Yesenin's philosophical lyrics are very complex and multifaceted. At different stages of his work, the poet was interested in different questions and problems. His lyrical hero appears before us in the image of either a bully and a tomboy, or a deeply lyrical poet.

Yesenin was always interested in the theme of the Fatherland, his small homeland and his destiny. For the poet, his own destiny has always been closely connected with the life of his native land. Therefore, very often in his philosophical poems Yesenin uses the technique of syntactic parallelism, where he compares his fate with various states of nature. Thus, in the poem “The Golden Grove Dissuaded,” the hero’s reflections on his bygone youth are closely intertwined with what is happening in nature:

I stand alone among the naked plain,

And the wind carries the cranes into the distance,

I'm full of thoughts about my cheerful youth,

But I don’t regret anything in the past...

The lyrical hero turns to his past and is overcome by sadness for the past time. However, the hero does not experience a feeling of disappointment, he has no desire to turn back time, change what was:

I don't feel sorry for the years wasted in vain,

I don’t feel sorry for the soul of the lilac blossom.

There is a fire of red rowan burning in the garden,

But he can't warm anyone.

A work of philosophical content, containing universal human and general historical ideas, is the poem “I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry.” The theme of the variability of time and the problem of transformation of the human soul is fully revealed here:

I do not regret, do not call, do not cry,

Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees.

Withered by gold covered,

I won't be young anymore.

The lyrical hero feels the changes that are taking place in him: “I have now become stingier in my desires...”. But nothing can be changed, these are the laws of the universe, it is impossible to go against them. Yesenin understands this, but reverently recalls his youth as the most wonderful time, since it was then that he felt truly happy.

Thus, the philosophical lyrics of Sergei Yesenin are closely connected with the existence of man, with the meaning of his life. The poet accepts the variability and transience of time and considers this law of life to be natural and the most true:

May you be blessed forever,

What has come to flourish and die.

Education and pedagogical sciences UDC 81 Education and Pedagogical Sciences DOI: 10.17748/2075-9908.2015.7.4.148-152 KELBEKHANOVA Madina Ragimkhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor KELBEKHANOVA Madina Ragimhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor THE TOPIC OF LIFE AND DEATH IN LIRI KE S ESENIN The article examines S. Yesenin’s poems “Sorokoust”, “I am the last poet of the village”, “I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry”, “Now we are leaving little by little”, “The golden grove dissuaded”, “This sadness cannot be scattered now " The author shows how they combine two themes: life and death. The lyrical hero in most poems is a man in love with life, with nature, but who does not forget that death awaits him. The main compositional technique used in the poems is opposition. The article shows that the poet’s favorite poetic device is metaphor, which he uses masterfully. THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND DEATH IN YESENIN'S WORKS The article studies the problem of life and death in Yesenin's verses “I Do Not Regret, And I Do Not Shed Tears”, “The Golden Birch-Tree Grove Has Fallen Silent”, “We' ll Depart This World For Ever, Surely”, “Now My Grief Won’t Be Split By The Ringing”, “I Am The Last Poet Of The Village”, “Forty Days Prayers For The Dead”. Persona of the most of Yesenin’s verses is a man infatuated with love and nature, but abidingly aware of death, and this sadness penetrates all his poems. The poet skillfully employs antithesis as a compositional device and metaphor as a figure of speech. Keywords: poet, Yesenin, verse, heart, soul, Keywords: poet, Yesenin, verse, heart, soul, life, death, life, death, nature, sadness, antithesis, metaphor. nature, sadness, antithesis, metaphor. The theme of life and death is eternal and universal. There is no poet or writer who would not be interested in it for one reason or another, to one degree or another. This theme occupies a large place in the work of S. Yesenin, especially before 1917. Was it a desire to unravel its mystery or did the poet already have a presentiment of death at that time? It is difficult to answer this question. Of the poems in which a 15–17-year-old author writes about death, “Imitation of a Song,” “Dead Man,” and “Beloved Land! My heart dreams...", "I came to this earth to quickly leave it", "O child, I cried for a long time over your fate", "Our faith did not go out", "In the land where the yellow nettles are", "I am tired live in one’s native land.” In Soviet times, S. Yesenin wrote many wonderful poems in the genre of elegy; their content is not only death, as in the works of the pre-October period, but also life; they contain a combination of life and death. Here, first of all, we should note the poem “I am the last poet of the village,” written in 1920, during the period of “war communism” [about war communism, see: 1, p. 238–239] under the impression of a specific case. Of the poems we have listed, the best is “Beloved Land! Dreams of the heart." Let's consider his first stanza: Beloved land! The heart dreams of stacks of sun in the waters of the bosom. I would like to get lost in the greenery of your hundred-bellied greens. In this stanza you should pay attention to the metaphors. It is they who make the poem a real poetic masterpiece: “stacks of the sun”, “the waters of the bosom”, “the hundred-ringed greenery”. The lyrical hero seems to be enchanted by the beauty of nature, which is why he wants to get lost in the greenery. The last stanza of the poem is an expression of its main idea: I meet everything, I accept everything, I am glad and happy to take out my soul, I came to this earth, To leave it as quickly as possible. An antithesis is used here. The first two verses are in major key, testifying to the poet’s great love for life, the next two are reminiscent of death. Of course, every person... In some publications and in the collected works of S. Yesenin, 1921 is indicated as the year of publication of the poem. This is a mistake. For the first time, this poem was included in his book “Treryadnitsa”, published in 1920. The poet obviously forgot about it. 1 - 148 - ISSN 2075-9908 Historical and socio-educational thought. Volume 7 No. 4, 2015 Historical and social educational ideas Volume 7 #4, 2015 the century is mortal. But this motif, very often repeated in Yesenin’s poems of this period, makes us think: why is this all the same? The poem “O child, I cried for a long time over your fate” begins and ends with the lyrical hero’s address to a certain child (“child”), over whose fate he cried for a long time. However, in the second couplet the tragic is transferred to the lyrical hero, who predicts his death: I know, I know, soon, soon, at sunset... They will carry me with grave singing to bury me... You will see my white shroud from the window, And your heart will clench from silent melancholy. The following verses again make you think: does the address “child” refer to the one whom the lyrical hero leaves on earth, or does it concern him himself? In this couplet, attention should be paid to the metaphors “the secret of warm words” and “tears that have become beads of pearls,” conveying the state of the lyrical hero. And the poem ends again with an appeal to the “child”: And I knitted a necklace for you from them, You put it on your neck in memory of my days. In a letter to E.I. Livshits (August 1920) S. Yesenin wrote: “I am touched by... sadness for the passing, dear, dear, animal and the unshakable power of the dead, mechanical. Here's a clear example of this. We were driving from Tikhoretskaya to Pyatigorsk, suddenly we heard screams, looked out the window and what? We see: a small foal gallops as fast as he can behind the locomotive. He gallops so much that it immediately became clear to us that for some reason he decided to overtake him. He ran for a very long time, but in the end he began to get tired, and at some station he was caught. An episode may be insignificant for someone, but for me it says a lot. A steel horse defeated a living horse. And this little foal was for me a visual, dear, endangered image of the village and the face of Makhno. She and he in the revolution are terribly like this foal, with the pull of living force over iron.” Another reaction of the poet to the situation of the village is given in M. Babenchikov’s article “Yesenin”: “Winter 1922. Moscow, Prechistenka, 20. A face distorted by a painful grimace, in the red reflections of a burning brick temporary hut. A stormy stream of words, images, memories and the final one: “I was in the village... Everything is collapsing... You have to be there yourself to understand... The end of everything...” In 1922, Yesenin wrote one of his best elegiac poems, “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry.” The history of its creation, as S. Tolstaya-Yesenina writes, is as follows. “Yesenin said that this poem was written under the influence of one of the lyrical digressions in Dead Souls. Sometimes he half-jokingly added: “They praise me for these poems, but they don’t know that it’s not me, but Gogol.” The place in “Dead Souls” that Yesenin spoke about is the introduction to the sixth chapter, which concludes with the words: “... that which in previous years would have awakened a living movement in the face, laughter and incessant speech, now slides past, and indifferent silence guard my motionless lips. O my youth! O my freshness! " L.L. Belskaya rightly notes: “The excerpt from Gogol’s “Dead Souls” was certainly not the only source of Yesenin’s poem. The very theme of farewell to youth and reflections on the fleeting time and images of spring-youth and autumn old age are traditional. In the poetry of all times and peoples we find countless variations on these themes." However, Yesenin breathed new life into the traditional theme and in this regard was an innovator. Let's pay attention to the first lines of the poem: I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry, Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees. These verses follow the principle of gradation. From the very beginning, the poet reinforces the main idea of ​​the work. This is also the subject of the wonderful comparison “Everything will pass away like smoke from white apple trees.” Everything in these verses is transparent and they do not need commentary. These two verses are a successful compositional move that determines the entire further movement of the text, which is confirmed by the next two verses: - 149 - Education and Pedagogical Sciences Education and Pedagogical Sciences Withered in gold, I will no longer be young. Now it becomes clear that these poems (and the entire poem) are built on the opposition of the past and the present: youth has passed, and it will not return. This idea is conveyed with the help of a wonderful metaphor: “Withered in gold, I will no longer be young.” Let us note that all subsequent stanzas are its variations, in which metaphor is also a key meaning-creating poetic device. Let's follow this up. Two thoughts are expressed in the second stanza: Now you won’t beat so much, Your heart touched by a chill, And the country of birch chintz Will not entice you to wander around barefoot. The first thought of the poem: “Touched by a chill” heart is a synonym for impending death. Another thought: youth has passed and “it won’t tempt you to wander around barefoot,” it’s already a thing of the past. These lines also testify to the lyrical hero’s love for nature. Here we already have a synthesis of two plans - human and natural. The third stanza is close in thought to the second: Wandering spirit, you stir up the flame of your lips less and less often. Oh, my lost freshness, Riot of eyes and flood of feelings. However, the poet, as in previous stanzas, continues to talk about “lost youth” and the weakening of feelings that are characteristic of adulthood. The penultimate stanza is about the transience of life. Hence the rhetorical question: “My life, did I dream about you?” About a life that quickly passed, primarily youth, and the penultimate verses of the elegy: As if I rode on a pink horse in the echoing early spring. You can say “Spring Early” is the early time of youth, the beginning of life. And the “pink horse” that galloped away are romantic hopes, dreams that are left in the past. The final stanza, on the one hand, asserts that there is no immortality, on the other hand, it gives a blessing to everything that “has come to flourish and die.” And this is an expression of great love for people, for all living things, for nature - a position characteristic of many humanists. Yesenin has many other poems on the topic we are considering. They are also among the masterpieces of the elegiac genre. First of all, we should mention the poem “We are now leaving little by little...” It was written on the death of the poet A.V. Shiryaevets, a close friend of Yesenin (May 15, 1924) and a few days later published in the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” under the title “In Memory of Shiryaevets”. In his memoirs, S.D. Fomin writes: “I remember how Yesenin was stunned by the death of Shiryaevets. Everyone who returned that day from the Vagankovskoye cemetery to Shiryaevets’ funeral in the Herzen House will not forget the crying Yesenin, who hoarsely read the entire Shiryaevets “Muzhikoslov”.” The meaning of Yesenin’s first stanza is expressed clearly: those who come into the world sooner or later leave it. Maybe soon I’ll have to pack my mortal belongings for the road. The poet's assumption that it might be time for him to soon go on the road where his friend had gone was well founded. He talks about the same thing in the poem “I am the last poet of the village.” The second stanza differs in content from the first. Here in the foreground is the poet’s love for everything that surrounds him, that is dear to him. This affirmation of love is the main thing in the work. On the other hand, the poet is a witness to how people (primarily friends) - 150 - ISSN 2075-9908 Historical and socio-educational thought. Volume 7 No. 4, 2015 Historical and social educational ideas Volume 7 #4, 2015 are throwing the world away. And this cannot but have a psychological impact on him, which leads to the fact that he is unable to “hide” his melancholy. The next stanza is dominated by the same idea as the first. The poet again speaks of his great love for everything that “puts the soul into flesh.” But this thought is connected with nature, inseparable from people. The poet’s nature and people form a unity. The poet cannot imagine himself outside of this unity. The stanza compositionally divides the poem into two parts and serves as a link between them. Here the statement “life is happiness” is the main one: “...on a gloomy earth I am happy because I breathed and lived.” The next stanza is the continuation and development of this thought. Here we can see the poet’s admiration for earthly beauty, for what is most important to him, prevailing in earthly life. Beauty for the poet is not only people, especially women, to whom the poet was never indifferent, it is also animals, our “smaller brothers.” And this, again, is an important idea for the poet about the unity of man and nature. Happy that I kissed women, crushed flowers, lay on the grass, and never hit animals on the head, like our smaller brothers. In these verses, the poet captured the essence of life, namely: in the name of what a person should live on earth. What follows is a compositional turn: the roll call of the fifth stanza with the second. In the second stanza, melancholy dominates, in the fifth - the poet trembles before the “host of departing”, these feelings do not contradict each other, they are interconnected: I know that the thickets do not bloom there, The rye does not ring with the swan’s neck, That is why, before the host of departing, I am always I'm shaking. The last two verses above are a variation of the first two verses of the beginning of the poem, but with intensification, weighting of thought. Overall, the poem intertwines bitter and joyful feelings. The poet's skill lies in the fact that in his poem it is impossible to exclude a single word, each is connected with the other. Such integrity creates its harmony. I know that in that country there will not be these fields, golden in the darkness. That is why people are dear to me, That they live with me on earth. The lyrical plot turns out to be organically connected with all the compositional elements of the poem. The last stanza logically closes the text and sums up the philosophy of life and death expressed in it. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LINKS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Soviet encyclopedic dictionary. – M., 1980. P. 238–239. Yesenin S. Collected works in five volumes. T. 5. Autobiographies, articles, letters. – M., 1962. Belousov V. Sergei Yesenin. Literary chronicle. Part 2. – M., 1970. Yesenin Sergey. Literary chronicle. – M., 1970. Belskaya L.L. Song word. The poetic mastery of Sergei Yesenin. – M., 1990. Fomin S.D. From memories / In memory of Yesenin. – M., 1926. REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. Soviet Encyclopedia Dictionary. Moscow, 1980 pp. 238–238 (in Russ.). Esenin Sergey. Collection of works in five volumes. V.5. Autobiographies, articles, letters. Moskva, 1962 (in Russ.). Belousov V. Sergei Esenin. Literary chronicles. Part 2. Moscow, 1970 (in Russ.). - 151 - Education and Pedagogical Sciences 4. 5. 6. Education and Pedagogical Sciences Esenin Sergey. Collection of works in five volumes. V. 2. (Primechaniya V.F. Zemskova) Moskva, 1961 (in Russ.). Belskaya L.L. The word of songs. Poetic mastery of Sergey Esenin. Moscow, 1990 (in Russ.). Fomin S.D. Memoires Remembering Esenin. Moskva, 1926 (in Russ.). Information about the author Kelbekhanova Madina Ragimkhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian Literature, Dagestan State University, Makhachkala (Republic of Dagestan) Russia nuralievakatiba @yandex.ru Kelbekhanova Madina Ragimhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor at the Chair of Russian Literature Daghestan State University, Makhachkala city, (Republic of Dagestan), Russian Federation nuralievakatiba @yandex.ru Received: 04/11/2015 Received: 04/11/2015 - 152 -

DOI: 10.17748/2075-9908.2015.7.4.148-152

KELBEKHANOVA Madina Ragimkhanovna, candidate of philological sciences, associate professor

THE THEME OF LIFE AND DEATH IN THE LYRICS OF S. ESENINA

The article examines S. Yesenin’s poems “Sorokoust”, “I am the last poet of the village”, “I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry”, “Now we are leaving little by little”, “The golden grove dissuaded”, “This sadness cannot be scattered now.” The author shows how they combine two themes: life and death. The lyrical hero in most poems is a man in love with life, with nature, but who does not forget that death awaits him.

The main compositional technique used in the poems is opposition. The article shows that the poet’s favorite poetic device is metaphor, which he uses masterfully.

Key words: poet, Yesenin, verse, heart, soul, life, death, nature, sadness, antithesis, metaphor.

KELBEKHANOVA Madina Ragimhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND DEATH IN YESENIN’S WORKS

The article studies the problem of life and death in Yesenin's verses “I Do Not Regret, And I Do Not Shed Tears”, “The Golden Birch-Tree Grove Has Fallen Silent”, “We'll Depart This World For Ever, Surely” , “Now My Grief Won't Be Split By The Ringing”, “I Am The Last Poet Of The Village”, “Forty Days Prayers For The Dead”.

Persona of the most of Yesenin’s verses is a man infatuated with love and nature, but abidingly aware of death, and this sadness penetrates all his poems. The poet skillfully employs antithesis as a compositional device and metaphor as a figure of speech.

Keywords: poet, Yesenin, verse, heart, soul, life, death, nature, sadness, antithesis, metaphor.

The theme of life and death is eternal and universal. There is no poet or writer who would not be interested in it for one reason or another, to one degree or another. This theme occupies a large place in the work of S. Yesenin, especially before 1917. Was it a desire to unravel its mystery or did the poet already have a presentiment of death at that time? It is difficult to answer this question.

Of the poems in which a 15-17 year old author writes about death, “Imitation of a Song”, “Dead Man”, “Beloved Land! My heart dreams...", "I came to this earth to quickly leave it", "O child, I cried for a long time over your fate", "Our faith has not been extinguished", "In the land where the yellow nettles are", " I’m tired of living in my native land.”

In Soviet times, S. Yesenin wrote many wonderful poems in the genre of elegy; their content is not only death, as in the works of the pre-October period, but also life; they contain a combination of life and death. Here, first of all, we should note the poem “I am the last poet of the village,” written in 19201, during the period of “war communism” [about war communism, see: 1, p. 238-239] under the impression of a specific case.

Of the poems we have listed, the best is “Beloved Land! Dreams of the heart." Let's look at his first stanza:

Favorite region! The heart dreams of stacks of sun in the waters of the bosom. I would like to get lost in the greenery of your hundred-bellied greens.

In this stanza you should pay attention to the metaphors. It is they who make the poem a real poetic masterpiece: “stacks of the sun”, “waters of the bosom”, “green ringing”. The lyrical hero seems to be enchanted by the beauty of nature, which is why he wants to get lost in the greenery. The last stanza of the poem is an expression of its main idea:

I meet everything, I accept everything,

Glad and happy to take out my soul,

I came to this earth

To leave her quickly.

An antithesis is used here. The first two verses are in major key, testifying to the poet’s great love for life, the next two are reminiscent of death. Of course, every person

1 In some publications and in the collected works of S. Yesenin, 1921 is indicated as the year of publication of the poem. This is a mistake. For the first time, this poem was included in his book “Treryadnitsa”, published in 1920. The poet obviously forgot about it.

the age is mortal. But this motif, very often repeated in Yesenin’s poems of this period, makes us think: why is this all the same?

The poem “O child, I cried for a long time over your fate” begins and ends with the lyrical hero’s address to a certain child (“child”), over whose fate he cried for a long time. However, in the second couplet the tragic is transferred to the lyrical hero, who predicts his death:

I know, I know, soon, soon, at sunset...

They will carry me with grave singing to bury me...

You will see my white shroud from the window,

And your heart will shrink from silent melancholy.

The following verses again make you think: does the address “child” refer to the one whom the lyrical hero leaves on earth, or does it concern him himself? In this couplet, attention should be paid to the metaphors “the secret of warm words” and “tears that have become beads of pearls,” conveying the state of the lyrical hero. And the poem ends again with an appeal to the “child”:

And I knitted a necklace for you from them,

You put it around your neck in memory of my days.

In a letter to E.I. Livshits (August 1920) S. Yesenin wrote: “I am touched by... sadness for the passing, dear, dear, animal and the unshakable power of the dead, mechanical. Here's a clear example of this.

We were driving from Tikhoretskaya to Pyatigorsk, suddenly we heard screams, looked out the window and what? We see: a small foal gallops as fast as he can behind the locomotive. He gallops so much that it immediately became clear to us that for some reason he decided to overtake him. He ran for a very long time, but in the end he began to get tired, and at some station he was caught. An episode may be insignificant for someone, but for me it says a lot. A steel horse defeated a living horse. And this little foal was for me a visual, dear, endangered image of the village and the face of Makhno. She and he in the revolution are terribly like this foal, with the pull of living force over iron.”

Another reaction of the poet to the situation of the village is given in M. Babenchikov’s article “Yesenin”: “Winter 1922. Moscow, Prechistenka, 20. A face distorted by a painful grimace, in the red reflections of a burning brick temporary hut. A stormy stream of words, images, memories and the final one: “I was in the village. Everything is collapsing. You have to be there yourself to understand... The end of everything.”

In 1922, Yesenin wrote one of his best elegiac poems, “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry.” The history of its creation, as S. Tolstaya-Yesenina writes, is as follows. “Yesenin said that this poem was written under the influence of one of the lyrical digressions in Dead Souls. Sometimes he half-jokingly added: “They praise me for these poems, but they don’t know that it’s not me, but Gogol.” The place in “Dead Souls” that Yesenin spoke about is the introduction to the sixth chapter, which concludes with the words: “...what would have awakened in previous years a living movement in the face, laughter and non-silent speeches now slides past, and indifferent silence guard my motionless lips. O my youth! O my freshness! "

L.L. Belskaya rightly notes: “The excerpt from Gogol’s “Dead Souls” was certainly not the only source of Yesenin’s poem. The very theme of farewell to youth and reflections on the fleeting time and images of spring-youth and autumn-old age are traditional. In the poetry of all times and peoples we find countless variations on these themes."

However, Yesenin breathed new life into the traditional theme and in this regard was an innovator. Let's pay attention to the first lines of the poem:

I do not regret, do not call, do not cry,

Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees.

These verses follow the principle of gradation. From the very beginning, the poet reinforces the main idea of ​​the work. This is also the subject of the wonderful comparison “Everything will pass away like smoke from white apple trees.” Everything in these verses is transparent and they do not need commentary. These two verses are a successful compositional move that determines the entire further movement of the text, which is confirmed by the next two verses:

Education and pedagogical sciences

Education and Pedagogical Sciences

Withered in gold,

I won't be young anymore.

Now it becomes clear that these poems (and the entire poem) are built on the opposition of the past and the present: youth has passed, and it will not return. This idea is conveyed with the help of a wonderful metaphor: “Withered in gold, I will no longer be young.” Let us note that all subsequent stanzas are its variations, in which metaphor is also a key meaning-creating poetic device. Let's follow this up. Two thoughts are expressed in the second stanza:

Now you won't fight so much,

A heart touched by a chill,

And the country of birch chintz will not entice you to wander around barefoot.

The first thought of the poem: “Touched by a chill” heart is a synonym for impending death. Another thought: youth has passed and “it won’t tempt you to wander around barefoot,” it’s already a thing of the past. These lines also testify to the lyrical hero’s love for nature. Here we already have a synthesis of two plans - human and natural.

The third stanza is close in thought to the second:

Wandering spirit, you stir up the flame of your lips less and less often.

Oh my lost freshness

A riot of eyes and a flood of feelings.

However, the poet, as in previous stanzas, continues to talk about “lost youth” and the weakening of feelings that are characteristic of adulthood. The penultimate stanza is about the transience of life. Hence the rhetorical question: “My life, did I dream about you?” About a quickly passed life, primarily youth, and the penultimate verses of the elegy:

As if I rode on a pink horse in the echoing early spring.

You can say “Spring Early” is the early time of youth, the beginning of life. And the “pink horse” that galloped away are romantic hopes, dreams that are left in the past. The final stanza, on the one hand, asserts that there is no immortality, on the other hand, it gives a blessing to everything that “has come to flourish and die.” And this is an expression of great love for people, for all living things, for nature - a position characteristic of many humanists.

Yesenin has many other poems on the topic we are considering. They are also among the masterpieces of the elegiac genre. First of all, we should mention the poem “We are now leaving little by little...” It was written on the death of the poet A.V. Shiryaevts, a close friend of Yesenin (May 15, 1924) and a few days later published in the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” under the title “In Memory of Shiryaevts”.

In his memoirs, S.D. Fomin writes: “I remember how Yesenin was stunned by the death of Shiryaevets. Everyone who returned that day from the Vagankovskoye cemetery to Shiryaevets’ funeral in the Herzen House will not forget the crying Yesenin, who hoarsely read the entire Shiryaevets “Muzhikoslov”.”

The meaning of Yesenin’s first stanza is expressed clearly: those who come into the world sooner or later leave it.

Maybe soon I’ll have to pack my mortal belongings for the road.

The poet's assumption that it might be time for him to soon go on the road where his friend had gone was well founded. He talks about the same thing in the poem “I am the last poet of the village.”

The second stanza differs in content from the first. Here in the foreground is the poet’s love for everything that surrounds him, that is dear to him. This affirmation of love is the main thing in the work. On the other hand, the poet is a witness to how people (primarily friends)

ISSN 2075-9908 Historical and socio-educational thought. Volume 7 No. 4, 2015 Historical and educational social ideas Volume 7 #4, 2015______________________________

throw the world. And this cannot but have a psychological impact on him, which leads to the fact that he is unable to “hide” his melancholy.

The next stanza is dominated by the same idea as the first. The poet again speaks of his great love for everything that “puts the soul into flesh.” But this thought is connected with nature, inseparable from people. The poet’s nature and people form a unity. The poet cannot imagine himself outside of this unity.

The stanza compositionally divides the poem into two parts and serves as a link between them. Here the statement “life is happiness” is the main one: “...on a gloomy earth I am happy because I breathed and lived.”

The next stanza is the continuation and development of this thought. Here we can see the poet’s admiration for earthly beauty, for what is most important to him, prevailing in earthly life. Beauty for the poet is not only people, especially women, to whom the poet was never indifferent, it is also animals, our “smaller brothers.” And this, again, is an important idea for the poet about the unity of man and nature.

I'm happy that I kissed women,

Crushed flowers, lay on the grass,

And animals, like our smaller brothers,

Never hit me on the head.

In these verses, the poet captured the essence of life, namely: in the name of what a person should live on

What follows is a compositional turn: the roll call of the fifth stanza with the second. In the second stanza, melancholy dominates; in the fifth, the poet experiences trembling before the “host of departing”; these feelings do not contradict each other, they are interconnected:

I know that the thickets do not bloom there,

The rye does not ring with the swan's neck,

Therefore, before the host of those departing,

I always get the shivers.

The last two verses given are a variation of the first two verses of the beginning of the poem, but with intensification, weighting of thought.

Overall, the poem intertwines bitter and joyful feelings. The poet's skill lies in the fact that in his poem it is impossible to exclude a single word, each is connected with the other. Such integrity creates its harmony.

I know that in that country there will not be these fields, golden in the darkness.

That's why people are dear to me,

That they live with me on earth.

The lyrical plot turns out to be organically connected with all the compositional elements of the poem. The last stanza logically closes the text and sums up the philosophy of life and death expressed in it.

1. Soviet encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 1980. S. 238-239.

2. Yesenin S. Collected works in five volumes. T. 5. Autobiographies, articles, letters. - M., 1962.

3. Belousov V. Sergei Yesenin. Literary chronicle. Part 2. - M., 1970.

4. Yesenin Sergey. Literary chronicle. - M., 1970.

5. Belskaya L.L. Song word. The poetic mastery of Sergei Yesenin. - M., 1990.

6. Fomin S.D. From memories / In memory of Yesenin. - M., 1926.

1. Soviet Encyclopedia Dictionary. Moscow, 1980 pp. 238-238 (in Russ.).

2. Esenin Sergey. Collection of works in five volumes. V.5. Autobiographies, articles, letters. Moskva, 1962 (in Russ.).

3. Belousov V. Sergei Esenin. Literary chronicles. Part 2. Moscow, 1970 (in Russ.).

Education and pedagogical sciences

Education and Pedagogical Sciences

4. Esenin Sergey. Collection of works in five volumes. V. 2. (Primechaniya V.F. Zemskova) Moskva, 1961 (in Russ.).

5. Belskaya L.L. The word of songs. Poetic mastery of Sergey Esenin. Moscow, 1990 (in Russ.).

6. Fomin S.D. Memoires Remembering Esenin. Moskva, 1926 (in Russ.).

Kelbekhanova Madina Ragimkhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Philological Sciences, Associate Profes- Russian Literature, Dagestan State University, Makhachkala Daghestan State University, Makhachkala city,

Rating: / 1

Badly Great

V. A. Sukhov(Penza)

MOTIV OF OVERCOMING DEATH IN THE LYRICS OF M. YU. LERMONTOV AND S. A. ESENINA

In the lyrics of M. Yu. Lermontov and S. A. Yesenin, one can highlight the motive of predicting death, which is closely related to the motive of overcoming it. Researchers noted that in the poetry of M. Yu. Lermontov, “death appears not as the finale of the earthly journey,” but “as a providential feeling of death or imminent death.” 1 . In accordance with this attitude, the poem “Testament” (1840) was written. Talking about the fate of an officer mortally wounded in the Caucasus, Lermontov expresses with amazing authenticity the feelings of a simple man, whose monologue is striking in its stoicism and calmness: “...Tell them that I was wounded in the chest / I was wounded by a bullet; / That I died honestly for the Tsar / That they were bad our doctors/And I send my bow to my native land” (1, 458) 2 . Here the poet’s humanism and his ability to go beyond his own tragic fate are clearly demonstrated.
According to the memoirs of V. Rozhdestvensky, Yesenin “was ready to cry at some of Lermontov’s poems and was inimitably able to sing his “Testament” in a low voice to some tune of his own. 3 . In fact, Yesenin, who in the last years of his life had a presentiment of his tragic outcome, could not help but be touched by Lermontov’s piercing lines: “Alone with you, brother, / I would like to be: / There is little in the world, they say, / I have nothing left to live... You tell her the whole truth, /Don’t feel sorry for an empty heart/ Let her cry.../It doesn’t mean anything to her!” (1, 458) 4 . It is no coincidence that Lermontov’s final couplet found its second life in Yesenin’s poem: (1925): “Let her hear, let her cry. / Someone else’s youth means nothing to her” (1, 241).
In the “little poem” (1924), Yesenin, recalling his great predecessors, after Pushkin, moves on to characterize Lermontov. Drawing a kind of psychological parallel, he explains the reasons for the poet’s death by his rebellious character: “For the sadness and bile in his face/ He is worthy of the boiling of yellow rivers,/ He, as a poet and an officer,/ Was calmed by a friend’s bullet” (2, 108). Yesenin emphasized that he came to the Caucasus not only to “mourn” the “native ashes” of his beloved poets, but also “to spy on his hour of death” (2, 108). In fact, shortly before their death, Lermontov and Yesenin created prophetic works in which the motif of death is closely connected with the motif of dreams - predictions. In the poem “Dream” (1841), Lermontov’s lyrical hero sees his own death in the “valley of Dagestan,” where the fiercest battles with the mountaineers took place: “I lay alone on the sand of the valley,” “The sun ... burned me - but I slept like a dead sleep” ( 1, 477). The gift of foresight, which was especially clearly manifested in this work, drew the attention of the philosopher V. Solovyov. He wrote: “Lermontov not only had a presentiment of his fatal death, but also directly saw it in advance.” 5 . The motif of a dream about one’s own death, associated with an intense search for a solution to the eternal mystery of existence, also appears in Yesenin’s “little poem”. Predicting death in a dream - looking at yourself from the outside - dead - all this is reminiscent of Lermontov's “Dream”. By a fateful coincidence, the poem “Blizzard” was created by the poet in December 1924, a year before his death. The poet sees himself “deceased/In a coffin” from the outside and even takes part in his own funeral: “I lower my eyelids to my dead self…” (2, 151). Comparing Lermontov’s and Yesenin’s “dreams of death,” you understand that the poets were prophetically aware of the proximity of their departure to another world. At the same time, Yesenin did not exclude the possibility that his confrontation with the authorities could end tragically for him. With bitter irony, the poet declared: “And I should be hanged first, /With my hands crossed behind my back” (2, 149). Yesenin made an attempt to remove the tragic intensity of hopelessness that distinguished the poem. He writes its original continuation - a “little poem” (December 1924), in which he contrasts his own death, so visibly presented, with the motive of overcoming it. Through the lips of his lyrical hero, the poet optimistically declares: “The fit is over./Sadness is in disgrace./I accept life like the first dream” (2, 153).
For the lyrical heroes Lermontov and Yesenin, the awareness of imminent death is associated with a feeling of overcoming a kind of spiritual crisis. This similarity in the poets’ worldview is clearly manifested if we compare Lermontov’s and Yesenin’s elegies “I Go Out Alone on the Road” (1841) and (1924). Prophetic “longing” brings the two poets together. Lermontov’s lyrical hero makes a confessional confession, which confirms his involuntary confusion in the face of approaching death: “Why is it so painful and so difficult for me? /Am I waiting for what? Do I regret anything? (1, 488). Yesenin’s lyrical hero also does not hide the fact that, seeing off close friends on their last journey, he always experiences “trembling.” Disappointed in life, Lermontov’s romantic hero declares: “I don’t expect anything from life, / And I don’t feel sorry for the past at all” (1, 488). This Lermontovian disappointment is opposed by Yesenin’s awareness of “earthly” happiness with all its joys: “...And on this gloomy earth/Happy that I breathed and lived...” (1, 201). Lermontov’s lyrical hero, in the spirit of romanticism, declares: “I am looking for freedom and peace! /I would like to forget myself and fall asleep!” (1, 488). The poet contrasts the death outcome associated with the “cold sleep of the grave” with a borderline state, which can be considered the victory of vital forces over death: “I would like to sleep like this forever, / So that the strength of life would slumber in my chest / So that my chest would quietly heave while breathing "(1, 488). In Yesenin’s elegy “We are now leaving little by little,” the motive of overcoming death is reflected in the hard-won confession of the lyrical hero “And on this gloomy earth/Happy that I breathed and lived” (1, 201). It is interesting to note that both Lermontov and Yesenin associate life primarily with breathing, that is, with the life of the soul. Lermontov's lyrical hero dreams of falling asleep, but not the “sleep of death,” but the “sleep of life.” In this regard, one cannot help but recall the confession of the lyrical hero of Yesenin, which we have already quoted.
In conclusion, we note that the lyrical heroes of Lermontov and Yesenin associate their spiritual rebirth with a feeling of love for a woman and with the symbol of eternal life - a tree. Lermontov's oak and Yesenin's maple are unique symbols of immortality, embodying the poets' dream of the victory of life over death. Therefore, Lermontov’s lyrical hero dreams of having a “sweet voice” sing to him “about love.” At the same time, the love song should merge with the noise of the oak tree - the mythological image of the “tree of life”. Reliance on the traditions of Slavic mythology brings Lermontov and Yesenin together, so they connect the motif of the path - the road - with the image of the tree of life. “A tree as a metaphor for the road, as a path along which one can reach the afterlife is a common motif of Slavic beliefs...” 6 . Thus, the beginning of Lermontov’s elegy “I go out alone onto the road” logically ended, according to the ring principle of composition, with a symbolic appeal to the image of a tree: “Above me, so that ever green / The dark oak bowed and made noise” (1, 488).
Yesenin picks up this Lermontov motif of overcoming death in the poem “You are my fallen maple, frozen maple” (November 28, 1925). In it, completing his “tree novel” (M. Epstein), the poet creates his “metaphor of the road” - the image of a maple tree. The Yesenin maple, “like a drunken watchman, went out onto the road,/Drowned in a snowdrift and froze his leg” (4, 233). It is necessary to perceive this metaphor in the context of the poem “I Left My Home” (1918), in which the poet also depicts an old watchman: “Guarding blue Rus' / An old maple tree on one leg” (1, 143). Realizing the approach of death, Yesenin, with his characteristic passionate love of life, exclaims: “I seemed to myself the same maple, / Only not fallen, but completely green. / And, having lost modesty, having gone stupefied into a board, / Like someone else’s wife, I hugged a birch tree” (4 , 233).
From all of the above, we can conclude that it is the tragic worldview of Lermontov and Yesenin that paradoxically determines their amazing love of life. The closer death is, the sharper the thirst for life in the souls of their lyrical heroes. This confrontation is explained by the powerful pressure of the passionate natures of brilliant poets. That is why Lermontov would not want to “fall asleep in the cold sleep of the grave,” and in a poem (1922) Yesenin stated: “I will never die, my friend.” Thus, in Lermontov and Yesenin’s lyrics, the “providential feeling” of imminent death is overcome by an all-conquering feeling of love for life. It is no coincidence that after the word “live” the author in the poem “Testament” puts a life-affirming exclamation mark. Perhaps this is why Yesenin begins his dying poem as if he were responding to the lyrical hero of Lermontov’s “Testament”: “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye / My dear, you are in my chest / The destined parting / Promises a meeting ahead” (1, 153).

Notes
1. Lermontov Encyclopedia. M., 1981. P. 310.
2. Here and further in the text there are references to the publication: M. Yu. Lermontov. Collection op. in 4 volumes. Leningrad. 1979. Volume and page are indicated in parentheses.
3. Rozhdestvensky V. Sergei Yesenin //About Yesenin. Poems and prose by writers of the poet's contemporaries. M., 1990. P. 316.
4. Here and further in the text there are references to the publication: S. A. Yesenin Complete collection. op. in 7 volumes. Moscow. 1995 - 2001. The volume and page are indicated in brackets.
5. Soloviev V. From the literary heritage. M., 1990. P. 274.
6. Slavic mythology. M., 1995. P. 225.

In Yesenin’s work it is difficult to separate the actual philosophical lyrics from the landscape, love lyrics dedicated to Russia. Philosophical motives are intertwined in his poetry with motives of love for a woman, his native land, with the theme of admiring nature, its beauty and harmony. All this constitutes a single world, a single cosmos in which man exists - and it is precisely the relationship between man and the Universe that constitutes the subject of philosophical thought. Yesenin's philosophy is not born from abstract thoughts - it is, rather, the result of insight, feeling, a keen sense of the brevity of human existence in the world and the inextricable connection between the world and man.
In early life, man and the world are harmoniously connected, there is no contradiction or conflict between them. Yesenin's cosmos is nature and homeland, the world with which a person is connected from the cradle. In nature, everything is animated and interconnected, everything turns into everything. This is the basic principle of the rich imagery that distinguishes Yesenin’s poetry. The figurative world of his lyrics is built on personifications and metaphors, that is, on likening to each other seemingly heterogeneous phenomena and objects: organic and inorganic, plant, animal, cosmic and human. This can already be seen in the example of the poem, which is considered to be Yesenin’s first poetic experience:

Where the cabbage beds are
The sunrise pours red water,
Little maple baby to the uterus
The green udder sucks.

In this quatrain, Yesenin’s main creative and philosophical principle is clearly visible. Thanks to unexpected metaphors, the most heterogeneous phenomena come together and “flow” into each other: the light of dawn becomes “red water,” foliage becomes “green udder.” Bold personifications are concrete and visible: they turn the sunrise into a “gardener” watering the cabbage beds, and endow two trees - old and young - with the characteristics of animals, presumably a cow and a calf. So, everything in the world is connected, everything is filled with a single life-giving principle.
This feeling of unity gives rise to a kind of pantheism (with features of a peasant, therefore Christian, tradition). Nature is a temple, and man in it is a pilgrim and a wanderer. Yesenin’s lyrical hero feels himself present at the mysterious liturgy of nature, starting from his early creativity (“I pray at the scarlet dawns, / I take communion by the stream”) and until the late, “autumn” creative time (“At the farewell mass / Incense leaves of birches”) . The predominant motive of these years is a joyful acceptance of life and one’s place in it, a feeling of its fullness and spirituality, harmony and mutual understanding with the world in its various and always living manifestations:

I am a shepherd; my mansions -
In the soft green fields.
Cows talk to me
In nodding language.
Spiritual oak trees
They call with branches in the river.

“I am a shepherd, my chambers...”, 1914

At the same time, God-fighting, rebellious motives appear in the poems, where we are no longer talking about the humble acceptance of the world, but about man’s ability to transform the world, literally turn it upside down, challenge the Creator. This is largely due to the fact that the poet at this time was influenced by the ideas of the February and October revolutions - hence the lines heard, for example, in the poem “Inonia” (1918):

I'll lick the icons with my tongue
Faces of martyrs and saints.
I promise you the city of Inonia,
Where does the deity of the living live?

However, this godless spirit is characteristic almost exclusively of poems and is practically not reflected in the lyrics. Moreover, soon it is finally replaced by completely different motives and experiences.
The motif of wandering, already mentioned above, is one of the key ones for Yesenin’s entire work. Man is a wanderer and a guest on earth, be it a pilgrim-pagan, a tramp, or a person who has simply lost all ties with the past. “I am only a guest, a random guest / In your fields, earth!” - says the poet. The image of the road - one of the most frequent in his lyrics - is a metaphor for a person’s life path, in its transience and constant movement. A person comes into the world, goes through his own path and in due time leaves this life, like a guest from a hospitable home:

Whom should I feel sorry for? After all, everyone in the world is a wanderer:
He will pass, come in and leave the house again...

The motif of the road, the path of life is complemented by the motif of the house, reconciling and connecting a person with the world. The home that a person leaves to wander - as a kalika, a pilgrim or a “tramp and a thief” - still exists, at least in his memory, as a connecting thread between him and his past, his roots, what is near and dear to him. Along with going on a new journey, the motive of returning home, as a metaphor for the end of life, serves as a guarantee of the return of everything in the world to normal, the cyclical nature of existence.
In the poet's mature work, the motif of premonition of death and summing up the results of the path taken occupies an increasingly important place. The poems “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry...” and “The golden grove dissuaded...” are vivid examples of how, through mutual comparisons between the human and the natural, the lyrical hero comes to reconciliation with the inevitable departure and to a grateful acceptance of life.
In both poems there is a motif of the autumn of life, withering and premonition of the end. Maturity as the autumn of life is a traditional metaphor in Russian poetry, but in Yesenin it takes on a special meaning - it emphasizes the involvement of human life in the natural, “vegetative” cycle. The antithesis “youth - maturity” (“blooming - fading”) can also be traced at the level of visible, concrete images (youth - “smoke from white apple trees”, “lilac blossoms of souls”; maturity and old age - “withering gold”, a tree that “ quietly drops leaves"). Such parallelism between human life and the state of nature emphasizes that they exist according to the same laws. A person withers, a tree withers, but the world lives on, and everything will happen again.
The lyrical hero gratefully accepts existence and death as part of existence:

May you be blessed forever,
What has come to flourish and die.

“I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry...”, 1921

This is reminiscent of Pushkin’s famous lines:

And let at the tomb entrance
The young one will play with life,
And indifferent nature
Shine with alien beauty.

“Am I wandering along noisy streets...”, 1829

However, Yesenin’s nature, Yesenin’s cosmos are far from being so indifferent to mortal man. They are much warmer, more humane, perhaps due to the fact that Yesenin’s nature is not abstract, but extremely concrete, having its own geographical and national definition. She both remembers and is humanly sad about the brevity of life:

The hemp plant dreams of all those who have passed away
With a wide moon over the blue pond.

“The golden grove dissuaded me…”, 1924

The same motives - premonitions of death and joyful acceptance of life - are heard in the poem “We are now leaving little by little...” (1921). But here the emphasis is on the joys of earthly existence, in which there is beauty, love, poetry, a variety of emotions, happiness:

And on this gloomy earth
Happy that I breathed and lived.
I'm happy that I kissed women,
Crushed flowers, lay on the grass,
And animals, like our smaller brothers,
Never hit me on the head.

The poem, which can be called the final one - “Flowers tell me: goodbye ...” (1925) - repeats and summarizes all the poet’s philosophical insights, all the complexity and harmony of existence. The poem is built on antitheses: love and separation, death and fullness of life, cyclicality and uniqueness. At the same time, there are no irreconcilable contradictions in it, it is full of harmony; all extremes are resolved in eternity and diversity of existence. Death promises separation from everything that is dear to the hero on earth: “I will never see her face and my father’s land.” However, he accepts death as just another natural manifestation of life: “And this deathly trembling / Like a new caress I accept.” The poet feels that a person’s life should dissolve in the cycle of existence, “that everything in the world is repeatable.” At the same time, the last line of the poem states, perhaps, its main idea - about the uniqueness of each flower, each individual existence, which, precisely because of this uniqueness, turns out to be valuable.
Yesenin's poetry, no matter what period - early or mature - it belongs to, always leaves the reader with a feeling of the harmony of life, the generous diversity of life with its joys and anxieties, in spring and autumn. It leaves a feeling of the value of every life in the Universe, a keen and living feeling of a person’s connection with everything living, with everything that surrounds him.