Review of Russian poetry of the 20th century. “The “Silver Age” of Russian poetry - this name has become stable to designate Russian poetry of the late 19th - early 20th centuries

At the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. The development of Russian culture - literature, music, painting and architecture - distinguished by its extreme saturation of artistic, aesthetic, religious and philosophical searches and achievements, did not proceed in a straight line, but like a diverging “fan”, with many lines and trends, with the formation of quickly replacing each other's schools and directions. In the fine arts, the Silver Age is represented by the painting and graphics of M. Vrubel, A. Benois, L. Bakst, K. Somov, M. Dobuzhinsky, B. Borisov-Musatov, the active work of the “World of Arts”, theatrical art - the stage innovations of M. Fokin , Sun. Meyerhold, N. Evreinov, in music - the names of A. Scriabin, N. Prokofiev, N. Stravinsky, S. Rachmaninov. The innovations of Russian modernism and avant-garde appeared in architecture. In Russian literature, against the background of realism, symbolism and acmeism emerge, the left avant-garde is vigorously asserting itself, all of them modernize the traditions of Russian classics or completely deny them.

“Electrified” by various moods and intuitions, multidirectional searches and aspirations, the atmosphere of the turn of the century paradoxically combined an unusually bright creative upsurge with a feeling of crisis and spiritual decadence. The Silver Age gave examples of a special sense of the world, sometimes super-acute and stylistically exalted. Russian culture of this period is characterized by active interaction with Western European art and philosophy. The possibilities of artistic and intuitive knowledge of the world were re-opened, reinterpreted symbols and “eternal images” of world culture, ancient myths were involved in creativity, and examples of both primitive art and liturgical chant were used.

One of the authors of the term “Silver Age,” N. Berdyaev, wrote: “This was the era of the awakening in Russia of independent philosophical thought, the flourishing of poetry and the intensification of aesthetic sensitivity, religious anxiety and quest, interest in mysticism and the occult. New souls appeared, new sources of creative life were discovered, new dawns were seen, the feelings of decline and death were combined with the feeling of sunrise and hope for the transformation of life.” Heyday and crisis, individualism and the feeling of an indissoluble connection with the cosmos and God, the intrinsic value of creativity and the desire to break the boundary between art and life itself, rebellion against established aesthetic norms and the desire for a synthesis of all forms of art, the search for the fullness of being and bold experiments with it - these are those heterogeneous impulses that gave birth to various aesthetic schools and directions, programs and manifestos.

The definition of “Silver Age” entered the cultural consciousness of many authors of this era. A. Akhmatova in “Poem without a Hero” focused on the phrase “silver age”: “And the silver month floated brightly / Above the silver age.” V. Rozanov wrote in “Mimoletny”: “Pushkin, Lermontov, Koltsov (and very few others) will move into the next “Silver Age” of Russian literature.” The worldview of the Silver Age as the end of the 19th century. and the beginning of a new era was expressed by A. Blok in 1910: “Behind our shoulders are the great shadows of Tolstoy and Nietzsche, Wagner and Dostoevsky. Everything changes; we stand in the face of the new and universal.<…>We have experienced what others manage to survive in a hundred years; It was not for nothing that we saw how, in the thunder and lightning of the elements of the earth and underground, the new age threw its seeds into the ground; in this stormy light we dreamed and made us wise with later wisdom - all centuries. Those of us who were not washed away or crippled by the terrible wave of the past decade, with full right and with clear hope, await new light from the new century.” The choice of the epithet “silver” was not accidental: a line was drawn between Pushkin’s golden age, art of the highest standard, the age of Russian classics and “new art”, which modernized classical traditions, sought new means of expression and artistic forms.

Through a creative dispute with realism and naturalism, symbolism declared itself; in polemics with symbolism, Acmeism emerged and aesthetically self-defined itself; Russian futurism asserted itself through the denial of symbolism and acmeism, sharply overthrowing all traditions and aesthetic norms of verbal creativity. The emerging new trends and directions had their heyday and decline, giving impetus to innovations and creative achievements of their rivals and successors. Modernism could not help but come to the avant-garde, leftist art, the extreme conclusion of which was the affirmation of the absurdity of existence, which is characteristic of the OBERIU poets. Attention to formal searches, art as a technique and design was initiated by the scientific achievements of the Russian formal school and the emergence in the 20s. constructivism. The Russian avant-garde - literary and artistic - is a unique phenomenon, inscribed in the general trends of world art of the 20th century. The search for new forms and means of artistic expression yielded vivid results in the 10-20s. The Silver Age is represented by major poets who were not part of any groups or movements - M. Voloshin and M. Tsvetaeva.

Not all literary and artistic realities of the early 20th century. correspond to the concept of the Silver Age. We must not forget that L. Tolstoy, the great representative of critical realism, still lived (he died in 1910). His departure from Yasnaya Polyana and death at the hitherto unknown Ostapovo station shocked all of Russia. Another artist was A. Chekhov, an artist with a piercingly clear mind, compassionate for man in his absolutely sad and philistine stuffy environment. Chekhov introduced kind laughter and a pure smile over the inescapable tragedy of human existence into Russian literature. In the same era, A. Gorky, A. Tolstoy, L. Andreev, V. Veresaev, I. Bunin, B. Zaitsev, I. Shmelev, M. Allanov, M. Osorgin began their journey.

This period is also called the Russian cultural renaissance. It was at the turn of the century that original, independent religious, moral and philosophical thought awakened in Russia, which did not strive to build complete philosophical “systems”, but penetrated into the depths of the contradictions of modern life, revealed the metaphysical foundations of being, the essential connections of man with the universal, eternally created cosmic life . The legacy of the Russian cultural renaissance, represented by N. Berdyaev, P. Florensky, V. Rozanov, O. S. Bulgakov, N. Fedorov, G. Fedotov, L. Shestov, is original and significant. Russian emigrant philosophers became the discoverers and founders of the philosophy of personalism, the philosophy of freedom and the philosophy of creativity. “Metaphysics of All-Unity” Vl. Solovyov, the struggle of spirit and flesh and the “kingdom of the Third Testament” by D. Merezhkovsky, personalism and the creative struggle against the objectification of the spirit by N. Berdyaev, the creative freedom of the “inner” word of V. Rozanov, the “life of ideas” and the inextinguishability of “The Unevening Light” by S. Bulgakov , “Conditions of absolute good” by V. Vysheslavtsev, the ideas of L. Shestov, N. Shpet, S. Frank, B. Lossky, their deep understanding in the spiritual, religious and philosophical aspects of the heritage of Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol - a contribution outlined in the most general form , which Russian religious and moral thinkers contributed to Russian and world philosophical, ethical and philological thought of the 20th century.

The Silver Age refers primarily to Russian poetry of the early 20th century. Russian cultural renaissance - towards moral and religious philosophy and ethics. Poets and philosophers, artists and composers had a premonition of the death of the old world. Some tried to quickly call on the “coming Huns,” others saw the meaning of life in preserving shrines and traditions, or, as Vyach said. Ivanov, is to “take the lamp away from them into the catacombs, into the caves,” or, according to A. Blok, “to curse chaos.” Symbolism, having modernized the traditions of Russian classical literature, became a brilliant conclusion to the era. Russian religious and moral philosophy turned to the Orthodox tradition, the patristic sources of spirituality, before leaving for a long time in the “Soviet night” to Solovki, to the catacombs of the camps or to a foreign land.

Literally after several decades of artistic discoveries and achievements, the “starburst” of the Silver Age, the October Revolution, the Civil War, the genocide of the 1930s. radically changed the life of Russia, which even began to be called in a new way - the USSR (for M. Tsvetaeva it was a “whistling sound”). There has been a radical change in the historical and cultural paradigm. In 1921, A. Blok died, and N. Gumilyov was shot at the same time. This year was perceived by many as the end of the Silver Age. However, this vibrant era lasted as long as the bearers of its cultural consciousness were alive. A striking example is the work of A. Akhmatova and O. Mandelstam, B. Pasternak and N. Zabolotsky.

Divided into two streams, Russian literature, despite all objective conditions, sought to preserve both the classical traditions and the traditions of the Silver Age, the richness of the Russian language, and to increase the cultural heritage.

This is evidenced by the work of I. Severyanin, M. Tsvetaeva, E. Kuzmina-Karavaeva, G. Adamovich, G. Ivanov, B. Poplavsky, I. Bunin, V. Nabokov and many other Russian emigrant writers who were forced to leave their homeland.

Most of the symbolist poets emigrated - D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, K. Balmont, Vyach. Ivanov. Symbolist V. Bryusov found an opportunity to cooperate with the new government. Among the Acmeists, N. Gumilyov was shot, O. Mandelstam died in the camps, the son of A. Akhmatova and N. Gumilyov, in the future the most prominent Russian scientist, “the last Eurasianist,” L. Gumilyov was a hostage of Akhmatova’s muse, while in the camps and penal battalions. Oberiut N. Zabolotsky went through the torment of the camps and the experience of exile. The absurdist D. Kharms went through difficult trials. Almost all the most prominent philosophers were sent abroad on the so-called “philosophical ship”, except Fr. P. Florensky, who died on Solovki, and A. Losev, who was serving exile. The Russian avant-garde, being a radical left-wing phenomenon, came closest to an alliance with real political power in the country. However, V. Mayakovsky’s alliance with the authorities ended in creative and personal tragedy for him. Russian literature, together with the people, ascended to the tragic calvary of the 20th century in order to atone at the cost of incredible suffering for pride and fight against God, self-will and rebellion.

Culture of the 20th century creatively absorbed the ideas, innovations and discoveries of Russian poets and philosophers, artists and directors, musicians and actors of the Silver Age, preserving as an ideal their uplifting spirit and creative dedication, a wide ideological and philosophical range and the grandeur of artistic tasks.

Related information.

This summary can be used both for a review lesson on the topic “Poetry of the Silver Age”, and as a repeating and generalizing lesson using group technologies. This lesson allows you to repeat and generalize knowledge on the topic, develops students' creative abilities and aesthetic taste, their research skills and the ability to work in a group.

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Literature lesson in 11th grade
(using design technologies)

Prepared and carried out

Russian language teacher and

literature Zhagrova V.V.

Goals:

• repeat and summarize knowledge on the topic “Poetry of the Silver Age”: consider the features of the largest literary movements that made up the poetry of Russian modernism - symbolism, acmeism, futurism and imagism; determine their general artistic principles;
• develop students’ creative abilities and taste, their research skills, and ability to work in a group;
• contribute to increasing the general erudition of children.

During the classes.

Teacher's opening speech.

Silver Age... This very phrase is associated in our minds with something sublime and beautiful. The poetry of this period is essentially a melody of words, a kind of sound order.

Among the worlds, in the twinkling of the luminaries

I repeat the name of one Star...

Not because I loved her,

But because I languish with others.

And if it’s hard for me to doubt,

I am looking to Her alone for an answer,

Not because it’s light from Her,

But because with Her there is no need for light.

Innokenty Annensky... Notice how deep, figurative, philosophical!

However, the Silver Age, unlike the Pushkin era, called the “golden age” in Russian literature, cannot be called by someone’s name – even a great one; his poetics absolutely cannot be reduced to the work of one, two or even several outstanding masters of words. The peculiarity of this period is that poets representing many literary movements, professing different poetic principles, lived and worked in it. Each of them was distinguished by the extraordinary music of the verse, the original expression of the feelings and experiences of the lyrical hero, and a focus on the future.

Today in the lesson we will talk about such a phenomenon in Russian literature as modernism. We talked about it a lot and in detail and today we are summing it up. The result of our research was a book about Russian modernism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, compiled by us based on materials from literary studies, our knowledge, tastes, and preferences.

Today we invited you to our Literary Salon for the presentation of this book.The owner of the salon is Elena Valieva. Over to her.

Presenter:

• The task that we set for ourselves when creating this book was to consider the features of the largest literary movements that made up the poetry of Russian modernism - symbolism, acmeism, futurism and imagism; determine their general artistic principles; try to recreate the overall picture of the poetic era called the Silver Age, without which it is quite difficult to understand its individual manifestations.
• The book was created through joint efforts. Groups of “symbolists”, “acmeists”, “futurists” and “imagists” worked, who, having studied literary sources, tried to compile a brief summary of the chosen literary direction, name the names of the most significant, in their opinion, representatives of this movement, make a selection of poems from these poets, reflecting their poetic style. At the same time, a group of art historians worked, selecting works by artists and composers of the Silver Age for decoration.
• The book opens with a general description of the concept of “modernism”

Page 1

Modernism.

The term "modernism" translated from French means the latest, modern and in a broad sense is a general designation for the phenomena of art and literature of the 20th century that moved away from the traditions of external similarity.

The term “modernism” quite accurately conveyed the idea of ​​​​creating new literature inherent in the literature of the Silver Age and was embodied “in a system of relatively independent artistic movements and movements, characterized by a feeling of disharmony in the world, a break with the traditions of realism, rebellious and shocking perception, the predominance of the motive of loss of connection with reality, loneliness and illusory freedom of the artist, locked in the space of his fantasies, memories and subjective associations. The essence of modernism was that modernists were blinded by the “crazy dream of being only artists in life.”

Symbolism, Acmeism, Futurism, Imagism are the main trends of modernism.

Page 2

Symbolism

Presenter. The next page of the book is devoted to the largest literary movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries - symbolism.Symbolism (from the Greek Symbolon - sign, symbol) - a movement in European art of 1870-1910; one of the modernist movements in Russian poetry at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Focused primarily on the expression through symbol of intuitively comprehended entities and ideas, vague, often sophisticated feelings and visions.

The very word “symbol” in traditional poetics means “multi-valued allegory,” that is, a poetic image expressing the essence of a phenomenon; in the poetry of symbolism, he conveys the individual, often momentary ideas of the poet.

The poetics of symbolism is characterized by:

• transmission of the subtlest movements of the soul;
• maximum use of sound and rhythmic means of poetry;
• exquisite imagery, musicality and lightness of style;
• poetics of allusion and allegory;
• symbolic content of everyday words;
• attitude to the word as a cipher of some spiritual secret writing;
• understatement, concealment of meaning;
• the desire to create a picture of an ideal world;
• aestheticization of death as an existential principle;
• elitism, orientation towards the reader-co-author, creator

Symbolism was a heterogeneous, motley and quite contradictory phenomenon. He united in his ranks poets who sometimes held very different views. In literary criticism, it is customary to distinguish between “senior” and “junior” symbolists.

	"Senior Symbolists"		"Young Symbolists"
	St. Petersburg group	Moscow group
Representatives	D. Merezhkovsky Z. Gippius F. Sologub I. Annensky	V. Bryusov K. Balmont	A. Blok A. Bely V.Ivanov Ellis
Theorists	D. Merezhkovsky	V. Bryusov	V. Soloviev
Articles	D. Merezhkovsky “On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature»	V. Bryusov “Keys of Secrets”; K. Balmont “Elementary words about symbolic poetry”	A. Bely “On religious experiences”
Magazines	"Northern Herald"	"Libra" "Apollo"

The division into “senior” and “junior” symbolists occurred not so much due to age, but because of the difference in worldview and direction of creativity.

The “Senior Symbolists” did not set out to create a system of symbols; they are more shocking decadents, impressionists who sought to convey the subtlest shades of moods and movements of the soul. Gradually, the word as a carrier of meaning for the symbolists lost its value. It acquired value only as a sound, a musical note, as a link in the overall melodic structure of the poem.

The “Young Symbolists” relied on the teachings of the idealist philosopher and poet Vl. Solovyov, who deepened Plato’s idea of ​​“two worlds.” Solovyov prophesied the end of the world, when humanity, mired in sins, would be saved and revived to a new life by a certain divine principle - the “World Soul” (aka “Eternal Femininity”), which would lead to the creation of the “Kingdom of God on earth.”

• One of the founders of Russian symbolismwas Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky

D.S. Merezhkovsky was one of the founders of Russian symbolism. His poetry collection “Symbols”, published in 1892 in St. Petersburg, gave its name to the emerging direction of Russian poetry. But, developing the main symbolist motifs of the hopeless loneliness of man in the world, the fatal duality of personality and preaching beauty that “saves the world,” Merezhkovsky was unable to overcome rationality and declarativeness in his poems. He did not accept the revolution; since 1920 he lived in exile.

I consider the poem to be the most striking poem reflecting the poet’s worldview"It won't happen."

• One of the representatives of the Moscow group of senior symbolists wasKonstantin Dmitrievich Balmont

At the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries, K.D. Balmont was perhaps the most famous among Russian poets. In his early poems one can hear the motifs of civil sorrow and self-denial, which arose under the influence of folk poetry. Following this, he acted as one of the early representatives of symbolism. In addition, Balmont is known as a prominent translator and a passionate traveler: he visited all continents.

In 1920, haunted by hunger and disease, the poet left for France. Forgotten by everyone and half-mad, he died on the outskirts of Paris.

"Bell Ringing"

• And, of course, a conversation about symbolism would be incompletewithout Alexander Alexandrovich Blok.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok is the only Symbolist recognized during his lifetime as a poet of national importance. In Russian poetry, he took his place as a bright representative of symbolism, but later he significantly stepped over the boundaries and canons of this literary movement, significantly expanding it, but without destroying it.

The romanticism of the mature Blok no longer has anything in common with the subjectivism of his youthful lyrics, clearly indicated both in “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” and in the later demonic image of the Stranger.

Blok's contribution to Russian poetry is unusually great. His work brought to an end all the most important trends in Russian lyricism of the pre-October period.

“I have a feeling about you...”

Page 3

Acmeism

Presenter. Next in our book follows an article about a movement that was formed as a reaction to the extremes of symbolism - Acmeism.Acmeism (from the Greek Acme - the highest degree of something, flourishing, maturity, peak, edge) is one of the modernist movements in Russian poetry of the 1910s, formed as a reaction to the extremes of symbolism.

Basic principles of Acmeism:

**liberation of poetry from symbolist appeals to the ideal, returning it to clarity;

**refusal of mystical nebula, acceptance of the earthly world in its diversity, visible concreteness, sonority, colorfulness;

**the desire to give a word a specific, precise meaning;

objectivity and clarity of images, precision of details;

**appeal to a person, to the “authenticity” of his feelings;

echoes of past literary eras, broad aesthetic associations, “longing for world culture.”

• One of the founders of Acmeism wasNikolay Stepanovich Gumilyov

N.S. Gumilyov is a poet, prose writer, playwright, critic, one of the founders of Acmeism, and head of the “Workshop of Poets.” His poetry is characterized by a craving for the exotic, poeticization of history, a passion for bright colors, and a desire for compositional clarity.

In his youth, Gumilev traveled a lot. Anna Akhmatova's husband volunteered to go to the front in 1914; awarded two St. George's crosses. In 1921, he was arrested on false charges and executed as a participant in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy."On my way"

• Along with men, a woman’s voice has been heard in the poetry of Russian modernism. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, who began her creative career within the framework of Acmeism, became a truly great national poet.

The lyrics of A.A. Akhmatova entered Russian poetry with a fresh stream of sincere feeling. Clarity of language, balance of poetic tone, simple but extremely expressive images fill her lyrical poems with great psychological content. The poetess’s style seemed to have fused the traditions of the classics and the latest experience of Russian poetry, and the feeling of the era, empathy for its events, and the search for her place in them made Akhmatova a truly great national poet.

“Clenched her hands under a dark veil”

• The next page of our book is dedicated toOsip Emilievich Mandelstam.

O.E. Mandelstam - poet, prose writer, essayist; joined Acmeism from the first steps of this literary movement. His poetry is characterized by philosophical depth. keen interest in history. Mandelstam is a brilliant master of the poetic word. His poems are extremely brief, rich in historical and literary associations, musically expressive and rhythmically varied.

After the revolution, the poet was gradually forced out of print. In 1934 he was arrested and sent into exile. In 1938, he was arrested a second time and died in a camp near Vladivostok.

"For the explosive valor of the coming centuries"

Presenter. Any modernist movement in art asserted itself by rejecting old norms, canons, and traditions. However, futurism was extremely extremist in this regard.

Page 4

Futurism.

Futurism (from Latin Futurum - future) is the general name of the artistic avant-garde movements of the 1910s - early 1920s of the 20th century, primarily in Italy and Russia.

The main features of futurism:

• rebellion, anarchic worldview, expression of mass sentiments of the crowd;
• denial of cultural traditions, an attempt to create art aimed at the future;
• rebellion against the usual norms of poetic speech, experimentation in the field of rhythm, rhyme, focus on the spoken verse, slogan, poster;
• searches for a liberated “authentic” word, experiments in creating an “abstruse” language;
• cult of technology, industrial cities;
• shocking pathos.

	Cubofuturism "Gilea"	Egofuturism	"Mezzanine of Poetry"	"Centrifuge"
Representatives	David Burliuk, Vasily Kamensky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexey Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky	Igor Severyanin, Vasilisk Gnedov, Ivan Ignatiev	Rurik Ivnev, Sergei Tretyakov, Konstantin Bolshakov	Nikolai Aseev, Boris Pasternak, Semyon Kirsanov
Articles	"A slap in the face to public taste"	"Tablets of Egopoetry"		S. Bobrov "Russian purism"
Magazines	Poetry collection “Tank of Judges”		Almanacs “Vernissage”, “Feast during the Plague”, “Crematorium of Sanity”	Collection "Rukogon"

• "Gilea" is the first futuristic group. They also called themselves “Cubo-Futurists” or “Budetlyans” (this name was suggested by Khlebnikov). The year of its foundation is considered to be 1908, although the main composition was formed in 1909-1910. David Burliuk, Vasily Kamensky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky became representatives of the most radical flank of Russian literary futurism, which was distinguished by revolutionary rebellion, oppositional sentiment against bourgeois society, its morality, aesthetic tastes, and the entire system of social relations.

Vladimir Mayakovsky

V.V. Mayakovsky is one of the leaders of cubo-futurism and Russian avant-garde art. In Russian poetry of the 20th century he plays an exceptional role. The poet invaded the traditional system of versification, greatly transforming it. Mayakovsky's verse was based not on the music of rhythm, but on semantic stress, on intonation. The number of syllables in a line has lost its decisive importance in his poems, the role of rhyme has increased and qualitatively changed, and the colloquial nature of the verse has sharply manifested itself. This was a fundamentally new step in the development of Russian poetry.

The revolution largely changed Mayakovsky's views on the social role of art. In the late period of his creativity, he moved away from futurism. The poet's fate was tragic: unfortunate circumstances in the struggle of literary groups and in his personal life led him to suicide.

"Listen"

• Unlike Cubo-Futurism, which grew out of a creative community of like-minded people, Ego-Futurism was an individual invention of the poet Igor Severyanin. He did not have a specific creative program, and the slogans of his egofuturism were:

1. soul is the only truth;

2. self-affirmation of personality;

3. searching for the new without rejecting the old;

4. meaningful neologisms;

5. bold images, epithets, assonances and dissonances;

6. fight against stereotypes and screensavers.

As you can see, this “program” does not contain any theoretical innovations. In it, Severyanin actually proclaims himself the one and only poetic personality.

Northerner remained the only ego-futurist to go down in the history of Russian poetry. His poems were distinguished by their melodiousness, sonority and lightness. He was a master of words. His rhymes were unusually fresh, bold, and surprisingly harmonious.

Igor Severyanin

Igor Severyanin is the pseudonym of Igor Vasilyevich Lotarev. Already his first books secured Severyanin’s reputation as an exclusively salon poet. Many of his poems were characterized by mannerism; excessive predilection for neologisms and foreign vocabulary brought the poet to the brink of bad taste. At the same time, Severyanin owns a number of works that are characterized by colorfulness, expressiveness and melody of poetic speech, complex rhyming, and the presence of original poetic forms.

In the summer of 1918, the poet was in Estonia and after the creation of a bourgeois republic there, he found himself in exile. In his later poems the drama of separation from his homeland is clearly felt. "When at night"

• In the “Mezzanine of Poets” there were no major figures comparable to Mayakovsky or Khlebnikov, so it was quite difficult for its participants to develop some kind of independent theoretical basis for their group. This movement was not built on a common ideological platform, but rather on the business and publishing interests of its participants. The association collapsed at the end of 1913.
• The Moscow futuristic group "Centrifuge" was formed in January 1914. The main feature in the theory and artistic practice of the participants in “Centrifuge” was that when constructing a lyrical work, the center of attention moved from the word as such to intonation-rhythmic and syntactic structures. Their work organically combined futuristic experimentation and reliance on tradition, the desire to connect their activities with the artistic creativity of previous generations.

Boris Pasternak

One of the most prominent representatives of Centrifuge is B.L. Pasternak. The origins of Pasternak's poetic style lie in the modernist literature of the 20th century, in the aesthetics of impressionism.

His early poems are complex in form and densely saturated with metaphors. But already in them one can feel the freshness of perception, sincerity and depth. Over the years, Pasternak frees himself from the excessive subjectivity of images and associations. Remaining philosophically deep and intense, his verse acquires increasing transparency and classical clarity.

"February"

“The Candle Was Burning” (romance)

Presenter. The last sensational school in Russian poetry of the 20th century was imagism.

Page 5

Imagism

Imagism (from French and English Image - image) is a literary and artistic movement that arose in Russia in the first post-revolutionary years on the basis of the literary practice of futurism.

The main features of imagism:

• the primacy of the “image as such”; image is the most general category that replaces the evaluative concept of artistry;
• poetic creativity is the process of language development through metaphor;
• an epithet is the sum of metaphors, comparisons and contrasts of any subject;
• poetic content is the evolution of the image and epithet as the most primitive image;
• a text that has a certain coherent content cannot be classified as poetry, since it rather performs an ideological function; the poem should be a “catalogue of images”, read the same way from beginning to end.

Imagism was the last sensational school in Russian poetry of the 20th century. One of the organizers and recognized ideological leader of the group was V. Shershenevich, who began as a futurist, hence the dependence of Shershenevich’s poetic and theoretical experiments on the ideas of F. Marinetti and the creative quests of other futurists - V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov. The Imagists imitated the futuristic shocking behavior of the public, but their no longer new “audiences” were theatrically naive, if not downright derivative, in nature.

• Poetic creativity largely influenced the development of the movement Sergei Yesenin , which was part of the backbone of the association.

S.A. Yesenin considered “lyrical feeling” and “imagery” to be the main things in his work. He saw the source of imaginative thinking in folklore and popular language. All of Yesenin’s metaphors are built on the relationship between man and nature. His best poems vividly captured the spiritual beauty of the Russian people. The most subtle lyricist, a wizard of the Russian landscape, Yesenin was surprisingly sensitive to earthly colors, sounds and smells.

After the revolution, new “robbery and riotous” features appeared in Yesenin’s touching and tender lyrics, bringing him closer to the Imagists.

The poet's fate was tragic. In a state of depression, he committed suicide.

“Now we are leaving little by little...”

Teacher: We have closed the last page of the book, but the conversation about the poetry of modernism is not over. We have already said that the peculiarity of this period is that poets lived and worked in it, often diametrically opposed in their artistic preferences and creative quests. Sometimes they started a furious debate, offering different ways of comprehending existence. Gathering in cafes with colorful names “Stray Dog”, “Pink Lantern”, “Stable of Pegasus”, representatives of different movements attacked each other with criticism, proving the validity of only their direction, their chosenness in the creation of new art. I suggest you organize such a discussion.

Discussion.

Acmeists:

I agree that the generation of symbolists consisted of brilliantly educated people who felt free in the ocean of world culture, striving to revive the cultural heritage of their own country, however, the requirement of mandatory mysticism and revelation of secrets led to the loss of the authenticity of poetry. And the fascination with the musical basis of the verse led to the creation of poetry devoid of any logical meaning.

Symbolists:

- We believe that the poetics of associations, hints that require decoding, perception and comprehension of artistic detail gives impetus to the work of the reader’s imagination. And the maximum use of sound and rhythmic means of poetry, musicality and lightness of style help to write about the most ordinary or even tragic things with exquisite imagery.

An example of this is Blok’s poem"The girl sang in the church choir"written in August 1905, when the Russo-Japanese War was ending. The singing of the girl and the choir is a prayer for those who are torn from their native home, for those abandoned to a foreign land. And contrary to prayer and spiritual unity - a sad, unexpected, tragic result, given in an allusion to the tragic outcome of the war for Russia in the summer of 1905:“participated in secrets”, i.e. knowing in advance, prophetic; “high, at the royal gates... a child was crying” - the Savior-child in the arms of the Mother of God.Yes, sometimes it is difficult to “decipher” the symbols of a poem, but how beautiful it sounds!

You won’t understand anything from the futurists at all! Continuous “holes and holes...”!

Futurists:

It’s not true, I will read only one stanza from Mayakovsky, and you will see how talented he was:

I want to be understood by my country,

But I won’t be understood, well

I will pass through my native country,

How slanting rain passes.

But I believe that Yesenin’s poetry is not intellectual, there are no philosophical reflections in his poems: neither the philosophy of love, nor the philosophy of nature!

Imagists:

- But there is the very feeling of love, deep, sincere! The very breath of nature. He tells us about ourselves, about our simple, natural feelings, and therefore he is one of the popularly beloved poets even now, more than half a century later.

Excerpt “They Sing Yesenin”

(the song “Above the Window is a Moon”)

To end this debate, let's listen to Marina Kuznetsova. She did a little research: she compared the works of the symbolist Blok and the imagist Yesenin. What conclusions did she come to?

Research by Kuznetsova M.

Conclusions, summing up.

The famous literary critic M.L. Gasparov in his work “Poetics of the “Silver Age”” rightly notes that “modernism in no way exhausts Russian poetry of the early 20th century. The poems of the modernists quantitatively constituted an insignificantly small part, an exotic corner of our literature at that time.” Nevertheless, when it comes to the phenomenon called “Poetry of the Silver Age,” we mean primarily the poetry of Russian modernism, consisting mainly of the largest poetic movements - symbolism, acmeism, futurism, and imagism.

Despite significant external and internal contradictions, each of them gave the world many great names and excellent poems that will forever remain in the treasury of Russian poetry and will find their admirers among subsequent generations.

Final word.

The Silver Age was short. Brief and dazzling. The biographies of almost all the creators of this poetic miracle were tragic. The time allotted to them by fate turned out to be fatal. But, as you know, “you don’t choose times - you live and die in them.” The poets of the Silver Age had to drink the cup of suffering to the bottom: the chaos and chaos of the revolutionary years and civil war destroyed the spiritual basis of their existence.

Soon after the revolution, Blok, Khlebnikov, and Bryusov passed away.

Many emigrated, unable to endure life in an inhospitable homeland, which suddenly became their stepmother: Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Bunin, Vyach. Ivanov, Balmont, Adamovich, Burliuk, Khodasevich, Sasha Cherny, Severyanin, Tsvetaeva and many others. Most of them lived the rest of their lives abroad, dreaming of returning to Russia.

Although, probably, this would have been an event no less sad for them, which is confirmed by the fate of Tsvetaeva, who committed suicide after returning to her homeland. Besides her, Yesenin and Mayakovsky committed suicide.

Those who remained in Russia were destroyed by the totalitarian regime: Gumilev was shot on false charges; disappeared in the Stalinist camps of Klyuev, Mandelstam, Narbut, Livshits, Klychkov, Vvedensky, Kharms.

Those who survived this meat grinder were doomed to silence. And the poets who decided to collaborate with the new government also faced an unenviable literary fate: for Mayakovsky, Kamensky, Gorodetsky, it turned into a loss of talent and a loss of creative individuality.

Some deliberately sentenced themselves to silence, leaving poetry for other areas of literature, taking up journalism, prose, drama, and translations. Many of the names were forgotten for many years. But “nothing on earth passes without a trace.” A cultural phenomenon called the “Silver Age” has returned to us in the poems of its creators, in order to once again remind us that only beauty can save the world.

The song "Nostalgia" is playing

performed by I. Talkov

Composition

It was given by analogy with the Golden Age - that’s what the beginning of the 19th century, Pushkin’s time, was called. There is an extensive literature about Russian poetry of the “Silver Age” - both domestic and foreign researchers have written a lot about it, including such prominent scientists as V. M. Zhirmunsky, V. Orlov, L. K. Dolgopolov, continue write M. L. Gasparov, R. D. Timenchik, N. A. Bogomolov and many others. Numerous memoirs have been published about this era - for example, V. Mayakovsky (“On Parnassus of the Silver Age”), I Odoevtseva (“On the Banks of the Neva”), three-volume memoirs of A. Bely; The book “Memoirs of the Silver Age” was published.

Russian poetry of the “Silver Age” was created in an atmosphere of general cultural upsurge as its most significant part. It is characteristic that at the same time such bright talents as A. Blok and V. Mayakovsky, A. Bely and V. Khodasevich could create in one country. This list goes on and on. This phenomenon was unique in the history of world literature.

The end of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th century. in Russia, this is a time of change, uncertainty and gloomy omens, this is a time of disappointment and a feeling of the approaching death of the existing socio-political system. All this could not but affect Russian poetry. The emergence of symbolism is connected with this.

Symbolism was a heterogeneous phenomenon, uniting in its ranks poets who held the most contradictory views. Some of the symbolists, such as N. Minsky, D. Merezhkovsky, began their creative career as representatives of civil poetry, and then began to focus on the ideas of “god-building” and “religious community”. The “senior symbolists” sharply denied the surrounding reality and said “no” to the world: I don’t see our reality, I don’t know our century...

(V. Ya. Bryusov) Earthly life is only a “dream,” a “shadow.” The world of dreams and creativity is opposed to reality - a world where the individual gains complete freedom: There is only one eternal commandment - to live.

In beauty, in beauty no matter what.

(D. Merezhkovsky) Real life is portrayed as ugly, evil, boring and meaningless. The symbolists paid special attention to artistic innovation - the transformation of the meanings of the poetic word, the development of rhythm, rhyme, etc. The “senior symbolists” have not yet created a system of symbols; They are impressionists who strive to convey the subtlest shades of moods and impressions. The word as such has lost its value for the Symbolists. It became valuable only as a sound, a musical note, as a link in the overall melodic structure of the poem.

A new period in the history of Russian symbolism (1901-- 1904) coincided with the beginning of a new revolutionary upsurge in Russia. Pessimistic sentiments inspired by the era of reaction of the 1980s - early 1890s. and the philosophy of A. Schopenhauer, give way to premonitions of “unheard-of changes.” “Younger Symbolists” - followers of the idealist philosopher and poet Vl. - are entering the literary arena. Solovyov, who imagined that the old world is on the verge of complete destruction, that divine Beauty (Eternal Femininity, the Soul of the World) is entering the world, which must “save the world” by connecting the heavenly (divine) principle of life with the earthly, material, to create the “kingdom of God” on earth": Know this: Eternal Femininity now comes to earth in an incorruptible body.

In the unfading light of the new goddess, the Sky merged with the abyss of water.

(Vl. Solovyov) Particularly attracted to love is eroticism in all its manifestations, starting with pure earthly voluptuousness and ending with romantic longing for the Beautiful Lady, Mistress, Eternal Femininity, Stranger... Eroticism is inevitably intertwined with mystical experiences. Symbolist poets also love landscape, but not as such, but again as a means, as a means to reveal their mood. That is why so often in their poems there is a Russian, languidly sad autumn, when there is no sun, and if there is, then with sad faded rays, falling leaves quietly rustle, everything is shrouded in the haze of a slightly swaying fog. The favorite motif of the “younger symbolists” is the city. A city is a living creature with a special form, a special character, often it is a “Vampire City”, “Octopus”, a satanic obsession, a place of madness, horror; the city is a symbol of soullessness and vice. (Blok, Sologub, Bely, S. Solovyov, to a large extent Bryusov).

The years of the first Russian revolution (1905-1907) again significantly changed the face of Russian symbolism. Most poets respond to revolutionary events. Blok creates images of people of the new, popular world. V. Ya. Bryusov writes the famous poem “The Coming Huns,” where he glorifies the inevitable end of the old world, to which, however, he includes himself and all the people of the old, dying culture. During the years of the revolution, F. K. Sologub created a book of poems “To the Motherland” (1906), K. D. Balmont - a collection of “Songs of the Avenger” (1907), published in Paris and banned in Russia, etc.

Even more important is that the years of revolution restructured the symbolic artistic understanding of the world. If earlier Beauty was understood as harmony, now it is associated with the chaos of struggle, with the elements of the people. Individualism is replaced by the search for a new personality, in which the flourishing of the “I” is connected with the life of the people. The symbolism is also changing: previously associated mainly with the Christian, ancient, medieval and romantic traditions, now it turns to the heritage of the ancient “national” myth (V. I. Ivanov), to Russian folklore and Slavic mythology (A. Blok, M. M Gorodetsky) The mood of the symbol also becomes different. Its earthly meanings play an increasingly important role in it: social, political, historical.

By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, symbolism as a school was in decline. Individual works of Symbolist poets appear, but his influence as a school has been lost. Everything young, viable, vigorous is already outside of him. Symbolism no longer gives new names.

Symbolism has outlived itself, and this obsolescence has gone in two directions. On the one hand, the requirement of mandatory “mysticism,” “revealing the secret,” “comprehension” of the infinite in the finite led to the loss of the authenticity of poetry; The “religious and mystical pathos” of the luminaries of symbolism turned out to be replaced by a kind of mystical stencil, template. On the other hand, the fascination with the “musical basis” of verse led to the creation of poetry devoid of any logical meaning, in which the word was reduced to the role of no longer a musical sound, but a tin, ringing trinket.

Accordingly, the reaction against symbolism, and subsequently the fight against it, followed the same two main lines.

On the one hand, the “Acmeists” opposed the ideology of symbolism. On the other hand, the futurists, who were also ideologically hostile to symbolism, came out in defense of the word as such.

I will bless the golden Road to the sun from the worm.

(N.S. Gumilyov) And the cuckoo clock is happy at night, You can hear their clear conversation more and more.

I look through the crack: horse thieves are lighting a fire under the hill.

(A. A. Akhmatova) But I love the casino on the dunes, The wide view through the foggy window And the thin beam on the crumpled tablecloth.

(O. E. Mandelstam) These three poets, as well as S. M. Gorodetsky, M. A. Zenkevich, V. I. Naburt in the same year called themselves acmeists (from the Greek akme - the highest degree of something, blooming it's time). Acceptance of the earthly world in its visible concreteness, a keen look at the details of existence, a living and immediate sense of nature, culture, the universe and the material world, the thought of the equality of all things - this is what united all six at that time. Almost all of them had previously been trained by the masters of symbolism, but at some point they decided to reject the typical symbolists’ aspiration to “other worlds” and disdain for earthly, objective reality.

A distinctive feature of the poetry of Acmeism is its material reality, objectivity. Acmeism loved things with the same passionate, selfless love as symbolism loved “correspondences,” mysticism, mystery. For him, everything in life was clear. To a large extent, it was the same aestheticism as symbolism, and in this respect it is undoubtedly in continuity with it, but the aestheticism of Acmeism is of a different order than the aestheticism of symbolism.

The Acmeists liked to derive their genealogy from the symbolist In. Annensky, and in this they are undoubtedly right. In. Annensky stood apart among the Symbolists. Having paid tribute to early decadence and its moods, he almost did not reflect in his work the ideology of late Moscow symbolism, and while Balmont, and after him many other symbolist poets, got lost in the “verbal tightrope walk,” in the apt expression of A. Bely, choked in the stream of formlessness and “spirit of music” that flooded symbolic poetry, he found the strength to take a different path. Poetry In. Annensky marked a revolution from the spirit of music and aesthetic mysticism to simplicity, laconicism and clarity of verse, to the earthly reality of themes and some kind of earthly mystical heaviness of mood.

The clarity and simplicity of the construction of the verse of John. Annensky was well adopted by the Acmeists. Their verse acquired clarity of outline, logical force and material weight. Acmeism was a sharp and definite turn of Russian poetry of the twentieth century towards classicism. But it is only a turn, and not a completion - this must be kept in mind all the time, since Acmeism still bore in itself many features of romantic symbolism that had not yet been completely extinguished. In general, the poetry of the Acmeists were examples in most cases inferior to symbolism, but still very high skill. This mastery, in contrast to the ardor and expression of the best achievements of symbolism, bore a touch of some kind of self-contained, refined aristocracy, most often (with the exception of the poetry of Akhmatova, Narbut and Gorodetsky) cold, calm and dispassionate.

Among the Acmeists, the cult of Théophile Gautier was especially developed, and his poem “Art,” which begins with the words “Art is the more beautiful the more dispassionate the material taken,” sounded like a kind of poetic program for the older generation of the “Workshop of Poets.”

Just like symbolism, acmeism has absorbed many different influences and various groups have emerged among it.

What united all the Acmeists was their love for the objective, real world - not for life and its manifestations, but for objects, for things. This love manifested itself in different ways among different Acmeists.

First of all, we see among the Acmeists poets, whose attitude towards the objects around them and their admiration bears the stamp of the same romanticism. This romanticism, however, is not mystical, but objective, and this is its fundamental difference from symbolism. This is Gumilev’s exotic position with Africa, Niger, the Suez Canal, marble grottoes, giraffes and elephants, Persian miniatures and the Parthenon, bathed in the rays of the setting sun... Gumilev is in love with these exotic objects of the surrounding world in a purely earthly way, but this love is thoroughly romantic . Objectivity took the place of the mysticism of symbolism in his work. It is characteristic that in the last period of his work, in such things as “The Lost Tram”, “Drunken Dervish”, “The Sixth Sense” he again becomes close to symbolism.

In the external fate of Russian futurism there is something reminiscent of the fate of Russian symbolism. The same furious non-recognition at the first steps, the noise at birth (among the futurists it is only much stronger, turning into a scandal). The rapid recognition of the advanced layers of literary criticism following this, a triumph, enormous hopes. A sudden breakdown and fall into the abyss at a moment when there seemed to be unprecedented possibilities and horizons in Russian poetry.

That futurism is a significant and deep movement is beyond doubt. There is also no doubt about his significant external influence (in particular Mayakovsky) on the form of proletarian poetry in the first years of its existence. But it is also certain that futurism could not bear the weight of the tasks assigned to it and completely collapsed under the blows of the revolution. The fact that the work of several futurists - Mayakovsky, Aseev and Tretyakov - in recent years has been imbued with revolutionary ideology speaks only of the revolutionary nature of these individual poets: having become singers of the revolution, these poets have lost their futuristic essence to a significant extent, and futurism as a whole is not affected by this became closer to the revolution, just as symbolism and acmeism did not become revolutionary because Bryusov, Sergei Gorodetsky and Vladimir Narbut became members of the RCP and singers of the revolution, or because almost every symbolist poet wrote one or more revolutionary poems.

At its core, Russian futurism was a purely poetic movement. In this sense, he is a logical link in the chain of those movements of poetry of the 20th century that put purely aesthetic problems at the head of their theory and poetic creativity. The rebellious formal-revolutionary element was strong in futurism, which caused a storm of indignation and “shocked the bourgeois.” But this “shocking” was a phenomenon of the same order as the “shocking” that the decadents caused in their time. In the “rebellion” itself, in the “shocking of the bourgeoisie,” in the scandalous cries of the futurists, there were more aesthetic emotions than revolutionary emotions.”

The starting point of the technical quest of the futurists is the dynamics of modern life, its rapid pace, the desire for maximum cost savings, “an aversion to a curved line, to a spiral, to a turnstile, a penchant for a straight line. Aversion to slowness, to trifles, to long-winded analyzes and explanations. Love of speed, of abbreviation, of summarizing and of synthesis: “Tell me quickly in a nutshell!” Hence the destruction of generally accepted syntax, the introduction of “wireless imagination,” that is, “absolute freedom of images or analogies expressed in liberated words, without the wires of syntax and without any punctuation marks,” “condensed metaphors,” “telegraphic images,” “movements in two , three, four and five tempos”, the destruction of qualitative adjectives, the use of verbs in the indefinite mood, the omission of conjunctions and so on - in a word, everything aimed at brevity and increasing the “speed of style”.

The main aspiration of Russian “Cubo-Futurism” is a reaction against the “music of verse” of symbolism in the name of the intrinsic value of the word, but the word not as a weapon for expressing a certain logical thought, as was the case with the classical poets and the Acmeists, but the word as such, as an end in itself. Combined with the recognition of the poet’s absolute individualism (the futurists attached great importance even to the poet’s handwriting and produced handwritten lithographic books, and with the recognition of the role of the “creator of myth” in the word, this aspiration gave rise to unprecedented word creation, which ultimately led to the theory of “absentient language.” An example is the sensational poem by Kruchenykh: Dyr, bul, schyl, ubeschur skum vy so bu, r l ez.

Word creation was the greatest achievement of Russian futurism, its central point. In contrast to Marinetti’s futurism, Russian “Cubo-Futurism”, represented by its most prominent representatives, had little connection with the city and modernity. representatives had little connection with the city and modernity. The same romantic element was very strong in him.

It was reflected in the sweet, half-childish, gentle cooing of Elena Guro, for whom the “terrible” word “Cubo-Futurist” suits so little, and in the early works of N. Aseev, and in the rollicking Volga prowess and the ringing sunshine of V. Kamensky, and the gloomy “ spring after death" by Churilin, but especially strongly by V. Khlebnikov. It is even difficult to connect Khlebnikov with Western futurism. He himself persistently replaced the word “futurism” with the word “Budetlyans”. Like the Russian symbolists, he (as well as Kamensky, Churilin and Bozhidar) absorbed the influence of previous Russian poetry, but not the mystical poetry of Tyutchev and Vl. Solovyov, and the poetry of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and the Russian epic. Even the events of the most immediate, close modern times - the war and the New Economic Policy - are reflected in Khlebnikov’s work not in futuristic poems, as in “1915.” Aseev, and in the wonderful “Combat” and “Oh, fellows, merchants”, romantically stylized in the ancient Russian spirit.

However, Russian futurism was not limited to “word creation” alone. Along with the trend created by Khlebnikov, there were other elements in it. More suitable for the concept of “futurism”, making Russian futurism related to its Western counterpart.

Before talking about this movement, it is necessary to single out another type of Russian futurism into a special group - the “Ego-Futurists”, who performed in St. Petersburg somewhat earlier than the Moscow “Cubo-Futurists”. At the head of this trend were I. Severyanin, V. Gnedov, I. Ignatieva K. Olimpov G. Ivnov (later an Acmeist) and the future founder of “imaginism” V. Shershenevich.

“Ego-futurism” essentially had very little in common with futurism. This trend was some kind of mixture of the epigonism of early St. Petersburg decadence, bringing to limitless limits the “songability” and “musicality” of Balmont’s verse (as you know, Severyanin did not recite, but sang his poems at “poetry concerts”), some kind of salon-perfume eroticism , turning into light cynicism, and the assertion of extreme solipsism - extreme egocentrism (“Egoism is individualization, awareness, admiration and praise of the “I” ... “Ego-futurism is the constant striving of every egoist to achieve the future in the present”). This was combined with the glorification of the modern city, electricity, railways, airplanes, factories, cars borrowed from Marinetti (from Severyanin and especially from Shershenevich). In “ego-futurism, therefore, there was everything: echoes of modernity, and new, albeit timid, word creation (“poetry”, “overwhelm”, “mediocrity”, “olilien” and so on), and successfully found new rhythms for transmission the measured swaying of car springs (“Severyanin’s Elegant Stroller”), and a strange admiration for the futurist for the salon poems of M. Lokhvitskaya and K. Fofanov, but most of all, a love for restaurants, boudoirs of dubious height, café-chantants, which became Severyanin’s native element. Apart from Igor Severyanin (who soon, however, abandoned ego-futurism), this movement did not produce a single poet of any kind.

Much closer to the West than the futurism of Khlebnikov and the “ego-futurism” of Severyanin was the bias of Russian futurism, revealed in the work of Mayakovsky, the last period of Aseev and Sergei Tretyakov. Adopting in the field of technology the free form of verse, new syntax and bold assonances instead of the strict rhymes of Khlebnikov, paying a well-known, sometimes significant tribute to word creation, this group of poets gave in their work some elements of a truly new ideology. Their work reflected the dynamics, enormous scope and titanic power of the modern industrial city with its noise, noise, noise, glowing lights of factories, street bustle, restaurants, crowds of moving masses.

In recent years, Mayakovsky and some other futurists have been freed from hysteria and stress. Mayakovsky writes his “orders”, in which everything is cheerfulness, strength, calls to fight, reaching the point of aggressiveness. This mood resulted in 1923 in the declaration of the newly organized group “Lef” (“Left Front of Art”). Not only ideologically, but also technically, all of Mayakovsky’s work (with the exception of his first years), as well as the last period of Aseev’s work and Tretyakov, is already a way out of futurism, an entry into the path of a kind of neo-realism. Mayakovsky, who began under the undoubted influence of Whitman, in the last period developed very special techniques, creating a unique poster-hyperbolic style, restless, shouting short verse, sloppy, “torn lines”, very successfully found to convey the rhythm and huge scope of the modern city, war, movements of millions of revolutionary masses. This is a great achievement of Mayakovsky, who has outgrown futurism, and it is quite natural that Mayakovsky’s technical techniques had a significant influence on the proletarian poetry of the first years of its existence, that is, precisely the period when proletarian poets fixed their attention on the motives of the revolutionary struggle.

The last school of any noticeable sensation in Russian poetry of the twentieth century was imagism. This trend was created in 1919 (the first “Declaration” of Imagism is dated January 30), therefore, two years after the revolution, but in all ideology this trend did not have anything to do with the revolution.

The head of the “imaginists” was Vadim Shershenevich, a poet who started with symbolism, with poems imitating Balmont, Kuzmin and Blok, in 1912 he acted as one of the leaders of ego-futurism and wrote “poets” in the spirit of Severyanin and only in the post-revolutionary years created his “imagist” poetry.

Just like symbolism and futurism, imagism originated in the West and only from there was transplanted onto Russian soil by Shershenevich. And just like symbolism and futurism, it differed significantly from the imagism of Western poets.

Imagism was a reaction both against the musicality of the poetry of symbolism, and against the materiality of acmeism and the word creation of futurism. He rejected all content and ideology in poetry, putting the image at the forefront. He was proud that he had “no philosophy” and “no logic of thought.”

The Imagists also connected their apology for the image with the fast pace of modern life. In their opinion, the image is the clearest, most concise, most appropriate to the age of cars, radio telegraphs, and airplanes. “What is an image? - the shortest distance with the highest speed." In the name of “speed” of conveying artistic emotions, imagists, following the futurists, break the syntax - throw out epithets, definitions, predicates, put verbs in an indefinite direction.

Essentially, there was nothing particularly new in the techniques, as well as in their “imagery”. “Imagism”, as one of the methods of artistic creativity, was widely used not only by futurism, but also by symbolism (for example, by Innokenty Annensky: “Spring has not yet ruled, but the snow cup has been drunk by the sun” or by Mayakovsky: “A bald lantern voluptuously removed black from the street stocking"). What was new was only the tenacity with which the Imagists brought the image to the fore and reduced everything in poetry to it - both content and form.

Along with poets associated with certain schools, Russian poetry of the twentieth century produced a significant number of poets who were not affiliated with them or who were affiliated for some time, but did not merge with them and ultimately went their own way.

The fascination of Russian symbolism with the past - the 18th century - and the love of stylization were reflected in the work of M. Kuzmin, the fascination with the romantic 20s and 30s - in the sweet intimacy and coziness of samovars and ancient corners of Boris Sadovsky. The same passion for “stylization” underlies the oriental poetry of Konstantin Lipskerov, Marieta Shaginyan and in the biblical sonnets of Georgy Shengeli, in the sapphic stanzas of Sofia Parnok and the subtle stylized sonnets from the “Pleiades” cycle by Leonid Grossman.

The fascination with Slavicisms and the Old Russian song style, the craving for “artistic folklore” noted above as a characteristic moment of Russian symbolism, reflected in the sectarian motifs of A. Dobrolyubov and Balmont, in the popular prints of Sologub and in the ditties of V. Bryusov, in the Old Slavic stylizations of V. Ivanov and throughout the entire first period of S. Gorodetsky’s work, the poetry of Love of the Capital, Marina Tsvetaeva and Pimen Karpov fills the poetry. It is also easy to catch the echo of Symbolist poetry in the hysterically expressive, nervous and sloppy, but powerfully written lines of Ilya Ehrenburg, a poet who in the first period of his work was also a member of the Symbolists.

The poetry of I. Bunin occupies a special place in Russian lyricism of the twentieth century. Starting with lyrical poems written under the influence of Fet, which are unique examples of a realistic representation of the Russian village and a poor landowner’s estate, in the later period of his work Bunin became a great master of verse and created beautiful in form, classically clear, but somewhat cold poems reminiscent of , - as he himself characterizes his work, - a sonnet carved on a snowy peak with a steel blade. V. Komarovsky, who died early, is close to Bunin in restraint, clarity and some coldness. The work of this poet, whose first performances date back to a much later period - to 1912, bears to a certain extent features of Acmeism. So, around 1910, classicism, or, as it is commonly called, “Pushkinism,” began to play a rather noticeable role in the poetry.

Around 1910, when the bankruptcy of the Symbolist school was discovered, a reaction against Symbolism began, as noted above. Above, two lines were outlined along which the main forces of this reaction were directed - Acmeism and Futurism. However, the protest against symbolism was not limited to this. It found its expression in the work of poets who were not affiliated with either Acmeism or Futurism, but who through their work defended the clarity, simplicity and strength of the poetic style.

Despite the conflicting views of many critics, each of the listed movements has produced many excellent poems that will forever remain in the treasury of Russian poetry and will find their admirers among subsequent generations.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, all aspects of Russian life were radically transformed: politics, economics, science, technology, culture, art. Various, sometimes directly opposite, assessments of the socio-economic and cultural prospects for the country's development arise. What becomes common is the feeling of the onset of a new era, bringing a change in the political situation and a revaluation of previous spiritual and aesthetic ideals. Literature could not help but respond to the fundamental changes in the life of the country. There is a revision of artistic guidelines and a radical renewal of literary techniques. At this time, Russian poetry was developing especially dynamically. A little later, this period will be called the “poetic renaissance” or the Silver Age of Russian literature.

Realism at the beginning of the 20th century

Realism does not disappear, it continues to develop. L.N. is still actively working. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov and V.G. Korolenko, M. Gorky, I.A. have already powerfully declared themselves. Bunin, A.I. Kuprin... Within the framework of the aesthetics of realism, the creative individuality of writers of the 19th century, their civic position and moral ideals found a vivid manifestation - realism equally reflected the views of authors who shared a Christian, primarily Orthodox, worldview - from F.M. Dostoevsky to I.A. Bunin, and those for whom this worldview was alien - from V.G. Belinsky to M. Gorky.

However, at the beginning of the 20th century, many writers were no longer satisfied with the aesthetics of realism - new aesthetic schools began to emerge. Writers unite in various groups, put forward creative principles, participate in polemics - literary movements are established: symbolism, acmeism, futurism, imagism, etc.

Symbolism at the beginning of the 20th century

Russian symbolism, the largest of the modernist movements, arose not only as a literary phenomenon, but also as a special worldview that combines artistic, philosophical and religious principles. The date of emergence of the new aesthetic system is considered to be 1892, when D.S. Merezhkovsky made a report "On the causes of the decline and on new trends in modern Russian literature." It proclaimed the main principles of future symbolists: “mystical content, symbols and the expansion of artistic impressionability.” The central place in the aesthetics of symbolism was given to the symbol, an image with the potential inexhaustibility of meaning.

The symbolists contrasted the rational knowledge of the world with the construction of the world in creativity, the knowledge of the environment through art, which V. Bryusov defined as “comprehension of the world in other, non-rational ways.” In the mythology of different nations, symbolists found universal philosophical models with the help of which it is possible to comprehend the deep foundations of the human soul and solve the spiritual problems of our time. Representatives of this trend also paid special attention to the heritage of Russian classical literature - new interpretations of the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tyutchev were reflected in the works and articles of the symbolists. Symbolism gave culture the names of outstanding writers - D. Merezhkovsky, A. Blok, Andrei Bely, V. Bryusov; the aesthetics of symbolism had a huge influence on many representatives of other literary movements.

Acmeism at the beginning of the 20th century

Acmeism was born in the bosom of symbolism: a group of young poets first founded the literary association “Poets Workshop”, and then proclaimed themselves representatives of a new literary movement - acmeism (from the Greek akme - the highest degree of something, blossoming, peak). Its main representatives are N. Gumilev, A. Akhmatova, S. Gorodetsky, O. Mandelstam. Unlike the symbolists, who sought to know the unknowable and comprehend higher essences, the Acmeists again turned to the value of human life, the diversity of the vibrant earthly world. The main requirement for the artistic form of works was the pictorial clarity of images, verified and precise composition, stylistic balance, and precision of details. Acmeists assigned the most important place in the aesthetic system of values ​​to memory - a category associated with the preservation of the best domestic traditions and world cultural heritage.

Futurism at the beginning of the 20th century

Derogatory reviews of previous and contemporary literature were given by representatives of another modernist movement - futurism (from the Latin futurum - future). A necessary condition for the existence of this literary phenomenon, its representatives considered an atmosphere of outrageousness, a challenge to public taste, and a literary scandal. The Futurists' desire for mass theatrical performances with dressing up, painting faces and hands was caused by the idea that poetry should come out of books onto the square, to sound in front of spectators and listeners. Futurists (V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov, D. Burliuk, A. Kruchenykh, E. Guro, etc.) put forward a program for transforming the world with the help of new art, which abandoned the legacy of its predecessors. At the same time, unlike representatives of other literary movements, in substantiating their creativity they relied on fundamental sciences - mathematics, physics, philology. The formal and stylistic features of Futurism poetry were the renewal of the meaning of many words, word creation, the rejection of punctuation marks, special graphic design of poems, depoetization of language (the introduction of vulgarisms, technical terms, the destruction of the usual boundaries between “high” and “low”).

Conclusion

Thus, in the history of Russian culture, the beginning of the 20th century was marked by the emergence of diverse literary movements, various aesthetic views and schools. However, original writers, true artists of words, overcame the narrow framework of declarations, created highly artistic works that outlived their era and entered the treasury of Russian literature.

The most important feature of the beginning of the 20th century was the universal craving for culture. Not being at the premiere of a play in the theater, not being present at an evening of an original and already sensational poet, in literary drawing rooms and salons, not reading a newly published book of poetry was considered a sign of bad taste, unmodern, unfashionable. When a culture becomes a fashionable phenomenon, this is a good sign. “Fashion for culture” is not a new phenomenon for Russia. This was the case during the time of V.A. Zhukovsky and A.S. Pushkin: let’s remember the “Green Lamp” and “Arzamas”, the “Society of Lovers of Russian Literature”, etc. At the beginning of the new century, exactly a hundred years later, the situation practically repeated itself. The Silver Age replaced the Golden Age, maintaining and preserving the connection of times.

The emergence of new directions, trends, styles in art and literature is always associated with an understanding of the place and role of man in the world, in the Universe, with a change in man’s self-awareness. One of these turning points occurred at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Artists of that time advocated a new vision of reality and searched for original artistic means. The outstanding Russian philosopher N.A. Berdyaev called this short but surprisingly bright period the Silver Age. This definition primarily applies to Russian poetry of the early twentieth century. The Golden Age is the age of Pushkin and Russian classics. It became the basis for revealing the talents of the poets of the Silver Age. In Anna Akhmatova’s “Poem without a Hero” we find the lines:

And the silver month floated brightly above the silver age.

Chronologically, the Silver Age lasted one and a half to two decades, but in terms of intensity it can safely be called a century. It turned out to be possible thanks to the creative interaction of people of rare talents. The artistic picture of the Silver Age is multi-layered and contradictory. Various artistic movements, creative schools, and individual non-traditional styles arose and intertwined. The art of the Silver Age paradoxically united the old and the new, the passing and the emerging, turning into a harmony of opposites, forming a culture of a special kind. During that turbulent time, a unique overlap occurred between the realistic traditions of the outgoing golden age and new artistic movements. A. Blok wrote: “The sun of naive realism has set.” It was a time of religious quest, fantasy and mysticism. The synthesis of arts was recognized as the highest aesthetic ideal. Symbolist and futurist poetry, music pretending to be philosophy, decorative painting, a new synthetic ballet, decadent theater, and the “modern” architectural style arose. The poets M. Kuzmin and B. Pasternak composed music. Composers Scriabin, Rebikov, Stanchinsky practiced some in philosophy, some in poetry and even prose. The development of art occurred at an accelerated pace, with great intensity, giving birth to hundreds of new ideas.

By the end of the 19th century, symbolist poets, who later began to be called “senior” symbolists, loudly declared themselves - Z. Gippius, D. Merezhkovsky, K. Balmont, F. Sologub, N. Minsky. Later, a group of “young symbolist” poets arose - A. Bely, A. Blok, Vyach. Ivanov. A group of Acmeist poets was formed - N. Gumilyov, O. Mandelstam, S. Gorodetsky, A. Akhmatova and others. Poetic futurism appears (A. Kruchenykh, V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky). But despite all the diversity and variety of manifestations in the work of artists of that time, similar trends are observed. The changes were based on common origins. The remnants of the feudal system were disintegrating, and there was a “ferment of minds” in the pre-revolutionary era. This created a completely new environment for the development of culture.

In poetry, music, and painting of the Silver Age, one of the main themes was the theme of freedom of the human spirit in the face of Eternity. Artists sought to unravel the eternal mystery of the universe. Some approached this from a religious position, others admired the beauty of the world created by God. Many artists perceived death as another existence, as a happy deliverance from the torment of the suffering human soul. The cult of love, intoxication with the sensual beauty of the world, the elements of nature, and the joy of life were unusually strong. The concept of “love” was deeply labored. Poets wrote about love for God and for Russia. In the poetry of A. Blok, Vl. Solovyov, V. Bryusov, Scythian chariots rush, pagan Rus' is reflected in the canvases of N. Roerich, Petrushka dances in the ballets of I. Stravinsky, a Russian fairy tale is recreated (“Alyonushka” by V. Vasnetsov, “The Leshy” by M. Vrubel).

Valery Bryusov at the beginning of the twentieth century became a generally recognized theorist and leader of Russian symbolism. He was a poet, prose writer, literary critic, scientist, encyclopedic educated person. The beginning of Bryusov’s creative activity was the publication of three collections “Russian Symbolists”. He admired the poetry of the French symbolists, which was reflected in the collections “Masterpieces”, “This Is Me”, “The Third Watch”, “To the City and the World”.

Bryusov showed great interest in other cultures, in ancient history, in antiquity, and created universal images. In his poems, the Assyrian king Assargadon appears as if alive, the Roman legions and the great commander Alexander the Great pass through, medieval Venice, Dante and much more are shown. Bryusov headed the large Symbolist magazine “Scales”. Although Bryusov was considered a recognized master of symbolism, the principles of writing of this direction had a greater impact on early poems, such as “Creativity” and “To the Young Poet”.

Idealistic thinking soon gave way to earthly, objectively significant themes. Bryusov was the first to see and predict the onset of the cruel industrial age. He praised human thought, new discoveries, was interested in aviation, and predicted space flights. For his amazing performance, Tsvetaeva called Bryusov a “hero of labor.” In the poem “Work” he formulated his life goals:

I want to experience the secrets of Life wise and simple. All paths are extraordinary, The path of labor is like a different path.

Bryusov remained in Russia until the end of his life; in 1920 he founded the Institute of Literature and Art. Bryusov translated the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Armenian poets.

Konstantin Balmont was widely known as a poet, enjoyed enormous popularity in the last ten years of the 19th century, and was an idol of youth. Balmont's work lasted more than 50 years and fully reflected the state of transition at the turn of the century, the fermentation of the minds of that time, the desire to withdraw into a special, fictional world. At the beginning of his career, Balmont wrote many political poems, in which he created a cruel image of Tsar Nicholas II. They were secretly passed from hand to hand, like leaflets.

Already in the first collection, “Under the Northern Sky,” the poet’s poems acquire grace of form and musicality.

The theme of the sun runs through the poet’s entire work. For him, the image of the life-giving sun is a symbol of life, living nature, with which he always felt an organic connection: Material from the site

I came into this world to see the Sun and the blue horizon. I came into this world to see the Sun. And the heights of the mountains. I came to this world to see the Sea and the lush color of the valleys. I made peace. In one glance, I am the ruler...

In the poem “Bezverbnost” Balmont brilliantly notices the special state of Russian nature:

There is a tired tenderness in Russian nature, The silent pain of hidden sadness, The hopelessness of grief, voicelessness, vastness, Cold heights, receding distances.

The very title of the poem speaks of the absence of action, of the immersion of the human soul in a state of wise contemplation. The poet conveys various shades of sadness, which, growing, pours out in tears:

And the heart has forgiven, but the heart has frozen, And it cries, and cries, and cries involuntarily.

The poets of the Silver Age were able to use bright strokes to add capacity and depth to the content of poems that reflected the flow of feelings and emotions, the complex life of the soul.

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