Blok greeted the revolution with enthusiasm and rapture. A person close to the poet wrote: “He walked young, cheerful, cheerful, with shining eyes.” Among the very few representatives of the artistic and scientific intelligentsia at that time, the poet immediately announced...
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok, who glorified patriotic feelings and sentiments with his poetry, created the most delightful image of a Beautiful Lady, received great recognition during his lifetime and had great success among the fairer sex, who...
A. A. Blok’s poem “The Twelve” was created in 1918. The poem was born as an inspired impulse, harmoniously whole, but many of the images turn out to be unclear to the poet himself, which only proves the complexity and depth of the work. The poem was published in the newspaper...
Russia is destined to experience torment, humiliation, division; but she will emerge from these humiliations new and - in a new way - great. A. Blok Alexander Blok's poem "The Twelve" was written in the first winter after the October revolution. The country is gradually...
Blok’s poem “The Twelve” cannot be considered a work dedicated exclusively to the October Revolution, without perceiving what is hidden behind the symbols, without giving significance to the issues that were raised in it by the author. Alexander Alexandrovich used...
K. Chukovsky in the article “Alexander Blok as a Man and a Poet” recalls an interesting episode: “Gumilyov said that the end of the poem “The Twelve” (the place where Christ appears) seemed to him artificially glued, that the sudden appearance ...
“Twelve” by A.A. Blok
The title of the poem reproduces the key New Testament motif (the twelve apostles of Christ. The number of the main characters, the Red Guards, predetermined the composition of the work (twelve chapters). According to Blok’s note on the manuscript (“And he was with the robber. There lived twelve robbers”), this number also goes back to the poem “ Who lives well in Russia" by N. A. Nekrasov. The appearance in the poem of a collective, kind of collective image of the Twelve (personified, only Petrukha is especially shown, only one more Bolshevik is briefly mentioned: “Andryukha, help!”) Red Guards is natural: Blok wanted to depict collective, in the words of L. Tolstoy, “swarm” consciousness and collective will, which replaced the individual principle. Blok proceeded from the fact that it was the Russian intelligentsia that was capable of understanding and accepting the revolution. In his response to the questionnaire “Can the intelligentsia work with the Bolsheviks?” Blok wrote on January 14, 1918: “The intelligentsia has always been revolutionary. The decrees of the Bolsheviks are symbols of the intelligentsia.” In this regard, Blok contrasted the intelligentsia with the bourgeoisie: “The bourgeois has definite soil under his feet, like a pig has manure: family, capital, service. position, order, rank, God on the icon, king on the throne. Take it out and everything goes upside down.”
This position predetermined the satirical depiction of the bourgeoisie and the “passing world” in the first chapter of the poem. First, an “old woman” appears, who “is killed and cries” and at the sight of the poster “All power to the Constituent Assembly!” “He won’t understand what it means, / What is such a poster for, / Such a huge flap? / There would be so many foot wraps for the guys, / And everyone is undressed, barefoot...” This is the philistine view of an outside witness to the events. Next appears “The Bourgeois at the Crossroads,” who “hid his nose in his collar.” We find a striking coincidence with this satirical image from M. Tsvetaeva, who did not welcome the revolution at all, in the same 1918 essay “October in a Carriage”: “So this remains with me, the first vision of the bourgeoisie in Russia: ears hiding in hats, souls hiding in fur coats<...>skin vision." Then “Writer - Vitia” appears: “Long hair / And says in a low voice: / - Traitors! / - Russia has perished!” The fourth hero is “nowadays sad, / Comrade Pop.” The fifth - “The Lady in Karakul”, is also depicted in a satirical vein: “She slipped / And - bam she stretched out!” Finally, prostitutes appear, in whom Bolshevik criticism saw a parody of the revolution:
And we had a meeting...
In this building... ...Discussed - Resolved:
For a while - ten, at night - twenty-five...
And don’t take less from anyone...
Let's go to sleep...
The responses of the five participants in this conversation are separated from each other by periods.
After the prostitutes, another character will appear - “The Tramp”, who “slouches” restlessly. It can be assumed that the “tramp” is identified with the “man” from the “prologue” to the poem: “Black evening. / White snow. / Wind, wind! / A man does not stand on his feet,” which, in turn, goes back to the Man from “The Life of a Man” by Leonid Andreev. So, if we add five prostitutes to the seven designated heroes, we get another symbolic number. In the second chapter of the poem, twelve Red Guards are contrasted with twelve shadow characters from the “old” world. From the dialogue of twelve Red Guards in the second chapter, readers learn about Vanka, who “is now rich himself... / Vanka was ours, but he became a soldier!”, “son of a bitch, bourgeois,” and about Katka walking with him: “And Vanka is with Katka - in the tavern.., / - She has kerenki in her stocking!
The portrait of Katya is drawn in especially detail: “You threw your face back, / Your teeth shine with pearls... / Oh, you, Katya, my Katya, / Thick-faced... / On your neck, Katya, / The scar from the knife has not healed. / Under your chest, Katya, / That scratch is fresh!”
In the fifth chapter, Petrukha’s “voice” is heard. It was he, Petrukha, who killed the officer with whom Katka had previously “fornicated”: “She wore gray leggings, / She ate Mignon chocolate, / She went for a walk with the cadets - / Now she went with the soldier? / Eh, eh, sin! / It will be easier for the soul!”
As can be seen from the letter to the illustrator of “The Twelve” Yu. P. Annenkov, Blok was concerned about Katka’s appearance. He emphasized: “Katka is a healthy, thick-faced, passionate, snub-nosed Russian girl; fresh, simple, kind - swears great, sheds tears over novels, kisses desperately<...>. “Thick muzzle” is very important (healthy and clean even to childishness).”
The sixth chapter depicts the Red Guards chasing Vanka and Katka: “Where is Katka? - Dead, dead! / Shot in the head!” Petrukha, the “poor murderer,” whose “face can’t be seen at all” and his hands are covered in blood, mourns his and Katka’s ruined soul: “— Oh, dear comrades, / I loved this girl... / Black, drunken nights / With this spent with a girl..."
But the other Red Guards pull him back, the “bitch,” and together they go on a robbery spree: “Lock the floors, / Today there will be robberies! / Unlock the cellars - / There’s a bastard on the loose today!”
In the article “Intellectuals and Revolution,” Blok called the people the recently awakened “Ivanushka the Fool”: “What were you thinking? That the revolution is an idyll?<...>That people are good boys? That hundreds of swindlers, provocateurs, Black Hundreds, people who love to warm their hands, will not try to grab what is bad? And, finally, how will the centuries-old dispute between the “black” and “white” bones be resolved so “bloodlessly” and so “painlessly”? This is how the subtext of the collision of the love triangle between Petka, Katka and Vanka is drawn.
At the end of the poem, in a blizzard, in a blizzard (cf. the motif from Pushkin’s “The Captain’s Daughter”), “they walk without the name of a saint...” (“Ready for anything, / I don’t regret anything...”) twelve Red Guards. Behind them trudges a “hungry dog,” personifying the “old world,” and in front is Christ: “...with a bloody flag, / And invisible behind the blizzard, / And unharmed by a bullet, / With a gentle tread above the blizzard, / A scattering of pearls in the snow, / In a white corolla of roses - / Ahead is Jesus Christ.”
Blok himself wondered: why Christ? But he could not help himself: he saw Christ. Diary entry: “Did I “praise”? (Bolsheviks - Ed.). I just stated a fact: if you look closely at the pillars of the snowstorm along this path, you will see “Jesus Christ.” But sometimes I myself deeply hate this feminine image.” But the combination of Katka’s shed blood and the figure of Christ is organic for Blok of the “Twelve” era. The key to the poem is the idea of polyphony, incorporating the most diverse “voices” of the era - from songs to the language of posters.
However, Blok soon becomes disillusioned with the revolution and begins to look at his poem differently. In his “Note on the Twelve,” he highlighted the period of time “from the beginning of 1918, approximately until the end of the October Revolution (3-7 months).” Conveying the feeling of enchantment (Tsvetaev’s word) of that time, the poet wrote: “... in January 1918, I surrendered to the elements for the last time no less blindly than in January 1907 or March 1914.” Although now, in April 1920, he “could not<...>I wish I could write what I wrote then,” but it is impossible to renounce “The Twelve,” because the poem was written “in accordance with the elements...”.
Nevertheless, in his dying delirium, Blok demanded from L. D. Mendeleeva a promise to burn every single copy of the poem “The Twelve.”
Analysis of the text of the poem.
Chapter 1Where does the poem begin? What picture is being painted?
In the first stanza the opposition of black and white colors is stated ( Black evening. // White snow). Black - symbolizes the dark, evil principle, chaos, unpredictability of spontaneous impulses in man, in the world, in space. Sometimes Blok's blackness reads like emptiness, lack of spirituality. White is perceived as a contrast to black, but it is also the color of purity, spirituality, the light of the future, a dream. (It is not for nothing that at the end of the work there is an image of Christ in a white aureole, in a snowy scattering of pearls as an exponent of purity, holiness, tragic suffering.) But this boundary of black and white is very unstable, which is emphasized by the fourfold repetition of the word in the first stanza wind. In the second stanza wind mentioned for the fifth time , he is in all God's light, and any the person becomes insecure walker, slips and is about to fall.
What temporal realities help determine the time of the poem?
Poster “All power to the Constituent Assembly!” indicates early January 1918. On the one hand, it reminds of the political situation, on the other hand, the beginning of January is the time of Christmastide, when evil spirits play tricks on the Orthodox people, play tricks, and play dirty tricks on those who are “without a cross.” The images of wind and blizzard in the poem are not accidental - they always accompany demonic revelry. But the image of the Creator already appears here (Mother Intercessor - by the way, another hidden indication of Christmas; God’s light) and invisibly passes through the entire poem, appearing at the end of the poem in the image of Jesus Christ.
In Chapter 1, Blok depicts the “old world.” Who are its representatives and how are they depicted? Satirical images of an old woman, a bourgeois, a writer-viti, a fellow priest, a lady make us smile contemptuously. Is it only the representatives of the “old world” that the narrator expresses contempt for? Who says, “And we had a meeting...”?(prostitutes). What are they talking about, what are they discussing? This is a satire on the new government (pay attention to the vocabulary, later Mayakovsky will talk about the same thing). The image of the tramp at the end of the chapter evokes our sympathy. And the word “Bread!” Once again emphasizes the unsettled nature of the world - hunger.
At the end of the chapter, the image of EVIL (the trinity - sad, black, holy– why?) This happened historically. Why anger, against whom?(on the butt). Let us turn again to the article: “Why are they making holes in the ancient cathedral? “Because for a hundred years an obese priest was here, hiccupping, taking bribes and selling vodka.” What should the revolution cleanse Russia of?
Next, the motive of vigilance appears (the chapter ends). When will this motif appear again in the poem?(2 chapters - before the lines about the village, 6 chapters - after the murder of Katka, 10 chapters - as a reproach to Petka for his lack of consciousness, 11 chapters - “The Fierce Enemy will wake up”). It turns out that the first victims of vigilance have already turned out to be, or will turn out to be, not the bourgeoisie at all.
Through whose eyes do we see what is happening? Who evaluates the characters? Who is the hero of the poem? 12 Red Guards? Or someone else?
Why is it important? (In relation to the main character, the author must express his point of view, his concept of life) How?(Pictures depicted in the work, direct author’s assessment or through the image of the narrator). Is there such a narrator in the poem? Who sees a snow-covered city at night, an old woman, a bourgeois, a patrol? Who hears the shots, the screams, the chase, Petrukha’s conversation with his comrades, his confession? Can we talk about the author's perception of what is happening?(Pay attention to the language of the poem: colloquial, coarse vocabulary, and not the language of an educated person - not Blok!) As we analyze the work, let us pay attention to the voice of the hero-narrator. But already here he expresses his opinion (support with examples from the text).
Chapter 2 A completely different poetic rhythm is set. Who are her heroes? How are they depicted (in what color can they be depicted)? What are they talking about? What can we say about them? What feelings do they evoke? These are 12 Red Guards - a night patrol on the streets of Petrograd. They themselves are from the “old world,” Blok gives them a description of criminals:
There is a cigarette in his teeth, he has taken a cap,
You should have an ace of diamonds on your back!
But the poet does not judge them - that’s how it was, this is a difficult legacy of the past.
And what does the exclamation “Eh, eh, without a cross!” mean? at the beginning and end of the chapter? Without a cross - and without what else? Without conscience, without morality, without boundaries - freedom, freedom from everything.
Has Blok addressed the lower classes of society before? (Art. “Factory”. “Rising from the darkness of the cellars”, “Went to attack.”) How did he treat them?(Sympathetically, his hero went through different paths, wanted to feel the same thing that everyone feels). So the feelings, desires (to take revenge on everyone?) and experiences of the urban lower classes were understandable and partly close to the poet.
Here we hear the dialogue of the Red Guard heroes: their speech is cocky, rude, vulgar, illiterate. They are the masters of this city - they have rifles. And the rifles begin to shoot at some obscure enemy. (The image of a “restless” and invisible enemy runs through the entire poem. And in chapter 12, the “comrades” are already shooting at Christ.)
Who is the night patrol shooting at? It is obvious that the enemies of the Red Guards are not representatives of the “old world” - they are too funny and helpless. The heroes “fire” into Holy Rus', renouncing faith and the Savior: “Freedom, freedom.// Eh, eh, without a cross!”
What do these people want?
IN Chapter 3 We find the answer to this question: they want to fan the world fire of revolution. Moreover, they are not afraid of blood – neither their own nor someone else’s. But they turn to the Lord for blessings. For what? Is such a blessing possible? Is this not a desire to shift the burden of responsibility for murders onto the spiritual authorities (and the Soviet ones too)?
IN Chapters 4-7 we see the love story of the Red Guard Petrukha and the “fat-faced” Katka. Who is Katka? Why is she being killed? (And they also say: “Eh, eh, sin! // It will be easier for the soul!” - Will it be easier to kill? And so doubts about the correctness of the punishment overcome.)
The love story, jealousy and reprisal against Katka (whose punishment is completely incommensurate with her guilt) is an insignificant episode for them. Human life has no special value for them (“Lie, carrion, in the snow!”). It is more important for them that Petka stay with them.
What dialogue takes place between the characters? Why is he important to Blok?
The unwitting killer is worried. How is his condition transmitted? Who did he “ruin”? And his comrades show him sympathy. How do they do it? Quite contemptuous: displays of feelings are not welcome. And it will always be like this. Do any of the characters realize WHAT they have done? Would Petrukha be worried if he didn’t love Katka? Hardly. Murder becomes the norm (Murders have already been mentioned: in Chapter 5 “Do you remember, Katya, the officer - // He didn’t escape the knife...”). And how did Petka console himself?(“This is not the time to babysit you! // The burden will be heavier for us, dear comrade!”) The mood of those guarding the city and the new government is quite obvious (from the text): courage, robbery, drunkenness. The motive for murder, mockery of human life, of everything, is growing more and more.
The value system, the spiritual world of the heroes is shown in Chapter 8: boredom, seeds, murder are on the same page. Complete spiritual savagery. Where is the person here? Is this behavior typical or random? What words does the chapter end with? What is it about? Whose soul is the poet talking about? Why do you think so?
Chapter 9 The rhythm is sharply different from chapter 8 and it begins with a line from a romance about the Decembrists: “You can’t hear the noise of the city...”. But then a picture of absolute freedom, intoxication with blood is painted. There's just no joy in it. Why does the “old world” appear here again and why does Blok devote so much space to it? The “old world” - the bourgeoisie and the mangy dog as a symbol of this world - is pitiful and homeless. He has no future (no wonder the bourgeoisie is at the crossroads). But the path of the new world is also vague; it is no coincidence that the bourgeois reminds the question). Yes, even a blizzard ( Chapter 10) sweeps away so that “You can’t see each other at all // in four steps!” She seems to warn the short-sighted, clouds their path, deceives those who are without a cross, and mocks them. They are all tied in blood, and not only Katkina’s (Blok seems to foresee rivers of blood).
Chapter 11 again shows the walking patrol. Their step is measured, inevitable. Where are they going? “Into the distance” - where is this? In our time, in the future? What did they bring with them? Have they found their enemy? And the blizzard keeps throwing dust in their eyes days and nights long ». How does this phrase expand the time frame of the poem?
Gorky about the revolution (“Untimely Thoughts”): “Our revolution gave full play to all the bad and brutal instincts that had accumulated under the lead roof of the monarchy, and, at the same time, it threw aside all the intellectual forces of democracy, all the moral energy of the country "
Working with illustrations. Which of the illustrations (Smirnov or Annensky), in your opinion, most accurately reflects Blok’s worldview? Remember in what form the poet represented the revolution. Pay attention to the composition of the drawings, the ratio of the sizes of the images; the globe on a bayonet, an eclipse of the sun, faces and figures of heroes, etc.
The last one Chapter 12.
So, how do the characters make you feel? But who made them like this? Who is to blame for their immorality? Let us turn again to Blok’s article (p. 221, sins of the fathers). Those. The bloc understands and accepts the revolution (in this case, the mission of these soldiers) as a kind of punishment (retribution) to the ruling classes for their criminal neglect of their state duty in relation to their own people. For the centuries-old slavery of the people, there had to be a reckoning someday. One can recall here the words of the Indian writer Premchand, who was born in the same year as Blok: “Man has by nature high moral principles. Under the pressure of circumstances and the lies that reign in the world, he loses them.” Of course, this is an attempt to understand, not justify, immorality . Why does Jesus Christ suddenly (and is it “suddenly”?) appear ahead of the Red Guards?
It is curious that both ardent supporters of Blok's poem and its ardent opponents were unanimous in their rejection of this image in the last stanza. Why?
Some - who saw the “glorification” of the revolution in the poem - believed that Christ was alien to the revolution and its ideals. Hence the lines “A sailor walks ahead.”
Others thought it blasphemous that Blok put Christ ahead of the murderers. (Voloshin said that they were pursuing him. That could also be the case.)
Blok himself, responding to Gumilyov’s attacks, wrote: “I also don’t like the end of “12.” I wish this ending had been different... But the more I looked, the more clearly I saw Christ. And then I wrote down to myself: unfortunately, Christ”... And later: “It’s scary that He’s with them again.”
Let's try to figure out what this image in the poem was supposed to symbolize.
Remember: initially Christianity was the religion of the disadvantaged, striving for a better fate (how is it in the poem?). Perhaps Blok is afraid of a repetition of the historical process that ended in a whirlwind of revolutions, bringing so much grief. But Blok didn’t find another one. Perhaps Christ, at the end of the poem, picks up the red flag and finds himself among those who do not need Him, because He does not have the right to leave this weak, imperfect creature - man - alone with this world of evil, which He Himself created. They are also children of God. If He is with them, it means that there is hope that the darkness and turmoil in human souls will give way to a world of light and goodness... The struggle between God and the Devil is eternal. Maybe that’s why a poem that begins with black light still ends with white.
You can have different attitudes towards what Blok showed in the poem, towards its characters, and their world. You can agree or disagree with the author, but you cannot help but admit that the poem “The Twelve” is a great work about one of the most terrible eras in the history of Russia, for the revolution is a merciless battle between God and the Devil for the human soul. The poem “12” is an honest attempt to understand your country, your people. Not to CONDEMN or JUSTIFY, but to UNDERSTAND. It’s probably not for nothing that I came across the words of V. Solovyov (in many ways Blok’s teacher) about morality: “The highest morality requires some freedom for immorality.” (I would accept Blok for this highest morality). By the way, Blok fulfilled the dream of many of his predecessors, showing the people as the main driving force of history. What came of it?
Analysis of the poem "The Twelve"
The meaning of the poem is metaphysical. Shortly before October, the poet defined what was happening in Russia as a “vortex of atoms of the cosmic revolution.” But in “The Twelve,” after October, Blok, who was still justifying the revolution, also wrote about the threatening power of the elements. Even in the summer, Blok, who believed in the wisdom and tranquility of the revolutionary people, spoke in a poem about the elements that played out “in all of God’s world,” and about the elements of rebellious passions, about people for whom the absolute freedom was, as for Pushkin’s Aleko, will for oneself.
The element is a symbolic image of the poem. She personifies universal cataclysms; the twelve apostles of the revolutionary idea promise to fan a “world fire”, a blizzard breaks out, “the snow curls like a funnel”, a “blizzard is dusty” in the alleys. The element of passions is also growing. Urban life also takes on the character of spontaneity: the reckless driver “rushes at a gallop,” he “flies, screams, yells,” “Vanka and Katka are flying” on the reckless driver, etc.
However, the October events of 1917 were no longer perceived only as the embodiment of whirlwinds and elements. In parallel with this essentially anarchic motif in “The Twelve,” the motif of universal expediency, rationality, and a higher principle embodied in the image of Christ also develops. In 1904-1905 Blok, carried away by the fight against the old world, wanting to “be tougher” and “hate a lot,” assured that he would not go “to be healed by Christ” and would never accept Him. In the poem, he outlined a different perspective for the heroes - the future faith in Christ's commandments. On July 27, 1918, Blok noted in his diary: “People say that everything about what is happening is due to the fall of religion...”
Both the contemplators of the revolution and its apostles - the twelve fighters - turn to God's principle. So, the old woman does not understand the purpose of the poster “All power to the Constituent Assembly!”, She does not understand the Bolsheviks (“Oh, the Bolsheviks will drive them into the coffin!”), but she believes in the Mother of God (“Oh, Mother Intercessor!”) . The fighters go through the path from freedom “without a cross” to freedom with Christ, and this metamorphosis occurs against their will, without their faith in Christ, as a manifestation of a higher, metaphysical order.
The freedom to violate Christ's commandments, namely to kill and fornicate, is transformed into the element of permissiveness. In the blood of the twelve watchmen there is a “world fire”; the atheists are ready to shed blood, be it Katka who betrayed her lover or a bourgeois.
The love affair plays a key role in revealing the theme of wasted blood during the period of historical retribution, the theme of non-acceptance of violence. An intimate conflict develops into a social conflict. The watchmen perceive Vanka’s love treachery, his walk “with a stranger’s girl” as evil, directed not only against Petrukha, but also against them: “My, try, kiss!” They view Katka's murder as revolutionary retribution.
The episode with the murder of the “fool” and “cholera” Katka is ideologically and “compositionally directly related to the appearance in the finale of the poem of the image of Christ as the embodiment of the idea of forgiving sinners, that is, murderers. The watchmen and Christ in the poem are both antipodes and those who are destined to find each other. Jesus, “unharmed by the bullet,” is not with twelve fighters. He is ahead of them. He, with a bloody red flag, personifies not only Blok’s faith in the holiness of the tasks of the revolution, not only his justification of the “holy malice” of the revolutionary people, but also the idea of Christ’s atonement for the next bloody sin of people, and the idea of forgiveness, and the hope that those who have crossed through blood they will still come to His covenants, to the ideals of love, and finally, to the eternal values in which revolutionary Russia and the poet himself believed - the brotherhood of equality, etc. The watchmen seem to have to walk the path of the Apostle Paul.
Christ is not with the old world, which in the poem is associated with a rootless, hungry dog that wanders behind the twelve. Blok perceived the old government as immoral and not responsible to the people.
The idea of uniting Christ and the Red Guards in the poem as fellow travelers in a harmonious world was not accidental; it was something that Blok had suffered through. He believed in the affinity of revolutionary and Christian truths. He believed that if there were true clergy in Russia, they would come to the same thought.
speak? What does Blok understand about the revolution that others did not see? What do you look at differently than Blok?
So what goal does the poet set for himself when depicting the “music of the revolution”?
On the one hand, Blok understands and accepts its pattern, on the other hand, he saw her cruel face and largely foresaw its disastrous consequences. Welcoming the revolution as a way to radically change life for the better, the poet romantically imagined its forces as more reasonable and humane than they actually turned out to be. He understood and accepted the revolution as a kind of punishment (retribution).
But the fate of a real poet is inseparable from the fate of his country. Blok dreamed of realizing his old dream, of spiritual harmony. But deep disappointment awaited him. Therefore, the poet's voice falls silent.
On May 4, 1919, he writes: “But I can no longer really work while the new noose of the police state hangs around my neck.” Everything returned to where it came from (as in his poem “Night. Street. Lantern. Pharmacy...”). Maybe Blok wanted to destroy the poem, knowing that thousands of people listened to his words, believed him and would follow him. But his note is still known (April 1, 1920): “That is why I do not renounce what was written then, because it was written in accordance with the elements...”.
Disappointment in his ideal, a feeling of powerlessness in the face of a future catastrophe, which Blok already felt, led to his creative death - after the poem “12” and “Scythians” he fell silent forever (1918). Perhaps, as G. Ivanov suggested, “Blok paid with his life for the creation of the Twelve.”
Homework. Answer one of the questions in writing:
1) How is the revolutionary era reflected in the poem?
2) Why does the image of Jesus Christ appear at the end of the poem?
“The Twelve” (1918) is Blok’s direct response to the October Revolution. Having completed the poem, the author wrote in his diary: “Today I am a genius.”
This work differs sharply in style and language from his previous works. "The Twelve" is a metaphysical poem. In accordance with his perception of the revolution as an unstoppable element, the poet makes a blizzard with a neutral symbolic image of “The Twelve”: “Wind, wind | All over God's world." There is a "blizzard of dust" on the streets of St. Petersburg. The blizzard also permeates the existence of people (the reckless driver “rushes at a gallop”, on the reckless driver “Vanka and Katka are flying”, etc.). The spontaneous uncontrollability of the plans is visible in the promises of the twelve bearers of the new idea: “We are woe to all the bourgeoisie | We will fan the world fire.”
The element of passion rages in man, flaring up uncontrollably. The theme of revolution appears in the poem with the appearance of a detachment of guards. In their steps one can hear the music of the emerging world. The collective image of the twelve is quite contradictory. On the one hand, these are former tramps in crumpled caps and fancy coats, “bastards,” masters of the streets who “don’t feel sorry for anything.” On the other hand, this is a patrol that establishes order, moving at a “sovereign step.” Behind, in the past, remains the hungry dog of the old world: in the future - heaven on earth, the image of which is now understood in a new way.
The highest expression of the blizzard element in human consciousness is the “freedom without a cross” of the twelve sentinels. It is understood as unlimited freedom, permission to violate the Gospel commandments, to kill, to commit fornication, leading to a feeling of complete impunity. Revolutionaries are ready to shed blood, be it the blood of an unfaithful lover or a bourgeois.
The peculiarity of the composition of the poem “The Twelve” is the presence of two image plans: a symbolic plan (“Wind, wind - in the whole wide world!”), a concrete object plan (a patrol of 12 guardsmen walks through the city at night). In the poem there is an interruption of these plans.
The theme of wasted blood during the period of revolutionary storms is revealed through a love affair. Katka is a traitor, but she didn’t just cheat on Petrukha, she walked with both the officer and the “cadet,” and now she walks with Vanka, who has become a “bourgeois.” A love conflict develops into a social conflict. The murder of Katka by the twelve is perceived as retribution to the traitor Vanka, as an act of revolutionary will.
Blok believed in the closeness of Christian and revolutionary ideals. The transformation of the world by Jesus (A. Blok's spelling) Christ and revolutionary cataclysms seemed related to him. However, the apostles of the new revolutionary faith - the twelve sentinels - are atheists, sinners: “...And they go without the name of the saint”...
At the end of the poem, Jesus Christ appears at the head of the Red Guards, far from God. Jesus, walking before the atheists, is not only the personification of Blok’s faith in the holiness of the revolution, the justification of the anger of the people, but also the embodiment of the idea of Christ’s atonement for human sin, including the sin of murder. And the poet’s hope is that those who have crossed the blood will come to the ideals of love.
The poet believed in freedom, equality, fraternity, which, in his opinion, the revolution would bring. Jesus is not with the fighters, but ahead of them - he embodies the highest essence of the revolution, which is not yet available to the members of the revolutionary detachment. Their number - twelve - coincides with the number of apostles, disciples of Christ, who brought a new faith to people.
The old world in the poem is represented in the form of a hungry dog wandering after the watchmen. In depicting the old world, Blok uses elements of satire, due to which the images acquire a general meaning; lady in karakul; a long-haired writer who sang to the tune of the authorities. A new world is approaching, the twelve stubbornly move forward, overcoming the blizzard. Those who belong to the old world are unstable: one slides, the other cannot stand on his feet. The wind carries away the poster “All power to the Constituent Assembly.” The element of revolution sweeps away everything that has become obsolete.
Revolutionary Russia in the poem is a world split in two, depicted using two colors - black and white. The poet hoped for the transformation of black Russia into white Russia through revolutionary cleansing. The symbolism of color expresses the confrontation between the evil of the old world and the white, Christ-like state of it. There is also another color in the poem - blood red - the color of blood, the color of crime. This is the color of the flag that “beats” Katya’s bullet-ridden head. Blok did not see in 1918 the triumph of the holy ideals that the revolution brings, but he understood that the transition from the black past to the bright future personified by Christ cannot be painless, therefore the present in his poem is presented in a mixture of all three colors.
The rhythm of the poem “The Twelve” is unconventional and not typical for Blok’s poetry. Within the same foot, different sizes are combined (for example, a trochee with an anapest). The text includes the rhythms of ditties, romances, dances, marches, prayers, and raeshnik. The style is also heterogeneous; lexical polyphony is achieved by mixing political concepts, jargon, and buffoonery in a farcical spirit. There are also vagabond and even criminal intonations, unusual for the works of the sophisticated Blok, which are explained by the dominance of anarchy and the reason of the passions of the proletariat. The gigantic “displacement of the whole” led to a displacement of all aspects of life, which is expressed through the stylistic and rhythmic heterogeneity of the poem.