Born November 16 (28), 1880 in St. Petersburg. Father is a professor of law at the University of Warsaw, mother is M.A. Beketova, a writer and translator. Blok spent his childhood in St. Petersburg and on the Shakhmatovo estate near Moscow.
1898-1906 - after graduating from high school, Blok studied at the Slavic-Russian department of the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University.
1903 - marries L.D. Mendeleeva, daughter of D.I. Mendeleev. At the same time, Blok met A. Bely and V. Bryusov, and the first appearances in print in the journal of the St. Petersburg symbolists D.S. Merezhkovsky and Z.N. Gippius.
1904 - publishes the collection “Poems about a Beautiful Lady”, where he appears as a lyricist-symbolist, who (since 1901) was influenced by the mystical poetry of Vl. Solovyov, imbued with the cult of the “Eternal Feminine” and the “World Soul”.
In 1905-06. The bloc is captured by revolutionary events in St. Petersburg. He takes part in demonstrations in October 1905, in rallies, and observes the life of workers in the outskirts during many hours of lonely walks. At the same time, interest in the works of N.V. Gogol and F. M. Dostoevsky is growing. A new vision of the world was reflected in the second book of poems, “Unexpected Joy.” It shows disappointment in the utopia of transforming life by Beauty, and an appeal to “mysticism in everyday life.” Symbolist criticism unanimously notes Blok’s increased poetic skill, however, A. Bely and S. Solovyov write sharply about the poet’s “betrayal” of the ideals of “Solovievism.” Particularly noticeable is the disappointment in the mysticism of Vl. Solovyov and, more broadly, in the ability of the modern “lyrical” (individualistic) consciousness to comprehend the high truth about the world, reflected in the trilogy “ Lyrical dramas": "Showcase", "King in the Square", "Stranger" (1906).
During the years of the revolution, Blok was actively looking for his own path in life and art, gradually losing interest in A. Bely and S. Solovyov, and from the spring of 1905 to the summer of 1907 he almost stopped contacts with the Merezhkovskys. Tense personal relationships separated Blok in 1906. from Bely: in love with L.D. Blok, Bely cannot forgive her decision to stay with Blok.
1907 – the collection “Snow Mask”, dedicated to the actress N.N. Volokhova, is published.
1907-08 - Blok conducts a literary review in the magazine “Golden Fleece”, sharply criticizes symbolism (“Questions, questions, questions”, 1908), writes about the tasks of art (“Paints and Words”, 1906, “Timelessness”, 1906, “ About Lyrics", 1907, "About the Theatre", "Letters about Poetry", "People and Intelligentsia", "Elements and Culture", 1908, "Lightning of Art", 1909, "About current state Russian symbolism", 1910, "The Fate of Apollo Grigoriev", 1916; reviews of poems by A. Bely, V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, E. Verharn).
1908 – the third collection of poems, “Earth in the Snow,” is published.
1910-11 - Blok works on the poem “Retribution” (work will continue intermittently until 1921, but the poem will remain unfinished).
1911 – fourth collection “Night Hours”.
1911-12 – a three-volume collection of Blok’s poems is published.
1915 – the collection “Poems about Russia” and the poem “The Nightingale Garden” were published.
1916 – “Poems. Book one." This year marks the third all-Russian mobilization. Blok is drafted into the army. From the very beginning, the poet's attitude towards war is negative. Thanks to the assistance of the poet Sorgenfrei, Blok is enlisted as a timekeeper in an engineering and construction squad building military fortifications in Polesie.
1917 – after February events Blok receives a month's leave and in March 1917 returns to his hometown. He is offered to work as one of the editors of the verbatim report of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry on the affairs of former tsarist ministers. Blok agrees, because this frees him from the army. From this work his book “ Last days imperial power" (1921).
1918 – “Poems. Book two." This year, works were written in which Blok clearly expresses his attitude to the revolution (the article “Intellectuals and the Revolution”, the poem “The Twelve”, the poem “Scythians”, etc.).
In the last years of his life, Blok carried out a large literary and community service: V State Commission for the publication of classics, in the Theater Department of the People's Commissariat for Education, in the Union of Workers fiction, in the publishing house "World Literature", in the Union of Poets. Gives reports, articles, speeches (“Catilina”, 1918, “The Collapse of Humanism”, 1919, “Heine in Russia”, 1919, “On the Purpose of a Poet”, 1921, “Without God, Without Inspiration”, 1921, publ. 1925 ).
1919 - Blok was appointed chairman of the director's department of the Bolshoi Drama Theater (Petrograd).
1920 – the collections “Beyond Past Days” and “Gray Morning” were published.
1921 – “Poems. Book three."
April 25, 1921 – in the Bolshoi drama theater Blok's author's evening will take place. He already feels unwell. Since mid-May, Blok has not left his house. Immediately freed from all meetings, he, despite his progressive illness, tries to write poetry. He is finishing the rough draft of the third chapter of the poem “Retribution.” Since the beginning of August, Blok has spent almost all his days in oblivion.
August 7, 1921 - Alexander Blok dies.
Alexander Blok was born on November 16 (28), 1880 in St. Petersburg in a family of intellectuals, lawyer Alexander Lvovich and writer Alexandra Andreevna. Many of Blok's ancestors were professional writers and scientists, and in Alexander's family circle, where he spent his early childhood, there was often talk about classical literature, poetry. The boy showed a penchant for creativity at the age of five, when he wrote his first poems.
Blok's parents quickly separated; in 1889, his mother remarried - to guards officer F. F. Kublitsky-Piottukh, fortunately, leaving the boy with his father's surname. Nine-year-old Alexander moved with his mother to the Grenadier Barracks, to live with his stepfather, and he was immediately sent to study at the Vvedensky Gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1898. WITH teenage years Alexander began to engage in “serious writing”, as well as theater. For some time he even thought about an acting career and played in the St. Petersburg drama circle, but his literary vocation outweighed his inclination towards dramatic art.
After high school, the young man “rather unconsciously” entered Faculty of Law Petersburg University, but, never keen on this science, quickly lost interest. Three years after starting his studies at the university, Alexander transferred to the Slavic-Russian department of the Faculty of History and Philology. In 1903, he married Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva, the daughter of a Russian scientist, and in the same year the young man made his debut as a poet in the St. Petersburg magazine “ New way" and Moscow "Northern Flowers" with a cycle of poems "From Dedications".
Alexander himself positioned himself as a symbolist poet and quickly found friends among representatives of this literary movement. IN next year Alexander Blok’s first book, “Poems about beautiful lady", dedicated to his wife and muse and full of romantic mysticism. But the revolution of 1905 completely changed the poet’s style, forced him to follow political events in the country and turn to the ideals of socialism. In 1906, after Alexander received his diploma, the mature period of his work began.
"Evenings" presents a selection of seven best poems one of the most talented poets of the Silver Age:
1. “Night, street, lantern, pharmacy,” October 10, 1912, from the series “ Scary world", sub-cycle "Dance of Death"
Night, street, lantern, pharmacy,
Pointless and dim light.
Live for at least another quarter of a century -
Everything will be like this. There is no outcome.
If you die, you'll start over again
And everything will repeat itself as before:
Night, icy ripples of the channel,
Pharmacy, street, lamp.
In the evenings above the restaurants
The hot air is wild and deaf,
And rules with drunken shouts
Spring and pernicious spirit.
In the distance, above the dust of the alley,
Above the boredom of country dachas,
The bakery's pretzel is slightly golden,
And a child's cry is heard.
And every evening, behind the barriers,
Breaking the pots,
Walking with the ladies among the ditches
Tested wits.
Rowlocks creak over the lake,
And a woman's squeal is heard,
And in the sky, accustomed to everything,
The disk is bent senselessly.
And every evening my only friend
Reflected in my glass
And tart and mysterious moisture,
Like me, humbled and stunned.
And next to the neighboring tables
Sleepy lackeys hang around,
And drunkards with rabbit eyes
“In vino veritas!” they scream.
And every evening, at the appointed hour
(Or am I just dreaming?),
The girl's figure, captured by silks,
A window moves through a foggy window.
And slowly, walking between the drunken,
Always without companions, alone,
Breathing spirits and mists,
She sits by the window.
And they breathe ancient beliefs
Her elastic silks
And a hat with mourning feathers,
And in the rings there is a narrow hand.
And chained by a strange intimacy,
I look behind the dark veil,
And I see the enchanted shore
And the enchanted distance.
Silent secrets have been entrusted to me,
Someone gave me the sun,
And all the souls of my bend
Tart wine pierced.
And bowed ostrich feathers
My brain is shaking,
And blue bottomless eyes
They bloom on the far shore.
There's a treasure in my soul
And the key is entrusted only to me!
You're right, drunken monster!
I know: the truth is in the wine.
Pan-Mongolism! Although the name is wild,
But it pleases my ears.
Vladimir Soloviev
Millions of you. We are darkness, and darkness, and darkness.
Try it and fight us!
Yes, we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians
With slanted and greedy eyes!
For you - centuries, for us - a single hour.
We are like obedient slaves,
Holding a shield between two hostile races
Mongols and Europe!
Centuries, centuries your old forge forged
And drowned out thunder, avalanches,
AND wild tale was a failure for you
Both Lisbon and Messina!
You have been looking to the East for hundreds of years
Hoarding and melting our pearls,
And you, mockingly, only counted the time,
When to point the guns in the mouth!
Now the time has come. Trouble beats with wings,
And every day the grievances multiply,
And the day will come - there will be no trace
From your Paestums, perhaps!
ABOUT, old world! Until you die
While you're languishing in sweet flour,
Stop, wise as Oedipus,
Before the Sphinx with an ancient riddle!
Russia - Sphinx. Rejoicing and mourning,
And dripping with black blood,
She looks, looks, looks at you
Both with hatred and with love!...
Yes, to love as our blood loves,
None of you have been in love for a long time!
Have you forgotten that there is love in the world,
Which both burns and destroys!
We love everything - and the heat of cold numbers,
And the gift of divine visions,
We understand everything - and the sharp Gallic meaning,
And the gloomy German genius...
We remember everything - the Parisian streets are hell,
And the Venetian coolness,
The distant aroma of lemon groves,
And Cologne is a smoky mass...
We love flesh - both its taste and color,
And the stuffy, mortal smell of flesh...
Are we guilty if your skeleton crunches?
In our heavy, tender paws?
We are used to grabbing by the reins
Zealous playing horses,
Break horses' heavy rumps,
And pacify the obstinate slaves...
Come to us! From the horrors of war
Come into peaceful embraces!
Before it's too late - the old sword is in its sheath,
Comrades! We will become brothers!
And if not, we have nothing to lose,
And treachery is available to us!
For centuries, centuries you will be cursed
Sick late offspring!
We are wide through the wilds and forests
Looks good in front of Europe
Let's make way! We'll come back to you
With your Asian face!
Go everyone, go to the Urals!
We are clearing the battlefield
Steel machines where the integral breathes,
With the Mongolian wild horde!
But we ourselves are no longer your shield,
From now on we will not enter into battle ourselves,
We'll see how the mortal battle rages on,
With your narrow eyes.
We will not move when the ferocious Hun
He will rummage through the pockets of corpses,
Burn the cities and drive the herd to the church,
And fry the meat of the white brothers!...
IN last time- come to your senses, old world!
To the fraternal feast of labor and peace,
For the last time at the bright fraternal feast
The barbaric lyre is calling!
4. “The girl sang in church choir", August 1905, not included in the cycle
The girl sang in the church choir
About all those who are tired in a foreign land,
About all the ships that went to sea,
About everyone who has forgotten their joy.
And it seemed to everyone that there would be joy,
That all the ships are in the quiet backwater,
That there are tired people in a foreign land
You have found a bright life for yourself.
5. Sub-cycle “On the Kulikovo Field”, June-December 1908, from the cycle “Motherland” (excerpt)
The river spread out. Flows, lazily sad
And washes the banks.
Above the meager clay of the yellow cliff
The haystacks are sad in the steppe.
Oh, my Rus'! My wife! To the point of pain
We have a long way to go!
Our path is an arrow of the ancient Tatar will
Pierced us through the chest.
Our path is steppe, our path is in boundless melancholy -
In your melancholy, oh, Rus'!
And even the darkness - night and foreign -
I'm not afraid.
Let it be night. Let's get home. Let's light up the fires
The steppe distance.
The holy banner will flash in the steppe smoke
And the Khan's saber is steel...
AND eternal battle! Rest only in our dreams
Through blood and dust...
The steppe mare flies, flies
And the feather grass crumples...
And there is no end! Miles and steep slopes flash by...
Stop it!
The frightened clouds are coming,
Sunset in the blood!
Sunset in the blood! Blood flows from the heart!
Cry, heart, cry...
There is no peace! Steppe mare
He's galloping!
Maria Pavlovna Ivanova
Under the embankment, in the unmown ditch,
Lies and looks as if alive,
In a colored scarf thrown on her braids,
Beautiful and young.
Sometimes I walked with a sedate gait
To the noise and whistle behind the nearby forest.
Walking all the way around the long platform,
She waited, worried, under the canopy.
Three bright eyes rushing -
Softer blush, cooler curl:
Perhaps one of those passing by
Look more closely from the windows...
The carriages walked in the usual line,
They shook and creaked;
The yellow and blue ones were silent;
The green ones cried and sang.
We got up sleepy behind the glass
And looked around with an even gaze
Platform, garden with faded bushes,
Her, the gendarme next to her...
Just once a hussar, with a careless hand
Leaning on the scarlet velvet,
Slipped over her with a tender smile,
He slipped and the train sped off into the distance.
Thus the useless youth rushed,
Exhausted in empty dreams...
Road melancholy, iron
She whistled, breaking my heart...
Why, the heart has been taken out a long time ago!
So many bows were given,
So many greedy glances cast
Into the deserted eyes of the carriages...
Don't approach her with questions
You don't care, but she's satisfied:
With love, mud or wheels
She is crushed - everything hurts.
7. “How hard it is for a dead man among people...”, February 19, 1912, from the cycle “A Terrible World”, sub-cycle “Dance of Death”
How hard it is for a dead man among people
Pretend to be alive and passionate!
But we have to, we have to get involved in society,
Hiding the clang of bones for a career...
The living are sleeping. A dead man rises from the grave
And he goes to the bank, and to the trial is underway, to the Senate...
The whiter the night, the blacker the anger,
And the feathers creak triumphantly.
The dead man works all day on his report.
The presence ends. And so -
He whispers, wagging his backside,
A dirty joke for a senator...
It's already evening. The light rain splashed with mud
Passers-by, and houses, and other nonsense...
And a dead man - to another disgrace
The grinding taxi carries.
The hall is crowded and full of columns
The dead man is in a hurry. He is wearing an elegant tailcoat.
They give him a supportive smile
The mistress is a fool and the husband is a fool.
He was exhausted from a day of official boredom,
But the clanging of bones is drowned out by the music...
He shakes his friend's hands tightly -
He must seem alive, alive!
Only at the column will he meet his eyes
With a friend - she, like him, is dead.
Behind their conventionally secular speeches
You hear the real words:
“Tired friend, I feel strange in this room.” -
"Weary friend, the grave is cold." -
“It’s already midnight.” - “Yes, but you didn’t invite
To the waltz NN. She's in love with you..."
And there - NN is already looking with a passionate gaze
Him, him - with excitement in his blood...
In her face, girlishly beautiful,
The senseless delight of living love...
He whispers insignificant words to her,
Captivating words for the living,
And he watches how the shoulders turn pink,
As the head leaned on the shoulder...
And the sharp poison of habitual secular anger
With unearthly anger he lavishes...
“How smart he is! He’s so in love with me!”
He amazed everyone with his irrepressible faith in the future of Russia and its people. Loving and suffering to embrace the immensity, a man with a wide soul and tragic life. Blok's life and work deserve attention for their completeness and touchingness.
Biography of the poet
Blok Alexander Alexandrovich, born 1880, November 28. Place of birth - St. Petersburg. His parents: father - A.L. Blok, worked as a lawyer at the university in Warsaw, mother - A.A. Beketova, daughter of the famous botanist.
The boy's parents divorced before he was born, so he did not grow up in a complete family. However, maternal grandfather A.N. Beketov, in whose family Alexander grew up, surrounded the child with due care and attention. Gave him a good education and a start in life. A.N. himself Beketov was the rector of the university in St. Petersburg. The highly moral and cultural atmosphere of the environment left its mark on the formation of Blok’s worldviews and upbringing.
Since childhood, he has had a love for the classics of Russian literature. Pushkin, Apukhtin, Zhukovsky, Fet, Grigoriev - these are the names on whose works little Blok grew up and became familiar with the world of literature and poetry.
Poet's training
The first stage of education for Blok was a gymnasium in St. Petersburg. After graduating in 1898, he entered St. Petersburg University to study law. He completed his legal studies in 1901 and changed his direction to historical and philological.
It was at the university that he finally decided to delve into the world of literature. This desire is also reinforced by the beautiful and picturesque nature, among which his grandfather’s estate is located. Having grown up in such an environment, Alexander forever absorbed the sensitivity and subtlety of his worldview, and reflected this in his poems. From then on, Blok’s creativity began.
Blok is very supportive of his mother warm relations, his love and respect for her is limitless. Until his mother’s death, he constantly sent her his works.
Appearance
Their marriage took place in 1903. Family life was ambiguous and complex. Mendeleev was waiting great love, as in novels. The block offered moderation and tranquility of life. The result was his wife’s passion for his friend and like-minded person, Andrei Bely, a symbolist poet who played last role in the works of Blok himself.
Lifetime work
Blok’s life and work developed in such a way that, in addition to literature, he took part in completely everyday affairs. For example:
"Poems about a Beautiful Lady";
"Unexpected joy";
"Snowy Night"
"On the Kulikovo field."
“Retribution”, which he wrote like that.
was an active participant in dramatic productions in the theater and even saw himself as an actor, but the literary field attracted him more;
for two years in a row (1905-1906) the poet was a direct witness and participant in revolutionary rallies and demonstrations;
writes his own literature review column in the newspaper "Golden Fleece";
from 1916-1917 repays his debt to the Motherland, serving near Pinsk (engineering and construction squad);
is part of the leadership of the Bolshoi;
upon returning from the army, he gets a job in the Extraordinary Investigative Commission for the Affairs of Tsarist Ministers. He worked there as a shorthand report editor until 1921.
Blok's early work
Little Sasha wrote his first poem at the age of five. Even then, he had the makings of a talent that needed to be developed. This is what Blok did.
Love and Russia are two favorite themes of creativity. Blok wrote a lot about both. However, on initial stage What attracted him most to the development and realization of his talent was love. The image of the beautiful lady, which he had been looking for everywhere, captured his entire being. And he found the earthly embodiment of his ideas in Lyubov Mendeleeva.
The theme of love in Blok’s work is revealed so fully, clearly and beautifully that it is difficult to dispute it. Therefore, it is not surprising that his first brainchild - a collection of poems - is called "Poems about a Beautiful Lady", and it is dedicated to his wife. When writing this collection of poems, Blok was greatly influenced by the poetry of Solovyov, whose student and follower he is considered to be.
In all poems there is a feeling of Eternal femininity, beauty, and naturalness. However, all expressions and phrases used in writing are allegorical and unrealistic. Blok is carried away in a creative impulse to “other worlds.”
Gradually, the theme of love in Blok’s work gives way to more real and pressing problems surrounding the poet.
The beginning of disappointment
Revolutionary events, discord in family relationships, and miserably failing dreams of a clean and bright future for Russia force Blok’s work to undergo obvious changes. His next collection is called “Unexpected Joy” (1906).
More and more he ridicules the symbolists, to whom he no longer considers himself, and he is more and more cynical about hopes for the best ahead. He's a member revolutionary events, who is completely on the side of the Bolsheviks, considering their cause to be right.
During this period (1906) his trilogy of dramas was published. First, “Balaganchik”, after some time “King in the Square”, and this trio ends with bitter disappointment from the imperfection of the world, from their disappointed hopes. During the same period, he became interested in actress N.N. Volokhova. However, he does not receive reciprocity, which adds bitterness, irony and skepticism to his poems.
Andrei Bely and other previously like-minded people in poetry do not accept the changes in Blok and criticize his current work. Alexander Blok remains adamant. He is disappointed and deeply saddened.
"The Incarnation Trilogy"
In 1909, Blok’s father dies, to whom he does not have time to say goodbye. This leaves an even greater imprint on his state of mind, and he decides to combine his most striking works, in his opinion, into one poetic trilogy, which he gives the name “Trilogy of Incarnation.”
Thus, Blok’s work in 1911-1912 was marked by the appearance of three collections of poems, which bear poetic titles:
A year later, he released a cycle of love poems “Carmen”, wrote the poem “The Nightingale Garden”, dedicated to his new hobby - singer L.A. Delmas.
Homeland in Blok's works
Since 1908, the poet has positioned himself no longer as a lyricist, but as a glorifier of his Motherland. During this period he writes poems such as:
"Autumn Wave";
"Autumn Love";
All these works are imbued with love for the Motherland, for one’s country. The poet simultaneously shows two sides of life in Russia: poverty and hunger, piety, but at the same time wildness, unbridledness and freedom.
The theme of Russia in Blok’s work, the theme of the homeland, is one of the most fundamental in his entire poetic life. For him, the Motherland is something living, breathing and feeling. Therefore, the ongoing events of the October Revolution are too difficult, disproportionately difficult for him.
The theme of Russia in Blok’s works
After revolutionary trends capture his entire spirit, the poet almost completely loses lyricism and love in his works. Now the whole meaning of his works is directed towards Russia, his homeland.
Blok personifies his country in poetry with a woman; he makes it almost tangible, real, as if he humanizes it. The homeland in Blok’s work takes on such a large-scale significance that he never writes about love again.
Believing in the Bolsheviks and their truth, he experiences severe, almost fatal disappointment for him when he sees the results of the revolution. Hunger, poverty, defeat, mass extermination of the intelligentsia - all this forms in Blok’s mind an acute hostility towards the symbolists, towards lyricism and forces him from now on to create works only with a satiristic, poisonous mockery of faith in the future.
However, his love for Russia is so great that he continues to believe in the strength of his country. That she will rise up, dust herself off and be able to show her power and glory. The works of Blok, Mayakovsky, Yesenin are similar in this regard.
In 1918, Blok wrote the poem “The Twelve,” the most scandalous and loud of all his works, which caused a lot of rumors and conversations about it. But criticism leaves the poet indifferent; the emerging depression begins to consume his entire being.
Poem "Twelve"
The author began writing his work "The Twelve" in early January. On the first day of work, he didn't even take a break. His notes say: “Trembling inside.” Then the writing of the poem stopped, and the poet managed to finish it only on January 28.
After the publication of this work, Blok’s work changed dramatically. This can be briefly described in the following way: the poet lost himself, stagnation set in.
The main idea of the poem was recognized differently by everyone. Some saw in it support for the revolution, a mockery of symbolist views. Some, on the contrary, have a satirical slant and mockery of the revolutionary order. However, Blok himself had both in mind when creating the poem. She is contradictory, just like his mood at that moment.
After the publication of "Twelve" everything was fine weak ties with the Symbolists were broken. Almost all of Blok’s close friends turned away from him: Merezhkovsky, Vyach, Prishvin, Sologub, Piast, Akhmatova and others.
By that time, he himself was becoming disillusioned with Balmont. Thus, Blok is left practically alone.
Post-revolutionary creativity
The revolution passed, and the bitterness from the disappointment of the Bolshevik policies grew and intensified. Such a gap between what was promised and what was done as a result of the revolution became unbearable for Blok. We can briefly characterize Blok’s work during this period: nothing was written.
As they would later write about the poet’s death, “the Bolsheviks killed him.” And indeed it is. Blok was unable to overcome and accept such a discrepancy between word and deed new government. He failed to forgive himself for supporting the Bolsheviks, for his blindness and short-sightedness.
Blok is experiencing severe discord within himself and is completely lost in his inner experiences and torment. The consequence of this is illness. From April 1921 to the beginning of August, the illness did not let go of the poet, tormenting him more and more. Only occasionally emerging from semi-oblivion, he tries to console his wife, Lyubov Mendeleeva (Blok). On August 7, Blok died.
Where did the poet live and work?
Today, Blok’s biography and work captivate and inspire many. And the place where he lived and wrote his poems and poems turned into a museum. From the photographs we can judge the environment in which the poet worked.
You can see the appearance of the estate where the poet spent time in the photo on the left.
The room in which the poet spent the last bitter and difficult moments of his life (photo below).
Today, the poet’s work is loved and studied, admired, his depth and integrity, unusualness and brightness are recognized. Russia in Blok’s work is studied in school activities, essays are written on this topic. This gives every right to call the author a great poet. In the past, he was a symbolist, then a revolutionary, and at the end of the day he was simply a deeply disillusioned person with life and power, an unhappy person with a bitter, difficult fate.
A monument has been erected in St. Petersburg to perpetuate the author’s name in history and pay due respect to his undeniable talent.
He belonged to those idealists clean water, which our time almost does not know. Actually, we no longer understand the peculiar and often anecdotal stories about such noblemen of the sixties as Saltykov-Shchedrin or my grandfather, about their attitude towards Emperor Alexander II, about the meetings of the Literary Fund, about Borel dinners, about good French and Russian language, about students youth of the late seventies. This entire era of Russian history has passed away irrevocably, its pathos has been lost, and the very rhythm would seem to us extremely leisurely.
In his village Shakhmatovo (Klin district, Moscow province), my grandfather went out to the peasants on the porch, shaking his handkerchief; for exactly the same reason why I. S. Turgenev, talking with his serfs, embarrassedly picked off pieces of paint from the entrance, promising to give whatever they asked, if only they would get rid of it.
When meeting a guy he knew, my grandfather took him by the shoulder and began his speech with the words: “Eh bien, mon petit...” [“Well, dear...” (French).].
Sometimes the conversation ended there. My favorite interlocutors were notorious swindlers and rogues that I remember: old Jacob Fidele [Jacob Verny (French).], who plundered half of our household utensils, and the robber Fyodor Kuranov (nicknamed Kuran), who, they say, had murder in his soul; his face was always blue-purple - from vodka, and sometimes - in blood; he died in a "fist fight". Both were really smart and very nice people; I, like my grandfather, loved them, and they both felt sympathy for me until their death.
One day, my grandfather, seeing a man carrying a birch tree from the forest on his shoulder, said to him: “You’re tired, let me help you.” At the same time, it did not even occur to him that the obvious fact that the birch tree had been cut down in our forest. My own memories of my grandfather are very good; We wandered with him for hours through meadows, swamps and wilds; sometimes they walked dozens of miles, getting lost in the forest; they dug up herbs and cereals with their roots for a botanical collection; at the same time, he named the plants and, identifying them, taught me the rudiments of botany, so that I still remember many botanical names. I remember how happy we were when we found a special early pear flower, a species unknown to the Moscow flora, and a tiny, low-growing fern; I still look for this fern every year on that same mountain, but I never find it - obviously, it was sown by accident and then degenerated.
All this refers to the dark times that came after the events of March 1, 1881. My grandfather continued to teach a course in botany at St. Petersburg University until his illness; in the summer of 1897 he was struck by paralysis, he lived another five years without speaking, he was carried in a chair. He died on July 1, 1902 in Shakhmatovo. They brought him to St. Petersburg to bury him; Among those who met the body at the station was Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev.
Dmitry Ivanovich played very big role in the Becket family. Both my grandfather and grandmother were friends with him. Mendeleev and my grandfather, soon after the liberation of the peasants, traveled together to the Moscow province and bought two estates in the Klin district - in the neighborhood: Mendeleev's Boblovo lies seven miles from Shakhmatovo, I was there as a child, and in my youth I began to visit there often. The eldest daughter of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev from his second marriage, Lyubov Dmitrievna, became my bride. In 1903, we got married in the church in the village of Tarakanova, which is located between Shakhmatovo and Boblov.
My grandfather’s wife, my grandmother, Elizaveta Grigorievna, is the daughter of a famous traveler and explorer Central Asia, Grigory Silych Korelin. All her life she worked on compilations and translations of scientific and artistic works; the list of her works is enormous; in recent years she has produced up to 200 printed sheets per year; she was very well read and spoke several languages; her worldview was surprisingly lively and original, her style was figurative, her language was precise and bold, exposing the Cossack breed. Some of her many translations remain the best to this day.
Her translated poems were published in Sovremennik, under the pseudonym "E. B.", and in " English poets"Gerbel, no name. She translated many works by Buckle, Bram, Darwin, Huxley, Moore (the poem "Lalla Rook"), Beecher Stowe, Goldsmith, Stanley, Thackeray, Dickens, W. Scott, Brett Harte, Georges Sand, Balzac, V. Hugo, Flaubert, Maupassant, Rousseau, Lesage. This list of authors is far from complete. Payment for labor was always negligible. Now these hundreds of thousands of volumes have been sold in cheap editions, and someone familiar with antique prices knows how expensive they are now at least the so-called "144 volumes" (ed. G. Panteleev), which contain many translations by E. G. Beketova and her daughters. A characteristic page in the history of Russian education.
My grandmother was less successful in the abstract and “refined”; her language was too lapidary, there was a lot of everyday life in it. An unusually distinct character was combined in her with a clear thought, like the summer village mornings on which she sat down to work until light. Long years I remember vaguely, as I remember everything childish, her voice, the embroidery hoop on which bright woolen flowers, variegated patchwork quilts, sewn from unnecessary and carefully collected scraps - and in all this - some kind of irrevocable health and fun that left our family with her. She knew how to enjoy just the sun, just good weather, even in her very last years, when she was tormented by illnesses and doctors, known and unknown, who performed painful and meaningless experiments on her. All this did not kill her indomitable vitality.
This vitality and vitality penetrated into literary tastes; with all the subtlety of her artistic understanding, she said that “Goethe’s secret adviser wrote the second part of Faust to surprise the thoughtful Germans.” She also hated Tolstoy's moral sermons. All this was connected with fiery romance, sometimes turning into ancient sentimentality. She loved music and poetry, wrote me half-joking poems, which, however, sometimes sounded sad notes:
So, awake in the hours of the night
And loving my young grandson,
This is not the first time that the old woman
I composed stanzas for you.
She skillfully read aloud the scenes of Sleptsov and Ostrovsky, the motley stories of Chekhov. One of her last works was the translation of two stories by Chekhov into French(for "Revue des deux Mondes"). Chekhov sent her a sweet thank-you note.
Unfortunately, my grandmother never wrote her memoirs. I only have a short outline of her notes; she knew many of our writers personally, met Gogol, the Dostoevsky brothers, Ap. Grigoriev, Tolstoy, Polonsky, Maykov. I am saving the copy of the English novel that F. M. Dostoevsky personally gave her for translation. This translation was published in Vremya.
My grandmother died exactly three months after my grandfather - on October 1, 1902. From their grandfathers they inherited a love of literature and an untainted understanding of it. high value their daughters are my mother and her two sisters. All three were translated from foreign languages. The eldest, Ekaterina Andreevna (by her husband, Krasnova), enjoyed fame. She owns two independent books of “Stories” and “Poems” published after her death (May 4, 1892). last book awarded an honorary review from the Academy of Sciences). Her original story “Not Fate” was published in “Bulletin of Europe”. She translated from French (Montesquieu, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre), Spanish (Espronceda, Baker, Perez Galdos, article about Pardo Basan), and reworked English stories for children (Stevenson, Haggart; published by Suvorin in the Cheap Library).
My mother, Alexandra Andreevna (by her second husband - Kublitskaya-Piottukh), translated and is translating from French - poetry and prose (Balzac, V. Hugo, Flaubert, Zola, Musset, Erkman-Chatrian, Daudet, Baudeler, Verlaine, Richpin). In her youth, she wrote poetry, but published only children’s poetry.
Maria Andreevna Beketova translated and is translating from Polish (Sienkevich and many others), German (Hoffmann), French (Balzac, Musset). She owns popular adaptations (Jules Verne, Silvio Pellico), biographies (Andersen), monographs for the people (Holland, History of England, etc.). Musset's "Carmosine" was recently presented in her translation at the workers' theater.
In my father's family, literature played a small role. My grandfather is a Lutheran, a descendant of the doctor of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, a native of Mecklenburg (my ancestor, the life surgeon Ivan Blok, was elevated to Russian nobility). My grandfather was married to the daughter of the Novgorod governor, Ariadna Aleksandrovna Cherkasova.
My father, Alexander Lvovich Blok, was a professor at the University of Warsaw in the department state law; he died on December 1, 1909. Special scholarship far from exhausts his activities, as well as his aspirations, which may be less scientific than artistic. His fate is full of complex contradictions, quite unusual and gloomy. During his entire life, he published only two small books (not counting lithographed lectures) and for the last twenty years he worked on an essay devoted to the classification of sciences. An outstanding musician, a connoisseur of fine literature and a subtle stylist, my father considered himself a student of Flaubert. The latter was the main reason that he wrote so little and did not complete the main work of his life: he was unable to fit his constantly developing ideas into the compressed forms that he was looking for; in this search for compressed forms there was something convulsive and terrible, as in his entire mental and physical appearance. I met him a little, but I remember him dearly.
My childhood was spent in my mother's family. It was here that the word was loved and understood; In general, ancient concepts of literary values and ideals dominated in the family. Speaking vulgarly, in Verlaine's style, eloquence [eloquence (French)] predominated here; Only my mother was characterized by constant rebellion and anxiety about new things, and my aspirations for musique [music - French] found support from her. However, no one in the family ever persecuted me, everyone only loved and spoiled me. To the dear old eloquence, I owe it to my grave that literature began for me not with Verlaine and not with decadence in general. My first inspiration was Zhukovsky. WITH early childhood I remember the lyrical waves constantly rushing over me, barely associated with anyone else’s name. I only remember Polonsky’s name and the first impression of his stanzas:
I dream: I am fresh and young,
I'm in love. Dreams are boiling.
Luxurious cold from dawn
Infiltrates the garden.
There were no life experiences for a long time. I vaguely remember large St. Petersburg apartments with a lot of people, with a nanny, toys and Christmas trees - and the fragrant wilderness of our small estate. Only about 15 years old were the first definite dreams of love born, and next to them were attacks of despair and irony, which found their outcome many years later - in my first dramatic experience, "Balaganchik", lyrical scenes). ; there I was an editor and an active employee for three years.
Serious writing began when I was about 18 years old. For three or four years I showed my writings only to my mother and aunt. All of these were lyrical poems, and by the time my first book, “Poems about a Beautiful Lady,” was published, up to 800 of them had accumulated, not counting the adolescent ones. Only about 100 of them were included in the book. Afterwards I printed and still print some of the old ones in magazines and newspapers.
Family traditions and mine closed life contributed to the fact that not a single line of the so-called " new poetry“I did not know until the first years of university. Here, in connection with acute mystical and romantic experiences, the poetry of Vladimir Solovyov took possession of my entire being. Until now, the mysticism with which the air of the last years of the old and the first years of the new century was saturated was incomprehensible to me; I was worried by the signs that I saw in nature, but I considered all this “subjective” and carefully protected it from everyone. Outwardly, I was then preparing to become an actor, enthusiastically recited Maykov, Fet, Polonsky, Apukhtin, played at amateur performances, in the house my future bride, Hamlet, Chatsky, The Stingy Knight and... vaudeville. Sober and healthy people, which surrounded me then, it seems, saved me then from the infection of mystical quackery, which a few years after that became fashionable in some literary circles. Fortunately and unfortunately together, such a “fashion” came, as always happens, precisely when everything was internally determined; when the elements that raged underground poured out, a crowd was found light lovers mystical profit.
Subsequently, I paid tribute to this new blasphemous “trend”; but all this already goes beyond the scope of “autobiography”. I can refer those interested to my poems and to the article “On the current state of Russian symbolism” (Apollo magazine, 1910). Now I'll go back.
Out of complete ignorance and inability to communicate with the world, an anecdote happened to me, which I remember with pleasure and gratitude: once on a rainy autumn day (if I’m not mistaken, 1900) I went with poems to an old friend of our family, Viktor Petrovich Ostrogorsky , now deceased. He was then editing God's World. Without saying who sent me to him, I excitedly gave him two small poems inspired by Sirin, Alkonost and Gamayun by V. Vasnetsov. After running through the poems, he said: “Shame on you, young man, to do this when God knows what’s going on at the university!” - and sent me out with ferocious good nature. It was offensive then, but now it is more pleasant to remember it than many later praises.
After this incident, I didn’t go anywhere for a long time, until in 1902 I was sent to V. Nikolsky, who was then editing a student collection together with Repin. A year after that, I began to publish “seriously.” The first who paid attention to my poems from the outside were Mikhail Sergeevich and Olga Mikhailovna Solovyov (my mother’s cousin). My first things appeared in 1903 in the magazine “New Way” and, almost simultaneously, in the almanac “Northern Flowers”.
I lived seventeen years of my life in the barracks of the Life Guards. Grenadier Regiment (when I was nine years old, my mother married F.F. Kublitsky-Piottukh, who served in the regiment, for the second time). After completing the course in St. Petersburg. Vvedenskaya (now Emperor Peter the Great) gymnasium, I entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University quite unconsciously, and only after moving to the third year did I realize that I was completely alien legal science. In 1901, which was extremely important for me and decided my fate, I switched to Faculty of Philology, the course of which I completed, passing State exam in the spring of 1906 (for the Slavic-Russian department).
University did not play a special role in my life important role, but higher education gave, in any case, some mental discipline and certain skills that help me a lot both in historical and literary, and in my own critical experiments, and even in artistic work(materials for the drama "Rose and Cross"). Over the years, I appreciate more and more what the university gave me in the person of my respected professors - A. I. Sobolevsky, I. A. Shlyapkin, S. F. Platonov, A. I. Vvedensky and F. F. Zelinsky. If I manage to collect a book of my works and articles, which are scattered in considerable quantities in different publications, but need extensive revision, I will owe the share of scientific knowledge that is contained in them to the university.
In essence, only after finishing the “university” course did my “independent” life begin. Continuing to write lyric poems, which all, since 1897, can be considered as a diary, it was in the year of finishing my course at the university that I wrote my first plays in dramatic form; the main topics of my articles (except for purely literary ones) were and remain topics about “the intelligentsia and the people”, about theater and about Russian symbolism (not in the sense literary school only).
Every year of my adult life is sharply colored for me with its own special color. Of the events, phenomena and trends that especially strongly influenced me in one way or another, I must mention: a meeting with Vl. Solovyov, whom I saw only from afar; acquaintance with M. S. and O. M. Solovyov, Z. N. and D. S. Merezhkovsky and A. Bely; events of 1904 – 1905; acquaintance with the theatrical environment, which began in the theater of the late V.F. Komissarzhevskaya; the extreme decline in literary morals and the beginning of “factory” literature associated with the events of 1905; acquaintance with the works of the late August Strindberg (initially through the poet Vl. Piast); three trips abroad: I was in Italy - northern (Venice, Ravenna, Milan) and middle (Florence, Pisa, Perugia and many other cities and towns of Umbria), in France (in the north of Brittany, in the Pyrenees - in the vicinity of Biarritz; several times lived in Paris), Belgium and Holland; In addition, for some reason I had to return to Bad Nauheim (Hessen-Nassau) every six years of my life, with which I have special memories.
This spring (1915) I would have to return there for the fourth time; but the general and higher mysticism of war interfered with the personal and lower mysticism of my trips to Bad Nauheim.
About the author: Alexander Alexandrovich Blok born into a family of true intellectuals. His father was a law professor and philosopher, his mother was a translator, his grandfather was a botanist professor, his grandmother, aunts and great-aunt were writers and translators. Who could grow up in such a family? Only a truly educated person literature lover. Moreover, at the age of five the child himself began to compose poetry! Raised in childhood mainly by the female half of the family, Blok will throughout his life retain respect and sublime love for Woman, as a giver and organizer of life. The cycle “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” will be the first to bring him widespread fame.
Over the course of his life, Blok would write many poetic works for the most different topics. In some he will be concerned about philosophical questions, in others about love experiences, in others about the problems of building a new society in Russia. One thing is certain - whatever Blok wrote about, he did it with talent, putting his own soul into the poetic lines.
Over time, Blok became severely disillusioned with the revolution and, apparently, against the backdrop of this mental suffering, he became seriously ill. The writer ended his earthly journey in 1921. This was the last of the “luminaries” of poetry of the 19th century and the first with whom the era of socialist poets began.