People's abstracts. Folk abstracts The tragic fates of the poets of the Silver Age in brief

1. The main artistic achievements in poetry at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

2. M. I. Tsvetaeva

3. A. A. Akhmatova

4. N. S. Gumilyov

5. S. A. Yesenin

6. V. V. Mayakovsky

7. O. E. Mandelstam

The poets of the “Silver Age” worked in very difficult times, a time of catastrophes and social upheavals, revolutions and wars. Poets in Russia in that turbulent era, when people forgot what freedom was, often had to choose between free creativity and life. They had to go through ups and downs, victories and defeats. Creativity became a salvation and a way out, maybe even an escape from the Soviet reality that surrounded them. The source of inspiration was the Motherland, Russia.

Many poets were deported outside the country, sent to hard labor, others were simply shot. But, despite all these circumstances, poets still continued to work miracles: wonderful lines and stanzas were created.

At the end of the 19th century, Russian culture entered a new, relatively short, but extremely rich in vibrant artistic phenomena. For about a quarter of a century - from the beginning of the 1890s. until October 1917 - literally all aspects of Russian life were radically updated - economics, politics, science, technology, culture, art. Literature developed no less intensively.

The transition from the era of classical Russian literature to the new literary time was distinguished by the far from peaceful nature of general cultural and intra-literary life, a rapid - by the standards of the 19th century - change of ethnic guidelines, and a radical renewal of literary techniques. Russian poetry was renewed especially dynamically at this time, again - after the Pushkin era - coming to the forefront of the country's general cultural life. Later, this poetry was called the “poetic renaissance”, or the “Silver Age”.

The main artistic achievements in poetry at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. were associated with the activities of artists of modernist movements - symbolism, acmeism and futurism.

Symbolism

Symbolism is the first and most significant of the modernist movements in Russia. Based on the time of formation and the characteristics of the ideological position in Russian symbolism, it is customary to distinguish two main stages. Poets who made their debut in the 1890s are called “senior symbolists” (V. Ya. Bryusov, K. D. Balmont, D. E. Merezhkovsky, Z. N. Gippius, F. K. Sologub, etc.). In the 1900s New forces poured into symbolism, significantly updating the appearance of the movement (A. A. Blok, Andrei Bely (B. N. Bugaev), V. I. Ivanov, etc.). The “second wave” of symbolism is called “younger symbolism.” The “senior” and “younger” symbolists were separated not so much by age as by the difference in worldviews and the direction of creativity.

Symbolism tried to create a new philosophy of culture and, after going through a painful period of revaluation of values, sought to develop a new universal worldview. Having overcome the extremes of individualism and subjectivism, the symbolists at the dawn of the new century raised the question of the social role of the artist in a new way and began to move towards the creation of such forms of art, the experience of which could unite people again.

the creation of such forms of art, the experience of which could unite people again. Despite the external manifestations of elitism and formalism, symbolism managed in practice to fill the work with the artistic form with new content and, most importantly, to make art more personal. The symbol was the main means of poetic expression of the secret meanings contemplated by artists.

Acmeism

Acmeism (from the Greek akme - the highest degree of something; flowering; peak; tip) arose in the 1910s. in a circle of young poets, initially close to symbolism. The impetus for their rapprochement was opposition to symbolist poetic practice, the desire to overcome the speculativeness and utopianism of symbolist theories. In October 1911, a new literary association was founded - “The Workshop of Poets”. N. S. Gumilyov and S. M. Gorodetsky became the head of the “Workshop”. From the wide range of participants in the “Workshop”, a narrower and more aesthetically more united group of acmeists stood out: N. S. Gumilyov, A. A. Akhmatova, S. M. Gorodetsky, O. E. Mandelstam, M. A. Zenkevich, and V. I. Narbut. The main significance in the poetry of Acmeism is the artistic exploration of the diverse and vibrant world. Acmeists valued such elements of form as stylistic balance, pictorial clarity of images, precise composition, and precision of detail. In the poems of the Acmeists, the fragile edges of things were aesthetized, and a “homely” atmosphere of admiring “cute little things” was affirmed.

The Acmeist program briefly united the most significant poets of this movement. By the beginning of the First World War, the framework of a single poetic school turned out to be too small for them, and each of the Acmeists went their own way.

Futurism

Futurism (from the Latin futurum - future) arose almost simultaneously in Italy and Russia. For the first time, Russian futurism manifested itself publicly in 1910, when the first futurist collection “The Fishing Tank of Judges” was published (its authors were D. D. Burliuk, V. V. Khlebnikov and V. V. Kamensky).

Futurism turned out to be creatively productive: it made people experience art as a problem, changed the attitude towards the problem of intelligibility and incomprehensibility in art. An important consequence of futuristic experiments is the realization that misunderstanding or incomplete understanding in art is not always a disadvantage, but sometimes a necessary condition for a full education. In this regard, the very introduction to art is understood as work and co-creation, rising from the level of passive consumption to the level of existential-worldview.

Talented, intelligent, educated people who were involved in science and art in our country had difficult fates. M. A. Tsvetaeva, A. A. Akhmatova, N. S. Gumilyov, V. V. Mayakovsky, S. A. Yesenin, O. E. Mandelstam - all these poets had a very difficult fate full of losses and deprivations.

Tsvetaeva Marina Ivanovna (1892-1941)

Marina Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow on October 26, 1892 into a highly cultured family devoted to the interests of science and art. Her father, Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, a professor at Moscow University, a famous philologist and art critic, later became the director of the Rumyantsev Museum and the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.

director of the Rumyantsev Museum and founder of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin).

My mother came from a Russified Polish-German family and was a naturally artistically gifted and talented pianist. She died still young in 1906, and the upbringing of two daughters, Marina and Anastasia, and their half-brother Andrei became the work of their deeply loving father. He tried to give children a thorough education, knowledge of European languages, encouraging in every possible way acquaintance with the classics of domestic and foreign literature and art.

At the age of sixteen, Marina Tsvetaeva independently traveled to Paris, where she attended a course in old French literature at the Sorbonne. While studying in Moscow private gymnasiums, she was distinguished not so much by her mastery of compulsory curriculum subjects, but by the breadth of her general cultural interests.

Already at the age of six, Marina Tsvetaeva began writing poetry, and not only in Russian, but also in French and German. And when she turned eighteen, she released her first collection, “Evening Album” (1910), which included basically everything that was written in her student days. The collection was noticed and reviews appeared.

Valery Bryusov was one of the first to respond to “Evening Album”. He wrote: “Marina Tsvetaeva’s poems... always start from some real fact, from something actually experienced.” The poet, critic and subtle essayist Maximilian Voloshin, who lived in Moscow at that time, welcomed the appearance of Tsvetaev’s book even more decisively. He even found it necessary to visit Tsvetaeva at her home. A casual and meaningful conversation about poetry marked the beginning of their friendship - despite the large age difference.

“Evening Album” was followed by two more collections: “The Magic Lantern” (1912) and “From Two Books” (1913), published with the assistance of Tsvetaeva’s youth friend Sergei Efron, whom she married in 1912.

Her two subsequent pre-revolutionary books essentially continue and develop the motifs of chamber lyrics. And at the same time, they already contain the foundations of the future ability to skillfully use the wide emotional gamut of native poetic speech. This was an undoubted bid for poetic maturity.

Tsvetaeva did not understand and did not accept the October Revolution. Only much later, already in exile, was she able to write words that sounded like a bitter condemnation of herself: “Recognize, pass, reject the Revolution - anyway, it is already in you - and from eternity... Not a single major Russian poet of our time who, after the Revolution, the voice did not tremble or grow, no.” But she did not come to this realization easily.

Continuing to live in literature and for literature, Tsvetaeva wrote a lot, with passion. Her poems at that time sounded life-affirming and major. Only in the most difficult moments could the following words escape from her: “Give me peace and joy, let me be happy, you will see how I can do this!” During these years, the State Publishing House published two books by Tsvetaeva: “Versts” (1921) and the fairy tale poem “Tsar-Maiden” (1922).

(1921) and the fairy tale poem “The Tsar-Maiden” (1922).

In May 1922, she was allowed to go abroad to her husband, Sergei Efron, a former White Army officer who found himself in exile, at that time a student at the University of Paris. She lived in the Czech Republic for more than three years and at the end of 1925 she and her family moved to Paris. In the early 20s, she was widely published in White emigrant magazines. We managed to publish the books “Poems to Blok”, “Separation” (both in 1922), “Psyche. Romantics”, “Craft” (both in 1923), the poem fairy tale “Well done” (1924). Soon, Tsvetaeva’s relationship with emigrant circles worsened, which was facilitated by her growing attraction to Russia (“Poems to my son,” “Motherland,” “Longing for the Motherland,” “Long ago...”, “Chelyuskinites,” etc.). The last lifetime collection of poems is “After Russia. 1922-1925” - published in Paris in 1928.

In one of her most difficult moments, Marina Tsvetaeva wrote with bitterness: “...My reader remains in Russia, where my poems do not reach. In emigration, they first print me (in the heat of the moment!), then, having come to their senses, they take me out of circulation, sensing that it’s not theirs - it’s there!” She met the beginning of the Second World War tragically, as evidenced by Tsvetaeva’s last poetic cycle, “Poems for the Czech Republic” (1938 - 1939), associated with the occupation of Czechoslovakia and permeated with hatred of fascism.

In the summer of 1939, after seventeen years of emigration life, having received Soviet citizenship, Marina Tsvetaeva returned to her native land. At first she lives in Moscow, she is given the opportunity to do translations, and she is preparing a new book of poetry.

In July 1941, Tsvetaeva left Moscow and ended up in the forested Kama region, in Yelabuga. Here, in a small town, under the weight of personal misfortunes, alone, in a state of mental depression, she commits suicide on August 31, 1941.

This is how the poet’s life path ends tragically, whose entire destiny has established the organic, inevitable connection of great sincere talent with the fate of Russia.

Marina Tsvetaeva left a significant creative legacy: books of lyric poetry, seventeen poems, eighteen verse dramas, autobiographical, memoir, and historical and literary prose, including essays and philosophical and critical sketches. To this must be added a large number of letters and diary entries. The name of Marina Tsvetaeva is inseparable from the history of Russian poetry. The power of her poems lies not in visual images, but in the bewitching flow of ever-changing, flexible, involving rhythms.

From the wide range of lyrical themes, where everyone, as if to a single center, converges on love - in various shades of this capricious feeling - it is necessary to highlight what for Tsvetaeva remains the most important, deep, determining everything else. She is a poet of the Russian national origin.

The creativity of the period of emigration is imbued with a feeling of anger, contempt, and the deadly irony with which it stigmatizes the entire emigrant world. Depending on this, the stylistic nature of poetic speech.

A direct heir to the traditional melodic and even chanting structure, Tsvetaeva resolutely rejects any melody, preferring to her the compactness of nervous, seemingly spontaneously born speech, only conditionally subordinated to the breakdown into stanzas.

Vetaeva resolutely rejects any melody, preferring to it the compactness of nervous, seemingly spontaneously born speech, only conditionally subordinated to the breakdown into stanzas. Her ode “Praise to the Rich,” “Ode to Walking,” and many other poems of a military accusatory nature are permeated with the amazing power of sarcasm.

There are also works of a personal, lyrical nature, but in them the same fierce protest against petty-bourgeois well-being appears. Even a story about one’s own fate turns into a bitter and sometimes angry reproach to the well-fed, self-satisfied masters of life. So in the short cycle “Factory”, so in the triptych “Poet”, in the poem “Outposts” and much more.

Her poems occupy a special place in Tsvetaeva’s legacy. In essence, a hot, sharp monologue, sometimes slowing down, sometimes accelerating the rapid rhythm. Her passion for poetic drama is known. Interest in theater and drama led Tsvetaeva to create the tragedies “Ariadne” (1924) and “Ferda” (1927), written based on an ancient myth.

In the general history of Russian poetry, Marina Tsvetaeva will always occupy a worthy place. The true innovation of her poetic speech was the natural embodiment in words of a tossing, always searching for truth, restless spirit. The poet of the utmost truth of feeling, Marina Tsvetaeva, with all her difficult fate, with all the rage and uniqueness of her original talent, rightfully entered Russian poetry of the first half of our century.

You walk, looking like me, with your eyes looking down. I lowered them too! Passerby, stop! Read - chicken blindness And picking a bouquet of poppies - That they called me Marina, And how old I was. Don’t think that there is a grave here, that I will appear, threatening... I myself loved too much, Laughing when you shouldn’t! And the blood rushed to my skin, And my curls curled... I was there too, a passerby! Passerby, stop!

Pluck yourself a wild stem And a berry after it, - Cemetery strawberries There is nothing larger and sweeter. But just don’t stand sullenly, with your head hanging on your chest. Think about me easily, Forget about me easily.

How the beam illuminates you! You're covered in gold dust...

After the parents’ family broke up in 1905, the mother and children moved to Yevpatoria, and from there to Kyiv. There Akhmatova graduated from high school and in 1907 entered the law faculty of the Higher Women's Courses in Kyiv. In 1910 she married N.S. Gumilyov. She was with him in 1910 and 1911 in Paris, and in 1912 in Italy. In 1012, the only son was born - L. N. Gumilyov, a famous historian and ethnographer.

According to Akhmatova’s memoirs, she wrote her first poems at the age of 11, but they have not survived. The first poem was published in 1907 in the Parisian magazine “Sirius”, published by N. S. Gumilev, but then there was a break until 1911.

Then Akhmatova began to publish regularly in St. Petersburg and Moscow publications. In March 1912, the first collection of poems entitled “Evening” was published.

called “Evening”. Here the features that determined her creative reputation for many years begin to appear.

“Evening” was a significant success, but true fame came to the poetess after the publication of the collection of poems “The Rosary” (1914). Despite the unfavorable situation (a few months later the war began), the “Rosary Beads” gained great popularity.

In Akhmatov’s early poetry, one can clearly see both a repulsion from many of the creative features developed by symbolism, and a continuation of those traditions that made symbolism the most noticeable poetic movement of the early 20th century. Akhmatova’s poems avoid exoticism and romantic “universality” in the description of the signs of reality, replacing them with extreme specificity of descriptions that are closely related to everyday life. Feeling the connection between Akhmatova’s poetry and the poetic principles of the greatest poets of Russian symbolism, especially Blok, which was emphasized by the poetess in the dedicatory inscription on the collection “Rosary Beads” presented to Blok:

From you came to me anxiety and the ability to write poetry.

Belonging to the number of Acmeist poets and developing many of the principles of Acmeism in her poems, Akhmatova at the same time is burdened by the discipline that reigns in their ranks.

But at the same time, the internal principles of Akhmatova’s poetry are increasingly striving towards the gravity inherent in Acmeism to realize the possibilities in the word to expand the historical and cultural wealth.

Akhmatova’s third collection of poems, “The White Flock” (1917), is notable for the expansion of the poetess’s thematic repertoire. In this book, a prominent place began to be occupied by topics relating not only to personal experiences, but also closely related to the events of the war and the approaching revolution. In the poems, there is a decisive change in Akhmatova’s poetic manner; the intonations of ordinary conversation are replaced by odic, prophetic intonations, which also entails a change in the verse. At the same time, the poetry of the time of the “White Flock” is increasingly saturated with quotations from the lyrics of Pushkin’s era. This allows us to highlight a special “Pushkin layer” in Akhmatova’s work, which becomes more and more saturated over time.

In Akhmatova’s poetry we also find responses to contemporary events, especially political ones. A special place among these responses is occupied by poems written shortly after the October Revolution. In the poem “When in the anguish of suicide...” (1917), which in a later edition begins with the line “I had a voice. He called comfortingly…”, the poetess openly speaks of the poetess’s rejection of revolutionary events, but at the same time, of the impossibility of leaving her homeland, of being away from it in the days of trials.

In 1918 - 1923, Akhmatova’s poetry enjoyed great success, her poems were republished many times, but in the mid-20s, many years of silence began, which lasted until the mid-30s.

The poems written by Akhmatova between 1917 and 1941 clearly show that it was not immediately, not suddenly, that her lyrical muse became accustomed to the new reality and began to sound in unison with the feelings with which she lived in the turbulent first part of the century of her post-October era.

powers that he lived in the turbulent first part of the century of his post-October era.

Akhmatova’s lyrics completely belong to their era and have absorbed it into themselves. Time generously gifted her with happiness and sorrow, the enthusiastic attention of fans of her talent and unfairly harsh accusations of her muse’s hostility to the people, the joy of friendship and a feeling of sad loneliness.

In 1935, Akhmatova’s son Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov was arrested. Anna Andreevna spent seventeen months in prison queues (her son was arrested three times - in 1935, 1938 and 1949). Together with all the people, the poetess experienced the tragedy of Stalin’s repressions. And when one of the women standing next to her asked in a whisper: “Can you describe this multiply?”, Akhmatova replied: “I can.”

This is how the poems that together made up “Requiem” were born. The “Requiem” cycle does not exist in isolation in the poetess’s poetry. The world of Akhmatova's poetry is a world of tragedy. The motives of misfortune and tragedy in early poetry are embodied as personal motives.

Loving the Motherland is not at all easy for Akhmatova: it was on her native land that she had to experience incomparable torment. One can only be amazed that persecuted, doused with streams of slander, experiencing the horror of defenselessness before the grief that befell her, Akhmatova did not hurl a single reproach to the Fatherland.

The most important milestone on Akhmatova’s creative path was 1941, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

The war found Akhmatova in Leningrad, which by the fall had become a front-line city, and the poetess, like all Leningraders, carried through the 900 days of the blockade courage and fortitude unprecedented in the history of mankind.

Love for Russia saved the poetess in 1917 from the temptation to go abroad, into emigration. Love for her native land, love strengthened by the experience and wisdom of the difficult years lived, brought the Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova into the circle of Russian Soviet poets.

Speaking about Akhmatova’s poems written during the war years, noting and highlighting their civic and patriotic pathos, it would be wrong to keep silent about the fact that in these same years and months, poems dictated by despair and a keen sense of tragic loneliness often broke through, like echoes of the past.

But that breakthrough into the big world of folk life, the expression of which was Akhmatova’s patriotic lyrics of 1941-1945, did not pass without a trace in her creative biography.

As a natural continuation of the patriotic lyrics of the war years, the poems “Children Speak”, “Song of Peace”, “Seaside Victory Park” written in the 50s were heard in a different, peaceful time.

Simultaneously with poetry, Akhmatova was engaged in translations of world poetic classics, folk poetry, and poems by modern poets.

As a result of a difficult life lived, the final lines of the autobiography, written by Akhmatova in the preface to the collection of poems published in 1961, sound: “I never stopped writing poetry. For me, they represent my connection with time, with the new life of my people. When I wrote them, I lived by the rhythms that sounded in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived during these years and saw events that had no equal.”

ate events that had no equal.”

I learned to live simply, wisely, To look at the sky and pray to God, And to wander for a long time before the evening, To tire out unnecessary anxiety, When the burdocks rustle in the ravine And the cluster of yellow-red rowan berries droops, I compose cheerful poems About life that is corruptible, corruptible and beautiful. I'm coming back. A fluffy cat licks my palm, purrs sweetly, And a bright fire lights up on the turret of a lake sawmill, Only occasionally the cry of a stork that has flown to the roof cuts through the silence. And if you knock on my door, It seems to me that I won’t even hear. 1912

Gumilyov Nikolai Stepanovich (1886 –1921)

Gumilyov Nikolai was born in 1886 in Kronstadt, in the family of a naval doctor. Soon his father retired, and the family moved to Tsarskoe Selo. Gumilyov began writing poems and stories very early, and his first poems in print appeared in the Tiflis Leaf newspaper in Tiflis, where the family settled in 1900. Three years later, Gumilyov returned to Tsarskoe Selo and entered the 7th grade of the Nikolaev gymnasium, the director of which was the wonderful poet and teacher I. F. Annensky, who had a great influence on his student. Gumilyov studied poorly, especially in the exact sciences; he early recognized himself as a poet and set success in literature as his only goal.

At the end of 1903, he met high school student A. A. Gorenko, the future Anna Akhmatova. The feeling for her largely determined the female images of the first collection of poems, “The Path of the Conquistodors” (1905), where the defining image of Gumilyov’s poetry was created, a lone conqueror who contrasted his world with the dull reality.

In 1906, after graduating from high school, the poet went to Paris, where he attended lectures at the Sorbonne and studied French literature, painting, and theater. In 1908, the second collection, “Romantic Flowers,” dedicated to A. A. Gorenko, was published. V. Ya. Bryusov noted, despite the student nature of the book, the poet’s undoubtedly increased skill.

In May 1908, Gumilyov returned to Russia and began speaking as a critic in the newspaper Rech. His interest in the East prompted a two-month trip to Egypt in the fall of 1908. At the same time he entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, and in 1909 he was transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology. Publishes poems, stories, critical notes. In the column “Letters on Russian Poetry,” which he wrote constantly, Gumilyov expressed opinions about almost all significant poetry collections published in 1909 - 1916, and most of his forecasts about the development of individuals turned out to be accurate.

In December 1909, Gumilev left for Abyssinia for several months. Returning to St. Petersburg, he published a collection of poems, “Pearls” (1910), which brought him wide fame.

The heated controversy around symbolism revealed a deep crisis in this literary movement. As a reaction to symbolism, a new literary movement arose - Acmeism, created by N. Gumilev and S. Gorodetsky. The Acmeists opposed themselves not only to the Symbolists, but also to the Futurists.

Gumilyov’s first acmeistic work was considered to be the poem “Prodigal Son,” written in 1911 and included in the first “acmeistic” book of poems, “Alien Sky” (1912), published a year later.

The poem “Prodigal Son”, written in 1911 and included in the first “acmeistic” book of poems “Alien Sky” (1912), published a year later, was considered Gumilyov’s literary work.

The First World War broke the usual rhythm of life. Nikolai Gumilyov volunteered to go to the front. His courage and contempt for death were legendary. Rare awards for an ensign - two soldiers' "George" awards - serve as the best confirmation of military exploits. It was not for nothing that he was called a poet-warrior. He saw and recognized the horror of war from the inside, showed it in prose and poetry, and some romanticization of battle and feat was a feature of Gumilev - a poet and a man with a pronounced, rare, royal principle both in poetry and in life.

At the end of 1915, the collection “Quiver” was published, which, like the dramatic fairy tale “Child of Allah” (1917) and the dramatic poem “Gondola” (1917), testifies to the strengthening of the narrative principle in Gumilyov’s work. In “Quiver” a new theme for Gumilyov begins to emerge - “about Russia”.

The October Revolution found Gumilyov abroad. He lived in London and Paris, studied oriental literature, translated, and worked on the drama “The Poisoned Tunic.” In May 1918 he returned to Petrograd. He was captured by the tense literary atmosphere of that time. Gumilyov was attracted by M. Gorky to work at the publishing house “World Literature”, taught in literary studios, and lectured at institutes. In 1919, he published a collection of poems, “The Bonfire,” which was considered one of the most beautiful and moving. In 1921, the book “Pillar of Fire” was published, dedicated to Gumilyov’s second wife, A. N. Engelgard.

Gumilyov's life ended tragically in August 1921. Gumilyov’s “crime” was that he “did not inform the Soviet authorities that he was offered to join a conspiratorial officer organization, which he categorically refused.” There are no other materials that would expose Gumilyov in an anti-Soviet conspiracy. The motives for Gumilyov’s behavior are recorded in the interrogation protocol: his friend, with whom he studied and was at the front, tried to involve him in an anti-Soviet organization. The prejudices of noble officer honor, as he stated, did not allow him to go “with a denunciation.”

Gumilev built his life as an approximation to the ideal of the Poet: years of apprenticeship and strict discipline, gradual expansion and at the same time concretization of the world of his images. In his latest, Gumilyov focuses on deep spiritual movements associated with the acute experience of modernity and with a feeling of tragic anxiety.

An excellent artist, he left an interesting and significant literary legacy and had an undoubted influence on the further development of Russian poetry. His students and followers, along with high romanticism, are characterized by the utmost precision of poetic form, so valued by Gumilyov himself, one of the best Russian poets of the early 20th century.

When from the dark abyss of life My proud spirit flew, having regained its sight, A sad-sweet melody sounded at the funeral feast. And in the sounds of this melody, leaning over the marble coffin, the sorrowful maidens kissed my lips and pale forehead.

the framed bowing coffin, the sorrowful maidens kissed my lips and pale forehead. And I, from the bright ether, Remembering my joys, Returned again to the edges of the world To the call of yearning love. And I spread myself with flowers, with the transparent shine of sonorous streams, so that with the fragrant lips of the Earth I could return their kiss.

Yesenin Sergei Alexandrovich (1895 - 1925)

Yesenin was born into a peasant family. From 1904 to 1912 he studied at the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School and at the Spas-Klepevsky School. During this time, he wrote more than 30 poems and compiled a handwritten collection “Sick Thoughts” (1912), which he tried to publish in Ryazan. The Russian village, the nature of central Russia, oral folk art, and most importantly, Russian classical literature had a strong influence on the formation of the young poet and guided his natural talent. Yesenin himself at different times named different sources that fed his work: songs, ditties, fairy tales, spiritual poems, “The Lay of Igorevna’s Host,” the poetry of Lermontov, Nikitin and Nadson. Later he was influenced by Blok, Klyuev, Bely, Gogol, Pushkin.

From Yesenin's letters of 1911-1913, the complex life of the poet emerges. All this was reflected in the poetic world of his lyrics from 1910 to 1913, when he wrote more than 60 poems and poems. Here his love for all living things, for life, for his homeland is expressed.

From the very first verses, Yesenin’s poetry includes themes of homeland and revolution. The poetic world becomes more complex, multidimensional, biblical images and Christian motifs begin to occupy a significant place in it.

In 1915, Yesenin came to Petrograd, met with Blok, who appreciated the “fresh, pure, vociferous,” although “verbose” poems of the “talented peasant nugget poet,” helped him, introduced him to writers and publishers.

Yesenin becomes famous, he is invited to poetry evenings and literary salons.

At the beginning of 1916, the first book “Radunitsa” was published, which included poems written by Yesenin in 1910-1915. The poet's work of 1914-1917 is complex and contradictory. The basis of Yesenin’s worldview is the hut with all its attributes. The huts, surrounded by fences and connected to each other by a road, form a village. And the village, limited by the outskirts, is Yesenin’s Rus', which is cut off from the big world by forests and swamps.

In the pre-revolutionary poetic world of Yesenin, Rus' has many faces: “thoughtful and tender,” humble and violent, poor and cheerful, celebrating “victorious holidays.” In the poem “You Didn’t Believe in My God” (1916), the poet calls Rus' “the sleepy princess”, to the “cheerful faith” to which he himself is now committed. In the poem “Clouds from the necklace...” (1916), the poet seems to predict a revolution - the “transformation” of Russia “through torment and the cross” and a civil war.

But the poet believed that a time would come when all people would become brothers. Hence the desire for universal harmony, for the unity of all things on earth. Therefore, one of the laws of Yesenin’s world is universal metamorphosis (which later led the poet to the Imagists).

there). People, animals, plants, poems and objects - all these, according to Yesenin, are children of the same mother nature. He humanizes nature. The first collection captivates not only with its freshness and lyricism, a living sense of nature, but also with its figurative brightness. The book is imbued with folk poetics (song, spiritual verse), its language reveals many areas, local words and expressions, which also constitutes one of the features of Yesenin’s poetic style.

In the second half of 1916, the poet was preparing a new collection of poems, “Dove”. There are already many genuine lyrical masterpieces in his new poems, such as his poems about bright, tender love, painted in sensual tones - “Do not wander, do not crush in the crimson bushes” (1916), “The hewn horns began to sing” (1016). But the signs of another - convict Rus', through which “people in shackles” wander, are already emerging more clearly. The hero of Yesenin’s lyrics changes - he is either a “tender youth”, “a humble monk”, then a “sinner”, “a tramp and a thief”, “a robber with a flail”, etc. The same duality also defines the image of the “gentle hooligan” in Yesenin’s poems from the period of “Moscow Tavern” (1924).

The events of 1917 caused a sharp change in the poet’s work; it seemed to him that an era of great spiritual renewal, “transformation” of life, and a revaluation of all values ​​was coming. At this time, he creates a cycle of 10 small poems; in them he sings of “violent Rus'” and glorifies the “red summer”.

In the spring of 1918, Yesenin moved from Petrograd to Moscow. There, the collection “Dove” is finally being published, which contains poems from 1916–1917. Then the poet published collections of poems “Transfiguration” (1918), “Rural Book of Hours” (1918). In 1919, “The Keys of Mary,” in which Yesenin formulated his view of art, its essence and purpose. This work was accepted as a manifesto of the Imagists, whose unification took place in 1918 - 1919.

Yesenin's most significant works, which brought him fame as one of the best poets, were created in the 1920s.

Like any great poet, Yesenin is not a thoughtless singer of his feelings and experiences, but a poet-philosopher. Like all poetry, his lyrics are philosophical. Philosophical lyrics are poems in which the poet talks about the eternal problems of human existence, conducts a poetic dialogue with man, nature, earth, and the Universe. An example of the complete interpenetration of nature and man is the poem “Green Hairstyle” (1918). It develops in two planes: birch - girl. The reader will never know who this poem is about - a birch tree or a girl. Because the person here is likened to a tree - the beauty of the Russian forest, and she is like a person. The birch tree in Russian poetry is a symbol of beauty, perseverance, and youth; she is bright and chaste.

The poetry of nature and the mythology of the ancient Slavs permeate such poems of 1918 as “The Silver Road...”, “Songs, songs, what are you shouting about? ", "I'll leave. dear home...", "Golden foliage began to spin...", etc.

Yesenin's poetry of the last, most tragic years (1922-1925) is marked by a desire for a harmonious worldview.

appeasement. Most often in the lyrics one feels a deep understanding of oneself and the Universe (“I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry...”, “The golden grove dissuaded...”, “Now we are leaving little by little...”, etc.).” I don’t regret” I don’t call, I don’t cry...) - (1922) - one of the peaks of Yesenin’s poetry, This poem is imbued with lyricism, extreme spiritual openness, replete with “earthly” images, written out brightly and juicily. The juxtaposition of phrases from the poetic vocabulary of the 19th century is surprising century (“Oh my lost freshness”) and the typically Yesenin folk-human “riot of eyes and flood of feelings” The content of the poem is both concrete and conditional at the same time. Next to the poetic details of the earthly world (“white apple trees smoke”, “country of birch calico”, “spring echoing early”) - a mythological, symbolic image - the image of a pink horse. A pink horse is a symbol of sunrise, spring, joy, life... But a real peasant horse at dawn also turns pink in the rays of the rising sun. The essence of this poem is a song of gratitude, a blessing for all living things.

The system of values ​​in Yesenin’s poetry is united and indivisible; everything in it is interconnected, everything forms a single picture of the “beloved homeland” in all the diversity of its shades. This is the highest ideal of the poet. The poet understood that the village close to his heart is “fading Russia.” 06 this is evidenced by his poem “Sorokoust” ( 1920), collections of poems “Treryadnitsa” (1920), “Confession of a hooligan” (1921), “Poems of a brawler” (1923), “Moscow Tavern” (1924), “Soviet Russia” (1925) “Soviet Country” (1925) , "Persian Motifs" (1925).

The poem “Anna Snegina” (1925) became in many ways the final work, in which the poet’s personal fate was interpreted with the fate of the people.

Having passed away at the age of 30, S. A. Yesenin left us a wonderful poetic legacy. And as long as the earth lives, Yesenin the poet is destined to live with us and sing with all his being in the poet the sixth part of the earth with the short name “Rus”.

I am the last poet of the village, The plank bridge is modest in songs. At the farewell mass of the birch trees burning with leaves. The candle made of flesh wax will burn out with a golden flame, And the wooden clock of the moon will wheeze my twelfth hour. An iron guest will soon appear on the path of the blue field. Oatmeal, spilled at dawn, will be collected by a black handful. Not living, alien palms, These songs cannot live with you! Only the horses will grieve about the old owner. The wind will suck their neighing, celebrating a funeral dance. Soon, soon the wooden clock will wheeze my twelfth hour! (1920)

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich (1893-1930)

Vladimir Mayakovsky was born in 1893 in the Caucasus into the family of a forester. A free childhood in the village of Baghdad, among forested mountains, under the generous southern sun, early awakened a poetic feeling in the boy. He loved poetry, drew well, and loved long trips.

The events of the first Russian revolution (1905) left a noticeable mark on the biography of the future poet. A second-grade student at the gymnasium, Volodya Mayakovsky, took part in revolutionary youth protests and became acquainted with Social Democratic literature.

I became acquainted with social democratic literature.

After the death of his father, the family moved to Moscow. The future poet was engaged in revolutionary activities, worked as a propagandist among workers, and was arrested three times. In 1910, Mayakovsky was released from Butyrka prison, where he spent 11 months.

Mayakovsky's release from prison was in the full sense a release into art. In 1911 he entered the Moscow School of Painting. In Mayakovsky’s early poems, the outlines of a lyrical hero appear, who painfully and intensely strives to know himself (“Night”, “Morning”, “Could you?”, “From fatigue”, “Veil jacket”). In the poems “Here! ", "To you! “,” “I don’t understand anything,” “That’s how I became a dog” real historical content: here the lyrical hero consciously strives to be a “stranger” in a world alien to him. For this, Mayakovsky uses the characteristic quality of the grotesque - a combination of plausibility and fantasy.

In 1913, the poet worked on his first major work, a kind of dramatic version of early lyrics - the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky”. B. Pasternak wrote: “The tragedy was called “Vladimir Mayakovsky.” The title hid the ingeniously simple discovery that the poet is not the author, but the subject of the lyrics, addressing the world in the first person. The title was not the name of the writer, but the surname of the content.”

The pinnacle of the great poet’s pre-revolutionary creativity is the poem “Cloud in Pants” (original title “The Thirteenth Apostle”). In this poem, Mayakovsky realizes himself as a singer of humanity, oppressed by the existing system, which rises to fight.

In the pre-revolutionary years, Mayakovsky's skill as a satirist grew stronger. He creates satirical hymns (“Hymn to the Judge,” “Hymn to Health,” “Hymn to Lunch,” “Hymn to the Bribe,” “Hymn to the Critic”).

On the eve of the revolution, the poet writes poems “War and Peace” and “Man” imbued with motifs of peace and humanism. The premonition of impending revolutionary upheavals inspired confidence in the speedy implementation of these predictions. Mayakovsky foresaw the moral image of the future in “War and Peace”; he believed that the man of the future would be free. And in the poem “Man” the author continues this theme. A free, “real” person comes to Earth, but she, the “cursed” one, fetters him, opposing “oceans of love”, “gold gates of money”. The hero of the poem passionately resists the laws of existence, and at the end of the work one can feel the feeling of the inevitable, imminent collapse of the old world.

Mayakovsky enthusiastically opposed the October Revolution: “My Revolution,” and this determined the nature of his work in the post-October period. He sought to give “...a heroic, epic and satirical portrayal of our era.” He writes poems glorifying the construction of communism, the Soviet man, and the socialist Motherland.

In the 20s, the poet traveled a lot around his native country and often visited abroad. Mayakovsky's foreign poems are an important part of his creative heritage.

In 1918, the poet wrote “Mystery-bouffe”, in 1921 - “150,000,000”, in 1923-1924.

year the poet writes “Mystery-bouffe”, in 1921 - “150,000,000”, in 1923-1924. - “IV International”. In V.I. Lenin, Mayakovsky saw the embodiment of the ideal model of the man of the future and dedicated the poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” (1924) to him.

The poet was an implacable enemy of philistinism, and this is shown in his plays “The Bedbug” (1928) and “Bathhouse” (1929), the characters of which were included in the gallery of the best satirical images of the Soviet theater.

In 1925, the poet went to America. This was his sixth trip abroad. In many cities, the poet read his poems and answered questions from listeners. His poems written in 1925-1926 are widely known: “To Comrade Nette - the Steamship and the Man”, “Black and White”, “Poems about the Soviet Passport”, “Khrenov’s Story about Kuznetskstroy and the People of Kuznetsk”, “Broadway” and others .

In 1927, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, the poet created the poem “Good,” which became one of the greatest achievements of socialist realism.

Mayakovsky also wrote poems for children. A special place among them is occupied by the poem “What is good and what is bad” (1925).

The poet did not have time to complete the planned poem about the five-year plan “At the top of his voice” (1930). Only the introduction was written.

“I am a poet. This is what makes it interesting. This is what I’m writing about,” - this is how the poet begins his autobiography, and this is how the poet lived his short, but surprisingly rich, vibrant life. "Life is Beautiful and amazing!" - such is the motive of Mayakovsky’s post-October creativity. But, noticing the sprouts of something new and beautiful in life, the poet never tires of reminding that “there are still a lot of different scoundrels walking around our land and around.” Not every poem stands the test of time. But Mayakovsky’s work is dominated by the idea of ​​the immortality of what is created in his works, faith in reason and gratitude to descendants.

No matter how tragic Mayakovsky’s personal fate may be, in the history of world literature it is difficult to point out an example of such an amazing correspondence between the era, its character and the personality of the poet, the essence of his talent, as if created by history for the time when he lived and spoke.

IT'S EARLY TO REJOICE

We are looking for the future. There were miles of ends. And they themselves settled in the cemetery, crushed under the slabs of palaces. You will find a White Guard and go to the wall. Have you forgotten Raphael? Have you forgotten Rastrelli? It's time for bullets to run down the walls of museums. Shoot old stuff with hundred-inch gulps! You sow death in the enemy camp. Don't get caught, the capital is hired. Is Tsar Alexander standing on Vosstanii Square? Dynamites over there! They lined up the guns along the edge of the forest, deaf to the White Guard's caresses. Why wasn’t Pushkin attacked? What about the other classic generals? We protect junk in the name of art. Or has the teeth of revolutions touched the crowns? Quicker! Clear the smoke over the Winter pasta factory! We spent a day or two shooting with guns and we thought we’d kill the old man in the morning. What's this! Changing your jacket outside is not enough, comrades! Turn your guts out! (1918)

Osip Emilievich Mandelstam (1891 - 1938)

Mandelstam knew the true value of his poetic talent. In a letter to Yu. N. Tynyanov dated January 21, 1937, he wrote “For a quarter of a century now, I, mixing important things with trifles, have been floating on Russian poetry, but soon my poems will merge with it, changing something in its structure and composition.” .

937 he wrote “For a quarter of a century now, I, mixing important things with trifles, have been floating on Russian poetry, but soon my poems will merge with it, changing something in its structure and composition.” Never betraying his calling in any way, the poet at the same time preferred the position of a prophet, a priest, to the position of living with people, creating what people urgently need. His reward was persecution, poverty, and finally death. But the poems paid for at such a price, not published for decades, cruelly persecuted, remained to live - and now enter our consciousness as high examples of dignity and the strength of human genius.

Osip Emilievich Mandelstam was born on January 3 (15), 1891 in Warsaw into the family of a businessman who was never able to create a fortune. But St. Petersburg became the poet’s hometown: he grew up here, graduated from one of the best in Russia at that time, the Tenishev School, and then studied at the Romance-Germanic department of the university’s philological faculty. In St. Petersburg, Mandelstam began writing poetry, publishing, and in 1913 he published his first book, “Stone.” Having soon left the city on the Neva, Mandelstam would return here again, “to the city, familiar to tears, to veins, to children’s swollen glands” - but each time he would not return for long. However, meetings with the “northern capital”, “Transparent Petropolis”, where “the narrow canals under the ice are even blacker”, will be frequent - in poems generated by the feeling of blood involvement of one’s fate in the fate of one’s native city, and admiration for its beauty, and the feeling the significance of his role in the history of not only Russia, but the world.

Mandelstam apparently began to try his hand at poetry in 1907-1908; his poems were first published in the August issue of the Apollo magazine in 1910. Very little time will pass, and poetry will become the meaning and content of his life.

He was an open person, joyfully meeting people halfway, who did not know how to deceive, pretend, and especially lie. He never wanted to trade his gift, preferring freedom to satiety and comfort: well-being was not a condition for creativity for him. He did not seek misfortune, but he did not pursue happiness either. “Why did you get it into your head that you must be happy?” - he said, responding to his wife’s reproaches. He sincerely tried to fit into the new life, to listen to the voice of the future life around him, but gradually he felt its opposition to himself. More than once he found himself on the verge of death. This was the case when in 1919, fleeing hunger, the poet left Moscow; Mandelstam was twice arrested by whites on ridiculous charges, and only thanks to fortunate circumstances did he manage to escape. He did not dodge and in 1934, arrested on charges of authoring poems in which unheard-of harsh words were spoken against Stalin, he did not think of being cunning, thereby signing his own death warrant.

It is difficult to find a poet in the history of Russian literature whose fate was as tragic as that of Mandelstam. Having served his term of exile in Voronezh, Mandelstam returned to Moscow in May 1937, but less than a year had passed before he was arrested a second time on the absurd charge of counter-revolutionary activities and sent to a Far Eastern camp, where he soon died.

to Moscow, but less than a year had passed before he was arrested a second time on the absurd charge of counter-revolutionary activities and sent to a Far Eastern camp, where he soon died. The official certificate received by the poet's widow states that he died on December 27, 1938.

In the memory of those who knew Mandelstam, he remained an example of a man who courageously fulfilled his duty and therefore never lost his self-esteem. His poems, born of the happiness of living on earth, deep thoughts about time and man, and tragic tossing in anticipation of the death overtaking him, also convince us of this. They are always deeply humane, giving the reader the joy of meeting the true - lofty and beautiful! - art: The mounds of people’s heads recede into the distance, I shrink there - no one will notice me, But in gentle books and in children’s games I will rise again to say that the sun is shining.

My age, my beast, who will be able to look into your pupils and glue the vertebrae of two centuries together with his blood? The builder's blood gushes through the throat from earthly things, The backbone only trembles on the threshold of new days. The creature, as long as there is enough life, must carry the ridge, And the wave plays with the spine unseen. Like tender cartilage, a child, the infant age of the earth. Again the crown of life was sacrificed, like a lamb. To snatch a century from captivity, To begin a new world, The knees of the knotty days must be tied with a flute. This age sways the wave with human melancholy, And in the grass the viper breathes with the measure of the golden age. And the buds will swell, the greenery will sprout, But your spine is broken, My beautiful pathetic age! And with a meaningless smile you look back, cruel and weak, Like a once flexible animal, at the traces of its own paws. The builder's blood gushes through the throat from earthly things, And like a burning fish, it places the warm cartilage of the seas on the shore. And from the high bird net, from the azure wet blocks, indifference pours, pours onto your mortal bruise. 1922

The beginning of the twentieth century... The coming whirlwind of social upheaval, it seems, should sweep away everything. But with the roar of weapons - the Russian-Japanese, the First World War, and other wars - the muses are not silent. I see, I hear, I feel the red-hot hearts of the poets beating, whose poems have now burst into our lives. They broke in and are unlikely to be forgotten. The “Silver Age” is a time of vivid metaphors, a tireless search for the deep meaning of words, sounds, and phrases.

“Silver Age” ... An amazingly capacious word that accurately defined an entire period in the development of Russian verse. The return of romanticism? Obviously, to some extent this is true. In general, this is the birth of a new generation of poets, many of whom left the homeland that rejected them, many of whom died under the millstones of the civil war and Stalinist madness. But Tsvetaeva was right, exclaiming:

My poems, like precious wines, will have their turn!

And it came. Many are now looking more and more closely at these pages, discovering great truths that have been vigilantly guarded for decades from prying eyes. I am glad that I am among these many.

Bibliography

1) Bykova N. G. Schoolchildren’s Handbook.

2) Selected works. A. Blok, V. Mayakovsky, S. Yesenin. Editorial board: Belenkiy G.I., Puzikov A.I., Sobolev L.I., Nikolaev P.A.

3) Krasovsky V. Ya., Ledenev A. V. Applicant’s Handbook.

4) Pronina E. P. Russian literature of the twentieth century.

5) Russian poetry of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Editorial board: Belenky G. A., Puzikov A. I., Shcherbina V. R., Nikolaev P. A.

6) Russian Soviet poetry. Editorial board: Belenkiy G.I., Puzikov A.I., Sobolev L.I., Litvinov V.M.

1. The main artistic achievements in poetry at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

2. M. I. Tsvetaeva

3. A. A. Akhmatova

4. N. S. Gumilyov

5. S. A. Yesenin

6. V. V. Mayakovsky

7. O. E. Mandelstam

The poets of the “Silver Age” worked in very difficult times, a time of catastrophes and social upheavals, revolutions and wars. Poets in Russia in that turbulent era, when people forgot what freedom was, often had to choose between free creativity and life. They had to go through ups and downs, victories and defeats. Creativity became a salvation and a way out, maybe even an escape from the Soviet reality that surrounded them. The source of inspiration was the Motherland, Russia.

Many poets were deported outside the country, sent to hard labor, others were simply shot. But, despite all these circumstances, poets still continued to work miracles: wonderful lines and stanzas were created.

At the end of the 19th century, Russian culture entered a new, relatively short, but extremely rich in vibrant artistic phenomena. For about a quarter of a century - from the beginning of the 1890s. until October 1917 - literally all aspects of Russian life were radically updated - economics, politics, science, technology, culture, art. Literature developed no less intensively.

The transition from the era of classical Russian literature to the new literary time was distinguished by the far from peaceful nature of general cultural and intra-literary life, a rapid - by the standards of the 19th century - change of ethnic guidelines, and a radical renewal of literary techniques. Russian poetry was renewed especially dynamically at this time, again - after the Pushkin era - coming to the forefront of the country's general cultural life. Later, this poetry was called the “poetic renaissance”, or the “Silver Age”.

The main artistic achievements in poetry at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. were associated with the activities of artists of modernist movements - symbolism, acmeism and futurism.

Symbolism

Symbolism is the first and most significant of the modernist movements in Russia. Based on the time of formation and the characteristics of the ideological position in Russian symbolism, it is customary to distinguish two main stages. Poets who made their debut in the 1890s are called “senior symbolists” (V. Ya. Bryusov, K. D. Balmont, D. E. Merezhkovsky, Z. N. Gippius, F. K. Sologub, etc.). In the 1900s New forces poured into symbolism, significantly updating the appearance of the movement (A. A. Blok, Andrei Bely (B. N. Bugaev), V. I. Ivanov, etc.). The “second wave” of symbolism is called “younger symbolism.” The “senior” and “younger” symbolists were separated not so much by age as by the difference in worldviews and the direction of creativity.

Symbolism tried to create a new philosophy of culture and, after going through a painful period of revaluation of values, sought to develop a new universal worldview. Having overcome the extremes of individualism and subjectivism, the symbolists at the dawn of the new century raised the question of the social role of the artist in a new way and began to move towards the creation of such forms of art, the experience of which could unite people again. Despite the external manifestations of elitism and formalism, symbolism managed in practice to fill the work with the artistic form with new content and, most importantly, to make art more personal. The symbol was the main means of poetic expression of the secret meanings contemplated by artists.

Acmeism (from the Greek akme - the highest degree of something; flowering; peak; tip) arose in the 1910s. in a circle of young poets, initially close to symbolism. The impetus for their rapprochement was opposition to symbolist poetic practice, the desire to overcome the speculativeness and utopianism of symbolist theories. In October 1911, a new literary association was founded - “The Workshop of Poets”. N. S. Gumilyov and S. M. Gorodetsky became the head of the “Workshop”. From the wide range of participants in the “Workshop”, a narrower and more aesthetically more united group of acmeists stood out: N. S. Gumilyov, A. A. Akhmatova, S. M. Gorodetsky, O. E. Mandelstam, M. A. Zenkevich, and V. I. Narbut. The main significance in the poetry of Acmeism is the artistic exploration of the diverse and vibrant world. Acmeists valued such elements of form as stylistic balance, pictorial clarity of images, precise composition, and precision of detail. In the poems of the Acmeists, the fragile edges of things were aesthetized, and a “homely” atmosphere of admiring “cute little things” was affirmed.

The Acmeist program briefly united the most significant poets of this movement. By the beginning of the First World War, the framework of a single poetic school turned out to be too small for them, and each of the Acmeists went their own way.

Futurism

Futurism (from the Latin futurum - future) arose almost simultaneously in Italy and Russia. For the first time, Russian futurism manifested itself publicly in 1910, when the first futurist collection “The Fishing Tank of Judges” was published (its authors were D. D. Burliuk, V. V. Khlebnikov and V. V. Kamensky).

Futurism turned out to be creatively productive: it made people experience art as a problem, changed the attitude towards the problem of intelligibility and incomprehensibility in art. An important consequence of futuristic experiments is the realization that misunderstanding or incomplete understanding in art is not always a disadvantage, but sometimes a necessary condition for a full education. In this regard, the very introduction to art is understood as work and co-creation, rising from the level of passive consumption to the level of existential-worldview.

Talented, intelligent, educated people who were involved in science and art in our country had difficult fates. M. A. Tsvetaeva, A. A. Akhmatova, N. S. Gumilyov, V. V. Mayakovsky, S. A. Yesenin, O. E. Mandelstam - all these poets had a very difficult fate full of losses and deprivations.

Tsvetaeva Marina Ivanovna (1892-1941)

Marina Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow on October 26, 1892 into a highly cultured family devoted to the interests of science and art. Her father, Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, a professor at Moscow University, a famous philologist and art critic, later became the director of the Rumyantsev Museum and the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin).

My mother came from a Russified Polish-German family and was a naturally artistically gifted and talented pianist. She died still young in 1906, and the upbringing of two daughters, Marina and Anastasia, and their half-brother Andrei became the work of their deeply loving father. He tried to give children a thorough education, knowledge of European languages, encouraging in every possible way acquaintance with the classics of domestic and foreign literature and art.

At the age of sixteen, Marina Tsvetaeva independently traveled to Paris, where she attended a course in old French literature at the Sorbonne. While studying in Moscow private gymnasiums, she was distinguished not so much by her mastery of compulsory curriculum subjects, but by the breadth of her general cultural interests.

Already at the age of six, Marina Tsvetaeva began writing poetry, and not only in Russian, but also in French and German. And when she turned eighteen, she released her first collection, “Evening Album” (1910), which included basically everything that was written in her student days. The collection was noticed and reviews appeared.

Valery Bryusov was one of the first to respond to “Evening Album”. He wrote: “Marina Tsvetaeva’s poems... always start from some real fact, from something actually experienced.” The poet, critic and subtle essayist Maximilian Voloshin, who lived in Moscow at that time, welcomed the appearance of Tsvetaev’s book even more decisively. He even found it necessary to visit Tsvetaeva at her home. A casual and meaningful conversation about poetry marked the beginning of their friendship - despite the large age difference.

“Evening Album” was followed by two more collections: “The Magic Lantern” (1912) and “From Two Books” (1913), published with the assistance of Tsvetaeva’s youth friend Sergei Efron, whom she married in 1912.

Her two subsequent pre-revolutionary books essentially continue and develop the motifs of chamber lyrics. And at the same time, they already contain the foundations of the future ability to skillfully use the wide emotional gamut of native poetic speech. This was an undoubted bid for poetic maturity.

Tsvetaeva did not understand and did not accept the October Revolution. Only much later, already in exile, was she able to write words that sounded like a bitter condemnation of herself: “Recognize, pass, reject the Revolution - anyway, it is already in you - and from eternity... Not a single major Russian poet of our time who, after the Revolution, the voice did not tremble and did not grow - no.” But she did not come to this realization easily.

Continuing to live in literature and for literature, Tsvetaeva wrote a lot, with passion. Her poems at that time sounded life-affirming and major. Only in the most difficult moments could the following words escape from her: “Give me peace and joy, let me be happy, you will see how I can do this!” During these years, the State Publishing House published two books by Tsvetaeva: “Versts” (1921) and the fairy tale poem “The Tsar Maiden” (1922).

In May 1922, she was allowed to go abroad to her husband, Sergei Efron, a former White Army officer who found himself in exile, at that time a student at the University of Paris. She lived in the Czech Republic for more than three years and at the end of 1925 she and her family moved to Paris. In the early 20s, she was widely published in White emigrant magazines. We managed to publish the books “Poems to Blok”, “Separation” (both in 1922), “Psyche. Romantics”, “Craft” (both in 1923), the poem fairy tale “Well done” (1924). Soon, Tsvetaeva’s relationship with emigrant circles worsened, which was facilitated by her growing attraction to Russia (“Poems to my son”, “Motherland”, “Longing for the Motherland”, “Long ago...”, “Chelyuskintsy”, etc.). The last lifetime collection of poems is “After Russia. 1922-1925” - published in Paris in 1928.

In one of her most difficult moments, Marina Tsvetaeva wrote with bitterness: “...My reader remains in Russia, where my poems do not reach. In emigration, they first print me (in the heat of the moment!), then, having come to their senses, they take me out of circulation, sensing that it’s not theirs - it’s there!” She met the beginning of the Second World War tragically, as evidenced by Tsvetaeva’s last poetic cycle - “Poems for the Czech Republic” (1938 - 1939), associated with the occupation of Czechoslovakia and permeated with hatred of fascism.

In the summer of 1939, after seventeen years of emigration life, having received Soviet citizenship, Marina Tsvetaeva returned to her native land. At first she lives in Moscow, she is given the opportunity to do translations, and she is preparing a new book of poetry.

In July 1941, Tsvetaeva left Moscow and ended up in the forested Kama region, in Yelabuga. Here, in a small town, under the weight of personal misfortunes, alone, in a state of mental depression, she commits suicide on August 31, 1941.

This is how the poet’s life path ends tragically, whose entire destiny has established the organic, inevitable connection of great sincere talent with the fate of Russia.

Marina Tsvetaeva left a significant creative legacy: books of lyric poetry, seventeen poems, eighteen verse dramas, autobiographical, memoir, and historical and literary prose, including essays and philosophical and critical sketches. To this must be added a large number of letters and diary entries. The name of Marina Tsvetaeva is inseparable from the history of Russian poetry. The power of her poems lies not in visual images, but in the bewitching flow of ever-changing, flexible, involving rhythms.

From the wide range of lyrical themes, where everyone, as if to a single center, converges on love - in various shades of this capricious feeling - it is necessary to highlight what for Tsvetaeva remains the most important, deep, determining everything else. She is a poet of the Russian national origin.

The creativity of the period of emigration is imbued with a feeling of anger, contempt, and the deadly irony with which it stigmatizes the entire emigrant world. Depending on this, the stylistic nature of poetic speech.

A direct heir to the traditional melodic and even chanting structure, Tsvetaeva resolutely rejects any melody, preferring to her the compactness of nervous, seemingly spontaneously born speech, only conditionally subordinated to the breakdown into stanzas. Her ode “Praise to the Rich,” “Ode to Walking,” and many other poems of a military accusatory nature are permeated with the amazing power of sarcasm.

There are also works of a personal, lyrical nature, but in them the same fierce protest against petty-bourgeois well-being appears. Even a story about one’s own fate turns into a bitter and sometimes angry reproach to the well-fed, self-satisfied masters of life. So in the short cycle “Factory”, so in the triptych “Poet”, in the poem “Outposts” and much more.

Her poems occupy a special place in Tsvetaeva’s legacy. In essence, a hot, sharp monologue, sometimes slowing down, sometimes accelerating the rapid rhythm. Her passion for poetic drama is known. Interest in theater and drama led Tsvetaeva to create the tragedies “Ariadne” (1924) and “Ferda” (1927), written based on an ancient myth.

In the general history of Russian poetry, Marina Tsvetaeva will always occupy a worthy place. The true innovation of her poetic speech was the natural embodiment in words of a tossing, always searching for truth, restless spirit. The poet of the utmost truth of feeling, Marina Tsvetaeva, with all her difficult fate, with all the rage and uniqueness of her original talent, rightfully entered Russian poetry of the first half of our century.

You walk, looking like me, with your eyes looking down. I lowered them too! Passerby, stop! Read - chicken blindness And picking a bouquet of poppies - That they called me Marina, And how old I was. Don’t think that there is a grave here, that I will appear, threatening... I myself loved too much, Laughing when you shouldn’t! And the blood rushed to my skin, And my curls curled... I was there too, a passerby! Passerby, stop!

Pluck yourself a wild stem And a berry after it, - Cemetery strawberries There is nothing larger and sweeter. But just don’t stand sullenly, with your head hanging on your chest. Think about me easily, Forget about me easily.

How the beam illuminates you! You're covered in gold dust...

After the parents’ family broke up in 1905, the mother and children moved to Yevpatoria, and from there to Kyiv. There Akhmatova graduated from high school and in 1907 entered the law faculty of the Higher Women's Courses in Kyiv. In 1910 she married N.S. Gumilyov. She was with him in 1910 and 1911 in Paris, and in 1912 in Italy. In 1012, the only son was born - L. N. Gumilyov, a famous historian and ethnographer.

According to Akhmatova’s memoirs, she wrote her first poems at the age of 11, but they have not survived. The first poem was published in 1907 in the Parisian magazine Sirius, published by N. S. Gumilev, but then there was a break until 1911.

Then Akhmatova began to publish regularly in St. Petersburg and Moscow publications. In March 1912, the first collection of poems entitled “Evening” was published. Here the features that determined her creative reputation for many years begin to appear.

“Evening” was a significant success, but true fame came to the poetess after the publication of the collection of poems “The Rosary” (1914). Despite the unfavorable situation (a few months later the war began), the “Rosary Beads” gained great popularity.

In Akhmatov’s early poetry, one can clearly see both a repulsion from many of the creative features developed by symbolism, and a continuation of those traditions that made symbolism the most noticeable poetic movement of the early 20th century. Akhmatova’s poems avoid exoticism and romantic “universality” in the description of the signs of reality, replacing them with extreme specificity of descriptions that are closely related to everyday life. Feeling the connection between Akhmatova’s poetry and the poetic principles of the greatest poets of Russian symbolism, especially Blok, which was emphasized by the poetess in the dedicatory inscription on the collection “Rosary Beads” presented to Blok:

From you came to me anxiety and the ability to write poetry.

Belonging to the number of Acmeist poets and developing many of the principles of Acmeism in her poems, Akhmatova at the same time is burdened by the discipline that reigns in their ranks.

But at the same time, the internal principles of Akhmatova’s poetry are increasingly striving towards the gravity inherent in Acmeism to realize the possibilities in the word to expand the historical and cultural wealth.

Akhmatova’s third collection of poems, “The White Flock” (1917), is notable for the expansion of the poetess’s thematic repertoire. In this book, a prominent place began to be occupied by topics relating not only to personal experiences, but also closely related to the events of the war and the approaching revolution. In the poems, there is a decisive change in Akhmatova’s poetic manner; the intonations of ordinary conversation are replaced by odic, prophetic intonations, which also entails a change in the verse. At the same time, the poetry of the time of the “White Flock” is increasingly saturated with quotations from the lyrics of Pushkin’s era. This allows us to highlight a special “Pushkin layer” in Akhmatova’s work, which becomes more and more saturated over time.

In Akhmatova’s poetry we also find responses to contemporary events, especially political ones. A special place among these responses is occupied by poems written shortly after the October Revolution. In the poem “When in the anguish of suicide...” (1917), which in a later edition begins with the line “I had a voice. He called comfortingly...”, the poetess openly speaks of the poetess’s rejection of revolutionary events, but at the same time, of the impossibility of leaving her homeland, of being away from it in the days of trials.

In 1918 - 1923, Akhmatova’s poetry enjoyed great success, her poems were republished many times, but in the mid-20s, many years of silence began, which lasted until the mid-30s.

The poems written by Akhmatova between 1917 and 1941 clearly show that it was not immediately, not suddenly, that her lyrical muse became accustomed to the new reality and began to sound in unison with the feelings with which she lived in the turbulent first part of the century of her post-October era.

Akhmatova’s lyrics completely belong to their era and have absorbed it into themselves. Time generously gifted her with happiness and sorrow, the enthusiastic attention of fans of her talent and unfairly harsh accusations of her muse’s hostility to the people, the joy of friendship and a feeling of sad loneliness.

In 1935, Akhmatova’s son Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov was arrested. Anna Andreevna spent seventeen months in prison queues (her son was arrested three times - in 1935, 1938 and 1949). Together with all the people, the poetess experienced the tragedy of Stalin’s repressions. And when one of the women standing next to her asked in a whisper: “Will you describe this multiplier?” , Akhmatova replied: “I can.”

This is how the poems were born, which together made up “Requiem”. The “Requiem” cycle does not exist in isolation in the poetess’s poetry. The world of Akhmatova's poetry is a world of tragedy. The motives of misfortune and tragedy in early poetry are embodied as personal motives.

Loving the Motherland is not at all easy for Akhmatova: it was on her native land that she had to experience incomparable torment. One can only be amazed that persecuted, doused with streams of slander, experiencing the horror of defenselessness before the grief that befell her, Akhmatova did not hurl a single reproach to the Fatherland.

The most important milestone on Akhmatova’s creative path was 1941, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

The war found Akhmatova in Leningrad, which by the fall had become a front-line city, and the poetess, like all Leningraders, carried through the 900 days of the blockade courage and fortitude unprecedented in the history of mankind.

Love for Russia saved the poetess in 1917 from the temptation to go abroad, into emigration. Love for her native land, love strengthened by the experience and wisdom of the difficult years lived, brought the Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova into the circle of Russian Soviet poets.

Speaking about Akhmatova’s poems written during the war years, noting and highlighting their civic and patriotic pathos, it would be wrong to keep silent about the fact that in these same years and months, poems dictated by despair and a keen sense of tragic loneliness often broke through, like echoes of the past.

But that breakthrough into the big world of folk life, the expression of which was Akhmatova’s patriotic lyrics of 1941-1945, did not pass without a trace in her creative biography.

As a natural continuation of the patriotic lyrics of the war years, the poems “Children Speak”, “Song of Peace”, “Seaside Victory Park” written in the 50s were heard in a different, peaceful time.

Simultaneously with poetry, Akhmatova was engaged in translations of world poetic classics, folk poetry, and poems by modern poets.

As a result of a difficult life lived, the final lines of the autobiography, written by Akhmatova in the preface to the collection of poems published in 1961, sound: “I never stopped writing poetry. For me, they represent my connection with time, with the new life of my people. When I wrote them, I lived by the rhythms that sounded in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived during these years and saw events that had no equal.”

I learned to live simply, wisely, To look at the sky and pray to God, And to wander for a long time before the evening, To tire out unnecessary anxiety, When the burdocks rustle in the ravine And the cluster of yellow-red rowan berries droops, I compose cheerful poems About life that is corruptible, corruptible and beautiful. I'm coming back. A fluffy cat licks my palm, purrs sweetly, And a bright fire lights up on the turret of a lake sawmill, Only occasionally the cry of a stork that has flown to the roof cuts through the silence. And if you knock on my door, It seems to me that I won’t even hear. 1912

Gumilyov Nikolai Stepanovich (1886 –1921)

Gumilyov Nikolai was born in 1886 in Kronstadt, in the family of a naval doctor. Soon his father retired, and the family moved to Tsarskoe Selo. Gumilyov began writing poems and stories very early, and his first poems in print appeared in the Tiflis Leaf newspaper in Tiflis, where the family settled in 1900. Three years later, Gumilyov returned to Tsarskoe Selo and entered the 7th grade of the Nikolaev gymnasium, the director of which was the wonderful poet and teacher I. F. Annensky, who had a great influence on his student. Gumilyov studied poorly, especially in the exact sciences; he early recognized himself as a poet and set success in literature as his only goal.

At the end of 1903, he met high school student A. A. Gorenko, the future Anna Akhmatova. The feeling for her largely determined the female images of the first collection of poems, “The Path of the Conquistodors” (1905), where the defining image of Gumilyov’s poetry was created, a lonely conqueror who contrasted his world with the dull reality.

In 1906, after graduating from high school, the poet went to Paris, where he attended lectures at the Sorbonne and studied French literature, painting, and theater. In 1908, the second collection, “Romantic Flowers,” dedicated to A. A. Gorenko, was published. V. Ya. Bryusov noted, despite the student nature of the book, the poet’s undoubtedly increased skill.

In May 1908, Gumilyov returned to Russia and began speaking as a critic in the newspaper Rech. His interest in the East prompted a two-month trip to Egypt in the fall of 1908. At the same time he entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, and in 1909 he was transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology. Publishes poems, stories, critical notes. In the column “Letters on Russian Poetry,” which he wrote constantly, Gumilyov expressed opinions about almost all significant poetry collections published in 1909 - 1916, and most of his forecasts about the development of individuals turned out to be accurate.

In December 1909, Gumilev left for Abyssinia for several months. Returning to St. Petersburg, he published a collection of poems, “Pearls” (1910), which brought him wide fame.

The heated controversy around symbolism revealed a deep crisis in this literary movement. As a reaction to symbolism, a new literary movement arose - Acmeism, created by N. Gumilev and S. Gorodetsky. The Acmeists opposed themselves not only to the Symbolists, but also to the Futurists.

Gumilyov’s first acmeistic work was considered the poem “The Prodigal Son,” written in 1911 and included in the first “acmeistic” book of poems, “Alien Sky” (1912), published a year later.

The First World War broke the usual rhythm of life. Nikolai Gumilyov volunteered to go to the front. His courage and contempt for death were legendary. Rare awards for an ensign - two soldiers' "George" awards - serve as the best confirmation of military exploits. It was not for nothing that he was called a poet-warrior. He saw and recognized the horror of war from the inside, showed it in prose and poetry, and some romanticization of battle and feat was a feature of Gumilev - a poet and a man with a pronounced, rare, royal principle both in poetry and in life.

At the end of 1915, the collection “Quiver” was published, testifying, like the dramatic fairy tale “Child of Allah” (1917), and the dramatic poem “Gondola” (1917), about the strengthening of the narrative principle in Gumilyov’s work. In “Quiver” a new theme for Gumilyov begins to emerge - “about Russia”.

The October Revolution found Gumilyov abroad. He lived in London and Paris, studied oriental literature, translated, and worked on the drama “The Poisoned Tunic.” In May 1918 he returned to Petrograd. He was captured by the tense literary atmosphere of that time. Gumilyov was attracted by M. Gorky to work at the publishing house “World Literature”, taught in literary studios, and lectured at institutes. In 1919 he published a collection of poems, “The Bonfire,” which was considered one of the most beautiful and moving. In 1921, the book “Pillar of Fire” was published, dedicated to Gumilyov’s second wife, A. N. Engelgard.

Gumilyov's life ended tragically in August 1921. Gumilev’s “crime” was that he “did not inform the Soviet authorities that he was offered to join a conspiratorial officer organization, which he categorically refused.” There are no other materials that would expose Gumilyov in an anti-Soviet conspiracy. The motives for Gumilyov’s behavior are recorded in the interrogation protocol: his friend, with whom he studied and was at the front, tried to involve him in an anti-Soviet organization. The prejudices of noble officer honor, as he stated, did not allow him to go “with a denunciation.”

Gumilev built his life as an approximation to the ideal of the Poet: years of apprenticeship and strict discipline, gradual expansion and at the same time concretization of the world of his images. In his latest, Gumilyov focuses on deep spiritual movements associated with the acute experience of modernity and with a feeling of tragic anxiety.

An excellent artist, he left an interesting and significant literary legacy and had an undoubted influence on the further development of Russian poetry. His students and followers, along with high romanticism, are characterized by the utmost precision of poetic form, so valued by Gumilyov himself, one of the best Russian poets of the early 20th century.

When from the dark abyss of life My proud spirit flew, having regained its sight, A sad-sweet melody sounded at the funeral feast. And in the sounds of this melody, leaning over the marble coffin, the sorrowful maidens kissed my lips and pale forehead. And I, from the bright ether, Remembering my joys, Returned again to the edges of the world To the call of yearning love. And I spread myself with flowers, with the transparent shine of sonorous streams, so that with the fragrant lips of the Earth I could return their kiss.

Yesenin Sergei Alexandrovich (1895 - 1925)

Yesenin was born into a peasant family. From 1904 to 1912 he studied at the Konstantinovsky Zemstvo School and at the Spas-Klepevsky School. During this time, he wrote more than 30 poems and compiled a handwritten collection “Sick Thoughts” (1912), which he tried to publish in Ryazan. The Russian village, the nature of central Russia, oral folk art, and most importantly, Russian classical literature had a strong influence on the formation of the young poet and guided his natural talent. Yesenin himself at different times named different sources that fed his work: songs, ditties, fairy tales, spiritual poems, “The Tale of Igorevna’s Campaign,” the poetry of Lermontov, Nikitin and Nadson. Later he was influenced by Blok, Klyuev, Bely, Gogol, Pushkin.

From Yesenin's letters of 1911-1913, the complex life of the poet emerges. All this was reflected in the poetic world of his lyrics from 1910 to 1913, when he wrote more than 60 poems and poems. Here his love for all living things, for life, for his homeland is expressed.

From the very first verses, Yesenin’s poetry includes themes of homeland and revolution. The poetic world becomes more complex, multidimensional, biblical images and Christian motifs begin to occupy a significant place in it.

In 1915, Yesenin came to Petrograd, met with Blok, who appreciated the “fresh, pure, vociferous”, albeit “verbose” poems of the “talented peasant poet-nugget”, helped him, introduced him to writers and publishers.

Yesenin becomes famous, he is invited to poetry evenings and literary salons.

At the beginning of 1916, the first book “Radunitsa” was published, which included poems written by Yesenin in 1910-1915. The poet's work of 1914-1917 is complex and contradictory. The basis of Yesenin’s worldview is the hut with all its attributes. The huts, surrounded by fences and connected to each other by a road, form a village. And the village, limited by the outskirts, is Yesenin’s Rus', which is cut off from the big world by forests and swamps.

In the pre-revolutionary poetic world of Yesenin, Rus' has many faces: “thoughtful and tender,” humble and violent, poor and cheerful, celebrating “victorious holidays.” In the poem “You Didn’t Believe in My God” (1916), the poet calls Rus' a “sleepy princess”, to a “cheerful faith” to which he himself is now committed. In the poem “Clouds from the necklace...” (1916), the poet seems to predict a revolution - the “transformation” of Russia “through torment and the cross” and a civil war.

But the poet believed that a time would come when all people would become brothers. Hence the desire for universal harmony, for the unity of all things on earth. Therefore, one of the laws of Yesenin’s world is universal metamorphosis (which later led the poet to the Imagists). People, animals, plants, poems and objects - all these, according to Yesenin, are children of the same mother nature. He humanizes nature. The first collection captivates not only with its freshness and lyricism, a living sense of nature, but also with its figurative brightness. The book is imbued with folk poetics (song, spiritual verse), its language reveals many areas, local words and expressions, which also constitutes one of the features of Yesenin’s poetic style.

In the second half of 1916, the poet was preparing a new collection of poems, “Dove”. There are already many genuine lyrical masterpieces in his new poems, such as his poems about bright, tender love, painted in sensual tones - “Do not wander, do not crush in the crimson bushes” (1916), “The hewn horns began to sing” (1016). But the signs of another are already emerging more clearly - convict Rus', through which “people in shackles” wander. The hero of Yesenin’s lyrics changes - he is either a “tender youth”, “a humble monk”, then a “sinner”, “a tramp and a thief”, “a robber with a flail”, etc. The same duality also defines the image of the “gentle hooligan” in Yesenin’s poems from the period of “Moscow Tavern” (1924).

The events of 1917 caused a sharp change in the poet’s work; it seemed to him that an era of great spiritual renewal, “transformation” of life, and a revaluation of all values ​​was coming. At this time, he creates a cycle of 10 small poems; in them he sings of “violent Rus'” and glorifies the “red summer”.

In the spring of 1918, Yesenin moved from Petrograd to Moscow. The collection “Dove” is finally being published there, incorporating poems from 1916–1917. Then the poet published collections of poems “Transfiguration” (1918), “Rural Book of Hours” (1918). In 1919, “The Keys of Mary”, in which Yesenin formulated his view of art, its essence and purpose. This work was accepted as a manifesto of the Imagists, whose unification took place in 1918 - 1919.

Yesenin's most significant works, which brought him fame as one of the best poets, were created in the 1920s.

Like any great poet, Yesenin is not a thoughtless singer of his feelings and experiences, but a poet-philosopher. Like all poetry, his lyrics are philosophical. Philosophical lyrics are poems in which the poet talks about the eternal problems of human existence, conducts a poetic dialogue with man, nature, earth, and the Universe. An example of the complete interpenetration of nature and man is the poem “Green Hairstyle” (1918). It develops in two planes: birch - girl. The reader will never know who this poem is about - a birch tree or a girl. Because the person here is likened to a tree - the beauty of the Russian forest, and she is like a person. The birch tree in Russian poetry is a symbol of beauty, perseverance, and youth; she is bright and chaste.

The poetry of nature and the mythology of the ancient Slavs permeate such poems of 1918 as “The Silver Road...”, “Songs, songs, what are you shouting about?”, “I will leave my dear home...”, “The golden foliage is spinning.. . " etc.

Yesenin's poetry of the last, most tragic years (1922-1925) is marked by a desire for a harmonious worldview. Most often in the lyrics one can feel a deep understanding of oneself and the Universe (“I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry...”, “The golden grove dissuaded...”, “Now we are leaving little by little...”, etc.).” I don’t regret” I don’t call, I don’t cry...) - (1922) - one of the peaks of Yesenin’s poetry, This poem is imbued with lyricism, extreme spiritual openness, replete with “earthly” images, written out brightly and juicily. The juxtaposition of phrases from the poetic vocabulary of the 19th century is surprising century (“Oh my lost freshness”) and the typically Yesenin folk-human “riot of eyes and flood of feelings” The content of the poem is both concrete and conditional at the same time. Next to the poetic details of the earthly world (“white apple trees smoke”, “country of birch calico”, “spring echoing early”) - a mythological, symbolic image - the image of a pink horse. A pink horse is a symbol of sunrise, spring, joy, life... But a real peasant horse at dawn also turns pink in the rays of the rising sun. The essence of this poem is a song of gratitude, a blessing for all living things.

The system of values ​​in Yesenin’s poetry is united and indivisible; everything in it is interconnected, everything forms a single picture of the “beloved homeland” in all the diversity of its shades. This is the highest ideal of the poet. The poet understood that the village close to his heart is “Departing Russia”. 06 This is evidenced by his poem “Sorokoust” ( 1920), collections of poems “Treryadnitsa” (1920), “Confession of a hooligan” (1921), “Poems of a brawler” (1923), “Moscow Tavern” (1924), “Soviet Russia” (1925) “Soviet Country” (1925) , "Persian motives" (1925).

The poem "Anna Snegina" (1925) became in many ways the final work, in which the poet's personal fate was interpreted with the fate of the people.

Having passed away at the age of 30, S. A. Yesenin left us a wonderful poetic legacy. And as long as the earth lives, Yesenin the poet is destined to live with us and sing with all his being in the poet the sixth part of the earth with the short name “Rus”.

I am the last poet of the village, The plank bridge is modest in songs. At the farewell mass of the birch trees burning with leaves. The candle made of flesh wax will burn out with a golden flame, And the wooden clock of the moon will wheeze my twelfth hour. An iron guest will soon appear on the path of the blue field. Oatmeal, spilled at dawn, will be collected by a black handful. Not living, alien palms, These songs cannot live with you! Only the horses will grieve about the old owner. The wind will suck their neighing, celebrating a funeral dance. Soon, soon the wooden clock will wheeze my twelfth hour! (1920)

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich (1893-1930)

Vladimir Mayakovsky was born in 1893 in the Caucasus into the family of a forester. A free childhood in the village of Baghdad, among forested mountains, under the generous southern sun, early awakened a poetic feeling in the boy. He loved poetry, drew well, and loved long trips.

The events of the first Russian revolution (1905) left a noticeable mark on the biography of the future poet. A second-grade student at the gymnasium, Volodya Mayakovsky, took part in revolutionary youth protests and became acquainted with Social Democratic literature.

After the death of his father, the family moved to Moscow. The future poet was engaged in revolutionary activities, worked as a propagandist among workers, and was arrested three times. In 1910, Mayakovsky was released from Butyrka prison, where he spent 11 months.

Mayakovsky's release from prison was in the full sense a release into art. In 1911 he entered the Moscow School of Painting. In Mayakovsky's early poems, the outlines of a lyrical hero appear, who painfully and intensely strives to know himself (“Night”, “Morning”, “Could you?”, “From fatigue”, “Veil jacket”). In the poems “Here!”, “To you!”, “I don’t understand anything,” “That’s how I became a dog,” there is real historical content: here the lyrical hero consciously strives to be a “stranger” in a world alien to him. For this, Mayakovsky uses the characteristic quality of the grotesque - a combination of plausibility and fantasy.

In 1913, the poet worked on his first major work, a kind of dramatic version of early lyrics - the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky”. B. Pasternak wrote: “The tragedy was called “Vladimir Mayakovsky”. The title hid the ingeniously simple discovery that the poet is not the author, but the subject of the lyrics, addressing the world in the first person. The title was not the name of the writer, but the surname of the content.”

The pinnacle of the great poet’s pre-revolutionary creativity is the poem “Cloud in Pants” (original title “The Thirteenth Apostle”). In this poem, Mayakovsky realizes himself as a singer of humanity, oppressed by the existing system, which rises to fight.

In the pre-revolutionary years, Mayakovsky's skill as a satirist grew stronger. He creates satirical hymns (“Hymn to the Judge,” “Hymn to Health,” “Hymn to Lunch,” “Hymn to the Bribe,” “Hymn to the Critic”).

On the eve of the revolution, the poet writes poems “War and Peace” and “Man” imbued with motifs of peace and humanism. The premonition of impending revolutionary upheavals inspired confidence in the speedy implementation of these predictions. Mayakovsky foresaw the moral image of the future in “War and Peace”; he believed that the man of the future would be free. And in the poem “Man” the author continues this theme. A free, “real” person comes to Earth, but she, the “cursed” one, fetters him, opposing “oceans of love”, “gold gates of money”. The hero of the poem passionately resists the laws of existence, and at the end of the work one can feel the feeling of the inevitable, imminent collapse of the old world.

Mayakovsky enthusiastically opposed the October Revolution: “My Revolution,” and this determined the nature of his work in the post-October period. He sought to give “...a heroic, epic and satirical portrayal of our era.” He writes poems glorifying the construction of communism, the Soviet man, and the socialist Motherland.

In the 20s, the poet traveled a lot around his native country and often visited abroad. Mayakovsky's foreign poems are an important part of his creative heritage.

In 1918, the poet wrote “Mystery-bouffe”, in 1921 - “150,000,000”, in 1923-1924. - “IV International”. In V.I. Lenin, Mayakovsky saw the embodiment of the ideal model of the man of the future and dedicated the poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” (1924) to him.

The poet was an implacable enemy of philistinism, and this is shown in his plays “The Bedbug” (1928) and “Bathhouse” (1929), the characters of which were included in the gallery of the best satirical images of the Soviet theater.

In 1925, the poet went to America. This was his sixth trip abroad. In many cities, the poet read his poems and answered questions from listeners. His poems written in 1925-1926 are widely known: “To Comrade Nette - the Steamship and the Man”, “Black and White”, “Poems about the Soviet Passport”, “Khrenov’s Story about Kuznetskstroy and the People of Kuznetsk”, “Broadway” and others .

In 1927, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, the poet created the poem “Good,” which is one of the largest achievements of socialist realism.

Mayakovsky also wrote poems for children. A special place among them is occupied by the poem “What is good and what is bad” (1925).

The poet did not have time to complete the planned poem about the five-year plan “At the top of his voice” (1930). Only the introduction was written.

“I am a poet. This is what makes it interesting. This is what I’m writing about,” - this is how the poet begins his autobiography, and this is how the poet lived his short, but surprisingly rich, vibrant life. "Life is Beautiful and amazing!" - such is the motive of Mayakovsky’s post-October creativity. But, noticing the sprouts of something new and beautiful in life, the poet never tires of reminding that “there are still a lot of different scoundrels walking around our land and around.” Not every poem stands the test of time. But Mayakovsky’s work is dominated by the idea of ​​the immortality of what is created in his works, faith in reason and gratitude to descendants.

No matter how tragic Mayakovsky’s personal fate may be, in the history of world literature it is difficult to point out an example of such an amazing correspondence between the era, its character and the personality of the poet, the essence of his talent, as if created by history for the time when he lived and spoke.

IT'S EARLY TO REJOICE

We are looking for the future. There were miles of ends. And they themselves settled in the cemetery, crushed under the slabs of palaces. You will find a White Guard and go to the wall. Have you forgotten Raphael? Have you forgotten Rastrelli? It's time for bullets to run down the walls of museums. Shoot old stuff with hundred-inch gulps! You sow death in the enemy camp. Don't get caught, the capital is hired. Is Tsar Alexander standing on Vosstanii Square? Dynamites over there! They lined up the guns along the edge of the forest, deaf to the White Guard's caresses. Why wasn’t Pushkin attacked? What about the other classic generals? We protect junk in the name of art. Or has the teeth of revolutions touched the crowns? Quicker! Clear the smoke over the Winter pasta factory! We spent a day or two shooting with guns and we thought we’d kill the old man in the morning. What's this! Changing your jacket outside is not enough, comrades! Turn your guts out! (1918)

Osip Emilievich Mandelstam (1891 - 1938)

Mandelstam knew the true value of his poetic talent. In a letter to Yu. N. Tynyanov dated January 21, 1937, he wrote “For a quarter of a century now, I, mixing important things with trifles, have been floating on Russian poetry, but soon my poems will merge with it, changing something in its structure and composition.” . Never betraying his calling in any way, the poet at the same time preferred the position of a prophet, a priest, to the position of living with people, creating what people urgently need. His reward was persecution, poverty, and finally death. But the poems paid for at such a price, not published for decades, cruelly persecuted, remained to live - and now enter our consciousness as high examples of dignity and the strength of human genius.

Osip Emilievich Mandelstam was born on January 3 (15), 1891 in Warsaw into the family of a businessman who was never able to create a fortune. But St. Petersburg became the poet’s hometown: he grew up here, graduated from one of the best in Russia at that time, the Tenishev School, and then studied at the Romance-Germanic department of the university’s philological faculty. In St. Petersburg, Mandelstam began writing poetry, publishing, and in 1913 he published his first book, “Stone.” Having soon left the city on the Neva, Mandelstam would return here again, “to the city, familiar to tears, to veins, to children’s swollen glands” - but each time he would not return for long. However, meetings with the “northern capital”, “Transparent Petropolis”, where “canals narrow pencil cases under the ice are even blacker”, will be frequent - in poems generated by the feeling of blood involvement of one’s fate in the fate of one’s native city, and admiration for its beauty, and the feeling the significance of his role in the history of not only Russia, but the world.

Mandelstam apparently began to try his hand at poetry in 1907-1908; his poems were first published in the August issue of the Apollo magazine in 1910. Very little time will pass, and poetry will become the meaning and content of his life.

He was an open person, joyfully meeting people halfway, who did not know how to deceive, pretend, and especially lie. He never wanted to trade his gift, preferring freedom to satiety and comfort: well-being was not a condition for creativity for him. He did not seek misfortune, but he did not pursue happiness either. “Why did you get it into your head that you must be happy?” - he said, responding to his wife’s reproaches. He sincerely tried to fit into the new life, to listen to the voice of the future life around him, but gradually he felt its opposition to himself. More than once he found himself on the verge of death. This was the case when in 1919, fleeing hunger, the poet left Moscow; Mandelstam was twice arrested by whites on ridiculous charges, and only thanks to fortunate circumstances did he manage to escape. He did not dodge and in 1934, arrested on charges of authoring poems in which unheard-of harsh words were spoken against Stalin, he did not think of being cunning, thereby signing his own death warrant.

It is difficult to find a poet in the history of Russian literature whose fate was as tragic as that of Mandelstam. Having served his term of exile in Voronezh, Mandelstam returned to Moscow in May 1937, but less than a year had passed before he was arrested a second time on the absurd charge of counter-revolutionary activities and sent to a Far Eastern camp, where he soon died. The official certificate received by the poet's widow states that he died on December 27, 1938.

In the memory of those who knew Mandelstam, he remained an example of a man who courageously fulfilled his duty and therefore never lost his self-esteem. His poems, born of the happiness of living on earth, deep thoughts about time and man, and tragic tossing in anticipation of the death overtaking him, also convince us of this. They are always deeply humane, giving the reader the joy of meeting the true - lofty and beautiful! - art: The mounds of people’s heads recede into the distance, I shrink there - no one will notice me, But in gentle books and in children’s games I will rise again to say that the sun is shining.

My age, my beast, who will be able to look into your pupils and glue the vertebrae of two centuries together with his blood? The builder's blood gushes through the throat from earthly things, The backbone only trembles on the threshold of new days. The creature, as long as there is enough life, must carry the ridge, And the wave plays with the spine unseen. Like tender cartilage, a child, the infant age of the earth. Again the crown of life was sacrificed, like a lamb. To snatch a century from captivity, To begin a new world, The knees of the knotty days must be tied with a flute. This age sways the wave with human melancholy, And in the grass the viper breathes with the measure of the golden age. And the buds will swell, the greenery will sprout, But your spine is broken, My beautiful pathetic age! And with a meaningless smile you look back, cruel and weak, Like a once flexible animal, at the traces of its own paws. The builder's blood gushes through the throat from earthly things, And like a burning fish, it places the warm cartilage of the seas on the shore. And from the high bird net, from the azure wet blocks, indifference pours, pours onto your mortal bruise. 1922

The beginning of the twentieth century... The coming whirlwind of social upheaval, it seems, should sweep away everything. But with the roar of weapons - the Russian-Japanese, the First World War, and other wars - the muses are not silent. I see, I hear, I feel the red-hot hearts of the poets beating, whose poems have now burst into our lives. They broke in and are unlikely to be forgotten. The “Silver Age” is a time of vivid metaphors, a tireless search for the deep meaning of words, sounds, and phrases.

“Silver Age” ... An amazingly capacious word that accurately defined an entire period in the development of Russian verse. The return of romanticism? Obviously, to some extent this is true. In general, this is the birth of a new generation of poets, many of whom left the homeland that rejected them, many of whom died under the millstones of the civil war and Stalinist madness. But Tsvetaeva was right, exclaiming:

My poems, like precious wines, will have their turn!

And it came. Many are now looking more and more closely at these pages, discovering great truths that have been vigilantly guarded for decades from prying eyes. I am glad that I am among these many.

Bibliography

1) Bykova N. G. Schoolchildren’s Handbook.

2) Selected works. A. Blok, V. Mayakovsky, S. Yesenin. Editorial board: Belenkiy G.I., Puzikov A.I., Sobolev L.I., Nikolaev P.A.

3) Krasovsky V. Ya., Ledenev A. V. Applicant’s Handbook.

4) Pronina E. P. Russian literature of the twentieth century.

5) Russian poetry of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Editorial board: Belenky G. A., Puzikov A. I., Shcherbina V. R., Nikolaev P. A.

6) Russian Soviet poetry. Editorial board: Belenkiy G.I., Puzikov A.I., Sobolev L.I., Litvinov V.M.

The tragedy of the fate of the poets of the “Silver Age”. The country's tragedy

INTRODUCTION
The poets of the “Silver Age” worked in very difficult times, a time of catastrophes and social upheavals, revolutions and wars. Poets in Russia in that turbulent era, when people forgot what freedom was, often had to choose between free creativity and life. They had to go through ups and downs, victories and defeats. Creativity became a salvation and a way out, maybe even an escape from the Soviet reality that surrounded them. The source of inspiration was the Motherland, Russia.
Many poets were deported outside the country, sent to hard labor, others were simply shot. But, despite all these circumstances, poets still continued to work miracles: wonderful lines and stanzas were created.
At the end of the 19th century, Russian culture entered a new, relatively short, but extremely rich in vibrant artistic phenomena. For about a quarter of a century - from the beginning of the 1890s. until October 1917 - literally all aspects of Russian life were radically updated - economics, politics, science, technology, culture, art. Literature developed no less intensively.
The transition from the era of classical Russian literature to the new literary time was distinguished by the far from peaceful nature of general cultural and intra-literary life, a rapid - by the standards of the 19th century - change of ethnic guidelines, and a radical renewal of literary techniques. Russian poetry was renewed especially dynamically at this time, again - after the Pushkin era - coming to the forefront of the country's general cultural life. Later, this poetry was called the “poetic renaissance” or “silver age”.
THE MAIN ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS IN POETRY AT THE TURN OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES.
The main artistic achievements in poetry at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. were associated with the activities of artists of modernist movements - symbolism, acmeism and futurism.
Symbolism
Symbolism is the first and most significant of the modernist movements in Russia. Based on the time of formation and the characteristics of the ideological position in Russian symbolism, it is customary to distinguish two main stages. Poets who made their debut in the 1890s are called “senior symbolists” (V. Ya. Bryusov, K. D. Balmont, D. E. Merezhkovsky, Z. N. Gippius, F. K. Sologub, etc.). In the 1900s New forces poured into symbolism, significantly updating the appearance of the movement (A. A. Blok, Andrei Bely (B. N. Bugaev), V. I. Ivanov, etc.). The “second wave” of symbolism is called “younger symbolism.” The “senior” and “younger” symbolists were separated not so much by age as by the difference in worldviews and the direction of creativity.
Symbolism tried to create a new philosophy of culture and, after going through a painful period of revaluation of values, sought to develop a new universal worldview. Having overcome the extremes of individualism and subjectivism, the symbolists at the dawn of the new century raised the question of the social role of the artist in a new way and began to move towards the creation of such forms of art, the experience of which could unite people again. Despite the external manifestations of elitism and formalism, symbolism managed in practice to fill the work with the artistic form with new content and, most importantly, to make art more personal. The symbol was the main means of poetic expression of the secret meanings contemplated by artists.
Acmeism
Acmeism (from the Greek akme - the highest degree of something; flowering; peak; tip) arose in the 1910s. in a circle of young poets, initially close to symbolism. The impetus for their rapprochement was opposition to symbolist poetic practice, the desire to overcome the speculativeness and utopianism of symbolist theories. In October 1911, a new literary association was founded - “The Workshop of Poets”. N. S. Gumilyov and S. M. Gorodetsky became the head of the “Workshop”. From the wide range of participants in the “Workshop”, a narrower and more aesthetically more united group of acmeists stood out: N. S. Gumilyov, A. A. Akhmatova, S. M. Gorodetsky, O. E. Mandelstam, M. A. Zenkevich, and V. I. Narbut. The main significance in the poetry of Acmeism is the artistic exploration of the diverse and vibrant world. Acmeists valued such elements of form as stylistic balance, pictorial clarity of images, precise composition, and precision of detail. In the poems of the Acmeists, the fragile edges of things were aesthetized, and a “homely” atmosphere of admiring “cute little things” was affirmed.
The Acmeist program briefly united the most significant poets of this movement. By the beginning of the First World War, the framework of a single poetic school turned out to be too small for them, and each of the Acmeists went their own way.
Futurism
Futurism (from the Latin futurum - future) arose almost simultaneously in Italy and Russia. For the first time, Russian futurism manifested itself publicly in 1910, when the first futurist collection “The Fishing Tank of Judges” was published (its authors were D. D. Burliuk, V. V. Khlebnikov and V. V. Kamensky).
Futurism turned out to be creatively productive: it made people experience art as a problem, changed the attitude towards the problem of intelligibility and incomprehensibility in art. An important consequence of futuristic experiments is the realization that misunderstanding or incomplete understanding in art is not always a disadvantage, but sometimes a necessary condition for a full education. In this regard, the very introduction to art is understood as work and co-creation, rising from the level of passive consumption to the level of existential-worldview.
Talented, intelligent, educated people who were involved in science and art in our country had difficult fates. M. A. Tsvetaeva, A. A. Akhmatova, N. S. Gumilyov, V. V. Mayakovsky, S. A. Yesenin, O. E. Mandelstam - all these poets had a very difficult fate full of losses and deprivations.
THE FATES OF THE POETS OF THE SILVER AGE

Tsvetaeva Marina Ivanovna (1892-1941)
Marina Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow on October 26, 1892 into a highly cultured family devoted to the interests of science and art. Her father, Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, a professor at Moscow University, a famous philologist and art critic, later became the director of the Rumyantsev Museum and the founder of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin).
My mother came from a Russified Polish-German family and was a naturally artistically gifted and talented pianist. She died still young in 1906, and the upbringing of two daughters, Marina and Anastasia, and their half-brother Andrei became the work of their deeply loving father. He tried to give children a thorough education, knowledge of European languages, encouraging in every possible way acquaintance with the classics of domestic and foreign literature and art.
At the age of sixteen, Marina Tsvetaeva independently traveled to Paris, where she attended a course in old French literature at the Sorbonne. While studying in Moscow private gymnasiums, she was distinguished not so much by her mastery of compulsory curriculum subjects, but by the breadth of her general cultural interests.
Already at the age of six, Marina Tsvetaeva began writing poetry, and not only in Russian, but also in French and German. And when she turned eighteen, she released her first collection, “Evening Album” (1910), which included basically everything that was written in her student days. The collection was noticed and reviews appeared.
Valery Bryusov was one of the first to respond to “Evening Album”. He wrote: “Marina Tsvetaeva’s poems... always start from some real fact, from something actually experienced.” The poet, critic and subtle essayist Maximilian Voloshin, who lived in Moscow at that time, welcomed the appearance of Tsvetaev’s book even more decisively. He even found it necessary to visit Tsvetaeva at her home. A casual and meaningful conversation about poetry marked the beginning of their friendship - despite the large age difference.
“Evening Album” was followed by two more collections: “The Magic Lantern” (1912) and “From Two Books” (1913), published with the assistance of Tsvetaeva’s youth friend Sergei Efron, whom she married in 1912.
Her two subsequent pre-revolutionary books essentially continue and develop the motifs of chamber lyrics. And at the same time, they already contain the foundations of the future ability to skillfully use the wide emotional gamut of native poetic speech. This was an undoubted bid for poetic maturity.
Tsvetaeva did not understand and did not accept the October Revolution. Only much later, already in exile, was she able to write words that sounded like a bitter condemnation of herself: “Recognize, pass, reject the Revolution - anyway, it is already in you - and from eternity... Not a single major Russian poet of our time who, after the Revolution, the voice did not tremble and did not grow - no.” But she did not come to this realization easily.
Continuing to live in literature and for literature, Tsvetaeva wrote a lot, with passion. Her poems at that time sounded life-affirming and major. Only in the most difficult moments could the following words escape from her: “Give me peace and joy, let me be happy, you will see how I can do this!” During these years, the State Publishing House published two books by Tsvetaeva: “Versts” (1921) and the fairy tale poem “The Tsar Maiden” (1922).
In May 1922, she was allowed to go abroad to her husband, Sergei Efron, a former White Army officer who found himself in exile, at that time a student at the University of Paris. She lived in the Czech Republic for more than three years and at the end of 1925 she and her family moved to Paris. In the early 20s, she was widely published in White emigrant magazines. We managed to publish the books “Poems to Blok”, “Separation” (both in 1922), “Psyche. Romantics”, “Craft” (both in 1923), the poem fairy tale “Well done” (1924). Soon, Tsvetaeva’s relationship with emigrant circles worsened, which was facilitated by her growing attraction to Russia (“Poems to my son”, “Motherland”, “Longing for the Motherland”, “Long ago...”, “Chelyuskintsy”, etc.). The last lifetime collection of poems is “After Russia. 1922-1925” - published in Paris in 1928.
In one of her most difficult moments, Marina Tsvetaeva wrote with bitterness: “...My reader remains in Russia, where my poems do not reach. In emigration, they first print me (in the heat of the moment!), then, having come to their senses, they take me out of circulation, sensing that it’s not theirs - it’s there!” She met the beginning of the Second World War tragically, as evidenced by Tsvetaeva’s last poetic cycle - “Poems for the Czech Republic” (1938 - 1939), associated with the occupation of Czechoslovakia and permeated with hatred of fascism.
In the summer of 1939, after seventeen years of emigration life, having received Soviet citizenship, Marina Tsvetaeva returned to her native land. At first she lives in Moscow, she is given the opportunity to do translations, and she is preparing a new book of poetry.
In July 1941, Tsvetaeva left Moscow and ended up in the forested Kama region, in Yelabuga. Here, in a small town, under the weight of personal misfortunes, alone, in a state of mental depression, she commits suicide on August 31, 1941.
This is how the poet’s life path ends tragically, whose entire destiny has established the organic, inevitable connection of great sincere talent with the fate of Russia.
Marina Tsvetaeva left a significant creative legacy: books of lyric poetry, seventeen poems, eighteen verse dramas, autobiographical, memoir, and historical and literary prose, including essays and philosophical and critical sketches. To this must be added a large number of letters and diary entries. The name of Marina Tsvetaeva is inseparable from the history of Russian poetry. The power of her poems lies not in visual images, but in the bewitching flow of ever-changing, flexible, involving rhythms.
From the wide range of lyrical themes, where everyone, as if to a single center, converges on love - in various shades of this capricious feeling - it is necessary to highlight what for Tsvetaeva remains the most important, deep, determining everything else. She is a poet of the Russian national origin.
The creativity of the period of emigration is imbued with a feeling of anger, contempt, and the deadly irony with which it stigmatizes the entire emigrant world. Depending on this, the stylistic nature of poetic speech.
A direct heir to the traditional melodic and even chanting structure, Tsvetaeva resolutely rejects any melody, preferring to her the compactness of nervous, seemingly spontaneously born speech, only conditionally subordinated to the breakdown into stanzas. Her ode “Praise to the Rich,” “Ode to Walking,” and many other poems of a military accusatory nature are permeated with the amazing power of sarcasm.
There are also works of a personal, lyrical nature, but in them the same fierce protest against petty-bourgeois well-being appears. Even a story about one’s own fate turns into a bitter and sometimes angry reproach to the well-fed, self-satisfied masters of life. So in the short cycle “Factory”, so in the triptych “Poet”, in the poem “Outposts” and much more.
Her poems occupy a special place in Tsvetaeva’s legacy. In essence, a hot, sharp monologue, sometimes slowing down, sometimes accelerating the rapid rhythm. Her passion for poetic drama is known. Interest in theater and drama led Tsvetaeva to create the tragedies “Ariadne” (1924) and “Ferda” (1927), written based on an ancient myth.
In the general history of Russian poetry, Marina Tsvetaeva will always occupy a worthy place. The true innovation of her poetic speech was the natural embodiment in words of a tossing, always searching for truth, restless spirit. The poet of the utmost truth of feeling, Marina Tsvetaeva, with all her difficult fate, with all the rage and uniqueness of her original talent, rightfully entered Russian poetry of the first half of our century.
You walk, looking like me, with your eyes looking down. I lowered them too! Passerby, stop! Read - chicken blindness And picking a bouquet of poppies - That they called me Marina, And how old I was. Don’t think that there is a grave here, that I will appear, threatening... I myself loved too much, Laughing when you shouldn’t! And the blood rushed to my skin, And my curls curled... I was there too, a passerby! Passerby, stop!
Pluck yourself a wild stem And a berry after it, - Cemetery strawberries There is nothing larger and sweeter. But just don’t stand sullenly, with your head hanging on your chest. Think about me easily, Forget about me easily.
How the beam illuminates you! You're covered in gold dust...
And don’t let My voice from underground bother you. May 3, 1913

Akhmatova Anna Andreevna (1889 –1966)

Real name Gorenko. After the parents’ family broke up in 1905, the mother and children moved to Yevpatoria, and from there to Kyiv. There Akhmatova graduated from high school and in 1907 entered the law faculty of the Higher Women's Courses in Kyiv. In 1910 she married N.S. Gumilyov. She was with him in 1910 and 1911 in Paris, and in 1912 in Italy. In 1012, the only son was born - L. N. Gumilyov, a famous historian and ethnographer.
According to Akhmatova’s memoirs, she wrote her first poems at the age of 11, but they have not survived. The first poem was published in 1907 in the Parisian magazine Sirius, published by N. S. Gumilev, but then there was a break until 1911.
Then Akhmatova began to publish regularly in St. Petersburg and Moscow publications. In March 1912, the first collection of poems entitled “Evening” was published. Here the features that determined her creative reputation for many years begin to appear.
“Evening” was a significant success, but true fame came to the poetess after the publication of the collection of poems “The Rosary” (1914). Despite the unfavorable situation (a few months later the war began), the “Rosary Beads” gained great popularity.
In Akhmatov’s early poetry, one can clearly see both a repulsion from many of the creative features developed by symbolism, and a continuation of those traditions that made symbolism the most noticeable poetic movement of the early 20th century. Akhmatova’s poems avoid exoticism and romantic “universality” in the description of the signs of reality, replacing them with extreme specificity of descriptions that are closely related to everyday life. Feeling the connection between Akhmatova’s poetry and the poetic principles of the greatest poets of Russian symbolism, especially Blok, which was emphasized by the poetess in the dedicatory inscription on the collection “Rosary Beads” presented to Blok:
From you came to me anxiety and the ability to write poetry.
Belonging to the number of Acmeist poets and developing many of the principles of Acmeism in her poems, Akhmatova at the same time is burdened by the discipline that reigns in their ranks.
But at the same time, the internal principles of Akhmatova’s poetry are increasingly striving towards the gravity inherent in Acmeism to realize the possibilities in the word to expand the historical and cultural wealth.

Lesson objectives: expand students’ understanding of the work of Silver Age poets; improve your poetry analysis skills.

Assignments for students

Prepare a message about the work of a poet you like. Learn one of the poems. You can hold a poetry evening, where each student will present the work of a poet he likes and read his poems.

About the lesson:

The lesson can be structured in this way: short messages about the poets of the Silver Age are interspersed with reading poems (or excerpts), and reading the memoirs of contemporaries. It is unlikely that you should get carried away with listing biographical facts. It is important to select several striking episodes in the poet’s life and several of the most characteristic poems, to show the poet’s role in the literary process of the turn of the century. Inevitably, the framework of the conversation about the poets of the Silver Age will be expanded by the inclusion of literary terms, information, and opinions that are new to students, which will broaden their horizons and enrich the literary competence of students.

Invite the class to engage in a conversation about the work of poets and supplement the analysis of poems with their own impressions. Let us recall that one of the constant formulations of final essays includes the perception, interpretation, and evaluation of a poem.

For messages, you can choose a story about the fate of poets who remained in Soviet Russia, and about the fate of those who ended up in exile.

Another option: listen to songs and romances based on poems by Silver Age poets, take musical breaks, and maybe read a poem to the music. In the design you can use portraits of poets, reprints of their works, antiques (watches, photographs, candlesticks, fans, etc.), which will help create the necessary ambiance. In any case, the significant time spent preparing the lesson will pay off with an uplifting atmosphere and warmth. It is better not to conduct such lessons formally at all.

I. O. E. Mandelstam

The fate of Osip Emilievich Mandelstam (1891-1938) was initially brilliant. He received an excellent education - first in Russia, then in France, at the Sorbonne, then in Germany, at the University of Heidelberg, and again in Russia - at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. Travels around Europe deepened his interest in Romanesque philology and ancient culture. He started writing poetry early. As an eighteen-year-old boy, he entered the poetic world of St. Petersburg, and then into the “Workshop of Poets,” led by Gumilyov.

According to A. A. Akhmatova, Mandelstam has no teachers, he is a poet from God: “Who will indicate where this new divine harmony came to us from, which is called the poems of Osip Mandelstam?”

If not a teacher, then Mandelstam’s predecessor was Tyutchev. This is evidenced by at least the roll call of poets in poems with the same title “Motives of Tyutchev’s “There is melodiousness in the sea waves...” and “Oh my prophetic soul...” are heard in Mandelstam’s poem “The sensitive sail strains the hearing...” For both poets have similar interpretations of images: space, chaos, sleep, sea...

Mandelstam’s poetry also has symbolist origins: he was captivated by the work of M. Kuzmin, a “classical poet,” in his words; he was fond of the philosophy of V. Solovyov and N. Berdyaev. P. Florensky; his views on the nature of words were similar to those of A. Bely. Since the 1910s, Mandelstam became close to the Acmeists, collaborated in the magazines “Alollon” and “Hyperborea”, and developed the poetics of Acmeism. When many years later Mandelstam was asked what Acmeism was, he replied: “Nostalgia for world culture.”

In Mandelstam's poetry there is culture, art in its various incarnations: literature, theater, painting, architecture. Music is defined as “everything living / An unbreakable connection”, it is embodied in the images of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Scriabin; sometimes combined with ancient images, which gives it the character of eternal harmony:

Remain foam, Aphrodite,

And, word, return to music...

The word is understood as a kind of building material, a stone from which the building of poetry is built. It is not for nothing that the poet’s first collection, published in 1913, is called “Stone”. Mandelstam says about poetic architecture: “We introduce the Gothic into the relationship of words, just as Sebastian Bach established it in music.” The poet is fascinated by the architectonic possibilities of an object - stone, clay, wood - their structure and philosophical essence, a thing as a container of spirit and as a word. The poet personifies individual phenomena, endows objects with weight and heaviness. This heaviness is felt in the opposition of objects, sometimes it may be unusual for them by nature: “janitors in heavy fur coats”, “the wings of ducks are now heavy”, “heavy steam is pouring out”, but some “things are light”, a person carries a “light cross”. In Mandelstam’s poetry one feels not only the “weight” of a thing, but also its texture, density, material: “silk of a tickling scarf”, “sugar marble”, “copper moon”, “glass firmament”, “iron gates”, “colored glass” , “fragile shell”, a star that seems like a “rusty pin”...

The word “stone” itself is rarely used, but you feel it indirectly: the shawl, “falling from the shoulders, turned to stone,” “carries the bricks / of the sun in a decrepit cart.” The stone is given a philosophical and symbolic meaning. The mystical, unreal is contrasted with the earthly, material, real.

Images of architecture are also associated with the image of stone - one of the leading themes of Mandelstam's poetry. These are poems about the Egyptian pyramids, about the St. Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople, about ancient architectural monuments, about Notre Dame Cathedral, about the Kremlin temples, about the Admiralty... Mandelstam describes not so much these buildings as his thoughts about them, the associations caused by architectural masterpieces, makes philosophical generalizations:

Beauty is not the whim of a demigod,

And the predatory eye of a simple carpenter.

The masterpieces of architecture are spiritualized by the poet: these are not just ideal structures, they are the soul imprinted in stone, shining through it. In the poem “Oh, this air, drunken in turmoil...” the cathedrals of the Moscow Kremlin with “wax faces” each have their own face, their own character and, at the same time, a common thing - the living fire of talent hidden in them:

Assumption, wonderfully rounded,

All the surprise of heavenly arcs,

And Blagoveshchensky, green,

And, I imagine, he will suddenly coo.

Arkhangelsk and Sundays

They shine through like the palm of your hand -

Everywhere there is hidden burning,

Fire hidden in jugs...

In Mandelstam’s poetry, images of world culture are coupled with phenomena of ordinary life through chains of associations: the St. Petersburg tramp looks like Verlaine (“The Old Man”), the moon resembles a clock dial, it, in turn, evokes thoughts about time, I remember Batyushkov, who knew how to distract himself from the immediate for the sake of thoughts about the eternal (“No, not the moon, but a bright dial...”). In “Petersburg stanzas” the historical and cultural layers of old and new Petersburg are brought together:

Above the yellow government buildings

A muddy snowstorm swirled for a long time,

And the lawyer gets into the sleigh again,

With a broad gesture, he wrapped his overcoat around him.

The present tense form of the verb (“sits down”) neglects real time - everything happens “here and now,” and even the hero of Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman,” “the eccentric Eugene,” one of many, appears on the streets of St. Petersburg: he is “ashamed of poverty, / Gasoline inhales and curses fate.”

The poet traces deep connections and interpenetration of phenomena distant in time and space. Thus, he comprehends his time, his era; is convinced of the eternity and continuity of culture even in times hostile to it.

Among his fellow Acmeists, Mandelstam stood out for his unique originality. As E. S. Rogover notes, “the poet is characterized by an increased role of the artistic context with its key words-signals; faith in the possibility of knowing the irrational and as yet inexplicable; disclosure of the theme of space and an attempt to understand the special place of the individual in it; high philosophical nature of poetry; a hymn to Dionysus and glorification of fiery inspiration (“Ode to Beethoven”), opposed to dry craft and rational thinking; the Christian idea of ​​overcoming death translated into creativity; aspiration, uncharacteristic of Acmeism, through a moment to eternity; commitment to the era of the romantic Middle Ages and the world of music."

Mandelstam greeted the October Revolution of 1917 as something inevitable. In the 1918 poem “Let us glorify, brothers, the twilight of freedom...” there is a premonition of the end of time:

He who has a heart must hear time,

As your ship goes down.

The image of a cruel, mortally wounded, broken time in the 1922 poem “Century”:

My age, my beast, who can

Look into your pupils

And with his blood he will glue

Two centuries of vertebrae?

And the buds will still swell,

A shoot of greenery will splash,

But your spine is broken,

My beautiful pathetic age!

Here Hamlet’s image is rethought: “The connection of times has fallen apart...” it becomes more tangible, more “painful”, painful.

A rethinking of the images of classical literature also occurs in the poem “Concert at the Station”:

You can't breathe, and the firmament is infested with worms,

And not a single star says...

The harmonious world of Lermontov’s “I go out alone on the road...” is destroyed, and there is not only no hope, there is no way to breathe.

Also in 1922, a new collection of the poet was published - “Tristia” (translated from Latin as “Sorrows”). Although the themes of this collection are antiquity, the connection of eras, love, however, the main tone is from the title. In the poem “Will-o’-the-wisp at a terrible height!” (1918) the line is repeated in a sad refrain: “Your brother, Petropol, is dying!” This death taking place before our eyes becomes a harbinger of the coming global catastrophe.

Since Mandelstam received a categorical refusal from the Soviet publishing house to print his poems in 1925, he has not had the opportunity to publish for five years. In the poem “January 1, 1924” there is a premonition of such a turn:

I know that every day the exhalation of life weakens,

A little more - they'll cut you off

A simple song about clay grievances

And your lips will be filled with tin.

By the age of thirty, everything was already completely clear to Mandelstam. The age-beast turns into the age-wolfhound:

The wolfhound century rushes onto my shoulders,

But I am not a wolf by blood,

You better stuff me like a hat into your sleeve

Hot fur coats of the Siberian steppes.

The allegorical nature of this image is obvious. The lyrical hero is ready for anything - at best, for Siberian exile. In many of Mandelstam’s poems there are hints of arrests, violence, the excesses of power, Soviet tyranny and the tyrant himself:

We live without feeling the country beneath us,

Our speeches cannot be heard ten steps away.

And where is enough for half a conversation,

The Kremlin highlander will be remembered there.

The poet was arrested for the first time in 1934. True, the darkest times were still ahead: Mandelstam was ordered to “Isolate, but preserve.” The exile to Voronezh seemed like hope; it was marked by the poet’s creative upsurge: he created here three “Voronezh notebooks” of poetry. Akhmatova wrote: “It is amazing that space, breadth, deep breathing appeared in Mandelstam’s poems precisely in Voronezh when he was completely unfree.”

A second arrest followed in May 1938. The last letter from Osip Emilievich Mandelstam, addressed to his brother and wife, is dated the twentieth of October of the same year:

“Dear Shura!

I am located in Vladivostok, SVITL, barrack 11.

Got 5 years for k.r.d. by decision of the OCO. The stage left Moscow from Butyrki on September 9 and arrived on October 12. Health is very poor. Exhausted to the extreme, emaciated, almost unrecognizable, but sending things, food and money - I don’t know if there is any point. Try it anyway. I'm very cold without things.

Dear Nadenka, I don’t know if you’re alive, my darling. You, Shura, write to me about Nadya right now. This is the transit point. They didn’t take me to Kolyma. Possible wintering.

My dear ones. Kiss you..."

(Explanations:

SVITLE - Directorate of Northeast Forced Labor Camps.

K.r.d. - counter-revolutionary activities.

OSO - special meeting.)

Having received the letter, the poet’s wife, Nadezhda Yakovlevna, immediately sent the parcel, but Osip Emilievich did not have time to receive anything. The money and the parcel were returned with the note: “After the death of the addressee.”

The poet’s life ended in the vicinity of Vladivostok, in a resettlement camp. His grave is unknown, like the graves of many of his comrades in misfortune. His poems, despite the many-year ban, returned to readers. Time has no power over them.

II. About G. Ivanov

Georgy Ivanov (1894-1958) is one of the largest poets of the Russian emigration, whose poems only recently returned to their homeland: his first book was published in his homeland only in 1989 (not counting pre-revolutionary collections).

What was written in his “Posthumous Diary” came true: “But I did not forget what was promised to me // To resurrect. Return to Russia - in poetry."

And in his youth, which coincided with the heyday of Russian poetry, he was not listed among the first poets. He was a St. Petersburg dandy, a snob, an erudite, a wit, a writer of poetry, the author of several books - and who didn’t write then?

Ivanov’s wife was Irina Odoevtseva (1895-1990), poetess, prose writer, memoirist, who outlived him much, and in 1987 returned to Russia - to Leningrad. She wrote the most interesting memoirs about the poets of the Silver Age. These memoirs also contain an early biography of Georgy Ivanov, reproduced from his stories. According to Irina Odoevtseva, “poems came incredibly easily to him, as if they had fallen from the sky complete.” Poems could be caused by completely random, insignificant reasons:

So, doing trifles -

Shopping or shaving, -

With your weak hands

We are recreating a wonderful world.

The terms of Anna Akhmatova come to mind - about the same thing:

If only you knew what kind of rubbish

Poems grow without shame...

Ivanov grew up as a great Russian poet in exile; longing for his homeland determined the main tone of his poems:

Russia happiness. Russia light.

Or maybe there is no Russia at all.

Like Bunin, Ivanov preserved Russia in his work as he knew and loved it:

This is the ringing of bells from afar,

These are threes with a wide run

This is Blok's black music

Snow falls on the shining...

Already in this quatrain. We notice a characteristic technique of Georgy Ivanov, which now largely determines contemporary Russian poetry (conceptualism, or reminiscent poetry). We are talking about a centon, or “patchwork” poem.

Ivanov did not invent it, it was invented by the late Roman poets. Considering that everything great had already been written, they invented a kind of game: to compose new texts from different classical poems, and these texts acquired a “two-layered” character. In addition to the “old” meaning familiar to the reader, a new one appeared - due to the unusual context. The name "centon" comes from the Latin word for "patchwork quilt".

Many critics do not consider centons to be full-fledged poems. Centon is close to quotations - the use of fragments of one work in another. The classic centon consists entirely of quotations, but more often in poetic texts there are individual quotations from famous poems. In Russian poetry, P. A. Vyazemsky is considered the initiator of this technique; it was used, for example, by A. S. Pushkin.

For Georgy Ivanov, the technique of quotation, centon, became a necessity, a way of connecting to the context of national culture:

How far is it until tomorrow!..

Ringing silver spurs.

As literary critic L. Kalyuzhnaya writes, “Georgy Ivanov put the finishing touch on the canvas of that era in art, which we call Russian classics, inscribing lines from poets of the past on the tablets of the twentieth century, and, breaking through this canvas, rushed into the future, but this “future” , it may seem, was not found in anything:

I'm a little from the future

More precisely, I'm not expecting anything.

I don't believe in God's mercy

I don't believe that I will burn in hell.

From his poetry one can judge all the renunciations, temptations, sacrileges, seductions, and experiments that our contemporaries have gone through throughout the century. He himself did not avoid anything and did not hide anything. But by his poetry one can also judge what the man of the 20th century brought to the threshold of the third millennium. “Lord, I cry to You!” “Maybe this is precisely the essence of Ivanovo’s poetry?” - Georgy Adamovich wondered.

The poetry of Georgy Ivanov is surprisingly modern, as if addressed to us:

The stars are turning blue. The trees are swaying.

Evening is like evening. Winter is like winter.

All is forgiven. Nothing is forgiven.

Music. Dark.

We are all heroes and we are all traitors,

We all believe the words equally.

Well, my dear contemporaries,

Are you having fun?

“To become a poet, you need to swing as hard as possible on the swing of life,” Georgy Ivanov recalled the words of Alexander Blok. But he himself swung not on the swing of life, but on the “swing” of his melancholy. The external side of his life is uneventful. He did not test his courage in travel and in war, like Gumilyov, he did not start novels “not for love - for inspiration,” like Bryusov... He did not have to “become” a poet, he, according to Adamovich, “came into the world “to write poetry,” and this is his theme, his destiny appeared - exile.”

This theme can manifest itself in different ways: appear in words, be expressed by a feeling, be guessed in the mood. Loneliness, melancholy, a soul striving to “communicate” with another soul:

The melody becomes a flower

It blossoms and crumbles,

It is made by wind and sand,

A spring moth flying towards the fire,

Willow branches fall into the water...

A thousand instant years pass

And the melody is reincarnated

In a heavy glance in the radiance of an epaulet,

In leggings, in mentik, in “Your Honor”,

In the cornet guard - oh, why not?

Fog... Taman... The desert listens to God.

How far is it until tomorrow!

And Lermontov goes out onto the road alone,

Ringing silver spurs.

Everything passes - only art is eternal. Music, poetry changes, reincarnates, can become a flower, or can be embodied in completely prosaic things: “trousers, mentic.” Temporal and spatial boundaries are separated, you just need to listen, peer into the fog, feel the harmony that invariably exists in the world and is invariably unattainable.

Lesson option 24-25 (II).

Silver Age Sonnet

Lesson objectives: expand students’ understanding of the sonnet genre; show the role of the sonnet in the work of poets of the Silver Age; improve your poetry analysis skills.