Alexander Blok: poetry, creativity, biography, interesting facts from life. Brief biography of A.A.

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 a 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 was unable to 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 maintains a very warm relationship with his mother; 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 difficult. Mendeleev was waiting for 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 an important role in the work 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:

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, at the initial stage of development and realization of his talent, what attracted him most 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 is a participant in 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:

"Poems about a Beautiful Lady";
"Unexpected joy";
"Snowy Night"

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";

"On the Kulikovo field."

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 as follows: 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 “The Twelve,” all already weak ties with the Symbolists were severed. 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

“Retribution”, which he wrote like that.

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 the word and deed of the 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 works is studied in school classes, and 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.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok was born and raised in a highly cultured noble-intellectual family. His father, Alexander Lvovich, descended from the doctor Johann von Bloch, who came to Russia in the mid-18th century from Mecklenburg, and was a professor at the University of Warsaw in the department of public law. According to his son, he was also a capable musician, a literature connoisseur and a subtle stylist. However, his despotic character became the reason that the mother of the future poet, Alexandra Andreevna, was forced to leave her husband even before the birth of her son. Thus, Blok’s childhood and youth were spent first in the St. Petersburg “rector’s house” (his grandfather, Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov, was a botanist professor and rector of St. Petersburg University), then, after his mother’s second marriage, in the house of his stepfather, officer Franz Feliksovich Kublitsky-Piottukh , and every summer - in Beketov’s Shakhmatovo estate near Moscow.

In the liberal and “people-loving” Beketov family, many were engaged in literary work. Blok’s grandfather was the author of not only solid works, but also many popular science essays. Grandmother, Elizaveta Grigorievna, spent her entire life translating scientific and artistic works. “The list of her works is enormous,” the grandson later recalled. Her daughters, Blok’s mother and his aunts, were also systematically engaged in literary work.

The atmosphere of literary interests very early awakened in him an irresistible craving for poetry. Thanks to the memories of M. A. Beketova, Blok’s children’s poems, written by him at the age of five, have come down to us. However, a serious turn to poetic creativity, largely connected with the young Blok’s passion for the poetry of Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Fet, Polonsky, falls on the years when he graduated from the gymnasium and entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University in 1898 (in 1901 he switched to Slavic-Russian department of the Faculty of History and Philology and successfully completed it in 1906).

Blok's lyrics are a unique phenomenon. With all the diversity of its problematics and artistic solutions, with all the differences between the early poems and subsequent ones, it appears as a single whole, as one work unfolded in time, as a reflection of the “path” traveled by the poet. Blok himself pointed out this feature.

Let us repeat that in 1910-1911, while preparing his first collection of poems for publication, Blok arranged them in three books. The poet retained this three-volume division in two subsequent editions (1916 and 1918-1921), although the author made significant changes within the volumes. In their final form, the three volumes include 18 lyrical cycles (“countries of the soul,” as the poet puts it). In the preface to the first edition of “Collected Poems,” Blok emphasized the unity of his plan: “Each poem is necessary to form a chapter (i.e., a cycle. - Ed.); a book is compiled from several chapters; each book is part of a trilogy; I can call the entire trilogy a “novel in verse.” And a few months later, in a letter to Andrei Bely, he reveals the main meaning of the stages of the path he has passed and the content of each of the books of the trilogy: “... this is my path, now that he passed, I am firmly convinced that this is due and that all the poems together are a “trilogy of incarnation” (from a moment of too bright light - through the necessary swampy forest - to despair, curses, “retribution * and ... - to the birth of a “social” man , an artist who courageously faces the world..,).”

The first volume (1898-1903) included three cycles. The first of them - “Ante lucem” (“Before the light”) - is, as it were, a preview of the difficult path ahead. The general romantic mood of the cycle also predetermined the young poet’s antinomian attitude towards life. At one extreme are the motives of gloomy disappointment, which seem so unnatural for a nineteen-year-old boy: “I am an old soul. Some kind of black lot - // My long journey.” Or: “I laugh at the pitiful crowd // And I don’t give them a sigh.” But on the other hand there is a desire for life, acceptance of it:

I strive for luxurious will,

I'm rushing to the beautiful side,

Where in a wide open field

It’s good, like in a wonderful dream, -

and awareness of the poet’s high mission, his future triumph:

But the poet is approaching the song,

Strives, drawn by the truth,

And suddenly a new light appears

Beyond the distance, previously unknown...

The central cycle of the first volume is “Poems about a Beautiful Lady.” This is that “moment of too bright light” about which Blok wrote to A. Bely. This cycle reflected the young poet’s love for his future wife L. D. Mendeleeva and his passion for the philosophical ideas of Vl. Solovyova. What was closest to him at that time was the philosopher’s teaching about the existence of the Soul of the World, or the Eternal Feminine, which can reconcile “earth” and “heaven” and save the world, which is on the verge of disaster, through its spiritual renewal. The philosopher's idea that love for the world itself is revealed through love for a woman received a lively response from the romantic poet.

Solovyov’s ideas of “two worlds,” the combination of the material and the spiritual, were embodied in the cycle through a diverse system of symbols. The heroine's appearance is multifaceted. On the one hand, this is a very real, “earthly” woman. “She is slender and tall, // Always arrogant and stern.” The hero sees her “every day from afar.” On the other hand, before us is the heavenly, mystical image of the “Virgin”, “Dawn”, “Majestic Eternal Wife”, “Saint”. “Clear”, “Incomprehensible”... The same can be said about the hero of the cycle. “I am young, and fresh, and in love,” is a completely “earthly” self-description. And then he is a “joyless and dark monk” or “youth” lighting candles. To enhance the mystical impression, Blok generously uses epithets, such as “ghostly”, “unknown shadows” or “unknown sounds”, “unearthly hopes” or “unearthly visions”, “ineffable beauty”, “incomprehensible mystery”, “sadness” unspoken hints”, etc.

Thus, the story of earthly, very real love is transformed into a romantic-symbolic mystical-philosophical myth. It has its own plot and its own plot. The basis of the plot is the opposition of the “earthly” (lyrical hero) to the “heavenly” (Beautiful Lady) and at the same time the desire for their connection, “meeting”, as a result of which the transformation of the world, complete harmony, should occur. However, the lyrical plot complicates and dramatizes the plot. From poem to poem there is a change in the hero’s mood: bright hopes - and doubts about them, expectation of love - and fear of its collapse, faith in the immutability of the Virgin’s appearance - and the assumption that it can be distorted (“But I’m afraid: you will change your appearance” ).

Dramatic tension is also inherent in the cycle that concludes the first volume with the significant title “Crossroads”. The theme of the Beautiful Lady continues to be heard in this cycle, but something new also arises here: a qualitatively different connection with “everyday life”, attention to human grief, social issues (“Factory”, “From the Newspapers”, “A sick man trudged along the shore... ." and etc.). “Crossroads” outlines the possibility of future changes in the poet’s work, which will clearly manifest themselves in the second volume.

The lyrics of the second volume (1904-1908) reflected significant changes in Blok’s worldview. The social upsurge, which at that time embraced the broadest strata of the Russian people, had a decisive influence on Blok. He moves away from the mysticism of Vl. Solovyov, from the hoped-for ideal of world harmony, but not because this ideal became untenable for the poet. For him, he forever remained the “thesis” from which his path began. But the events of the surrounding life powerfully invade the poet’s consciousness, requiring their own understanding. He perceives them as a dynamic principle, an “element” that comes into conflict with the “unperturbed” Soul of the World, as an “antithesis” opposing the “thesis”, and plunges into the complex and contradictory world of human passions, suffering, and struggle.

A kind of prologue to the second volume is the cycle “Bubbles of the Earth”. The poet unexpectedly and polemically turns to the image of “low-lying” nature: “the eternity of swamps,” “rusty hummocks and stumps,” and the fantastic fairy-tale creatures that inhabit them. He could say, together with his kindest “swamp priest”:

My soul is glad

To every reptile

And to every beast

And about all faith, -

recognizing the regularity of the existence of this elemental world and the right of its inhabitants to honor “their field Christ.”

In the next two cycles (“Miscellaneous Poems” and “City”), the scope of the phenomena of reality expands immeasurably. The poet plunges into the anxious, acutely conflicted world of everyday life, feeling himself involved in everything that happens. These are the events of the revolution, which he perceived, like other symbolists, as a manifestation of the people’s destructive element, as the struggle of people of a new formation against the hated kingdom of social lawlessness, violence and vulgarity. To one degree or another, this position is reflected in the poems “We were going to attack. Straight to the chest...”, “Rising from the darkness of the cellars...”, “Meeting”, “Fed”, etc. It is characteristic, however, that the lyrical hero, despite all his solidarity with those who speak out in defense of the oppressed, does not consider himself worthy to be in their ranks:

They are far away

They swim merrily.

Only you and me

That's right, they won't take it!

(The boat of life has become...)

On such a painful note, one of the main problems for him begins to sound in Blok’s lyrics - the people and the intelligentsia.

In addition to motives associated with revolutionary events, the above-mentioned cycles reflect many other aspects of the diverse and endlessly changing Russian life. But poems where the poet develops a “wide-ranging” image of his homeland and emphasizes his inextricable connection with it acquire special significance. In the first of them (“Autumn Will”, 1905), Lermontov’s traditions are clearly visible. In the poem “Motherland,” Lermontov called his love for the fatherland “strange” because it diverges from traditional “patriotism.” What was dear to him was “not glory bought with blood,” but “the cold silence of the steppes” and “the trembling lights of sad villages.” The same is Blok’s love: “I will cry over the sadness of your fields, // I will love your open space forever...” - with the difference, perhaps, that for him it is more intimate, more personal. It is no coincidence that the image of the homeland “flows” here into the image of a woman (“And in the distance, in the distance, // Your patterned, your colored sleeve waves invitingly”), a technique that will be repeated in Blok’s later poems about the homeland. Blok’s hero is not a random passer-by, but one of the sons of Russia, walking a “familiar” path and participating in the bitter fate of those who “die without loving,” but who strive to merge with their homeland: “Shelter you in the vast distances! // How to live and cry without you!”

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok is a wonderful Russian writer who worked at the border of the 19th and 20th centuries. Born on November 16, 1880 in an intelligent family of a professor and writer in St. Petersburg. In 1898 he successfully graduated from the Vvedensky Gymnasium, and then from St. Petersburg University. Received two educations: legal and historical-philological.

Young Sasha had a chance to show off his writing talent at the age of five: then he wrote his first poems. In general, it is worth noting that the young man grew up versatile: he was interested not only in science, but also in acting and attended performing arts courses.

In 1897, while on vacation with his family, Blok fell in love for the first time. These ardent youthful feelings remained deeply in the writer’s memory and left an indelible mark on all of his subsequent work. In 1903, Alexander’s wife became the daughter of Professor Mendeleev, whom he literally wrested from an equally famous admirer, the poet Andrei Bely. He dedicated the collection “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” to his beloved woman with the symbolic name Love. He was noted by the Academy society and accepted into the ranks of its members. In the same year, 1903, Blok made his debut in literary circles, declaring himself a symbolist writer. Gradually he makes new acquaintances in this area and becomes close to D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius and V. Bryusov.

It is far from a secret that, in addition to his wife, Blok was in love more than once. He experienced great passion and an irresistible attraction to several women, who later also left a mark on his poetic work. It was Lyubov Delmas, and later N. Volokhova

Even then, Blok showed himself as a pronounced symbolist writer. His early work is characterized by the versatility of symbols and signs in the description of events and images. The main themes and motifs of that period are love experiences and the beauty of nature. In the later period of Blok’s work, he became increasingly interested in social problems and the experiences of people belonging to the lower strata of the population. This includes his poem “The Rose and the Cross” from 1912 and the cycle “Retribution”, published in 1913. Critics recognized the collection “Iambics” of 1914 as one of the most poetic and successful cycles, which included the well-known verse “Night, street, lantern, pharmacy.”

The decisive moment that divided the writer’s creative path into “before” and “after” is the poem “Factory,” which was published in 1903. And the years from 1906 to 1908 can be noted as the most successful in the writer’s work. Then he experienced an unprecedented rise and gained success and recognition from those around him. The collections “Unexpected Joy”, “Earth in the Snow”, “Snow Mask”, “Song of Fate” and “Lyrical Dramas” belong to this period. After 1908, there was a clear separation of the Bloc from the Symbolist camp. His further path became independent and not similar to his early work. His collection “Italian Poems,” written during a trip to the country of the same name, was received by the public and critics with great enthusiasm and recognized as the best work about Italy ever written by a domestic author.

In addition to journalism and acutely social literature, Blok was fond of writing works for children and youth audiences. In 1913, he published two collections of children's poems, “Fairy Tales” and “All Year Round.” In 1916, Blok went to the front, where he learned that tsarist power no longer existed. Later, while serving in the Extraordinary Commission, which investigated the crimes of the autocratic system against the people, Blok discovered the whole truth about the autocratic system and called it a “garbage dump.” Based on the conclusions he made and materials obtained as a result of interrogations, the documentary work “The Last Days of Imperial Power” was written.

A particularly difficult period in the writer’s life occurred during the years of the great revolution. Unlike other compatriots, Blok did not emigrate, but remained in Petrograd and earned his living by working in a publishing house. Many articles, as well as the famous poem “The Twelve,” are dedicated to those difficult years in the writer’s life. Then he worked with special zeal, realizing in himself a fierce civic responsibility and patriotism. He praised the great feat of the people, who every day find the strength to live, despite the difficult life and poverty. He actively participated in rallies and demonstrations and took an active social position.

Before his death, Blok was weakened and constantly ill. His acquaintances, including Maxim Gorky, strenuously asked the government to provide a trip to the writer so that he could improve his health and go on vacation. However, all efforts were in vain and, in protest, Blok stopped being treated with medications and went on a hunger strike and consigned all his last manuscripts to ashes.

The writer spent the last days of his life in poverty and devastation and died of a heart attack that overtook him on August 7, 1921.

Blok's work, like his biography, is unique. The poet's fate was intertwined with historical events that took place at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Historical trends are clearly reflected in his lyrics. In place of light symbolism filled with romance, through Blok, realism comes with its heavy tread into poetry.

Brief biography of Blok. Early years

Before we begin to analyze the poems of Alexander Blok and the features of his work, it is useful to pay attention to the biography of the poet. Blok was born on November 16, 1880. The mother of the poet Alexander Beketov left the family immediately after the birth of her son due to a difficult relationship with her husband, Alexander Lvovich Blok. In 1889, she married a guards officer and settled with the baby on the banks of the Bolshaya Nevka in the vicinity of what was then St. Petersburg.

Blok himself began writing poetry at the age of five. At the age of 9 he was sent to study at a gymnasium, where he remained until 1898. In 1897, the future poet experienced his first love. The object of young Bok’s passion turned out to be Ksenia Sadovskaya. His feelings did not fade for several years, which gave rise to several lyrical poems. At the age of 17, Blok became interested in theater. The poet seriously intended to become an actor. In 1989, he meets Lyubov Mendeleeva, the granddaughter of the great scientist, whom he then takes as his wife.

In 1901, the poet was transferred to the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University. At this time, he creates a large number of poems - about nature, love, and the Motherland. In the spring of 1903, his works were published for the first time in the magazine “New Way”.

The events of 1905 had a great influence on him. The poet recognizes himself as a citizen and takes part in demonstrations. Revolutionary sentiments are reflected in the creativity of this stage.

Mature age

Blok graduated from the university in 1906. After this, a new page opens in his life - success as a writer comes, his growth as a poet begins. Blok gains fame, fans of his work appear all over the country. In 1907, the poetry collection “Unexpected Joy” was published, in 1908 - “Earth in the Snow”. In 1909, a drama called “Song of Fate” was released. However, it was never staged in the theater.

In 1907-1908, Blok moved away from symbolism. Anxiety and difficulties lead the poet to his own path. In 1909, Blok traveled to the cities of Germany and Italy, which inspired him to write a series of works called “Italian Poems.”

During the First World War, the poet served in an engineering and construction squad that was engaged in the construction of fortifications in the Pinsk swamps. During this period, the poet received the news of the end of the era of autocracy in Russia.

In May 1917, the poet took an active part in the investigative commission, the purpose of which was to investigate the activities of tsarist officials. Based on interrogation materials, Alexander Alexandrovich writes the book “The Last Days of Imperial Power.” He perceives the 1917 revolution with enthusiasm and hope. But gradually the new government brings disappointment to the poet.

The poet made his last performances in 1921 in Petrograd and Moscow. However, a hungry existence full of difficulties leads Blok to depression and illness. In May 1921, he began to have heart problems. In August of the same year, Blok died. In 1944, the poet’s ashes were transferred from Smolensk to Volkovo cemetery.

Direction of creativity

Literary scholars attribute the poems of Alexander Blok, among other things, to the movement of modernism. After all, one of the poet’s main missions was to translate the culture of the bygone past into a more modern way. Despite the aesthetics and spirituality of his poetry, Blok focuses on the echoes of melancholy, despair, loss of life value, and a feeling of inevitable tragedy. Perhaps it was these trends that gave Anna Akhmatova the reason to call Blok “the tragic tenor of the era.” However, the poet still remained a romantic.

Main themes

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok wrote poems mainly on the following topics:

The fate of an individual person and the Motherland in important historical eras.
The revolutionary process and the role played in it by the stratum of the intelligentsia.
Loyalty in love and friendship.
Fate, fate, feelings of anxiety before impending hopelessness.
The poet's place in society.
The connection between nature and its offspring - man.
Belief in a higher power, the universe.

The poet’s ability to convey the subtle nuances of inner experiences is embodied in the genre diversity of his work. He wrote poems and poems, songs, spells, romances, sketches.

Genuine universal human values are revealed in the poems of Alexander Blok only in relation to the indissoluble unity of the reality of the world. A bright future can only be realized as a result of the harsh daily routine, a person’s readiness for heroism in the name of the prosperity of the Motherland. This was Blok’s worldview, reflected in his work.

Image of the Motherland

One of the main lyrical themes in Alexander Blok's poems is Russia. In his homeland he finds inspiration and strength to continue his life. She appears before him at the same time in the form of a mother and a beloved woman.

Literary scholars emphasize: in the poems of Alexander Blok, the image of the Motherland undergoes a kind of evolution. At first, the reader sees Russia as mysterious, shrouded in a mysterious veil. The native country is perceived through the prism of a beautiful and elusive dream: extraordinary, dense, magical.

In the future, the poet accepts and loves his tormented country unconditionally, with all its ulcers. After all, he knows that in front of him is the same dear Motherland. Only now she is dressed in different clothes - dark, repulsive. The poet sincerely believes that sooner or later his Motherland will appear before him in the bright robes of dignity, spirituality, and morality.

In Alexander Aleksandrovich Blok’s poem “To sin shamelessly, endlessly...” the line dividing love and hatred is very accurately outlined. The work presents the image of a soulless shopkeeper, who in his life has become accustomed to the undisturbed sleep of the mind. This image repels the reader. His repentance in the temple is just hypocrisy. At the end of the work, the poet’s “cry from the soul” is heard that even in this image he will not stop loving his dear and dear homeland.

Blok sees Russia in dynamic movement. For example, in the works of the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” she appears before him in the proud, majestic image of a “steppe mare” who rushes forward. The path to a happy future for the country is not easy and filled with difficulties.

In the work “On the Railway,” the poet compares the difficult fate of the country with the tragic fate of women:

“How long should the mother push?
How long will the kite circle?”

The flame of revolution illuminates the poet's work and scorches his secret dreams. The passions in Blok’s soul never cease to boil: every now and then they unruly spill out from under his poetic pen, denouncing the enemies of the fatherland, the oppressors of the common people.

Alexander Blok. Poems about Russia

In the poet’s work, love for his native country was fully embodied in the cycle called “Motherland”. The very beginning of one of the most revealing poems in the cycle - “Motherland” - echoes the famous Gogol digression about the “Rus-troika” in “Dead Souls”. In this retreat, the horses race into the distance, but where exactly there is no answer. Literary scholars suggest that it is in connection with this analogy that Alexander Blok’s verse “Russia” opens with the word “again”:

Again, like in the golden years,
Three worn out flapping harnesses,
And the painted knitting needles knit
Into loose ruts...

The image of Gogol's troika furiously rushing forward appears in the reader's imagination. Following him, a piercing confession of feelings for his Motherland, “poor Russia”, its “gray huts” is heard. The reader rightly asks: why love this country, which cannot give anything?

Why does the poet love his homeland?

Blok has an answer to this question. This work once contained more stanzas. In the first publication there were twice as many of them as in subsequent ones. The poet decided to remove a number of stanzas from his work. Others were remade by him.

What was removed from Alexander Alexandrovich Blok’s poem “Russia” by the poet himself? Firstly, it is worth paying attention to two stanzas that talk about minerals:

“You promise mountains of gold,
You tease with the wondrous darkness of the depths.
Russia, poor Russia,
Your promised land is generous!”

At first glance, this is an irrefutable truth. After all, Nekrasov wrote about the Motherland: “You are both wretched and abundant.” However, for Blok it turned out to be more important not to connect love for his native country with its riches. He decides to accept her in humiliation and poverty, demonstrating true love in his work:

“Yes, and so, my Russia,
You are dearer to me from all over the world.”

It is easy to love a country for its inexhaustible riches. But Blok’s lyrical hero is noble. His love was not born of mercantile motives. For him, feelings for the Motherland are like “the first tears of love.”

The motive of Christian asceticism

An analysis of Alexander Blok's verse shows the connection of his work with another tradition of Russian classics, which consists in association with Christ's feat. This is shown by the lines:

“I don’t know how to feel sorry for you
And I carefully carry my cross...
Which sorcerer do you want?
Give me back your robber beauty!”

To obediently bear your cross means to resign yourself to your fate. A person lives everything that is destined for him from above. And whoever was destined to appear in Russia, Blok believes, should connect his fate with this beautiful country.

The image of a woman in works

Traditionally, the image of the native country is associated in poetry with the image of the mother, which is why they say: “Motherland”. But Blok went further and created a new image: the Motherland-wife. And therefore, in his loving work, there is a recognition of feelings for his native land from precisely this perspective: the poet loves his “Motherland-wife” as she is - obstinate and wayward.

Here the reader has the opportunity to come into contact with a purely Blok miracle: the image of a woman is transformed into the face of the Motherland and vice versa. Blok's Russia is a beauty, but here it is not sleeping, as it was in the work “Rus”. The poet characterizes her beauty with the word “robbery.” That is why, even being under the yoke of the “sorcerer”, she will not be lost.

At the end of the work, the motif of the road that rushes into the future sounds again. The poet believes in good things, in the fact that “the impossible is possible.”

Short poems by Alexander Blok

Harsh, as if chopped off lines tell sparingly about the life of an ordinary person. Some of Blok’s works, despite their brevity, are quite difficult to learn and difficult to understand. However, the short poems of Alexander Blok clearly express the worldview that the poet laid down in them, and they will certainly appeal to many readers. For example, the following work tells about the spiritual tossing of the lyrical hero.

Ascending to the first steps,
I looked at the lines of the earth.
Days faded - gusts of frenzy
They faded and faded into the pink distance.
But we are still tormented by the desire for grief,
The spirit cried, and in the depths of the stars
The fiery sea parted,
Someone's dream was whispering about me...

These lines reflect the poet’s desire to return the past, although it was filled with grief. And the next poem talks about the unbearable suffering that the grief of the “darling spirit” causes to the lyrical hero.

Every sound cuts my heart.
Oh, if only the suffering would end,
Oh, if only I could escape these torments
Gone to the land of memories!
Nothing gives mercy
When the dear spirit suffers,
And the passing sound will die away
There is an unbearable sadness in my soul...

Those looking for light poems by Alexander Blok for children will like the following work, which describes nature after a thunderstorm:

The thunderstorm has passed, and a branch of white roses
The aroma breathes through the window...
The grass is still full of transparent tears,
And thunder rumbles in the distance.

Schoolchildren who need to find a work for a literature lesson will also enjoy the poet’s poem about a raven:

Here is a crow on a sloping roof
So it has remained shaggy since winter...
And there are spring bells in the air,
Even the crow's spirit took over...
Suddenly she jumped to the side with a stupid leap,
She looks down at the ground sideways:
What is white under the tender grass?
Here they turn yellow under the gray bench
Last year's wet shavings...
These are all the crow's toys.
And the crow is so happy,
It’s spring, and it’s easy to breathe!..

The theme of love in the poet’s work

Alexander Blok's first poems about love are full of delight. They are dedicated to L. Mendeleeva, who inspired him for many years. These are works such as “Virgin”, “Dawn”, “Incomprehensible”.

In his youth, before his marriage to Mendeleeva, Blok dedicated works to Ksenia Sadovskaya, who was much older than him. These are poems such as “Amethyst”, “Your image is involuntarily imagined...” and others. In 1905, Alexander Blok’s collection “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” was published. It is believed that the works of this cycle are dedicated to L. Mendeleeva. But in the works of this collection there is no real image - only the idea that such a woman can exist in a romantic world filled with dreams and dreams.

Transformation of the female image in the poet’s work

The theme of love was developed in the collection “Snow Mask,” which was dedicated to the actress N. Volokhova. Now this is no longer deifying worship - the Beautiful Lady has changed, becoming the Snow Maiden. And consequently, the feeling of the lyrical hero was transformed. They have lost their light power, becoming like a snowstorm, carrying the hero of the works into dark, unknown distances.

Let's look at a few interesting facts from the biography of Alexander Alexandrovich:

Blok died at 41.
The poet's wife was the granddaughter of the chemist Mendeleev.
The poet is credited with an affair with A. Akhmatova.
Before his death, Blok was delirious.
At the age of 11, the young poet dedicated a series of his works to his mother.
Blok's works gained worldwide fame.
Since 1920, the poet began to suffer from depression.
After his death, the poet's body was cremated.

Blok's lyrics have not lost their meaning even now. After all, by becoming familiar with a high culture of feelings, learning examples of the emotional experiences of poets, a person learns inner subtlety and sensitivity, which is so necessary in the modern world.

The poetic fate of A. A. Blok was connected with the largest literary movement of Russian modernism at the beginning of the 20th century. - symbolism. Although chronologically Blok belonged to the second generation of symbolists - Young Symbolism (together with Blok, the Young Symbolists were Andrei Bely (B.N. Bugaev), S.M. Solovyov, Vyach.I. Ivanov), it was his work, in the opinion of many of his contemporaries, was the most complete and universal embodiment of all Russian symbolism.

A.A. Blok was born on November 16 (28), 1880 in St. Petersburg. The poet's childhood and youth were spent first in the St. Petersburg house of his grandfather, the famous Russian botanist A.N. Beketov, rector of St. Petersburg University, then in the apartment of his stepfather, officer F.F. Kublitsky-Piottukh; Every summer the family went to the Shakhmatovo estate near Moscow. In the Beketov family, many were engaged in literary work. A serious turn to poetic creativity, largely connected with the young Blok’s passion for the poetry of Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Fet, Polonsky, occurred during the period when he graduated from high school and entered St. Petersburg University in 1898.

The initial stage of the poet’s work was marked by two important events. The first of them is Blok’s deep feeling of love for L. D. Mendeleeva, which culminated in their marriage in 1903. The second is his passion for the philosophical ideas of V. S. Solovyov. Both events were reflected in Blok’s first poetry collection, “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” (1904). The publication of the first book made the author's name widely known and introduced him to the circle of symbolists.

In the period 1905-1907. Blok peers with increasing attention into the realities of everyday life around him, discovering the triumph of the elemental principle in the dramatic disharmony of life. This new view of the world found expression in the collections “Unexpected Joy” (1907), “Snow Mask” (1907), “Earth in the Snow” (1908) and “Night Hours” (1911). In the same years, Blok created a cycle of lyrical dramas: “The Showcase,” “The King on the Square” and “The Stranger” (1906), and later two more dramas: “Song of Fate” (1908) and “Rose and Cross” (1913) , and also publishes a number of journalistic and literary articles (“Timelessness”, “People and Intelligentsia”, “On the current state of Russian symbolism”, etc.). The content of his work expands and deepens. This is facilitated by trips to Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and especially Italy.

In preparation for the publication of the first “Collected Poems” (1910-1912), Blok critically reviewed his life and creative path, dividing it into three stages, each of which the poet allocates one book of his lyrical trilogy. He continued the three-volume structure in two subsequent editions (1916 and 1918-1921).

By 1915-1916 the poet's creative activity noticeably decreases. The reason for this was both personal, psychological, and objective reasons - first of all, the world war that began in the summer of 1914. At this time, Blok was working on the poem “Retribution”, but did not have time to complete it: in the summer of 1916 he was drafted into the army as a timekeeper of one of the construction squads and sent to the front, where, in his words, he lives a “meaningless life, without all sorts of thoughts, almost vegetative." After the February Revolution, Blok returned to St. Petersburg and worked as an editor of verbatim reports of the “Extraordinary Investigative Commission.” Throughout 1917, Blok did not create a single poetic work. After the October revolution, Blok believed in the “cleansing power of revolution.” “He walked young, cheerful, vigorous, with shining eyes,” recalls his aunt M.A. Beketov, - and listened to the “music of the revolution”, to the noise from the fall of the old world, which was constantly heard in his ears, according to his own testimony.” It was at this time that the poet experienced his last creative surge, creating his famous works during January 1918: the article “Intellectuals and Revolution”, the poem “The Twelve” and the poem “Scythians”.

The bloc is involved in practical activities in cultural construction: he collaborates with the Gorky publishing house World Literature, is the chairman of the management of the Bolshoi Drama Theater, a member of the board of the Literary Department of the People's Commissariat for Education, and heads the Petrograd branch of the All-Russian Union of Poets. However, over time, numerous meetings become a burden to him. In the life around him, he discovers with disgust the triumph of bureaucracy, vulgarity, and philistinism in a new, “revolutionary” version. Hence the bitter entry in the diary: “Life has changed (it has changed, but not new, not nuova) - the louse has conquered the whole world, this is already an accomplished fact, and now everything will only change in the other direction, and not in the way we lived we, whom we loved." This hastened his death. The poet died in Petrograd on August 7, 1921.