mainly by romantic influences (the opposition of the "poet" to the "crowd", the apology of "passion" and friendship, the antithetical and metaphorical style). The antinomic attitude to reality, characteristic of the mature Blok, also fit within the framework of this tradition. In 1898-1900. these are fluctuations between moods of disappointment, early fatigue (“Let the moon shine - the night is dark ...”) and Pushkin-Batiushkov’s “Hellenism”, glorification of the joys of life (“In the hot dance of bacchanalia ...”).

Already in his early work, Blok's originality is visible: bright lyricism, a tendency to a maximalist aggravated worldview, an indefinite but deep faith in the lofty goals of Poetry. Blok's attitude to literary traditions is also peculiar; the culture of past centuries for him is intimately close, alive, today. He can dedicate poems to E. Baratynsky or A. K. Tolstoy, naively argue with the long-dead Delvig (“You, Delvig, say: a minute is inspiration ...”).

In 1901-1902. Blok's circle of life impressions expands significantly. Home and book influences are supplemented by still unclear, but powerful impulses coming from reality itself, from the new century, which is tensely waiting for a general and complete renewal. The most important event of these years, which left an imprint on the whole life and work of the poet, will be his dramatic feeling for his future wife, L. D. Mendeleeva.

All this accelerated the gradually preparing creative take-off. The student's multidirectional searches were replaced by the creation of a work that was extremely complete and mature. For all the undoubted connection of "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" with world and Russian lyrics, this cycle is not only brightly original, but also - for the national tradition - almost a unique work.

Blok's personal poetic experience, of course, echoed the general path of development of Russian art. In the pre-revolutionary years, it experienced an upsurge of romantic sentiments associated with criticism of positivism, bourgeoisness, with an interest in various utopias of the past, with a dream of a heroic transformation of the world. Romantic moods were refracted in a peculiar way in "Poems about the Beautiful Lady".

The key to interpreting the motley life and cultural impressions for the author of this cycle was the poetry of Vladimir Solovyov, which took possession of his entire being "in connection with sharp mystical and romantic experiences." Through Solovyov's lyrics, Blok learns the Platonic and romantic ideas of "two worlds" - the opposition of "earth" and "heaven", material and spiritual. This antithesis, however, is realized in Blok's work in two ways. Sometimes she implies that the earthly world is only secondary, devoid of independent value and being “a shadow from the invisible with the eyes”:

I watch a little, bending my knees,

Meek in sight, quiet in heart,

Drifting shadows

Fussy affairs of the world.

Sometimes the antithesis "matter - spirit" helps to interpret the "earthly" in the spirit of Solovyov's ideas of "synthesis" - as an inevitable and significant stage in the formation of the world spirit. In the latter case, the glorification of earthly life, nature, passion is natural. For the young Blok, this exultant joy of being, the breath of the earth - young, colorful, polyphonic and joyful - is especially important.

The Platonov-Soloviev mysticism of the cycle corresponds to the symbolism of Blok's artistic thinking. Direct lyrical experiences, episodes of a personal biography, various impressions of the poet, widely reflected in "Poems about the Beautiful Lady", are all signs of extremely generalized processes, which in their totality form a mystical-philosophical myth. The poems of the cycle are fundamentally multifaceted. To the extent that they talk about the real feelings of living people, these are works of intimate, landscape, less often - philosophical lyrics. But to the extent that the depicted participation in the deep layers of content, in myth, the plot, descriptions, vocabulary - in a word, the entire figurative system of the cycle represents a chain of symbols. None of these plans exist separately: each of them seems to “shine through” through the others in any detail of the narrative. Like lyrics, “Poems about the Beautiful Lady” is a collection of separate, completely independent poems that fix the mood this moment. Conceived as a myth, "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" is a story about the secrets of the world order and the formation of the world. The main antithesis of “heavenly” and “earthly” and the aspirations of the future “synthesis” of these two principles of being are embodied in a cycle in the complex relationship of the Beautiful Lady (the spiritual principle of being) and the lyrical hero, “I” - an earthly creature living among “noisy peoples” , but aspiring soul to the heights - to the One who "flows in a number of other luminaries." The high love of the lyrical hero (hymns to the Lady - the main emotional pathos of the cycle) is love-admiration, through which only a timid hope for future happiness glimmers.

Love is embodied in the motive of the Meeting of the lyrical hero and the Lady. The history of the Meeting, which is supposed to transform the world and the hero, destroy the power of time ("tomorrow and yesterday with fire" to connect), create the kingdom of God on earth (where "heaven returned to earth") - such is the lyrical plot of the cycle. The lyrical plot is correlated with it - the change of moods going from poem to poem, the ups and downs of the "mystical novel". It is this plot, more closely than the plot (myth), connected with the reality behind the text, that plays a special role in the cycle. It not only embodies, but also debunks the utopia of the mystical transformation of the world.

The springtime hopes of the first poems are replaced either by disappointment and jealousy for mysterious twins, or by an increasingly impatient and passionate expectation of earthly love, or by an equally significant fear of the Meeting. At the moment of incarnation, the "Virgin, Dawn, Kupina" can turn into an earthly (evil, sinful) creature, and her "descent" into the world can turn out to be a fall. In the program poem “I foresee You. Years pass by…” this combination of fiery faith in the Lady’s immutability (“I foresee You all in one form”) and horror before the “transformation” (“But I’m afraid: You will change your face”) is especially palpable.

The hoped-for transformation of the world and the “I” does not occur in the cycle. Having incarnated, the Lady, as the poet feared, turns out to be “different”: faceless, infernal, and not heavenly, and the Meeting becomes a pseudo-meeting. The poet does not want to remain an "old" romantic, in love with a dream far from life. He continues to wait not for dreams, but for the earthly embodiment of the ideal, even if it is related to the distant future. The poetic result of "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" is both tragic doubts about the reality of the mystical ideal, and fidelity to bright youthful hopes for the future fullness of love and happiness, for the coming renewal of the world.

“Poems about a Beautiful Lady” is by no means a newcomer's debut. This is a cycle of poems of the highest spiritual intensity, violently pulsating feelings, deep sincerity - and at the same time a work distinguished by completeness and harmony of images, confident and mature skill. Blok's first poetry collection immediately introduced him to the world of great Russian poetry.

2. Creativity Blok during the revolutionary era

A new stage in Blok's work is associated with the years of preparation and accomplishment of the first Russian revolution. At this time, the collection “Poems about the Beautiful Lady” (1904) was published, poems were created that were later included in the books “Unexpected Joy” (1907) and “Snow Mask” (1907), a trilogy of lyrical dramas (“Bala-ganchik”, “King on the square", "Stranger) - 1906). The work of the poet in the field of criticism and literary translation begins, literary ties arise, mainly in the symbolist environment. Block's name is gaining popularity.

In 1903-1906. Blok more and more often turns to social poetry. He consciously leaves the world of lyrical isolation to where "many" live and suffer. The content of his works becomes reality, "everyday life" (although sometimes interpreted through the prism of mysticism). In this "everyday" Blok more and more insistently singles out the world of people humiliated by poverty and injustice. In the poem "Factory" (1903), the theme people's suffering comes to the fore (previously she only glimpsed through the images of the city's "devilry" - "A black man ran around the city ...", 1903). Now the world is divided not into “heaven” and “earth”, but into those who, hidden behind yellow windows, force people to “bend their weary backs”, and into the impoverished people. In the work, intonations of sympathy for the “poor” are clearly heard. In the poem "From the Newspapers" (1903), the social theme is even more noticeably combined with vivid sympathy for the suffering. Here the image of a victim of social evil is drawn - a mother who could not endure poverty and humiliation and "lay down on the rails herself." Here, for the first time, Blok appears the theme of the kindness of “little people”, which is characteristic of the democratic tradition. In the poems "The Last Day", "Deceit", "Legend" (1904), the social theme turns with another side - a story about the humiliation and death of a woman in the cruel world of a bourgeois city.

These works are very important for Blok. In them, the feminine principle appears not as “high”, heavenly, but as “fallen” to the “sorrowful earth” and suffering on earth. Blok's lofty ideal now becomes inseparable from reality, modernity, and social conflicts. Artworks on social topics, created during the days of the revolution, occupy a significant place in the collection "Unexpected Joy". They end with the so-called "attic cycle" (1906), recreating - in direct connection with Dostoevsky's "Poor People" - already quite realistic pictures of the hungry and cold life of the inhabitants of the "attics".

Blok, like other symbolists, is characterized by the idea that popular revolution- this is the victory of new people and that in the beautiful world of the future there is no place for his lyrical hero and people close to him but socially and psychologically.

Here they are, far away

They swim merrily.

Only us with you

That's right, they won't!

Civil lyrics were an important step in understanding the world by the artist, while the new perception was reflected not only in poems with a revolutionary theme, but also in changing common position poet.

Blok felt the spirit of the revolutionary era, first of all, as anti-dogmatic, dogma-destroying. It is no coincidence that it was in 1903-1906. the poet moves away from the mysticism of Vl. Solovyov himself defines the new phase of his evolution as an "antithesis" in relation to Solovyov's "thesis". Not only does the focus of poetic attention (“voices of other worlds”) change, but also the idea of the essence of the world. The poetic realm of the Beautiful Lady was felt by Blok as eternal and "immovable" in the basics: only fussy worldly affairs change, and the Soul of the World is "immovable in the depths." A new poetic symbol that characterizes the deep nature of being - "element" - arises in close connection with the moods and views of other Russian symbolists, and above all with the views of Vyach. Ivanova. "Element" is perceived by Blok since 1904 as the beginning of movement, constant destruction and creation, unchanged only in its infinite variability. If the contrasts in the "Poems about the Beautiful Lady", with all their diversity, fit into the Platonic idea of "two worlds" and constituted a realm of high harmony, now life appears as disharmony, as an irrationally complex and contradictory phenomenon, as a world of many people, events , fight:

There are better and worse than me, And many people and gods, And in each - throwing fire, And in each - the sadness of the clouds.

The "Element" (unlike the "Soul of the World") cannot exist as a pure idea: it is inseparable from earthly incarnations. The material embodiment of the “elemental” world is realized in the most important theme for the “Unexpected Joy” Block, the theme of earthly passion, which replaced the mystical worship of the “Virgin, Dawn, Bush”. The heroine of the new lyrics, which the poet admires, is not only an earthly, but also a shockingly “this-worldly” woman. Perhaps this heroine, like lyrical hero"Unexpected Joy", once "the sky knew". However, in its current incarnation, it is a "fallen star" (and a "fallen woman"). The meeting with "her" takes place "at the unlit gate", in the "serpent's lair", in the intoxicating fumes of a country restaurant. The lyrical hero of Blok is shocked by the experience of stormy earthly passion, the intoxicating smell of perfumes and fogs.

Therefore, during the period of "Unexpected Joy" the general appearance of Blok's lyrics changes dramatically and unexpectedly. Here a large place is occupied by poems about the city, about nature, where there is neither the image of a lyrical hero, nor the motives of love. On the other hand, the nature of the lyrical experience completely changes: instead of a knightly one. worship of the Lady is an earthly passion for the "many", for the "stranger" met in the world of a big city. The new look of the love theme is due to many reasons: global (disappearance of high faith in the "Virgin, Dawn, Kupina"), social (growth of interest in urban life, in the "bottom" of the city), biographical (complexity and drama of Blok's relationship with his wife). The motifs of wild passion find their peak expression in the Snow Mask cycle (1907). The "element" is no less vividly embodied in other breaths of life: in the warmth and charm of "low" nature (poems of 1904-1905, which later made up the cycle "Bubbles of the Earth"), in the intoxicating whirlpool of urban events. "Here and Now" turns out to be not only the main theme, but also the highest value of Blok's lyrics of these years. In the irrational disharmony of the ever-moving, materially embodied "element", the poet discovers beauty, strength, passion, dynamism and festivity.

The apology of the "elements" had one more important feature. Starting with an interest in "lower" nature ("Bubbles of the Earth"), Blok gradually more and more often depicts "people of nature", endowed with attractive features of the elements. It is no coincidence that the heroine of the lyrics of these years is always - directly or indirectly - connected with Blok's poetic ideal, - this is often a fiery and passionate daughter of the people ("She rode the wild steppe ..."). Subsequently, Blok begins to treat his work of the “antithesis” period very wary, sometimes piercingly feeling the “abysses” that lie in wait for a person on the path of passive self-giving to the “elements”.

Blok constantly feels an alarming need to look for some new paths, new lofty ideals.

And it is precisely this restlessness, a skeptical attitude towards universal skepticism, an intense search for new values, that distinguishes it from internally self-satisfied decadence. In the famous poem "The Stranger" (1906), the lyrical hero peers excitedly at a beautiful visitor to a country restaurant, tries in vain to find out who is in front of him: the embodiment of high beauty, the image of "ancient beliefs", or the Stranger - a woman from the world of drunkards "with the eyes of rabbits" ? A moment - and the hero is ready to believe that in front of him is just a drunken vision, that "the truth is in wine."

But, despite the bitter irony of the final lines, the overall emotional structure of the poem is still not in the affirmation of the illusory nature of truth, but in a complex combination of admiration for beauty, an exciting sense of the mystery of life and an insatiable need to unravel it.

And slowly, passing between the drunks.

Always without companions, alone,

Breathing spirits in the mists,

She sits by the window.

And breathe ancient beliefs

Her elastic silk,

And a hat with mourning feathers

And in the rings a narrow hand.

And chained by a strange closeness,

I look behind the dark veil

And I see the enchanted shore

And the enchanted distance.

The new attitude gave rise to changes in poetics. The pull back to the harmonious world of the Beautiful Lady is combined in Blok’s work of these years with sharp criticism of Solovyov’s utopianism and mysticism, and the influence of European and Russian modernism with the first appeals to the realistic tradition (Dostoevsky, Gogol, L. Tolstoy).

The destruction of the poetic myth about the mystical beauty that saves the world noticeably shakes the system of Blok's symbols. The world now appears before the lyrical hero as a change of chaotic impressions, the meaning of which is complex and sometimes incomprehensible. The desire to show the complexity of the world sometimes causes a deliberate accumulation of images connected not by internal similarity, but by external space-time proximity.

Factory walls, window glass,

Dirty red coat

Fluttering curl --

Everything is full of sunset.

Appear character traits impressionistic poetics. The idea of a complex "asymmetry" of the world corresponds to the abundance of metaphors, oxymorons, polemical correlation of the images of "Unexpected Joy" with the images of "Poems about the Beautiful Lady".

During the years of the revolution, the poet's belief in the "golden age", in that "paradise" where only two lived, recedes into the past. The world of "Unexpected Joy" is many-sided and crowded, this is the realm of diverse characters and unrelated plots. Blok's lyrics were destined to pass through this world of relative plurality before the poet regained a sense of the unity of life, its connection with the lofty ideal of humanity.

3. "Post-revolutionary" Block

Blok is a poet who perceives the world in shock. It is not surprising that the experience of the 1905 revolution not only left its mark on him, but was also reflected most noticeably in the work of the first years of the Stolypin reaction.

The poet creates in these years such vivid cycles as "Free Thoughts" (summer 1907), "Faina" (1906-1908), "On the Kulikovo Field" (1908). But no less significant is his desire to push the lyrics into the background, turning to the drama (“Song of Fate”) and to journalism that was previously distant to him (articles about the people and the intelligentsia).

In 1906-1907. Blok experiences a short-term but strong feeling for the theater actress Komissarzhevskaya - N. N. Volokhova. He himself still feels this feeling as an element. However, if in the first "Volokhov's" cycle - "Snow Mask" it was, as in the previous lyrics, about the "elements of the soul" of the lyrical hero, about a beautiful but destructive passion, then in the cycle "Faina" the element is a folk essence heroine, love for which is at the same time the familiarization of the lyrical hero to national life. It is no coincidence that “drunk” passion is inseparable here from the images of a round dance, from the intonations of a Russian dance or ditty:

Harmonica, harmonica!

Hey, poi, squeal and burn!

Hey, yellow buttercups,

Spring flowers!

I'm going crazy, I'm going crazy

Crazy, I love

That all you are is night, and all you are darkness,

And all of you - in a hop ...

The image of the elements in Free Thoughts is solved differently, but in many respects similarly. A fierce love for life and the joys of earthly existence overwhelm the soul of the hero of the cycle, removed here from the mystical worldview; they oppose the glorification of death in the works of F. Sologub and a number of other symbolists:

I always want to look into people's eyes,

And drink wine and kiss women

And fill the evening with the fury of desires,

When the heat prevents you from dreaming during the day

And sing songs! And listen to the wind in the world!

The images of the wind, snowstorms passed through all of Blok's poetry, becoming in it a kind of supporting symbol of the dynamism of life.

The cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” is the highest poetic achievement of the poet in 1907-1908. The piercing feeling of the motherland coexists here with a special kind of "lyrical historicism", the ability to see in Russia's past one's own, intimately close - today's and "eternal". For Blok's artistic method of these and subsequent years, both attempts to overcome symbolism and a deep connection with the foundations of the symbolist vision of the world are noteworthy.

In his reflections on the fate of the Motherland, Blok turns to the face of old Russia, which has long been characterized as a poor and humiliated Russia. This is how she sees Blok.

Russia, impoverished Russia,

I have your gray huts,

Your songs are windy for me

Like the first tears of love!

There are certain constant images-symbols in Blok's work that reveal the deepest and most stable aspects of his worldview. One of the most important groups of such images is associated with the idea of the purpose of life. Life without a goal is an absurdity for the young Blok and an inescapable horror for the mature Blok: it is no coincidence that the aimlessness of being will become one of the main characteristics of the "terrible world" of the reaction. The goal is always correlated by Blok with the images of the future (“only the future is worth living,” he will say a little later) - with the time of realization of the lofty ideal. Themes of purpose, future, ideal, pushed aside in 1903-1906. impressionistic sketches of the world "here and now", in the years of understanding the experience of the first Russian revolution, again come to the fore. However, they have been significantly changed in comparison with Blok's youthful lyrics. The goal moves from "heaven" to "woeful earth", inextricably fused with hopes for the "incarnation" of the ideal, its earthly incarnation, and the ideal itself in 1907-1908. finally filled with humanistic content, connected with the "crazy" dream of a beautiful man of the future. At the same time, a new “image-concept” appears in lyrics (“Faina”, “On the Kulikovo Field”), drama (“Song of Fate”) and journalism (“Three Questions”, etc.) a new “image-concept” appears - a duty that determines the attitude of today's person to the future , an artist (and - more broadly - an intellectual) to the people:

No! Happiness is an idle concern

After all, youth is long gone.

We pass the age of work,

A hammer for me, a needle for you.

Duty finds its highest reflection in the motives of the heroic battle with the enemy for the happiness of the Motherland. For the first time this high image is embodied and becomes the leading one in the considered cycle "On the Kulikovo Field".

The heart cannot live in peace,

Suddenly the clouds have gathered.

The armor is heavy, as before the battle.

Now your time has come. -- Pray!

The historicism of Blok's poetic thinking is due, first of all, to the idea of the complexity and tragedy of life, associated with the pathos of movement and the heroism of battles characteristic of him. This ensures a continuous connection of times.

And eternal battle! You only dream of peace

Through the blood and dust ... The steppe mare flies, flies

And crushes the feather grass.

Sunset in blood! Blood flows from the heart!

Cry, heart, cry... There is no rest! steppe mare

Rushing jump!

In the realm of "eternal battle" man is placed by history, the "world environment" in contradictory, tragic relations with other people. The state of high, heroic readiness for "battle" and death is generated by the feeling of a person's involvement in the high tragedy of being.

For Blok's creativity of the late 1900s. characterized by the dominance of ethical, humanistic pathos. But the ethical searches and decisions of the poet are ambiguous. As in the years of the first Russian revolution, he does not accept the Christian pathos of patience and Tolstoy's non-resistance to evil. But at the same time, the solution of the question of the relationship of the individual to the people, of the paths of the modern intelligentsia, of duty, paints Blok's love of the people in tones of sacrifice, "voluntary impoverishment." Later, this duality will be realized by the poet as one of the manifestations of the dialectical complexity of the world and man.

Blok's aesthetic views are noticeably changing. He now sharply criticizes all varieties of the "new art", speaks of the fundamental importance of the "precepts" of the democratic writers of the last century, of the inevitable "meeting" of symbolists and realists. The high assessment of Gorky's work in the article "On the Realists" (Blok recognizes Gorky as the spokesman for what is invested in the concept of Rus', Russia) leads him to disagree with the position of the majority of the Symbolists, to a long-term quarrel with his recent close friend Andrei Bely. Rapprochement with realistic literature, according to Blok, was supposed to solve such cardinal problems for the modern artist as the appeal of art to life, the nationality and nationality of culture, the ideological and "programmatic" nature of creativity.

The break with the "new art" was also marked by the earlier "lyrical drama" "Balaganchik" (1906), directed against the Solovyov mystics. One of the heroes of the play Harlequin said:

No one here dares to understand

That spring floats in the sky!

No one here knows how to love

Here they live in a sad dream!

Hello world! You are with me again!

Your soul is close to me for a long time

I'm going to breathe your spring

Into your golden window!

The new understanding of history, which was just taking shape, included both the artistic picture of a single, ever-moving world and the internal “correspondences” of different aspects of life (its different “paths”). This made possible the widest poetic similitudes, the creation of a new system of image-symbols (Faina - Russia; Gogol's image of the troika filled with new meaning; "Battle of Kulikovo" as a symbol of readiness for battle with the enemies of the motherland, etc.).

Thus, in 1907-1908. very significant features of poetics for the late Blok are formed, combining realistic traditions with deep symbolism of the image.

4. New twist

A new - since the spring of 1909 - turn in Blok's work comes with seeming surprise. The external impetus was the difficult experiences associated with the death (on the eighth day after birth) of the child L.D. Blok adopted by Blok. The feeling of the infinitely heavy, "deaf night" of Stolypin's reaction, of course, was familiar to the poet before. But now for some time it becomes the dominant mood, drowning out the recent admiration for the revolution - youth "with a halo around the face", faith in its inevitability.

In the spring of 1909, the exhausted Bloks left for Italy. This trip gave rise to the cycle of "Italian verses" - a vivid expression of the mood of the new triennium. The aching notes of melancholy, "hopelessness of sadness" merge with thoughts about modern European civilization as a long dead world.

And grape deserts

Houses and people are all coffins.

Only copper solemn Latin

Sings on the stoves like a trumpet.

A sense of the complexity and inconsistency of art as a manifestation of the "multi-string" of the world will be an important feature of Blok's worldview in the 1910s, although it will be filled with content that is in many ways different than in the previous period.

This is the time of the peak of Blok's talent, his creation of such final works as the poems "Retribution" (1910-1921) and "The Nightingale Garden" (1915), the drama "Rose and Cross" (1913). The latent origins of the poetry of these years is the feeling of the end of the reaction that gripped Russian society. “There is a Russia that, having escaped from one revolution, eagerly looks into the eyes of another, perhaps more terrible,” writes Blok. Belief in imminent grandiose upheavals dramatically changes the emotional tone of his work: pessimism gives way to a "courageous" attitude towards the world. The poet begins to take a keen interest in the “politics” and “sociality” that he had previously rejected, returns to the thoughts that reality is more valuable than dreams and that “the talented movement called“ new art ”is over; i.e., small rivers, having replenished the ancient and eternal channel than they could, they poured into it.

At the same time, Blok's attitude to the world is still contradictory. The “Spirit of Music” becomes a new symbol reflecting the perception of the world substance. This is the key symbol of Blok's mature creativity, akin to the universal symbols "Soul of the world" and "element" and at the same time deeply different from them. This image goes back to the German romantics, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner, connecting with the idea of the world as an aesthetic phenomenon, of the intuitive and creative comprehension of the world as the deepest and of music as the highest art. Images of "music" were widespread in the culture of the early 20th century, both symbolist (Bely, Vyach. Ivanov, and others) and in contact with symbolism. Unlike earlier symbols, the "spirit of music" is most clearly realized, according to Blok, in history, modern reality and culture. Unlike the “element”, the formation of the “spirit of music” not only unleashes the elemental forces of nature and the soul, but also creates an increasingly complex, “harmonized” world. The harmony of "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" and the chaos of "Unexpected Joy" are now opposed by images of being, harmonious and violent at the same time. Not without reason, Blok defined this period of his evolution as "synthesis".

In the 1910s almost simultaneously created poems of different emotional pathos. The dark, terrible sides of reality are depicted in the cycles "Terrible World" (1909-1916) and "Retribution" (1908-1913). The “terrible world” is the realm of darkness, evil, social injustice, where “the rich are angry and happy”, and the poor are “again humiliated” - doomed to death.

A person living in a "terrible world" himself becomes a toy in the hands of dark, "demonic" forces. In his soul, "wild passions" are unleashed, turning the brightest beginning of life - love - into a destructive passion, bitter, "like wormwood" (3, 8). In the cycle "Scary World" (as before in the cycle "City") Blok draws his contemporary - mostly urban - reality, the humiliated inhabitants of the earthly hell, as well as those "demons" and the living dead, in which the forces of evil embodied most clearly.

But the “terrible world” is also a broader concept, it is an image of the state of the soul of a lyrical hero with its foreboding of death, with its spiritual emptiness and mortal fatigue.

The earthly heart is tired

So many years, so many days.

Earthly happiness is late

On my mad troika

In the poetic cycle "Retribution", the main theme will be the same "terrible world", reflected in the soul of the lyrical hero. A naturally beautiful person is distorted by “life by vanity” and he himself becomes part of a terrible reality. And yet the poet knows that "in secret - the world is beautiful" and life, history, conscience bring inevitable retribution to the apostate of the Beautiful The appearance and fate of the main character of Blok's lyrics are inseparable from the appearance and destinies modern man, from the ways of Russia. The theme of retribution was widespread in the literature of the 1910s, but in Blok's work it acquired its own special coloring, its own special intonation.

However, not only the depressing pictures of the “dead night” were created by Blok in the 1910s. For the lyrics of these years, the rebellious intransigence of the poet and his faith in the future happiness of mankind become key. The pathos of the Yamby cycle (1907-1914) and new poems about Russia are associated with them.

I believe a new age will rise

Among all the unfortunate generations

No wonder every kind glorifies

Mortally insulted genius.

Let the day be far away - we still have the same

Covenants to young men and virgins:

Contempt ripens with anger,

And the maturity of anger is rebellion

Such an attitude towards the future suggests that many of its features are already embodied in the present. The scattered flickering of "signs" of the future merges in Blok's poetry into the image of Russia, which becomes noticeably more complicated. Through the everyday, impoverished appearance of the Motherland, the poet sees its ideal and unchanging (“you are still the same”) essence.

The future for Blok is not a rejection of the past, but the result of the “embodiment” of everything lofty that has been achieved by the spiritual experience of man, the experience of history. He is convinced that Russia of the boundless steppes (“Fateful, native country”) is acquiring its new face.

The steppe path - without end, without outcome,

Steppe, yes wind, yes wind, - and suddenly

Multi-tiered building of the plant,

Cities of workers' shacks...

In the wilderness, in the wild

You are all the one that was, and not the one,

You turned into a new face,

And another worries about the dream.

Russia, which has embarked on new paths, is young and beautiful, she is a "bride", a "joyful holiday, a great holiday" awaits her, and she will not repeat the paths of old Russia and modern America.

The lyrics of the mature Blok create a complex picture of the world, "beautiful" and "terrible" at the same time. Among the forces opposing the "old world", nature played an important role for the poet.

The flute sang on the bridge,

And the apple trees are in bloom.

And the angel lifted up

One green star

And it became marvelous on the bridge

Look so deep

To that height.

Blok's landscapes are associated with the democratic idea of the natural world as a high moral standard; they grow on the basis of gradations of Russian nature-descriptive lyrics from Pushkin to Tyutchev and Fet.

The beautiful world also includes the high beauty of art ("The bow sang ..", "Guitar strings stretched ..."), moments of spiritual clarity ("There are moments when it does not disturb ..."), bright memories of youth and love - - no longer heavenly, but earthly, full of deep passion and tenderness (“Years have flown over the years ...”, the cycle “After twelve years”). The features of true life, beautiful in its foundations, are revealed in many works of the cycles "Harps and Violins" (1908-1916) and "Carmen" (1914; dedicated to the famous performer of the role of Carmen - artist L. A. Delmas).

5. Blok's late lyrics

Blok's artistic method was very expressively manifested in his final work - in preparation for publication in the publishing house "Musaget" "Collected Poems" (books 1 - 3. M., 1911 - 1912) The poet interprets his lyrics as a single work, as "trilogy" dedicated to "one circle of feelings and thoughts" to which he "was devoted during the first twelve years of his conscious life."

The first volume of this "trilogy" includes lyrics from 1898-1904. (the main place in it is occupied by "Poems about the Beautiful Lady"); the second includes poems from 1904-1908, and the third includes works from the late 1900s-early 1910s. Blok worked on this "trilogy" until the end of his life, supplementing it with new poems.

The main motif that connects disparate works and largely determines the composition of the "Collection of Poems" is the "idea of the path", the poet's understanding of his own development, his own evolution. At the same time, Blok perceives his path as the path of a modern man and already - as the path of an intellectual of the new century. In this regard, for his "trilogy of lyric" it is very important to focus on the social novel of the 19th century. and above all, "Eugene Onegin", by analogy with which he calls his "trilogy" a novel in verse.

The poetry of the first volume (in the center here - "Poems about the Beautiful Lady") tells about the beginning of the spiritual formation of the characters. This is a wonderful realm of youth, the world of first love, an idealized perception of the environment. But the inexorable force of the universal movement destroys the primordial harmony of the "blue shore of paradise." The second volume is dedicated to depicting the “overthrow” of the heroes from the peaks of lonely happiness into the “terrible world” of reality (this volume is based on the collection “Unexpected Joy” and the cycle “Snow Mask”). In the third volume, the melody of the “past” sounds, the blessing of the world of first love , the world of youth.

And I see in the matchmaker your image, your beautiful, What he was before the evil and passionate, What he appeared to me. Look:

All the same you, which once bloomed, There, above the misty mountain in the jagged, In the rays of the unfading dawn

The poet recalls the old house, the spiritual home of the lyrical "I", the blue and pink world of the sky and the setting sun, the world of fun and music, the harmony of "Poems about the Beautiful Lady". In these memoirs, autoquotes from early lyrics(cf .: “There, above Your high mountain, the Jagged forest stretched”). Now this world is gone forever. However, the memory of the past is not only sadness about the irretrievable, but in that high standard to which the hero aspires.

This youth, this tenderness

What was she to us?

All my verses are rebellious

Didn't she create it?

Under the fatal influence of the "terrible world" in the lyrical "I", the features of a "demon", a traitor - "Judas" and even a "vampire" (the cycle "Black Blood") are revealed. These images of him emphasize the motive of personal responsibility for the evil reigning in the world. In the "trilogy" the theme of the tragic guilt of man arises. At the same time, “I” also appears as a “beggar”, “humiliated”, doomed to death (“Late autumn from the harbor ...”).

The hero is in many ways related to the image of the "infernal" heroine, which appeared in the lyrics of 1903-1906. She, like the lyrical hero, is “fallen”, “humiliated”, but her former appearance of the “Soul of the World” shines through in her. The meetings of the hero and the demonic woman, which ultimately distort the ideals of the "eternal" first love, end in the death of either the woman ("Black Blood") or the hero ("From the Crystal Fog..."). However, death is only one of the possible options for completing the hero's path.

The hero's thought about the guilt of the individual for the evil of contemporary reality led to an invasion into the content of the second and especially the third "volume" of Tolstoy's "confessional" pathos, but at the same time, the image of reality itself is permeated with a dialectical worldview. Life is not only terrible, but also beautiful in its complexity, dynamism of feelings and passions.

In a light heart - passion, I am carelessness,

As if from the sea I was given a sign ..

Over the bottomless pit into eternity,

Panting, the trotter flies.

Snow wind, your breath

My intoxicated lips...

Valentine, star, dream!

How your nightingales sing...

The idea of tragic guilt is replaced in the "trilogy" by the motif of a conscious, courageous-volitional choice of path, important for Blok's work. In the "third volume" the hero appears in both heroic and sacrificial guise. It's all like parts of the soul of the lyrical "I". But in the perception of the poet, the transition from the present to the future is associated with another hero - a warrior, a fighter "for a holy cause." This image plays a particularly important role in the "trilogy". And no matter how deep sometimes in Blok's poetry the "last despair", the already noted faith in the future lives in it.

6. Block's appeal to the theme of Russian poetry

The 1910s, when Blok turned to the deeply personal and at the same time traditional theme of Russian poetry - the Motherland, its fate and the fate of the artist, inextricably linked with it - these years made Blok the first poet in Russia. And yet the words "Today I am a genius" do not belong to the author of the lyrical "trilogy", but to a man of a new frontier: they were written by Blok on the day the poem about the death of the old world - "The Twelve" ended.

Blok accepted October, answering the question of whether the intelligentsia could cooperate with the Bolsheviks: “It can and must” and calling on contemporaries to “listen to the revolution.” Overcoming fatigue, illness, the hardships of life in freezing, hungry Petrograd, dislike for "services" that interfere with creativity, despair and pain of nightly memories of the destroyed - now no longer in verse, but in reality - the chess house. Blok, with the selflessness of a Russian intellectual, plunged into the element of new life. This was the same “departure” from the old way of life, the inevitability of which the poet predicted back in 1907-1908. The new attracted Blok precisely in its most radical, maximalist revolutionary forms. “To redo everything”, in a romantic impulse to burn the whole old world in the fire of a “global fire” - the once-room eschatologism of a pupil of the Beketov’s house has now cast itself into such forms. Therefore, all personal "withdrawals" and breaks - from Shakhmatov who ceased to exist to a boycott by his closest friends who rejected the revolution - Blok perceived in the days of October with tragically courageous "delight".

In January 1918 Blok wrote his famous poem The Twelve. "Art always destroys dogmas," Blok asserted in the days of the revolution. The poem "The Twelve" destroyed the dogmas not only of the outgoing life, but also the dogmas of the old art, and in many respects the poetic consciousness of Blok in the 1910s. Permeated with a rush of destruction of "everything", with the breath of icy winds burning the "old world", this poem is revolutionary both in spirit and in its artistic structure. That is why its influence was so great not only on poetry, but also on the prose of the 1920s.

Blok's revolutionary mood takes on a somewhat different look in the poem "Scythians" (January 1918). The antinomy of the outgoing and new culture is revealed here in the form of opposition between the bourgeois West and revolutionary Russia. The West is a world of "civilization", rationalism, "reason", incapable of destructive and creative passions. They are inherent in Russia, the realm of culture primordially wild, but bright, heroic:

Yes, love like your blood loves,

No one loves you for a long time! Have you forgotten that there is love in the world,

Which burns and destroys!

The "Scythians" also depict another force embodied in the images of "wild hordes", "fierce Huns": this is the power of blind, spontaneous anarchy, ready to destroy everything accumulated over the centuries of History. The living, folk culture of the "Scythians" is sharply separated from both the dying bourgeois civilization and the chaos of destruction. The essence and mission of "Russia-Sphinx" is in its readiness to synthesize, inherit all the great conquests of "wise" Europe, combining them with the fiery heroics of Scythia.

We love everything - and the heat of cold numbers,

And the gift of divine visions

Everything is clear to us - and the sharp Gallic sense,

And the gloomy German genius...

We remember everything...

The same mission had another side to protect Europe from the blind elements of destruction.

For you - centuries, for us - a single hour.

We, like obedient serfs,

Held a shield between two hostile races

Mongols and Europe!

Now Europe must defend itself. But the death of its culture is, according to Blok, a possible but by no means inevitable path of history. The poet believes in other, higher paths - in the fraternal fusion of the centuries-old spiritual heritage of Europe and Russia:

For the last time, come to your senses, old world!

To the fraternal feast of labor and peace,

For the last time to a bright fraternal feast

The barbarian LNRA is calling!

In the future, Blok's attitude to certain revolutionary events could be very uneven. However, the idea of revolution seemed to him lofty and beautiful until his last tragic days, after a painful illness that ended his life (August 1921).

In the last years of his life, Blok acted primarily as a publicist, critic, and theater figure. He not only talks about culture, but also actively contributes to the introduction of a new society to it. His work at the Bolshoi Drama Theater, in the publishing house "World Literature" is very remarkable. Blok believed that culture, art, with their "organic" and "cheerful" complexity, are the condensers of the future, the antipodes of despotism, bureaucracy, and philistine mediocrity. Outside of culture, there is no life, and there is no harmonious, many-sided beautiful personality - a "man-artist", to whom, but Blok, this future belongs. The banner of Russian "synthetic" culture for Blok is "a cheerful name: Pushkin." It was he who supported the belief in "secret freedom" in today's people, he helps them in the "silent struggle" for the future; with his name they --

Skipping days of oppression

short term deception

The days to come were seen

Blue-pink mist.

In Pushkin's work, Blok finds for himself the last, most complete expression of the harmonious: a "cheerful", "artistic" world and at the same time a world of high humanity. The intonations of Pushkin's "Feast of Peter the Great" bring into Blok's last poem "To the Pushkin House" (February 11, 1921) the spirit of bright humanity, turning it into an artistic and civic testament of the poet.

Conclusion

Here is the entire later, very complex, in many ways painfully contradictory poet, stubbornly looking for a way to goodness and light, stubbornly escaping from the circle artificially protected from life, which brought him up - to Russia, to people. And isn’t the evil, “noisy and bloody” surrounding Blok, the “untrue” world - not the initial manifestation of the theme “ scary world"? Isn't "Gamayun" a harbinger of his lifelong theme of Russia going through the greatest trials? Isn't, finally, all its tormenting duality the same theme of the "children of the terrible years of Russia", disfigured by the religiously decadent false culture, but not reconciling with this and invariably striving for a truly human life, for the life of the Motherland?

Bibliography

Vl. Orlov "The Poet and the City" Lenizdat 1980

A. Blok. Favorites. Poems and poets. Krasnodar book publishing house 1978

3. P. Gromov. A. Blok. His predecessors and contemporaries Moscow.-L.1966

4. D. Maksimov. Poetry and prose of A. Blok L., 1975

Hosted on Allbest.ru