Block information. Alexander Blok: poetry, creativity, biography, interesting facts from life. Rejection of symbolism
Russian poet, writer, publicist, playwright, translator, literary critic; classic of Russian literature of the XX century, one of the largest representatives of Russian symbolism
Alexander Blok
short biography
The famous Russian poet was born on November 28 (November 16, O.S.) 1880 in St. Petersburg, in an intelligent family. His father was a lawyer, law professor, his mother was the daughter of a university rector, a translator. Already in early childhood it became clear that the boy was gifted. At the age of five, he wrote poetry, as a teenager, published home magazines with his brothers. After graduating from the Vvedensky gymnasium (1891-1898), Alexander Blok entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, but three years later he transferred to the historical and philological faculty (Slavic-Russian department), from which he graduated in 1906.
While studying at the university, the period of Blok's formation as an artist, his awareness of his life's calling, fell. For 1901-1902 he wrote more than eight dozen poems, inspired by love for his future wife, the daughter of the famous chemist, L. Mendeleeva. The spring of 1902 brought acquaintance with D. Merezhkovsky and Z. Gippius, whose influence on Blok, his creative biography was truly enormous. In 1903, in the journal "New Way", which they published, Blok first appeared before the public, not only as a poet, but also as a critic. In the same year, his poems were published in the "Literary and Artistic Collection: Poems of Students of the Imperial St. Petersburg University", and the cycle "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" (almanac "Northern Flowers") was published, which made Blok a famous poet.
An important factor in the formation of the poet's worldview was the revolution of 1905, which showed life from a different, more realistic side and left a noticeable imprint on creativity. During this period, Unexpected Joy (1906), Free Thoughts (1907), Italian Poems (1908), Snow Mask (1907), On the Kulikovo Field (1908) were published. In 1909 a new page begins in Blok's life. After the tragic events (the death of the poet's father, the child of L. Mendeleeva), the couple leaves for Italy. Traveling to a country with a completely different way of life, contact with classical Italian art created a completely new mood in the poet's soul. Making a report in April 1910 on the current state of Russian symbolism, Alexander Blok announced that a significant stage in his life and work had come to an end.
Thanks to the receipt of his father's inheritance, Blok could not think about his daily bread and devote himself entirely to the implementation of large-scale literary ideas. So, in 1910, he began to write an epic poem called "Retribution", which was destined to remain unfinished.
In July 1916, the poet was drafted into the army, he ended up in the engineering and construction team of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union and served in Belarus. The February and October revolutions, like everyone else, became the starting point for a new stage in his biography. They were met by the poet not without conflicting feelings, but his civic position was to stay together with his homeland in difficult times. In May 1917, Blok worked as an editor in the Extraordinary Investigative Commission to investigate the illegal actions of former ministers, chief executives and other senior officials. In January 1918 he published a series of articles entitled "Russia and the Intelligentsia"; in the same year his famous poem "The Twelve" was published. Many fellow writers, such as D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, F. Sologub, M. Prishvin, I. Ehrenburg, Vyach. Ivanov and others, sharply criticized his attitude towards the Bolsheviks.
In turn, the Soviet authorities did not fail to turn the loyalty of the famous poet to their advantage. He needed public service as a source of income, since it was out of the question to feed himself on earnings in the literary field, but often appointments to various committees and commissions were made without his consent. In September 1917 Blok was a member of the Theatrical and Literary Commission; in the period from 1918-1919. the place of service was the People's Commissariat of Education, the Union of Poets, the Union of Workers of Fiction, the publishing house "World Literature"; in 1920, the poet was appointed to the post of chairman of the Petrograd branch of the Union of Poets.
If at first Blok regarded his participation in the work of cultural and educational institutions as a debt of an intellectual to the people, then gradually an epiphany came to him: he understood that the gulf between the cleansing revolutionary elements he praised and the emerging totalitarian bureaucratic colossus was getting deeper, and this provoked a depressive mood. . He was aggravated by a huge physical and moral stress, the disorder of life in a revolutionary city, and family problems. Not only the poet's psyche suffered: he developed asthma, cardiovascular diseases, and in the winter of 1918 he fell ill with scurvy. In February 1927, at an evening in memory of Pushkin, Blok delivered a speech “On the Appointment of a Poet”, spoke about the “lack of air” that was destroying poets, about the futility of the attempts of the “new mob” to encroach on their freedom. She became his kind of testament as a person and a writer.
In the spring of 1921, Blok applied to the authorities for permission to travel to Finland for treatment, but the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks rejected the request. Lunacharsky and Gorky asked for the poet, and at the next meeting, nevertheless, a decision to obtain an exit visa was issued, but it could no longer save the situation. Being seriously ill, suffering severely not only from ailments, but also from material need, on August 7, 1921, Alexander Blok died in his Petrograd apartment. They buried him at the Smolensk cemetery; later, his remains were reburied at the Volkovskoye cemetery (Literatorskie Mostki).
Biography from Wikipedia
General information
Alexander Blok's father - Alexander Lvovich Blok (1852-1909), a lawyer, professor at Warsaw University, came from a noble family, his brother Ivan Lvovich was a prominent Russian statesman.
Mother - Alexandra Andreevna, nee Beketova, (1860-1923) - daughter of the rector of St. Petersburg University A. N. Beketov. The marriage, which began when Alexandra was eighteen years old, turned out to be short-lived: after the birth of her son, she broke off relations with her husband and subsequently did not renew them. In 1889, she obtained a decree of the Synod on the dissolution of marriage with her first husband and married a guards officer F. F. Kublitsky-Piottukh, while leaving her son the name of her first husband.
Nine-year-old Alexander settled with his mother and stepfather in an apartment in the barracks of the Life Grenadier Regiment, located on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, on the banks of the Bolshaya Nevka. In 1889 he was sent to the Vvedensky gymnasium. In 1897, having found himself abroad with his mother, in the German resort town of Bad Nauheim, the 16-year-old Blok experienced his first strong youthful love for the 37-year-old Xenia Sadovskaya. She left a deep mark on his work. In 1897, at a funeral in St. Petersburg, he met with Vladimir Solovyov.
In 1898 he graduated from the gymnasium, in the summer his passion for Lyubov Mendeleeva begins; in August he entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. Three years later he transferred to the Slavic-Russian department of the Faculty of History and Philology, from which he graduated in 1906. At the university, Blok met Sergei Gorodetsky and Alexei Remizov.
At this time, the poet's second cousin, later the priest Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov (junior), became one of the closest friends of the young Blok.
Blok wrote his first poems at the age of five. At the age of eight, young Alexander first meets the Kazan lyric poet, wandering peasant Gavrila Gabriyev. After a brief conversation with Gabriev, young Alexander finally affirms his desire to become a poet, about which he informs his mother the next day. At the age of 10, Alexander Blok wrote two issues of the Ship magazine. From 1894 to 1897, together with his brothers, he wrote the handwritten journal Vestnik, a total of 37 issues of the journal were published. Since childhood, Alexander Blok spent every summer in the estate of his grandfather Shakhmatovo near Moscow. 8 km away was the Boblovo estate, owned by Beketov's friend, the great Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleev. At the age of 16, Blok became interested in theater. In St. Petersburg, Alexander Blok signed up for a theater group. However, after the first success of roles in the theater, he was no longer given.
In 1903, Blok married Lyubov Mendeleeva, daughter of D. I. Mendeleev, the heroine of his first book of poems, Poems about the Beautiful Lady. It is known that Alexander Blok had strong feelings for his wife, but periodically kept in touch with various women: at one time it was the actress Natalya Nikolaevna Volokhova, then the opera singer Lyubov Aleksandrovna Andreeva-Delmas. Lyubov Dmitrievna also allowed herself hobbies. On this basis, Blok had a conflict with Andrei Bely, described in the play "Balaganchik". Andrei Bely, who considered Mendeleev the embodiment of the Beautiful Lady, was passionately in love with her, but she did not reciprocate. However, after the First World War, relations in the Blok family improved, and in recent years the poet was the faithful husband of Lyubov Dmitrievna.
In 1909, two difficult events take place in the Blok family: the child of Lyubov Dmitrievna dies and the father of Blok dies. To recover, Blok and his wife leave to rest in Italy and Germany. For Italian poetry, Blok was accepted into a society called the Academy. In addition to him, it included Valery Bryusov, Mikhail Kuzmin, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Innokenty Annensky.
In the summer of 1911 Blok traveled abroad again, this time to France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Alexander Alexandrovich gives a negative assessment of French morals:
An integral quality of the French (and the Bretons, it seems, par excellence) is the impenetrable dirt, first of all, physical, and then spiritual. It is better not to describe the first dirt; in short, a person of any squeamishness will not agree to settle in France.
In the summer of 1913, Blok again went to France (on the advice of doctors) and again wrote about his negative impressions:
Biarritz is flooded with the French petty bourgeoisie, so that even my eyes are tired of looking at ugly men and women ... In general, I must say that I am very tired of France and I want to return to a cultured country - Russia, where there are fewer fleas, almost no French women, there is food (bread and beef), drink (tea and water); beds (not 15 arshins wide), washstands (there are basins from which you can never pour out all the water, all the dirt remains at the bottom) ...
In 1912, Blok wrote the drama "The Rose and the Cross" about the search for the innermost knowledge of the Provencal troubadour Bertrand de Born. The play was completed in January 1913, K. S. Stanislavsky and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko liked it, but the drama was never staged in the theater.
On July 7, 1916, Blok was called to serve in the engineering unit of the All-Russian Zemsky Union. The poet served in Belarus. By his own admission in a letter to his mother, during the war his main interests were "food and horses."
Revolutionary years
Blok met the February and October revolutions with mixed feelings. He refused to emigrate, believing that he should be with Russia in difficult times. In early May 1917, he was hired by the "Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry to investigate the illegal actions of former ministers, chief executives and other senior officials of both civil and military and naval departments" as an editor. In August, Blok began to work on a manuscript, which he considered as part of the future report of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission and which was published in the journal Byloe (No. 15, 1919) and in the form of a book called The Last Days of Imperial Power (Petrograd, 1921).
Blok immediately accepted the October Revolution enthusiastically, but as a spontaneous uprising, a revolt.
In January 1920, Blok's stepfather, General Franz Kublitsky-Piottuch, whom the poet called Francis, died of pneumonia. Blok took his mother to live with him. But she and Blok's wife did not get along with each other.
In January 1921, on the occasion of the 84th anniversary of Pushkin's death, Blok delivered his famous speech "On the Appointment of a Poet" at the House of Writers.
Illness and death
Blok was one of those artists of Petrograd who not only accepted Soviet power, but agreed to work for its benefit. The authorities began to widely use the name of the poet for their own purposes. During 1918-1920, Blok, often against his will, was appointed and elected to various positions in organizations, committees, and commissions. The ever-increasing volume of work undermined the strength of the poet. Fatigue began to accumulate - Blok described his condition of that period with the words "I was drunk." This, perhaps, also explains the creative silence of the poet - he wrote in a private letter in January 1919: "For almost a year since I did not belong to myself, I forgot how to write poetry and think about poetry ...". Heavy workloads in Soviet institutions and living in a hungry and cold revolutionary Petrograd completely undermined the poet's health - Blok developed a serious cardiovascular disease, asthma, mental disorders appeared, and scurvy began in the winter of 1920.
In the spring of 1921, Alexander Blok, together with Fyodor Sologub, asked for exit visas. The issue was considered by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b). The exit was denied. Lunacharsky noted: “We literally tortured him without releasing the poet and at the same time without giving him the necessary satisfactory conditions.” A number of historians believed that V. I. Lenin and V. R. Menzhinsky played a particularly negative role in the fate of the poet, forbidding the patient to travel to a sanatorium in Finland for treatment, which, at the request of Maxim Gorky and Lunacharsky, was discussed at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee RCP(b) July 12, 1921. The exit permit obtained by L. B. Kamenev and A. V. Lunacharsky at a subsequent meeting of the Politburo was signed on July 23, 1921. But since Blok's condition worsened, on July 29, 1921, Gorky asked permission to leave for Blok's wife as an accompanying person. Already on August 1, L. D. Blok's permission to leave was signed by Molotov, but Gorky only learned about this from Lunacharsky on August 6.
Finding himself in a difficult financial situation, he was seriously ill and on August 7, 1921, he died in his last Petrograd apartment from inflammation of the heart valves, at the age of 41. A few days before his death, a rumor spread around Petrograd that the poet had gone mad. On the eve of his death, Blok raved for a long time, obsessed with a single thought: were all copies of the Twelve destroyed. However, the poet died in full consciousness, which refutes the rumors about his insanity. Before his death, after receiving a negative response to a request to travel abroad for treatment (dated July 12), Blok deliberately destroyed his notes, refused to take food and medicine.
Alexander Blok was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery in Petrograd. The families of the Beketovs and Kachalovs are also buried there, including the poet's grandmother Ariadna Alexandrovna, with whom he was in correspondence. The funeral service was performed by Archpriest Alexei Zapadalov on August 10 (July 28, old style - the day of the celebration of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God) in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ.
And Smolenskaya is now a birthday girl.
Blue incense spreads over the grass.
And the dirge song flows,
Not sad now, but bright.
...
We brought the Smolensk intercessor
Brought to the Blessed Virgin Mary
On the hands in a silver coffin
Our sun, extinguished in flour,
Alexander, pure swan.
In 1944, Blok's ashes were reburied at Literary bridges at the Volkovskoye cemetery.
Family and relatives
The poet's relatives live in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tomsk, Riga, Rome, Paris and England. Until recent years, Alexander Blok's second cousin, Ksenia Vladimirovna Beketova, lived in St. Petersburg. Among Blok's relatives is Vladimir Yenisherlov, editor-in-chief of Our Heritage magazine.
The supposed son of A. Blok was the journalist A. Nolle (Kuleshov).
Creation
He began to create in the spirit of symbolism ("Poems about the Beautiful Lady", 1901-1902), 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 tendencies (cycle "City", 1904-1908), religious interest (cycle "Snow Mask", Publishing House "Ory", St. Petersburg 1907), understanding of the "terrible world" (cycle of the same name tragedy of modern man (the play "The Rose and the 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).
The paradoxical combination of the mystical and the mundane, the detached and the everyday is generally characteristic of Blok's entire work as a whole. This is a distinctive feature of his mental organization, and, as a consequence, of his own, Blok's symbolism. Particularly characteristic in this regard is the classic juxtaposition of the foggy silhouette of the “Stranger” and “drunkards with rabbit eyes,” which has become a textbook. In general, Blok was extremely sensitive to the everyday impressions and sounds of the city around him and the artists he encountered and sympathized with.
Before the revolution, the musicality of Blok's poems lulled the audience, plunging them into a kind of somnambulistic dream. Later, intonations of desperate, soul-grabbing gypsy songs appeared in his works (a consequence of frequent visits to cafes and concerts of this genre, especially opera performances and concerts of Lyubov Delmas, with whom Blok subsequently had an affair).
A feature of the poetic style of A. A. Blok is the use of metaphor
He himself recognizes the metaphorical perception of the world as the main property of a true poet, for whom the romantic transformation of the world with the help of metaphor is not an arbitrary poetic game, but a genuine insight into the mysterious essence of life.
in the form of catachresis, turning into a symbol. Blok's innovative contribution is the use of the dolnik as a unit of rhythm in a line of poetry.
With Blok begins ... a decisive liberation of Russian verse from the principle of counting syllables in footsteps, the destruction of the canonized requirement of Trediakovsky and Lomonosov to metrically order the number and arrangement of unstressed syllables in verse. In this sense, all the latest Russian poets learned from Blok.
At first, Blok accepted both the February and October revolutions with readiness, full support, and even enthusiasm, which, however, was enough for a little more than one short and difficult 1918. As Yu. P. Annenkov noted,
in 1917-18, Blok was undoubtedly captured by the spontaneous side of the revolution. "World fire" seemed to him a goal, not a stage. For Blok, the world fire was not even a symbol of destruction: it was "the world orchestra of the people's soul." Street lynching seemed to him more justified than a trial
- (Yu. P. Annenkov, "Memories of Blok").
This position of Blok caused sharp assessments of a number of other literary figures - in particular, I. A. Bunin:
Blok openly joined the Bolsheviks. I published an article that Kogan admires (P.S.). The song is generally simple, and Blok is a stupid person. Russian literature has been extraordinarily corrupted in recent decades. The street, the crowd began to play a very big role. Everything - and especially literature - goes out into the street, connects with it and falls under its influence. “There is a Jewish pogrom in Zhmerynka, just as there was a pogrom in Znamenka…” This is called, according to Blok, “the people are embraced by the music of the revolution—listen, listen to the music of the revolution!”
- (I. A. Bunin, "Cursed Days").
Blok tried to comprehend the October Revolution not only in journalism, but also, which is especially significant, in his poem The Twelve (1918), unlike all previous works. This bright and generally misunderstood work stands completely apart in the Russian literature of the Silver Age and caused controversy and objections (both left and right) throughout the 20th century. Oddly enough, but the key to a real understanding of the poem can be found in the work of the popular in pre-revolutionary Petrograd, and now almost forgotten chansonnier and poet Mikhail Savoyarov, whose “rough” work Blok highly appreciated and whose concerts he attended dozens of times. Judging by the poetic language of the poem "The Twelve", Blok at least changed a lot, his post-revolutionary style became almost unrecognizable. Apparently he experienced the influence of a man with whom he was on friendly terms in the last pre-revolutionary years: a singer, poet and eccentric, Mikhail Savoyarov. According to Viktor Shklovsky, everyone unanimously condemned the poem "The Twelve" and few people understood it precisely because Blok was too accustomed to be taken seriously and only seriously:
"Twelve" is an ironic thing. It is not even written in a ditty style, it is made in a “thieves” style. The style of a street verse like Savoyarov's.
In his article, Shklovsky (according to the Hamburg account) also spoke about Savoyarov, the most popular Petrograd chansonnier in the pre-revolutionary years, who quite often (though not always) performed in the so-called "torn genre". Disguised beyond recognition as a tramp, this rude coupletist appeared on stage in a stylized outfit of a typical criminal. We find direct confirmation of this thesis in Blok's notebooks. In March 1918, when his wife, Lyubov Dmitrievna, was preparing to read the poem "The Twelve" aloud at evenings and concerts, Blok specially took her to Savoyar concerts to show how and with what intonation these poems should be read. In everyday, eccentric, even shocking ... but not at all "symbolist", theatrical, habitually "Blok's" manner ... Apparently, Blok believed that it was necessary to read "The Twelve" in that harsh thieves' manner, as Savoyarov did when speaking in the role of a St. Petersburg criminal (or tramp). However, Blok himself in such a characteristic way could not read and did not learn. For such a result, he himself would have to become, as he put it, "a variety poet-coupletist." It was in this way that the poet painfully tried to distance himself from the nightmare of the Petrograd (and Russian) life that surrounded him in the last three years ... either criminal, or military, or some strange between times ...
In the poem "The Twelve" colloquial and vulgar speech was not only introduced into the poem, but also replaced the voice of the author himself. The language style of the poem "The Twelve" was perceived by contemporaries not only as deeply new, but also as the only one possible at that moment.
According to A. Remizov
When I read "The Twelve", I was struck by the verbal matter - the music of street words and expressions - scraped up words unexpected from Blok ... In "The Twelve" there are only a few book words! This is music, I thought. What luck fell to Blok: I can’t imagine it possible to convey the street in a different way. Here Blok was at the height of verbal expression.
In February 1919 Blok was arrested by the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission. He was suspected of participating in an anti-Soviet conspiracy. A day later, after two long interrogations, Blok was nevertheless released, since Lunacharsky stood up for him. However, even these one and a half days of prison broke him. In 1920 Blok wrote in his diary:
... under the yoke of violence, human conscience falls silent; then the person closes in the old; the more insolent the violence, the more firmly the person closes in the old. This is what happened to Europe under the yoke of war, and to Russia today.
The rethinking of the revolutionary events and the fate of Russia was accompanied by a deep creative crisis for Blok, depression and a progressive illness. After the surge of January 1918, when the Scythians and The Twelve were created at once, Blok completely stopped writing poetry and answered all questions about his silence: “All sounds have stopped ... Don’t you hear that there are no sounds?” And to the artist Annenkov, the author of cubist illustrations for the first edition of the poem "The Twelve", he complained: "I am suffocating, suffocating, suffocating! We suffocate, we all suffocate. The world revolution is turning into a world angina pectoris!
The last cry of despair was the speech read by Blok in February 1921 at an evening dedicated to the memory of Pushkin. This speech was listened to by both Akhmatova and Gumilyov, who appeared at the reading in a tailcoat, arm in arm with a lady shivering from the cold in a black dress with a deep neckline (the hall, as always in those years, was unheated, steam was clearly coming from everyone’s mouth) . Block stood on the stage in a black jacket over a white turtleneck sweater, his hands in his pockets. Quoting Pushkin’s famous line: “There is no happiness in the world, but there is peace and freedom…” - Blok turned to the discouraged Soviet bureaucrat sitting right there on the stage (one of those who, according to Andrei Bely’s caustic definition, “do not write anything, only sign”) and minted:
... peace and will are also taken away. Not external peace, but creative. Not childish will, not freedom to be liberal, but creative will - secret freedom. And the poet dies, because he has nothing to breathe: life has lost its meaning for him.
Blok's poetic works have been translated into many languages of the world.
Bibliography
Collected works
- "Poems about a beautiful lady." - M .: "Vulture", 1905. Cover by P. A. Metzger.
- "Unexpected Joy" Second collection of poems. - M.: "Scorpion", 1907
- "Earth in the snow". Third collection of poems. - M.: "Golden Fleece", 1907
- "Snow Mask" - St. Petersburg: "Ory", 1907
- "Lyric Drama". - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1908. Cover by K. S. Somov.
- "Night hours". Fourth collection of poems. - M.: "Musaget", 1911
- "Poems about Russia". - ed. Fatherland, 1915. Cover by G. I. Narbut.
- Collection of poems. Book. 1-3. - M.: "Musaget", 1911-1912; 2nd ed., 1916
- "Yamby", Pg., 1919
- "Beyond the Past" - P.-Berlin: ed. Grzhebina, 1920
- "Grey morning". - P .: "Alkonost", 1920
- "Twelve". - Sofia: Russian-Bulgarian publishing house, 1920
- Collected works of Alexander Blok. - Petersburg: "Alkonost", 1922
- Collected works. v. 1-9. - Berlin: "Epoch", 1923
- Collected works. T. 1-12. - L .: ed. writers.
- Collected works. T. 1-8. - M.-L.: IHL, 1960-63. 200,000 copies An additional unnumbered volume to this collection was published in 1965 in Notebooks - 100,000 copies.
- Collected works in six volumes. T. 1-6. - M.: Pravda, 1971. - 375,000 copies.
- Collected works in six volumes. T. 1-6. - L .: Fiction, 1980-1983, 300,000 copies.
- Collected works in six volumes. T. 1-6. - M.: TERRA, 2009
- Complete (academic) collected works and letters in twenty volumes. T. 1-5, 7-8. - M., "Science", 1997 - present. temp. (continuing edition, volume 6 was not published, after the 5th volume, vol. 7 and vol. 8 were released)
- Selected works. - K.: Veselka, 1985
- Notebooks. 1901-1920. - M.: IHL, 1965.
Bloc and revolution
- Blok A. A. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin // Blok A. A. Collected works in 6 volumes. L.: 1982. - V.4. (Written in 1906, first published: Pass. 1907. No. 4 (February)).
- The Last Days of Imperial Power: Based on unpublished documents compiled by Alexander Blok. - Petrograd: Alkonost, 1921.
Correspondence
- Letters from Alexander Blok. - L .: Kolos, 1925.
- Letters of Alexander Blok to relatives: . T. 1-2. - M.-L.: Academia, 1927-1932.
- Letters from Al. Blok to E.P. Ivanov. - M.-L., 1936.
- Alexander Blok and Andrey Bely. Correspondence. - M., 1940.
- Blok A. A. Letters to his wife // Literary heritage. - T. 89. - M., 1978.
- I visit the Kachalovs
- Letters from A. A. Blok to L. A. Delmas // Zvezda. - 1970. - No. 11. - S. 190-201.
Memory
- The museum-apartment of A. A. Blok in St. Petersburg is located on Decembrists Street (former Officerskaya), 57.
- State Historical, Literary and Natural Museum-Reserve of A. A. Blok in Shakhmatovo
- Monument to Blok in Moscow, on Spiridonovka street
- His poem "Night, street, lantern, pharmacy" is turned into a monument on one of the streets of Leiden. Blok became the third poet after
Russian poet, playwright, critic, translator. Alexander Alexandrovich Blok was born November 16 (28), 1880. Father, A.L. Blok, - lawyer, professor of law at Warsaw University; mother, A.A. Kublitskaya-Piottukh (née Beketova), daughter of the rector of St. Petersburg University A.N. Beketova, translator. The parents separated immediately after the birth of the child. A. Blok's childhood passed in his grandfather's house. Among the most vivid childhood and youthful impressions are the summer months spent in the Beketovs' estate near Moscow - Shakhmatovo.
In 1897 during a trip to the resort of Bad Nauheim (Germany), Blok experienced the first youthful passion of K.M. Sadovskaya, to whom he dedicated a number of poems, which were then included in the cycle “Ante Lucem” (“Before Dawn”), in the collection “Beyond the Past Days” ( 1920 ), as well as in the cycle "In twelve years" ( 1909-1914 ). In 1906 Graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. In 1903 Alexander Blok married the daughter of D.I. Mendeleev - Lyubov Dmitrievna. He began to write poetry at the age of five, but conscious adherence to a poetic vocation begins from 1900-1901.
The most important literary and philosophical traditions that influenced the formation of Blok's creative individuality are the lyrics and philosophy of Vl.S. Solovyov, the philosophy of Plato, the poetry of A. Fet. In 1902 Blok meets Z. Gippius and D. Merezhkovsky, who had a huge impact on him; in the same period, his rapprochement with the circle of symbolists begins. Blok’s creative debut is the poetic cycle “From Dedications” (female “New Way”, 1903 , № 3). In 1904 in the publishing house "Grif" the first book by A. Blok "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" was published (on the title page - 1905 ), where the traditional romantic theme of love-service received a new content, brought into it by the ideas of Vl.S. Solovyov about merging with the Eternally Feminine and Divine All-Unity, about overcoming the alienation of the individual from the world whole through a loving feeling.
The revolutionary events made a great impression on Blok. 1905-1907 gg. in the lyrics of this time, the theme of the fatal element becomes the leading one; the image of the central heroine changes dramatically: the Beautiful Lady is replaced by the demonic Stranger, the Snow Mask, the “gypsy schismatic” Faina. Blok is actively involved in literary life, published in periodicals ( since 1907 leads the critical department in the magazine "Golden Fleece"), unexpectedly for his fellow symbolists, revealing an interest in and closeness to the traditions of democratic literature. Since 1905 regularly attends literary meetings Vyach.I. Ivanova, 1906 - on "Saturdays" in the theater of V.F. Komissarzhevskaya, V.E. Meyerhold puts on his first play "Puppet show" ( 1906 ). The actress of this theater N.N. Volokhova becomes the subject of his stormy passion, the book of poems "Snow Mask" is dedicated to her ( 1907 ), the cycle of poems "Faina", her features determine the appearance of "natural" heroines in the dramas of this period ("The Stranger", "The King in the Square", both 1906 ; "Song of Destiny" 1909) . Collections of poems "Unexpected Joy" are published ( 1907 ), "Earth in the snow" ( 1908 ), plays "Lyric Dramas" ( 1908 ). Blok makes presentations at the St. Petersburg Religious and Philosophical Society (“Russia and the Intelligentsia”, 1908 ; "Element and culture", 1909 ). The key themes of A. Blok's work of this period are the people and the intelligentsia, the crisis of individualism, the place of the artist in the modern world. The controversy around Blok's articles, the growing realization by Blok himself that a direct appeal to a wide democratic audience did not take place, leads him in 1909 to disappointment in publicistic activity.
A revision of values occurs during a trip to India spring and summer 1909: against the background of the political reaction in Russia and the complacent European philistinism, the only saving value for Blok is high classical art, the enthusiasm for which was reflected not only in the cycle "Italian poems" ( 1909 ) and in the unfinished book of prose essays The Lightning of Art ( 1909-1920 ), but also in the report "On the current state of Russian symbolism" ( 1910) . Inheritance after father's death at the end of 1909 freed Blok from worries about literary earnings and made it possible to focus on a few major artistic ideas. Since 1910 he begins to work on a large epic poem "Retribution" (not completed) - a story of the collapse of family ties, the loss of a home, the alienation of a son from his father, interpreted as retribution for spiritual fall and betrayal of ideals. In 1912-1913. Blok writes the play "Rose and Cross".
After the release of the collection "Night Hours" ( 1911 ) A. Blok reworked his 5 poetry books into a three-volume collection of poems (vols. 1-3, 1911-1912 ). Since that time, Blok's poetry has existed in the minds of readers as a single "lyrical trilogy", a "novel in verse", creating a "myth about the path". During the life of the poet, the three-volume edition was reprinted in 1916 and 1918-1921. V 1921 A. Blok began preparing a new edition, but managed to complete only the first volume. Each subsequent edition included everything significant that was created between editions: the Carmen cycle ( 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 autumn 1914 Blok worked on the publication of "Poems of Apollon Grigoriev" ( 1916 ) as a compiler, author of the introductory article and commentator. In 1916 was drafted into the army, served as a timekeeper of the 13th engineering and construction team of the Zemsky and urban unions near Pinsk. After the February Revolution 1917 returned to Petrograd, was a member of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission to investigate the crimes of the tsarist government as an editor of verbatim reports. After the October Revolution 1917 unambiguously declared his position, answering the questionnaire "Can the intelligentsia work with the Bolsheviks" - "Can and must." Blok's position provoked a sharp rebuke from Z. Gippius, D. Merezhkovsky, Vyach. Ivanov, A. Akhmatova and many others. others In January 1918 Blok published a series of articles “Russia and the Intelligentsia” in the Left SR newspaper “Znamya Truda”, and in February - the poem “The Twelve” and the poem “Scythians”.
After 1918 Blok wrote comic poems “just in case”, prepared the last edition of the “lyrical trilogy”, but did not create new original poems until before 1921. WITH 1918 there was a new upsurge in Blok's prose work. The cycle "Russia and the Intelligentsia" was published as a separate book ( 1918, 1919 ). He delivered cultural-philosophical reports at the Free Philosophical Association (“The Collapse of Humanism”, 1919 ; "Vladimir Solovyov and our days", 1920 ), School of Journalism (Catilina, 1918 ), wrote lyrical fragments (“Neither dreams nor reality”, “Confessions of a pagan”), feuilletons (“Russian dandies”, “Compatriots”, “Answer to the question about the red seal”). After the revolution, A. Blok was forced to seek not only literary earnings, but also public service. In September 1917 became a member of the Theater and Literary Commission, from March 1918 served in the Repertory Section of the Theater Department of the People's Commissariat of Education, in April 1919 moved to the management of the Bolshoi Drama Theatre. At the same time, a member of the editorial board of the publishing house "World Literature" under the leadership of M. Gorky, since 1920 representative of the Petrograd branch of the Union of Poets. An image of culture appears in his articles and diary entries. Lost in the catacombs. A. 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 article "On the Appointment of the Poet" and the poem "To Pushkin House" ( February 1921), which became his artistic and human testament.
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 news in politics and culture. 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, there was no talk of any relationship between a teenager and an adult woman. 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. During his 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 as a teenager, in the company of his brothers, he enthusiastically engaged in writing a handwritten magazine.
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 pupils 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.
In the late 1900s, the main theme of Blok's work was the problem of the relationship between 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 state 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, and mental disorders began to form. In 1920, the author fell ill with scurvy.
At the same time, the poet was also going through a period of 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 into a Russian family in St. Petersburg on November 16/28, 1880. The joint life of the parents of little Sasha 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 his student years, Alexander was far from politics, his passion was ancient philosophy.
In 1903 he married Mendeleev's 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.
The First World War and the revolution in Russia change the theme of Blok's poems. He saw destruction in the revolution, but expressed sympathy for the insurgent people. He began to write poems about the Motherland, nature, poems about the war sound tragic.
In 1909, after burying 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 the civil war began, he was very disappointed and felt great responsibility for his works of the 18th century.
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 in
(457 words) The junction of the 19th and 20th centuries was not without a significant phenomenon. They became Alexander Alexandrovich Blok, an epoch-making poet, a bright star of symbolism.
The poet was born in the union of Alexander Lvovich Blok and Alexandra Andreevna Beketova in 1880. The marriage of the assistant professor and the rector's daughter was not destined to be happy, even the birth of a son did not improve the situation. Nine years later, Alexander's parents officially divorced.
Blok's childhood years were spent abroad and on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. The summer of the future poet took place in the suburbs in the estate of his grandfather.
Education and creative path
The young Alexander Blok can best be described as a person who was distinguished by the breadth of knowledge and hobbies. At the age of five, he began to compose poetry. The Vvedenskaya gymnasium accepted the boy immediately into the second grade.
His literary talent required willpower, and the fourteen-year-old Blok created the home magazine Vestnik. It was a kind of game that all family members were passionate about: mother, cousins, grandmother and grandfather. Alexander was attracted by the stage, but he was not destined to become an actor. In the year of majority, he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology.
Personal life and "Beautiful Lady"
At the age of seventeen, the young man was struck by love for the first time. But this feeling has one detail: his chosen one, Ksenia Sadovskaya, was the same age as Blok's mother. This novel was initially doomed, but nevertheless became a red thread in the poet's work.
Alexander's first hobby shocked his mother, so in many ways she influenced his relationship with Lyubov Mendeleeva. The denouement of the new novel was an unsuccessful marriage. Blok's reverence for his wife was combined with betrayal, he only admired her, but was not physically close, but he was looking for acquaintances with girls of easy virtue. The young woman herself also did not lag behind her husband. In the end, the couple reconciled, and Lyubov Mendeleev became the same Beautiful Lady, to whom the poet dedicated a cycle of poems.
Creation
Since Alexander was a non-standard personality, his creative genius joined symbolism. Everyday life, mysticism, everyday life and folklore - everything coexisted in his creations.
Alexander Alexandrovich was worried about all aspects of life: from reflections on love and the beauty of nature to acute social problems. Metaphor added a special touch to his work. Blok proved to be a remarkable poet, playwright and publicist.
Relation to the revolution
Alexander Blok was one of the people who expected colossal changes from the revolution. He believed that what was happening should make life better, but coups love blood. The "childish" delight of the poet was replaced by awareness and disgust.
We have described this in detail using the example of his poem "12". This work is a stain on the work of the writer. The hasty adoption of the October Revolution prompted Blok to write it. The intelligentsia unanimously condemned the poem, as did the author himself, but later, when he asked before his death to destroy all copies of the book.
