The specificity of Blok’s artistic thinking was most clearly manifested in the poem “Retribution,” conceived after his trip in 1909 to his father’s funeral in Warsaw. The poem is autobiographical and at the same time broad in its generalizations.
It traces the fate of a noble family (in which the history of the “Beketov house” is easily discerned) in connection with Russian life at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
But the poet’s creative task was not limited to typifying the life of one family. The deep intention of the poem, full of “revolutionary forebodings” (3, 295), was to reveal the history of humanistic culture in Russia, its heyday, decline and death.
The noble, but fenced off from life, world of an intelligent family associated with the traditions of liberalism and positivism is gradually destroyed by “demons” - bearers of individualistic consciousness: the Father (in whom it is easy to recognize A.L. Blok) and the Son (whose prototype is the poet himself). Strong only by the poison of denial, the Father and Son are crushed by the “world environment”, sink and perish.
However, in the finale conceived by Blok, the “last firstborn” of the family, born to a Polish peasant woman, becomes the bearer of a new, popular and revolutionary consciousness and brings “retribution” on a life that has crippled generations of people (3, 298). The dialectical nature of the world manifests itself in history as a constant movement and “courageous” individuality and environment. The old culture is replaced by a new one, but life remains, always mobile and eternal.
Blok extensively recreates the historical background of the heroes’ lives, turning to the traditions of realistic, primarily Pushkin’s, poem. However, the general concept and structure of the images are in many respects at odds with this tradition. Each era, according to Blok, is a stage in the formation of the cosmically universal “spirit of music.” Therefore, history, everyday life, on the one hand, and culture, the characters of the heroes, on the other, are not connected by a cause-and-effect relationship.
These are parallel, “corresponding”, deeply related identifications of a universal cause - the “single musical pressure” of time. That is why the precisely written details of the era are at the same time symbols of some other (“corresponding” to them) events or the “spirit of the times” as a whole: the scene of the return of troops from the Russian-Turkish war in the first chapter is a symbol of life moving “like infantry, hopelessly"; the leitmotif of the mazurka is a symbol of the coming “retribution”, etc.
History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983.
Retribution
Prologue
Life is without beginning and end.
Opportunity awaits us all.
Above us is the inevitable darkness,
Or the clarity of God's face.
But you, artist, firmly believe
To the beginnings and ends. You know
Where heaven and hell guard us.
Given to you by dispassionate measure
Measure everything you see.
Let your view be firm and clear.
Erase random features -
And you will see: the world is beautiful.
Know where the light is, and you will understand where the darkness is.
Let everything pass slowly,
What is sacred in the world, what is sinful in it,
Through the heat of the soul, through the coolness of the mind...
First chapter
Nineteenth century, iron,
Truly a cruel age!
By you into the darkness of the night, starless
Careless abandoned man!
On the night of speculative concepts,
Materialistic small matters,
Powerless complaints and curses
Bloodless souls and weak bodies!
With you came the plague to replace
Neurosis, boredom, spleen,
The age of smashing foreheads against the wall
Economic doctrines,
Congresses, banks, federations,
Table matches, red words,
The age of stocks, annuities and bonds,
And ineffective minds,
And half talents
(It’s fairer - in half!),
The century is not of salons, but of living rooms,
Not Recamier, but I’ll just give...
The Age of Bourgeois Wealth
(Invisibly growing evil!).
Under the sign of equality and brotherhood
Dark things were brewing here...
And the man? - He lived without will:
Not him - cars, cities,
“Life” is so bloodless and painless
I tortured my spirit like never before...
But the one who moved, driving
Puppets of all countries, -
He knew what he was doing, sending
Humanistic fog:
There, in the gray and rotten fog,
The flesh withered and the spirit went out,
And the angel himself of sacred warfare,
It seemed to fly away from us...
Behind the lines of "Retribution"
Alexander Blok introduced the poem “Retribution” with a Preface, telling in detail the story of the unfinished epic poem, in which, during a period of severe crisis of symbolism, he took a decisive step towards realism, towards an analytical disclosure of the world.
Taking the fate of his family as the basis for the plot, Blok sought to create a kind of “novel in verse”, covering the events of Russian and European history of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, a broad narrative with numerous lyrical and philosophical digressions, and portraits of dozens of people. The narrative about the fate of the “family” was supposed to be framed, according to Blok’s plan, “with a description of events of world significance.” Blok read the prologue and first chapter of “Retribution” from Vyacheslav Ivanov. “The poem made a stunning impression,” recalled S. Gorodetsky. “I was already beginning to fight symbolism then, and she struck me with the freshness of her vision, the richness of everyday life, objectivity - all these things forbidden to any symbolist. But our teacher looked like a thunderstorm and thundered. He saw decay, decay as a result of apostasy, nominalism, as we said a little later, crime and death in this poem. Blok sat depressed. He didn't know how to defend himself. He could argue only musically... The poem went to the table, where it remained until recent years, when Blok made an attempt, if not to finish, then to put it in order.”
Shortly before his death, in January and May-June 1921, Blok again turned to “Retribution.” His memory takes him back to his childhood, to the distant, already lost Shakhmatovo. Mortally ill, he sketches a continuation of the second and third chapters - these were the last lines written by the poet.
In “Retribution,” Blok approached the theme of Russia through a story about the life of one family. “Individual offspring of every kind develop to their allotted limit and then are again absorbed by the surrounding world environment,” the poet wrote in the Preface to “Retribution”; - but in each offspring something new and something sharper matures and is deposited, at the cost of endless losses, personal tragedies, failures in life, falls, etc.; at the cost, finally, of the loss of those infinitely high properties that at one time shone like the best diamonds in the human crown... But the seed is thrown, and in the next firstborn a new, more persistent one grows; and in the last first-born this new and persistent thing finally begins to have a tangible effect on the environment; Thus, the clan, which has experienced the retribution of history, environment, era, begins, in turn, to create retribution...”
This is Blok’s concept, embodied in the poem “in a short passage of a Russian family living in the conditions of Russian life.” Like no other work by Blok, “Retribution” has a clearly expressed biographical character. The heroes of the poem are easily recognizable as members of the liberal noble family of the poet's mother - the Beketovs, who raised Alexander Blok, and, of course, his father, a brilliant scientist, a sad "demon", a man similar to Byron, as Dostoevsky said about him.
Blok Alexander
Retribution
Youth is retribution.
Preface
Feeling neither the need nor the desire to finish a poem full of revolutionary forebodings, in the years when the revolution has already occurred, I want to preface the outline of the last chapter with a story about how the poem was born, what were the reasons for its emergence, where its rhythms came from.
It is interesting and useful both for yourself and for others to remember the history of your own work. Moreover, we, the happiest or unhappiest children of our age, have to remember our whole lives; all our years are sharply colored for us, and - alas! - you can’t forget them, - they are painted too indelibly, so that every number seems written in blood; we cannot forget these figures; they are written on our own faces.
The poem "Retribution" was conceived in 1910 and the main outlines were sketched in 1911. What were these years?
1910 is the death of Komissarzhevskaya, the death of Vrubel and the death of Tolstoy. With Komissarzhevskaya the lyrical note died on stage; with Vrubel - the enormous personal world of the artist, insane perseverance, insatiability of quests - even to the point of insanity. With Tolstoy human tenderness died - wise humanity.
Further, 1910 is a crisis of symbolism, about which a lot was written and talked about then, both in the symbolist camp and in the opposite camp. This year, trends that have taken a hostile position both to symbolism and to each other have clearly made themselves felt: acmeism, egofuturism and the first beginnings of futurism. The slogan of the first of these directions was man - but some kind of different man, without humanity at all, some kind of “primordial” Adam.
The winter of 1911 was filled with deep inner courageous tension and trepidation. I remember nightly conversations, from which for the first time the consciousness of the inseparability and non-fusion of art, life and politics grew. The thought, which, apparently, was awakened by strong shocks from the outside, simultaneously knocked on all these doors, no longer satisfied with merging everything into one, which was easy and possible in the true mystical twilight of the years preceding the first revolution, and also in the untrue mystical hangover, which came after her.
It was precisely the courageous spirit that prevailed: the tragic consciousness of the non-fusion and inseparability of everything - irreconcilable contradictions that required reconciliation. The harsh northern voice of Strindberg, who had only a year of life left, became clearly audible. The smell of burning, iron and blood was already noticeable. In the spring of 1911, P. N. Milyukov gave an interesting lecture entitled “Armed Peace and Arms Reduction.” A prophetic article appeared in one of the Moscow newspapers: “The proximity of a great war.” The murder of Andrei Yushchinsky took place in Kyiv, and the question arose about the consumption of Christian blood by Jews. In the summer of this year, which was exceptionally hot, so that the grass was burning while still standing, grandiose strikes of railway workers took place in London, and the significant episode “Panther-Agadir” took place in the Mediterranean Sea.
Inextricably linked with all this for me is the flourishing of French wrestling in St. Petersburg circuses; the crowd of thousands showed exceptional interest in her; among the wrestlers there were true artists; I will never forget the fight between the ugly Russian heavyweight and the Dutchman, whose muscular system was the most perfect musical instrument of rare beauty.
This year, finally, aviation was in particular fashion among us; We all remember a series of beautiful aerial loops, upside-down flights, falls and deaths of talented and untalented aviators.
Finally, in the fall, Stolypin was killed in Kyiv, which marked the final transition of government of the country from the hands of half-nobles, half-bureaucrats to the hands of the police department.
All these facts, seemingly so different, have the same musical meaning for me. I am used to comparing facts from all areas of life accessible to my vision at a given time, and I am confident that all of them together always create a single musical pressure.
I think that the simplest expression of the rhythm of the time, when the world, preparing for unheard-of events, was so intensively and systematically developing its physical, political and military muscles, was the iambic. This is probably why I, who have long been driven around the world by the scourges of this iambic, were drawn to surrender to its elastic will for a longer time.
Then I had to start building a large poem called “Retribution.” Her plan seemed to me in the form of concentric circles, which became narrower and narrower, and the smallest circle, having shrunk to the limit, began again to live its own independent life, expand and push apart the environment and, in turn, act on the periphery. Such was the life of the drawing that I drew - I am trying to translate it into consciousness and into words only now; then it was present mainly in the concept of musical and muscular; It is not for nothing that I speak about muscular consciousness, because at that time the entire movement and development of the poem for me was closely connected with the development of the muscular system. With systematic manual labor, first the muscles in the arms, the so-called biceps, develop, and then - gradually - a thinner, more refined and sparser network of muscles on the chest and on the back under the shoulder blades. This rhythmic and gradual growth of muscles should have constituted the rhythm of the entire poem. Both its main idea and theme are connected with this.
The topic is how the links of a single chain of the clan develop. Individual offspring of every kind develop to their allotted limit and then are again absorbed by the surrounding world environment; but in each offspring something new and something sharper matures and is deposited, at the cost of endless losses, personal tragedies, failures in life, falls, etc.; at the cost, finally, of the loss of those infinitely high properties that at one time shone like the best diamonds in the human crown (such as humane qualities, virtues, impeccable honesty, high morality, etc.)
In a word, the world whirlpool sucks almost the entire person into its funnel; almost no trace remains of the personality; it itself, if it still exists, becomes unrecognizable, disfigured, crippled. There was a man - and there was no man, all that was left was crappy flaccid flesh and a smoldering soul. But the seed is thrown, and in the next firstborn a new, more persistent one grows; and in the last first-born this new and persistent thing finally begins to have a tangible effect on the environment; Thus, the clan, which has experienced the retribution of history, begins, in turn, to create retribution; the last firstborn is already capable of snarling and making a lion's roar; he is ready to grab with his human hand the wheel by which human history moves. And maybe he’ll grab hold of it...
In December of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, the country's president, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who is considered the nephew of Napoleon I, carried out a coup d'etat. He dissolved the National Assembly and arrested all parliamentary opposition figures. In the same month, the army crushed the uprising that began in Paris. During this period, a large number of unarmed citizens died, including women and children.
Victor Hugo is one of a small group of deputies who are considered passionate opponents of the new system of monarchs. The December uprising made a future fight impossible. The writer escaped from the country, and returned to his homeland from emigration only after the complete defeat of the second empire, in one thousand eight hundred and seventy. He wrote a collection of poems called “Retribution” hot on the heels of those events. In the subtitles of the book, he ironically plays on the oath promises of Napoleon III, and called the prologue and epilogue the symbolic names “Nox” and “Lux”, which in Latin means “Night” and “Day”.
A pathetic midget, a worthless nephew of a famous uncle, attacked the unprotected Republic in the darkness with a knife. The entire homeland was flooded with blood and dirt: despicable accomplices feasted in the palace, and under the cover of night the corpses of absolutely innocent murdered people were thrown into a mass grave. When the numb people wake up, the sacred moment of retribution will come. In the meantime, only the poet does not feel calm: although various elements call him to humility, he does not bow his head - let his angry muse become the heir of Juvenal and exalt the pillory for the bandits.
France surrendered, the tyrant's heel dug into her forehead. This worthless man will end his days in Toulon, in the place where Napoleon's great glory began. Convicts in bright jackets and shackles are impatiently waiting for the robber-nephew. Soon he too will be dragging this cannonball on his leg. Retribution for the crime will inevitably await: thieves, deceivers and murderers who dealt a treacherous blow to their homeland will be cursed. But for now, corrupt “saints” burn incense to them. They serve Satan, and in the chalices it is not wine that turns red, but blood. They planned to destroy progress, fetter the spirit, and deal with the opening mind. Martyrs die for nothing for the true faith. In France they sell Christ, he is crucified again with greed and hypocrisy. Everywhere you look: everywhere the courtiers are vying with each other to flatter Caesar, and the stockbroker bandits are getting fat on the bones of the people, the soldiers are drinking, wanting to forget their shame, and the working people are obediently putting their necks under the yoke. France is now no different from China, and scaffolds have been erected throughout the rest of Europe for its best sons. But now the iron steps of future days can already be heard, when the kings will run and the trumpet of the archangel will sound in the sky. A pleasant song flows.
Members of the State Council, the Senate, the Legislative Corps, the Town Hall, the Army, the Court, and the Bishops marked themselves with this hymn of praise. In response to their sound comes the mournful “Miserere” (Lord, have mercy) from a thousand lips. But madmen don't listen to them. Wake up, people, rise up like the buried Lazarus, because the dwarfs are mocking you. Remember how in December, soldiers drunk with blood fired at innocent people. Look how grandma sobs loudly over her dead grandson. When rot has entered all parts of the soul, then it is better to be banished to an island and admire the beautiful flight of seagulls from a cliff above the ocean. The native republic of our fathers was betrayed by the hands of the army, whose glory resounded for centuries. Soldiers in tattered clothes crawled under the banner of Freedom, and old Europe shook under their victorious steps. Now everyone has forgotten about these soldiers. They have been replaced by heroes who easily deal with women and children. They go against their homeland with a fit, they storm any laws. And the damned thief gives a generous reward to his praetorians. All that remains is to take revenge for such a shame - to smash the new empire and the beast with a golden crown on its head with a formidable verse.
Once upon a time there lived a prince who became poor. He fraudulently acquired a famous name for himself. Once he hatched a conspiracy, committed a “wonderful crime”, went into the Louvre wearing a Napoleon mask... The former ancient leaders, the great dictators of that century, are watching: a swindler in pants with holes appears on the roof of the temple. It was not Caesar, but simply Robert Macker. He is a character from the famous play "The Inn of Adre". This is a cynically boastful type of robber and murderer. He is similar to a monkey who has pulled on a tiger skin and started robbing until the hunter stops him. Those who are worse and more vile are drawn to the adopted son of the scaffold. An honest person can only recoil from them with disgust. They push their elbows with zeal, trying to get closer to the throne. And any upstart is supported by his party: behind one there are lackeys, behind another - corrupt girls. And the peaceful bourgeoisie grumble with dissatisfaction as soon as they come across a free article: of course, Bonaparte is a nonentity, but why shout about it to the whole world? Cowardly baseness is always considered an excellent support for crime. It's time to settle down in slavery - whoever lies down on his belly will succeed. All deceivers and bandits will have a place next to the money. And everyone else faces severe, hopeless poverty. But one should not turn to the shadow of Brutus: Bonaparte is not worthy of a dagger - a shameful death awaits him on a stake.
The people should not kill the ferocious tyrant, let him live as marked by the seal of Cain. His assistants in judges' robes refer to the exact death of the innocent: the wife who brought bread to her husband to the barricade, the old man who gave shelter to the exiles, will go to hard labor. And greedy journalists sing a hymn, hiding behind the Gospel: they reach into the soul, but at the same time empty their pockets. The stinking leaves delight saints and bigots with stories of miracles, they sell the Eucharist and have turned God's temple into a buffet. But the living fight, bringing great love or sacred work into the future. Thanks to their asceticism, the Ark of the Covenant was preserved. The Future One runs along an impenetrable road in the darkness with an order, which is inscribed in eternal letters, that the judgment of the Lord is approaching on an insignificant gang that robs and kills.
Robert Macker put on the crown, causing a great commotion in the old cemetery: all the bandits of past times want to go to the coronation of their brother. And a strong flight began from Paris: Reason, Thought, Honor, Law, Poetry went into exile. All that's left is Contempt. The tyrant will face retribution for the torment and tears, for the death of the great martyr Pauline Roland. She was a wonderful woman, a bearer of truth and goodness, who died in exile. The great shadow of Napoleon painfully torments itself: neither the dead army in the snowy fields of Russia, nor the terrible defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, nor the lonely death on the island of St. Helena - nothing compares with the collapse of the second empire. Dwarfs and jesters pulled the emperor by the feet from the throne of the ruler to give him the role of king in their circus booth. There was just retribution for the coup of the eighteenth Brumaire. Therefore, jesters take their cue from the great titan.
The pathetic nonentity is now called Napoleon III. Marengo and Austerlitz were harnessed to the tattered carriage. Europe is shaking with laughter, the United States is laughing, the cliffs are wiping away tears because a jester has sat on the throne in his arms with crime, and the empire has become one huge brothel. The people of France, who once scattered the granite of prisons and achieved the rights of peoples, are now trembling like an aspen leaf. Only women retain their dignity.
They execute bad people with a smile of contempt. And the loud sound of the poet can be heard everywhere, because caution, such a base virtue of cowards, is not for him. He hears the cry of his wounded homeland, which begs him to help her. The most terrible darkness predicts the dawn: France, which is harnessed to the cart of a drunken satrap, will be restored and receive wings. The hunched people will straighten up and, shaking off the adhering dirt of the present garbage dump, will appear in all their glory before the surprised world. The walls of Jericho will fall to the sound of Joshua's trumpets. Thinkers, taking turns replacing each other, lead the human caravan: Luther will follow Jan Hus, Voltaire will follow Luther, and Mirabeau will follow Voltaire. And with every movement forward the darkness dissipates. But time after time, Evil crawls out of ambush with his terrible followers in the form of jackals, hyenas and rats. Only the strict ruler of the desert, the lion, can disperse these animals. The people are like a lion. Hearing his growl, a gang of petty crooks scatter and disappear forever. It is necessary to survive the shameful years without tarnishing oneself. The tramp will not return to his motherland while the impostor Caesar rules it. Even if only a thousand, a hundred or a dozen stubborn people remain, the poet will always be among them. Well, if the voice of protest falls silent, then he himself will continue the battle.
A sacred dream shines in the distance - you need to clear the road to it. A crimson ray, the star of the world Republic, sparkled in the darkness. Free humanity will finally become one family, and peace and freedom will flourish throughout the land. This will inevitably happen: there will be no slaves and beggars, love and grace will flow from heaven, the holy tree of progress will reach America and Europe. Perhaps people will not live to see such happiness: but even they, awakening for a moment in their graves, will rejoice at such wonderful changes.
A brief summary of the collection “Retribution” was retold by A. S. Osipova.
Please note that this is only a brief summary of the literary work “Retribution”. This summary omits many important points and quotes.
“Retribution” by A.A. Blok
Blok tried to embody his thoughts about the closest and tragic connection of man with the “world whirlpool” of history in the form of the great epic poem “Retribution,” on which he worked a lot in 1911. He himself subsequently compared the planned work with the cycle of novels by E. Zola “Rugon” -Makkara. Natural and social history of one family in the era of the Second Empire." However, it can be assumed that the Russian realistic novel gave him great creative impulses to create the poem (not to mention the fact that the very poetic intonation of “Retribution” is extremely, sometimes “dangerously” - to the point of complete submission - close to “Onegin’s”).
“Excitement comes from “War and Peace” (now finished volume II),” Blok wrote in 1909, “then it spreads in breadth and captures my whole life and the lives of those close to me.” Here a certain thematic circle is already outlined, which largely coincides with the autobiographical basis of the future poem. Reflections on a novel from the life of the Russian nobility that are especially close to her plan are in one of Blok’s favorite books, Dostoevsky’s “Teenager,” where in connection with “War and Peace” it was said: “The grandson of those heroes who were depicted in the picture depicting a Russian family of middle-class cultural circle for three generations in a row and in connection with Russian history - this descendant of his ancestors could no longer be depicted in his modern type except in a somewhat misanthropic, solitary and undoubtedly sad form. He should even appear as some kind of eccentric, whom the reader, at first glance, could recognize as having left the field and be convinced that the field was not left behind him. Any further and even this misanthrope grandson will disappear...”
The most striking image of Blok’s unfinished poem is a father, talented, restless, “demonic”, bringing torment and chaos into the lives of his neighbors, and at the end of his life, a dejected, embittered loser (the first impetus for the creation of “Retribution” was the impression of the death of the poet’s father, a professor Alexander Lvovich Blok University of Warsaw). In many ways, the figure of the son, in which the author himself can easily be guessed, also corresponds to the sketch “plot of the future novel” outlined by Dostoevsky.
The “historical background” is remarkably expressive in the poem - a characteristic of time taken on a global scale. “Natural signs” interpreted in a symbolic sense—the “smoky sunset fires” noted at the beginning of the century by A. Bely, the “terrible ghost” of Halley’s comet that appeared in 1910, the devastating earthquake in Messina—are combined here with such features of the coming era, as “the tireless roar of a machine that forges destruction day and night” (an image that found its exact counterpart in journalistic articles of that time about “a powerful industry, educated by war and living for war”), and “the first takeoff of an airplane” - an event that was reflected in many the poet’s poems (for example, in “The Aviator” the “terrible appearance of the coming wars is predicted: a night flyer in the stormy darkness, carrying dynamite to the earth”).
Muffled echoes of the ever-accelerating historical flow are beginning to be felt in the fate of the noble family depicted in the poem (many of the Beketovs’ traits are captured in it), and ahead Blok foresees a tragic turn in Russian life:
So unexpectedly harsh
And full of eternal changes;
Like a spring river, she