Music of the Revolution in A. A. Blok’s poem “The Twelve”
1. The formation of a poet. 2. Menacing music of revolutions. 3. Death of the poet.
Born at the end of the 19th century, A. A. Blok completely belonged to the society of the old Russian intelligentsia. From early childhood, the boy was raised in the family of his grandfather A.N. Beketov, since his father and mother separated almost immediately after the birth of the child. The warm atmosphere of a large and friendly family, where everyone loved literature and poetry, and the great writers of that time were frequent guests: I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevsky, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. P. Chekhov, - could not but influence the boy’s development. Little Sasha began writing poetry at the age of five. Blok received an excellent education, graduating from high school and then St. Petersburg University. The first collection of poems by an ardent and sensitive young man appeared at the end of 1904. “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” attracted the attention of the literary community, moreover, they showed the makings of a great poet.
Blok worked hard, honing his poetic skills. The revolution of 1905 had a strong influence on the impressionable young man. He began to take a keen interest in the social life of his country, even often participating in revolutionary demonstrations. These impressions were reflected in the works of 1906-1908. Here the poet's talent and professionalism were fully demonstrated.
Gradually Blok gained popularity among literature lovers. One after another, his collections of poems “Unexpected Joy”, “Snow Mask”, “Earth in the Snow”, the collection “Lyrical Dramas” were published, and a little later the great drama “Song of Fate” was published. In 1909 and 1911, new books by the poet were published - collections of poems “Italian Poems” and “Night Hours”, a three-volume “Collected Poems”, “Poems about Russia”, a four-volume set of “Poems” and “Theater”. In 1918, Blok created probably his most famous work - the poem “The Twelve”. Here the poet’s attitude towards the terrible events of 1917, towards the revolution itself, was revealed. The poet accepted this social phenomenon as a spontaneous and irresistible “world fire”, the cleansing flame of which was supposed to destroy the entire old world. Blok heard in the revolution the music of the destruction of the old world he hated, however, sharply condemning the bourgeoisie, the ladies, the priests, he nevertheless placed the image of Christ at the head of the column of the Red Guards.
At the very beginning of the poem, the reader is immersed in the atmosphere of a revolutionary city at night. The beginning of the poem is very musical, it seems that these are not poems, but the very described wind howls on the night street, gets under the winter clothes of late passers-by, and knocks them off their feet:
Black evening. White snow. Wind, wind! A man can't stand on his feet, Wind, wind - All over God's world!
A strong snowstorm drops white snow on the ground, which in turn covers the ice. The poet in his work quite realistically shows not only a natural phenomenon, but the work of human hands. A banner “All power to the Constituent Assembly!” flashes like a white spot through the snowstorm and wind, stretched between two buildings. Below him, with tears in her eyes, is an old woman, counting how many foot wraps the undressed guys would make from such a “huge patch.”
The old lady, like a chicken, somehow wove through the snowdrift. - Oh, Mother Intercessor! - Oh, the Bolsheviks will drive you into a coffin!
In the words of the old woman there is even something like a song, or rather a song-moan, when the singer complains about his fate. The street lives its own life. The frost is getting stronger, which forces the bourgeoisie at the crossroads to hide his nose in his collar. Nearby, some long-haired man, probably a writer, is thinking that Russia is lost. From behind the snowdrifts, a sad priest is visible, who recalls the old times, when he used to proudly carry his belly with a shining cross to the people. A lady in a karakul coat stretched out on an ice crust covered with snow. And the song of the wind, angry and cheerful, does not end, it does not stop its whirlwind dance, lifting the hems of passers-by and raising a large banner. Suddenly a strict rhythm bursts into the anarchist melody of the wind. A group of twelve military men appears on the street: “There’s a cigarette in your teeth, you’ve got your cap on, you need an ace of diamonds on your back!” The music gradually takes on a menacing character. Armed people are no joke:
Revolutionary step up! The restless enemy never sleeps! Comrade, hold the rifle, don’t be afraid! Let's fire a bullet into Holy Rus' -
Despite their pitiful appearance: torn coats, foreign Austrian guns, these are the people who set the tone for the entire symphony of the revolution, they are the ones who fan the world’s fire, making the music more intense and expressive. Here, as a kind of lyrical digression, the author includes a story about the reckless Katya, who in her best times walked with officers, ate chocolate, and now has descended to the soldiers. Katka adds her own melody to the overall sound: light and daring, and at the same time bitter and doomed. This heroine's life is dangerous:
On your neck, Katya, the scar has not healed from the knife. Under your breasts, Katya,
That scratch is fresh.
However, a woman has fun with that primordial Russian anguish that is so characteristic of all lost and perishing souls. Katya’s fans are still crazy about her legs, which means that life is spinning like a whirlwind more and more until she is cut off by a random bullet:
Where is Katka? - Dead, dead! Shot in the head! What, Katka, are you happy? - not a gu-gu... Lie, you carrion, in the snow!
No one is sad about the ruined life, except perhaps the occasional murderer, however, doubts and pain soon leave him, because the menacing revolutionary music draws him further and further. Pretty soon his thoughts are occupied by upcoming events:
Eh, eh! It's not a sin to have fun! Lock the floors, Now there will be robberies! Unlock the cellars - there's a lot of cowardice going on these days!
The street is empty, the policemen have been gone for a long time. Only one bourgeois stands at the crossroads with his nose buried in his collar. A mangy dog huddles next to him, his tail between his legs. The author compares the old world to a rootless dog that will never be able to find shelter and regain its former shape and confidence. And the blizzard continues to play its melody under the clear step of the Red Guards:
And they walk without the name of the saint All twelve - into the distance, Ready for anything, No regrets...
Around the clock, these stern people are ready to defend their homeland from an invisible enemy, even looking into deserted alleys, where “there is only dust in the blizzard.” Already marching with a red flag, they carry out their difficult service, ready at any moment to meet a fierce enemy. Under no circumstances should you stand in their way. The Red Guards never let down their vigilance. Only the mangy dog, like an old rotten world, hobbles behind. The Red Guards want to get rid of him, as the embodiment of everything unnecessary and superfluous. However, the dog, baring his teeth, does not lag behind.
At the end of the poem, a new motive bursts into the general outline of the melody. And it is not clear whether he is guiding or warning the previous musical theme. The Red Guards notice that there is still someone ahead. He moves with a quick, easy step, hiding behind houses and waving a bloody flag. However, no matter how the servants of the revolution try to catch up with him or hit him with a bullet, nothing works:
And invisible behind the blizzard, And unharmed by a bullet, With a gentle tread above the blizzard, A scattering of snow with pearls, In a white corolla of roses - Jesus Christ is ahead.
It is on this uncertain note that Blok’s poem-symphony ends.
The poet, who managed to perceive the revolution as music, was never able to fully accept it. As he himself admitted, his life’s creative path was a path amid the revolution, which was complex and ambiguous, but distinguished by its straightforwardness. The revolution inspired Blok as an artist, encouraged him to create wonderful works, but also disappointed him, since his sensitive soul could not help but consider the contradictions and injustices of the new government. Blok died young, completely suddenly and unexpectedly for those around him. But in some ways his death was predetermined, since along with it the old era, which first stepped into the revolution, and then could no longer move on, went into the past forever.
Music of the revolution in Blok’s poem “The Twelve”
(326 words) On January 29, 1918, Alexander Blok, having finished the poem “The Twelve,” wrote in his diary: “Today I am a genius.” A sense of rhythm, phonetic organization of verse and musicality have always been a distinctive feature of Blok’s handwriting. True, in many of his poems there was only sound, without meaning. But in the march of the twelve apostles, who spare nothing and are ready for anything, one hears not only sound, but also meaning and pain. Against the backdrop of the black and white tones of the revolution, Blok performs the music of the soul, and the notes of this music whistle like a whipping blizzard, forcing the writer to squirm from the cold, but rejoice at its freshness. Of course, time influenced his attitude towards the revolution: from enthusiastic greeting it turned into denial. However, then, in the burning Petrograd of 1918, he heard the mysterious “music of the revolution.”
Blok, the last noble poet of the country, felt an epoch-making responsibility on his shoulders for the extinction of traditional culture and ideology, and therefore smiled at the revolution uncertainly, with the hope of a “phoenix” rebirth of the homeland, which, as the author of “The Twelve” considered, needed to sink to the very bottom , push off and ascend to the sky. Blok is not an anti-humanist, he pities the innocent “working people”, pities the old woman who wants to dress the children in these unreasonably huge Bolshevik posters, pities the old world, which, like a rootless dog, has its tail between its legs. However, he feels even more sorry for Russia, his woman, who until recently ate Mignon chocolate and walked around in lace underwear, the “fat-assed” and “fat-faced” Russia-Katka. In the end she is killed, along with her the writer’s former ideals. In the bloody volleys of twelve, in the hiss of street fires, in the harmonious sound of marches, he hears the imperious call of the future. He also calls on him, Blok, to proclaim a new era that will bring the long-awaited renewal.
As if Jesus Christ appears as the hope for the resurrection of Russia. Who, if not Christ, can bring the kingdom of justice and a better life? His twelve apostles carry the weapon of truth, and, consequently, destruction. But, towards the end of his life, Alexander Blok changed his views on the revolution in the opposite direction, drowning in depression. “Filthy, rotten, darling Mother Russia gobbled up her piglet like a pig,” he wrote in May 1921. However, with all his disappointment, the poet never forgot the enchanting music of the revolution and did not deny that he was captivated by it.
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Music of the revolution in the poem “The Twelve” (A. Blok)
tags:
Sing, Revolution, Funeral Service, Twelve, Christ, Red Guard, Renewal, Finale (466 words)
When building the plot of the work, Blok actively used the technique of contrast. Against the background of the elements raging all over the world, the author sharply contrasts two worlds: the old (with the bourgeois, the priest and the lady in karakul) and the new, the representatives and defenders of which are twelve Red Guards walking around the city.
Directly under the poster stretched over the street “All power to the Constituent Assembly!” The old woman in tears calculates how many foot wraps would come out of such a “huge scrap” for the undressed children. Nearby, some long-haired man, perhaps a writer, is talking about the death of Russia, and a sad priest is moving towards him, remembering his former life. The lady in karakul could not withstand the onslaught of the elements and stretched out in the middle of the street on the slippery ice.
Against the background of this urban polyphony accurately conveyed by the poet, the march of the Red Guards becomes central and main, the sounds of which echo the raging elements: “Keep your step revolutionary!” These people set the main tone of the overall revolutionary symphony. A bloody drama plays out among them: one of the twelve, Petrukha, in a fit of jealousy kills Katka, who had previously walked with the cadets, and is now seen with one of the gendarmes. This gesture expresses the barbaric power of the new element, which the poet constantly reminds of: “Freedom, freedom, eh, eh, without a cross!” or “Let’s fire a bullet into Holy Rus'.”
The event also takes on a symbolic meaning - the struggle for Katka is correlated by the poet with the struggle for Russia, and the warning not to kill or rashly destroy what you are fighting for is very important here. This happened to Katka, and Blok does not want such a fate for his country.
There is no time for thought or regret; the discordant march is again moving forward through the blizzard of history, in which it is still difficult to consider the future. Despite the twelve's obsession with the revolution, Blok notes with concern that these people have discarded the old, but have not yet acquired new values:
“And all twelve walk without the name of the saint into the distance. Ready for anything, no regrets..."
At the end of the poem, the image of Christ carrying a red flag appears before the Red Guards. Christ appears not in a crown of thorns, as is usually depicted, but “in a white crown of roses” - a symbol of purity and renewal. One of the interpretations of the appearance of this image can be considered Blok’s attempt to justify the revolution from the point of view of supreme justice, as an inevitable weapon for the renewal of life, and, at the same time, a desire to remind the “creators of the revolution” about universal human values, which are so easy to lose in this struggle.
6 pages, 2552 words
Music of the revolution in the bloc's poem
... What did Blok hear in the “music of the revolution”? (Based on the poem “Twelve”) In the poem “Twelve” by A.A. Blok set himself the goal of conveying the atmosphere that reigned in revolutionary Russia, the elements of the Russian revolt... in the poem. Christ textually draws closer to the Antichrist. And this “bifurcation” explains the fact that the Savior does not bless, but does not curse the “twelve”. Blok's Christ does not go with the Red Guards. ...
In his poem, A. Blok managed to convey the “music” that sounded around him and in the soul of the poet himself. This is manifested in the rhythmic, lexical and genre polyphony of the work, where the intonations of march and urban romance, folk chants and slogan calls replace each other. The poet does not hide his fears, but blesses the music of history that has returned to the world.
Author: Yulia Filipskaya
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