The theme of the Motherland in Tsvetaeva’s work. Poems about the Motherland of Marina Tsvetaeva. Analysis of Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem “Motherland You will lose this hand of yours”
Marina Tsvetaeva is a famous Russian poet, each of whose works is always unusual in its own way and filled with enormous power of experience, compassion, sincerity, and so on. I would like to note that Marina became one of the few women who managed to become famous thanks to the style of writing her poems.
While producing her poems, Marina Tsvetaeva never forgot about her homeland, the place where she grew up and matured. Tarus became her small homeland, it was there that she spent her childhood and adolescence, it was there that she grew up and found her view of the world.
Her life turned out so bad that she had to follow her husband abroad. It is the works written in a foreign land that are filled with special love and awe for the homeland, melancholy and sadness that the author experienced.
One of these works was the poem “Motherland,” which perfectly reflects her love for her small homeland. By analyzing the poem, everyone will be able to see and feel what Tsvetaeva’s homeland means to her.
The poem "Motherland" was written after the October Revolution, at a time when this poet and her husband were in exile. It is worth noting that this emigration was forced for the author, and during it she greatly missed her homeland.
This work shows the poet’s feelings in the best possible way; all this can be easily noted in the literary devices that fill the poem. It will also be interesting to note that the entire poem is built on the so-called antithesis, contrasting her homeland with a foreign, cold country.
Analysis of the poem Rodina Tsvetaeva
Understanding one’s relationship with one’s native country is an important moment in the creative biography of every writer. Poets have been trying to determine their place in their homeland, the place of their homeland in the world and in their souls since the times of the romantics, who turned to the history of their state and, against its background, reflected on the present state of affairs.
Poets of the twentieth century, who survived the revolution, observed the collapse of national consciousness and the construction “from scratch” of a new ideology, especially acutely raised the issue of the relationship “I - homeland” and “homeland - world”, trying not only to comprehend such relationships, but also to give them some kind of emotional assessment - “good” or “bad”. Marina Tsvetaeva often addresses this topic in her work.
The poem “Motherland” is a vivid example of how emotional poetic assessment cannot be located on a scale between “plus” and “minus”, and requires other categories of thinking. This poem is very close in mood to similar works by Blok, with whose work, as well as with him personally, the poetess was familiar. Already in the first stanza the complexity of the task that the author undertakes is stated - to talk about his homeland.
The language is called “unyielding”; and the idea that talking about one’s home country is easy is challenged. The last verse of the first stanza will be repeated twice - “foreign land” in the second stanza will become part of the oxymoron “homeland - foreign land”, on which the central part of the verse is built; in the finale the homeland is called “pride.” The lexical connotation of this word is important - pride in the reader is intended to evoke associations with one of the deadly sins; Such sacredness intensifies the pathos of the poem. The “you” at the beginning of the last stanza in this context may evoke associations with appeals to the biblical God; and then the lyrical heroine seems almost like a martyr who gives her life on the chopping block for her faith in the Promised Land. The poem does not have a clear plot; space-time relationships are also disrupted.
As the author’s thought develops, the space expands more and more - “Kaluga hill”, “distance”, “to the highest stars”, and then sharply narrows to a cinematic close-up, in which only lips and a block fit. The heroine, who at the beginning stated that it is impossible to talk about her homeland, begins to talk about “distance” (cf. “Big things are seen from a distance” - Yesenin; Gogol’s statements that from Rome he “can see Russia better”). It is easier for her to talk about her homeland as a foreign land, and it is easier for her to come to the realization of the inextricable connection between herself and her homeland.
This thought is full of high pathos. The choice of intonation type of verse helps Tsvetaeva fully express it. “Motherland” is a spoken verse of the oratorical type with a large number of exclamations and high vocabulary characteristic of this type (“mountainous” - obviously refers to the odic tradition; “strife”, “this”), and the complexity of syntactic structures. This is how the author’s thought finds its expression in the metrical, syntactic, lexical and intonational character of the poem.
Analysis of the poem Motherland according to plan
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Oh, stubborn tongue!
Why simply - man,
Understand, he sang before me:
“Russia, my homeland!”
But also from the Kaluga hill
She opened up to me -
Far away, distant land!
Foreign land, my homeland!
Distance, born like pain,
So homeland and so -
Rock that is everywhere, throughout
Dal - I carry all of it with me!
The distance that has moved me closer,
Dahl saying: "Come back
Home!" From everyone - to the highest stars -
Taking pictures of me!
No wonder, water pigeons,
I hit my forehead with distance.
You! I’ll lose this hand, -
At least two! I'll sign with my lips
On the chopping block: the strife of my land -
Pride, my homeland!
Analysis of the poem “Motherland” by Tsvetaeva
The poetess Marina Tsvetaeva spent most of her life abroad. However, wherever she lived, she was followed. Marina Ivanovna expressed these thoughts in poetry. In 1932, Tsvetaeva wrote the poem “Motherland,” in which she outlined all her experiences.
In this poem, a red thread runs through the idea of the connection of all people with their native land. Tsvetaeva puts herself next to a simple Russian man and is incredibly proud of this fact. The poetess writes that her desire to return home to her native land is very strong, that the call of the heart is stronger than the voice of reason. Tsvetaeva claims that she is ready to defend and praise the Fatherland until her last breath, that she is proud of her Motherland and is ready to share its fate with it.
The lyrical heroine of the poem suffers from the inability to be at home again, worries and complains about the obstacles that stand in her way to return. At the end of the work, the heroine conducts a kind of dialogue with her Motherland. The poetess addresses her with the short pronoun “You!”, demonstrating strong emotional tension. This tension is intensified by epithets, antitheses, and oxymorons.
Some critics believe that Tsvetaeva wrote “Motherland” in order to be able to return to the USSR, that the poetess was currying favor with Soviet officials. However, in this poem there is not a single word about praising the young Soviet state, there is only longing for the lost native land. This poem does not praise the present, it is permeated with nostalgic sadness for the past. For the poetess, her native fatherland is “distant, distant land”, which has become a foreign land. Tsvetaeva’s patriotism does not lie in praising the state system, but in accepting her country as it is, in the desire to share a common destiny with it.
The fate of Tsvetaeva herself and her family after returning to the USSR turned out to be tragic. Her husband was sentenced to death, her daughter was sent into exile for 15 years, her son died at the WWII front, and she herself committed suicide in 1941.
A striking example of Tsvetaeva’s patriotic lyrics, the poem “Motherland” has six stanzas, five of them are quatrains, and the sixth is a two-line distich. The work is written in iambic tetrameter using a “masculine” rhyme (emphasis on the last syllable). Various means of artistic expression are used: rhetorical appeals, epithets, antitheses. The conflicting feelings of the lyrical heroine are expressed by the oxymorons “foreign land, my homeland” and “the distance that has made me close.”
Marina Tsvetaeva's lyrics, dedicated to her homeland, are imbued with a deep and to some extent desperate love for the country. For the poetess, Russia always remains in her soul (this can be seen especially clearly in the works of the emigration period). Let's look at Tsvetaeva's "Motherland" and trace the author's main thoughts in it.
The analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem must begin with the fact that it was written during the years of emigration, during a period when she was constantly tormented by longing for her native places. We see that the poetess is haunted by her remoteness from Russian lands. In the third stanza, the author calls the homeland “natural distance,” emphasizing the attachment that will exist regardless of place and desire. Tsvetaeva strengthens this image, calling this connection “fatal,” saying that she “carries” her homeland with her everywhere. For the poetess, love for Russia is like a cross, which she accepts and is never ready to part with.
Tsvetaeva connects herself not only with her native lands, but also with the Russian people. In the first stanza, she compares herself to an ordinary man, recognizing that they are united by a common feeling. An analysis of the verse must definitely tell us about this. Tsvetaeva is close to the Russian people when they are filled with love for their native country.
An analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem cannot do without mentioning that the poetess is drawn to her homeland against her will. In the fourth stanza, Russia (called “Dal”) calls the lyrical heroine, “removes” her from the “mountain stars.” Wherever she runs, love for her homeland will always bring her back.
But if here we still see that the lyrical heroine’s longing for her homeland is her destiny, then the last quatrain puts everything in its place. It plays a special role and must be included in the analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem. In it we see that the lyrical heroine is proud of her homeland and is ready to glorify it even at the cost of her own death (“I’ll sign with my lips/On the chopping block”).
To describe the contradictory feeling of love for a distant homeland, Tsvetaeva uses oxymorons: “foreign land, my homeland,” “distance, which has removed my nearness,” and repeated repetitions of the word “distance,” used to denote either Russia or a foreign land. The lyrical heroine is tormented, she is tormented by thoughts about how much separates her from her favorite places. In the last lines we even see a kind of dialogue between her and her homeland. Moreover, the heroine’s response is represented by only one eloquent “you!” addressed to Russia. She finds no other words to express her love other than the short but succinct “my homeland.” And in this phrase, repeated throughout the entire poem, we can see Tsvetaeva’s seemingly simple but deep attitude towards her homeland.
This concludes our analysis. Tsvetaeva’s poems, dedicated to her homeland, are full of the deepest and most painful love, which fills the soul of the lyrical heroine with a desperate desire to glorify the Russian land. Unfortunately, the fate of the poetess did not allow her to achieve recognition in Russia during her lifetime. But in our time, her lyrics can be analyzed, and the full depth and tragedy of her love for her native land can also be appreciated.
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Fate Marina Tsvetaeva It turned out in such a way that she spent about a third of her life abroad. At first she studied in France, learning the wisdom of literature, and after the revolution she emigrated first to Prague, and later to her beloved Paris, where she settled with her children and husband Sergei Efront, a former White Guard officer. The poetess, whose childhood and youth were spent in an intelligent family, where high spiritual values were instilled in children literally from the first years of life, perceived the revolution with horror with its utopian ideas, which later turned into a bloody tragedy for the whole country. Russia in the old and familiar sense ceased to exist for Marina Tsvetaeva, so in 1922, having miraculously obtained permission to emigrate, the poetess was confident that she would forever be able to get rid of nightmares, hunger, an unsettled life and fear for her own life.
However, along with relative prosperity and tranquility came an unbearable longing for the Motherland, which was so exhausting that the poetess literally dreamed of returning to Moscow. Contrary to common sense and reports coming from Russia about the Red Terror, arrests and mass executions of those who were once the flower of the Russian intelligentsia. In 1932, Tsvetaeva wrote a surprisingly poignant and very personal poem, which later played an important role in her fate. When the poetess’s family nevertheless decided to return to Moscow and submitted the appropriate documents to the Soviet embassy, it was the poem “Motherland” that was considered as one of the arguments in favor of the officials making a positive decision. In him they saw not only loyalty to the new government, but also sincere patriotism, which at that time was actively cultivated among all segments of the population without exception. It was thanks to patriotic poems that the Soviet government turned a blind eye to drunken antics, unambiguous hints and criticism, believing that at this stage of the formation of the state it was much more important for the people to support the opinion that the Soviet Union is the best and fairest country in the world.
However, in the poem "Motherland" Tsvetaeva did not have a single hint of loyalty to the new government, nor was there a single reproach in her direction. This is a work of recollection, permeated with sadness and nostalgia for the past. Nevertheless, the poetess was ready to forget everything that she had to experience in the post-revolutionary years, since she needed this “distance, distant land,” which, although being her homeland, nevertheless became a foreign land for her.
This work has a rather complex form and cannot be understood from the first reading. The patriotism of the poem lies not in praising Russia as such, but in the fact that it accepts it in any guise, and is ready to share the fate of its country, asserting: “I will sign with my lips on the chopping block.” Just for what? Not at all for Soviet power, but for pride, which, despite everything, Russia has not yet lost, remaining, in spite of everyone and everything, a great and powerful power. It was this quality that was consonant with Tsvetaeva’s character, but even she was able to humble her pride in order to be able to return home. There, where indifference, poverty, ignorance, as well as the arrest and death of her family members, recognized as enemies of the people, awaited her. But even such a development of events could not influence the choice of Tsvetaeva, who wanted to see Russia again not out of idle curiosity, but out of a desire to once again feel like part of a huge country, which the poetess could not exchange for personal happiness and well-being, contrary to common sense.
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva
Oh, stubborn tongue!
Why simply - man,
Understand, he sang before me:
“Russia, my homeland!”
But also from the Kaluga hill
She opened up to me -
Far away, distant land!
Foreign land, my homeland!
Distance, born like pain,
So homeland and so -
Rock that is everywhere, throughout
Dahl - I carry all of it with me!
The distance that has moved me closer,
Dahl saying: "Come back
Home!" From everyone - to the highest stars -
Taking pictures of me!
No wonder, water pigeons,
I hit my forehead with distance.
You! I'll lose this hand,
At least two! I'll sign with my lips
On the chopping block: my land is in discord -
Pride, my homeland!
The fate of Marina Tsvetaeva was such that she spent approximately a third of her life abroad. At first she studied in France, learning the wisdom of literature, and after the revolution she emigrated first to Prague, and later to her beloved Paris, where she settled with her children and husband Sergei Efront, a former White Guard officer.
Sergei Efron, Marina Tsvetaeva, son Georgy and daughter Ariadna
The poetess, whose childhood and youth were spent in an intelligent family, where high spiritual values were instilled in children literally from the first years of life, perceived the revolution with horror with its utopian ideas, which later turned into a bloody tragedy for the whole country. Russia in the old and familiar sense ceased to exist for Marina Tsvetaeva, so in 1922, having miraculously obtained permission to emigrate, the poetess was confident that she would forever be able to get rid of nightmares, hunger, an unsettled life and fear for her own life.
However, along with relative prosperity and tranquility came an unbearable longing for the Motherland, which was so exhausting that the poetess literally dreamed of returning to Moscow. Contrary to common sense and reports coming from Russia about the Red Terror, arrests and mass executions of those who were once the flower of the Russian intelligentsia. In 1932, Tsvetaeva wrote a surprisingly poignant and very personal poem “Motherland,” which later played an important role in her fate. When the poetess’s family nevertheless decided to return to Moscow and submitted the appropriate documents to the Soviet embassy, it was the poem “Motherland” that was considered as one of the arguments in favor of the officials making a positive decision. In him they saw not only loyalty to the new government, but also sincere patriotism, which at that time was actively cultivated among all segments of the population without exception. It was thanks to patriotic poems that the Soviet government turned a blind eye to Yesenin’s drunken antics, Blok’s unambiguous hints and Mayakovsky’s criticism, believing that at this stage of the formation of the state it was much more important for the people to support the opinion that the Soviet Union is the best and fairest country in the world.
However, in Tsvetaeva’s poem “Motherland” there was not a single hint of loyalty to the new government, nor was there a single reproach in its direction. This is a work of recollection, permeated with sadness and nostalgia for the past.. Nevertheless, the poetess was ready to forget everything that she had to experience in the post-revolutionary years, since she needed this “distance, distant land,” which, although being her homeland, nevertheless became a foreign land for her.
This work has a rather complex form and cannot be understood from the first reading. The patriotism of the poem lies not in praising Russia as such, but in the fact that Tsvetaeva accepts it in any guise, and is ready to share the fate of her country, asserting: “I will sign with my lips on the chopping block.” Just for what? Not at all for Soviet power, but for pride, which, in spite of everything, Russia has not yet lost, remaining, in spite of everyone and everything, a great and powerful power. It was this quality that was consonant with Tsvetaeva’s character, but even she was able to humble her pride in order to be able to return home. There, where indifference, poverty, ignorance, as well as the arrest and death of her family members, recognized as enemies of the people, awaited her. But even such a development of events could not influence the choice of Tsvetaeva, who wanted to see Russia again not out of idle curiosity, but out of a desire to once again feel like part of a huge country, which the poetess could not exchange for personal happiness and well-being, contrary to common sense.
