Alexander block brief biography and creativity. The creative and life path of Alexander Alexandrovich Blok

The boy was sent to the St. Petersburg Vvedenskaya Gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1898.

In 1898, Alexander Blok entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, but in 1901 he transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology, from which he graduated in 1906 in the Slavic-Russian department.

From the beginning of the 1900s, Alexander Blok became close to the symbolists Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius in St. Petersburg, and with Valery Bryusov and Andrei Bely in Moscow.

In 1903, the first selection of Blok’s poems, “From Dedications,” appeared in the magazine “New Way”, headed by the Merezhkovskys. In the same year, a cycle of poems was published in the almanac “Northern Flowers” ​​under the title “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” (the title was suggested by Bryusov).

The events of the revolution of 1905-1907 played a special role in shaping Blok’s worldview, revealing the spontaneous, catastrophic nature of existence. In the lyrics of this time, the theme of the “elements” became the leading one - images of a blizzard, blizzard, motifs of free people, vagrancy. The Beautiful Lady is replaced by the demonic Stranger, Snow Mask, and the schismatic gypsy Faina. Blok published in the symbolist magazines “Questions of Life”, “Scales”, “Pereval”, “Golden Fleece”, in the latter he led the critical department from 1907.

In 1907, Blok’s collection “Unexpected Joy” was published in Moscow, in St. Petersburg - the cycle of poems “Snow Mask”, in 1908 in Moscow - the third collection of poems “Earth in the Snow” and a translation of Grillparzer’s tragedy “Foremother” with an introductory article and notes. In 1908, he turned to the theater and wrote “lyrical dramas” - “Balaganchik”, “King in the Square”, “Stranger”.

A trip to Italy in the spring and summer of 1909 became a period of “revaluation of values” for Blok. The impressions he gained from this journey were embodied in the cycle “Italian Poems”.

In 1909, having received an inheritance after the death of his father, he was freed for a long time from worries about literary earnings and focused on major artistic plans. In 1910, he began working on the great epic poem "Retribution" (which was not completed). In 1912-1913 he wrote the play "Rose and Cross". After the publication of the collection "Night Hours" in 1911, Blok revised his five books of poetry into a three-volume collection of poems (1911-1912). During the poet's lifetime, the three-volume set was republished in 1916 and in 1918-1921.

Since the autumn of 1914, Blok worked on the publication of “Poems by Apollo Grigoriev” (1916) as a compiler, author of the introductory article and commentator.

In July 1916, during the First World War, he was drafted into the army and served as a timekeeper of the 13th engineering and construction squad of the Zemsky and City Unions near Pinsk (now a city in Belarus).

After the February Revolution of 1917, Blok returned to Petrograd, where, as an editor of verbatim reports, he became a member of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission to investigate the crimes of the tsarist government. The materials of the investigation were summarized by him in the book “The Last Days of Imperial Power” (1921).

The October Revolution causes a new spiritual rise of the poet and civic activity. In January 1918, the poems “The Twelve” and “Scythians” were created.

After “The Twelve” and “Scythians”, Alexander Blok wrote comic poems “for the occasion”, prepared the last edition of the “lyrical trilogy”, but did not create new original poems until 1921. During this period, the poet made cultural and philosophical reports at meetings of the Volfila - Free Philosophical Association, at the School of Journalism, wrote lyrical fragments “Neither Dreams nor Reality” and “Confession of a Pagan”, feuilletons “Russian Dandies”, “Fellow Citizens”, “Answer to the Question of red seal."

A huge amount of what he wrote was related to Blok’s official activities: after the October Revolution of 1917, for the first time in his life he was forced to seek not only literary income, but also public service. In September 1917, he became a member of the Theater and Literary Commission, from the beginning of 1918 he collaborated with the Theater Department of the People's Commissariat for Education, and in April 1919 he moved to the Bolshoi Drama Theater. At the same time, he worked as a member of the editorial board of the publishing house "World Literature" under the leadership of Maxim Gorky, and from 1920 he was chairman of the Petrograd branch of the Union of Poets.

Initially, Blok's participation in cultural and educational institutions was motivated by beliefs about the duty of the intelligentsia to the people. But the discrepancy between the poet’s ideas about the “cleansing revolutionary element” and the bloody everyday life of the advancing regime led him to disappointment in what was happening. In his articles and diary entries, the motif of the catacomb existence of culture appeared. Blok’s thoughts about the indestructibility of true culture and the “secret freedom” of the artist were expressed in his speech “On the Appointment of a Poet” at an evening in memory of Alexander Pushkin and in the poem “To the Pushkin House” (February 1921), which became his artistic and human testament.

In the spring of 1921, Alexander Blok asked to be given an exit visa to Finland for treatment in a sanatorium. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), at whose meeting this issue was discussed, refused to allow Blok to leave.

In April 1921, the poet's growing depression turned into a mental disorder accompanied by heart disease. On August 7, 1921, Alexander Blok died in Petrograd. He was buried at the Smolensk cemetery; in 1944, the poet’s ashes were transferred to the Literary Bridge at the Volkovsky cemetery.

Since 1903, Alexander Blok was married to Lyubov Mendeleeva (1882-1939), the daughter of the famous chemist Dmitry Mendeleev, to whom the cycle “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” was dedicated. After the poet’s death, she became interested in classical ballet and taught the history of ballet at the Choreographic School at the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater (now the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet). She described her life with the poet in the book “Both true stories and fables about Blok and about herself.”

In 1980, in the house on Dekabristov Street, where the poet lived and died for the last nine years, the museum-apartment of Alexander Blok was opened.

In 1984, in the Shakhmatovo estate, where Blok spent his childhood and youth, as well as in the neighboring estates of Boblovo and Tarakanovo, Solnechnogorsk district, Moscow region, the State Museum-Reserve of D.I. Mendeleev and A.A. Blok.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

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.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok was born on November 28, 1880 in St. Petersburg. His father was a lawyer, in addition to this he was a teacher at the University of Warsaw. Mother - Alexandra Beketova, was the daughter of the rector of one of the St. Petersburg universities. Soon after Alexander's birth, the parents broke off their relationship and the son began to live with his mother. Soon the mother remarried officer F.F. Kublitsky-Piottukha, the family began to live in the guards barracks.

In 1889 he began studying at the Vvedenskaya Gymnasium. When he went abroad in 1897 to one of the German resort towns, he experienced his first love for Ksenia Sadovskaya. A year later, after graduating from high school, he fell in love with Lyubov Mendeleeva, who later became his wife. Blok entered the Faculty of Law, but later changed his mind and began studying at the Faculty of History and Philology, from which he graduated in 1906.

The poet's literary path began in childhood. At the age of 10, young Blok began publishing his own handwritten magazines. From the age of 16 he attended a theater group, but he was practically not given roles. In 1901 he published his first collection of poems, “Poems about a Beautiful Lady,” which was written in the genre of symbolism. Over the years, his work evolved, and he began to raise such topics as human social life (“City” 1904-1908), religiosity (“Snow Mask” 1907), philosophy of life (“Scary World” 1908-1916), patriotism (“Motherland” ” 1907-1916)

After receiving higher education, Alexander Blok traveled abroad a lot, sometimes living there for months. It is characteristic that he spoke negatively about France and other European countries. The poet did not like the culture and customs of these countries.

The February and October revolutions had a significant impact on Blok's work and life. He had ambiguous thoughts about these events, but unlike other artists, he not only did not oppose the new government, but also supported it in every possible way, although later it seemed to him a mistake. The difficult financial situation and constant exhaustion negatively affected Blok’s health and he began to get sick. The new government, represented by the Politburo, refused to give permission to travel to Finland in order to begin treatment there. On August 7, 1921, Alexander Blok died from prolonged inflammation of the heart. Many famous personalities in Petrograd attended his funeral. In 1941, his ashes were again buried on the Literatorskie Mostki at the Volkovskoye cemetery.

Biography and creativity

In 1880, on November 28 (16), a son was born into the cultured St. Petersburg family of nobles Alexander Blok and Alexandra Beketova. The boy was named Sasha. Family happiness did not last long; the parents soon separated. Sasha's mother remarried and Blok grew up with his stepfather.

The family of the future poet spent the winter in his native St. Petersburg, and went to Shakhmatovo for the summer. The estate of Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov, Blok’s maternal grandfather, became for Sasha a window into the wonderful world of Russian nature.

The boy rode horseback, spent hours in the garden and happily tinkered with various domestic animals. Thus, from early childhood, Sasha learned to feel and love his native land.

The first experience of versification took place at the age of five. And at the age of nine, Blok entered the gymnasium. From an early age, Sasha, who was partial to reading, became interested in publishing. Ten-year-old Blok published a couple of issues of the handwritten magazine “Ship”, and at the age of 14, together with his brothers, he published “Vestnik”.

In 1898, after finishing his studies at the gymnasium, Alexander decides to devote his life to the study of law. But, after studying law for three years at St. Petersburg University, he became interested in ancient philosophy and moved to the Faculty of History and Philology.

Blok met the beginning of the twentieth century in the creative circle of the brightest writers of our time. Fet, Solovyov, Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Bryusov accepted the twenty-year-old talented young man into the arms of cultural St. Petersburg.

Blok became passionately interested in Russian symbolism. The first poems were published by the publishing house “New Way”; later the poet’s works were published in the almanac “Northern Flowers”.

The Beketovs' neighbors were the Mendeleevs. The daughter of the great chemist, Lyubov Dmitrievna, became for the poet not only his beloved girl, but also his muse. In 1903, Mendeleeva became his wife.

Blok is at the very beginning of his amazing creativity. In the same year, his poetic cycle “Poems about a Beautiful Lady”, dedicated to his wife, was published. The poet, filled with love, imagines a woman as a wonderful spring of light and purity, admiring the great power of true love, capable of uniting the whole world in one person.

The events of 1905-1907 and the First World War pressed the poet’s lyrical mood. Blok thought about the problems of society; he was concerned about the embodiment of the theme of the creator against the backdrop of existing reality. In the poet’s work, the homeland is like a loving wife, which is why patriotism acquired individuality and depth.

The year 1909 became tragic for the Blok family. The father and newborn child of Alexander Alexandrovich and Lyubov Dmitrievna died. At the same time, the poet conceived the poem “Retribution,” the work on which was never completed.

What was happening in Russia gloomily echoed the poet’s personal experiences, but Blok sincerely believed in the bright future of his native country.

1916 became the year of military service for the poet. He did not take part in hostilities; he served as a timekeeper.

Blok met the 1917 revolution with hope for changes for the better. The inspiration lasted for at most a year, presenting the public in 1918 with the controversial poem “The Twelve,” the article “Intellectuals and Revolution” and the poem “Scythians.”

With these works, the poet showed that he accepted Bolshevik Russia and was ready to live and work in a renewed country.

This allowed the new government to fully exploit the name of the famous poet. The poet no longer belonged to himself.

Heart pain, asthma, and nervous disorders became constant companions of the poet, who was loaded with everyday hardships, financial problems and constant work.

Blok tried to obtain permission to travel to Finland to rest and improve his health, especially since in 1920 he fell ill with scurvy.

Gorky, Lunacharsky and Kamenev asked for the poet. But the application was approved too late. On August 7, 1921, Alexander Blok passed away.

Very briefly by date

On November 16, 1880, the writer was born in the city of St. Petersburg. Born into a cultured family of a professor and writer.

In 1889 he was sent to a gymnasium and graduated in 1898.

Blok also graduated from the Institute of Law and History and Philology.

Blok began writing his first poems at the age of five. As a teenager, he was involved in acting.

At the age of 23 he married the daughter of the scientist Mendeleev, L.D. Mendeleeva. There was a quarrel with Andrei Bely over Mrs. Mendeleeva.

In 1904, a collection of poems by Alexander Blok was published and it was called “poems about a beautiful lady.”

A few years later, Blok and his wife managed to relax in Spain and Germany.

During the period of his creative activity, he was accepted by the “academy” society. Where were the wealthy, future famous creative figures?

Blok’s most famous work is “Night, Street, Lantern, Pharmacy.”

The dawn of the writer came in 1912-1914. The block mostly did not travel. During this time he worked in a publishing house.

The block was very sick. He was not allowed to go abroad for treatment. So in the end, in poverty and hunger, the writer died in 1921 from heart disease.

Biography by dates and interesting facts. The most important.

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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 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 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 becomes 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:

1. "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

2. “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 minutes 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 on November 28 (new style) 1880 in St. Petersburg. His father was a famous lawyer, but his parents separated before his son was born. Blok began writing poetry early. His poetic maturity occurred in 1900-1901, when the Symbolist school loudly declared itself. In 1903, their first cycle of Blok’s poems, “From Dedications,” was published in their magazine “New Way.” In the same year, another of his cycles, “Poems about a Beautiful Lady,” appeared in the Symbolist almanac “Northern Flowers.” They were received rather indifferently by the public, but in a narrow circle grouped around Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Bryusov and Bely, Blok’s talent was immediately appreciated, and he was accepted in poetry salons as an equal. However, Blok’s closeness with the Symbolists turned out to be short-lived. His talent was too significant to remain long within the narrow confines of their school. Having spiritually isolated himself from the circle of Gippius and Merezhkovsky, Blok in January 1906 wrote the play “Balaganchik”, in which he rather angrily ridiculed the common images of poets of their circle.

Sorrowful motives in the poetry of Alexander Blok

From that time on, mournful motifs inspired by real life began to sound more and more clearly in Blok’s poetry. Although external life itself was almost not reflected in his deeply psychological lyrics, its tragedy was conveyed by Blok with amazing power. All of Blok’s poetic cycles, which appeared between 1907 and 1917, are full of alarming forebodings of the impending catastrophe in Russia. Probably, in no other work of art of those years, the spiritual drama experienced by Russian society received such a complete and comprehensive embodiment. Blok felt it to the deepest depths and experienced this painful period of timelessness as his great personal tragedy.

Family life of Alexander Blok

The circumstances of his family life further aggravated the tragedy of his worldview. In 1903 he married Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva, daughter of the great Russian chemist. However, their family happiness did not work out. Lyubov Dmitrievna, rejected by Blok, first experienced a stormy and painful romance with his former friend Andrei Bely, then entered into a relationship with the then famous writer and critic Georgy Chulkov. Then there were other hobbies that did not give her any personal happiness.

Sometimes the Blocks lived apart for a long time, but they were still drawn to each other - they were unable to part forever.

Blok himself sought peace of mind in random, fleeting relationships and wine. During these years, his long wanderings around St. Petersburg began. The poet's favorite places were the poor alleys of the St. Petersburg side, the expanses of the islands, the deserted highways behind Novaya Derevnya, the fields behind the Narva Gate, and especially dirty restaurants with their wretched, unpretentious atmosphere - lackeys in greasy tailcoats, clouds of tobacco smoke, drunken shouts from the billiard room. One of them, in Ozerki, was especially drawn to him. Blok was a regular there and ended almost every walk there. Usually he walked quietly among the idle crowd, sat down at the wide Venetian window overlooking the railway platform, and slowly poured glass after glass of cheap red wine. He drank until the floorboards began to slowly sway under his feet. And then the boring and gray routine was transformed, and inspiration came to him, amid the surrounding noise and din. It was here that one of the most “Blok” poems was written in 1906 - “ Stranger" Since the spring of 1907, Blok became the head of the critical department of the magazine “Golden Fleece” and published an extensive series of literary critical articles devoted to the problems of art and, more broadly, to the place of the creative intelligentsia in modern society. All of them were full of sharp attacks against the spiritual and intellectual elite. Blok was indignant at the detachment of the Russian intelligentsia, its immersion in its own pseudo-significant problems and demanded that aesthete writers realize their responsibility “to the worker and the peasant.” During these years, Blok himself painfully made his way to the dark, unknown to him, but so important “people's life.” The desire to unite with her was expressed with particular force in the drama “Song of Fate” and the cycle of five brilliant poems “On the Kulikovo Field,” on which he worked in 1908. The Battle of Kulikovo, according to Blok, was a deeply mystical event in Russian history. In his address to her, the last thing he wanted was to simply resurrect a page from the distant past. The Great Battle served as an occasion to talk about the present, about our own. (“Oh, my Russia! My wife! The long path is painfully clear to us! Our path - an arrow of the ancient Tatar will pierced our chest... And eternal battle! We only dream of peace through blood and dust. The steppe mare flies, flies and crushes feather grass...") In this poem about Russia, Blok for the first time rose above all schools and directions and became on a par with the great Russian national poets: Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev. And as a result, Blok’s fame immediately increased incomparably. He gained many new, “his own” readers. Not only the capital's intelligentsia, but also broader democratic strata of society began to see Blok as the first poet of our time.

Cold loneliness of Alexander Blok

Blok's fame grew, but the painful feeling of loneliness and hopelessness did not leave him. In December 1907 he wrote to his mother: “Life is getting more and more difficult - it’s very cold. The senseless burning of a lot of money and what emptiness all around: it’s as if all the people stopped loving and left, but, however, they probably never loved...” In January 1908 he complained to his wife: “Life is unbearably difficult for me... Such cold loneliness - hanging around taverns and drinking”. At the beginning of 1909, in a letter to his mother again about the same thing: “I have never been, Mom, in such a depressed state as these days. Everything I see is equally disgusting to me, and all people are heavy.”. In 1909, Blok wrote several poems, which he later combined into the cycle “ Scary world" The elements of these poems are passion, blood, death, “a mad and devilish ball,” “blizzard, darkness, emptiness,” vampirism of voluptuousness. Three years later he created the cycle " Dance of Death", in which he included one of his most pessimistic poems "Night, street, lantern...", imbued with a deep sense of the meaninglessness of life: “Night, street, lantern, pharmacy, meaningless 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 in the old days: night, the icy ripples of the canal, the pharmacy, the street, the street lamp.” At the end of 1913 - beginning of 1914, many poems were created, later included in the cycles “ Black blood», « Gray morning», « My friend's life" And " Yambs" In the poems of this time, the appearance of a terrible world was given without any mystical fog. “The horror of reality” - with these words Blok defined the essence of his theme. ( "Yes. This is how inspiration dictates: my free dream keeps clinging to where there is humiliation, where there is dirt and darkness and poverty... Open your eyes quickly to the impenetrable horror of life, open your eyes before the great thunderstorm sweeps away everything in your homeland...") An image of an abyss appears in his mind, into which old Russia is about to fall. Blok lives with the feeling of flying above her. ( “It is raised - this iron rod - above our head. And we fly, fly over a menacing abyss in the thickening darkness.”) “The entire modern life of people is a cold horror, despite individual bright spots - a horror that is irreparable for a long time,- he wrote in one of the letters. - I don’t understand how you, for example, can say that everything is fine when our homeland is perhaps on the verge of destruction, when the social issue is so acute throughout the world, when there is no society, state, family, individual, where there would be at least comparatively well».

Alexander Blok in the First World War

First World War, which began in the summer of 1914, instilled ominous forebodings in Blok from the very beginning. “It seemed for a minute,” he later wrote about the war, “that it would clear the air; seemed to us people to be overly impressionable; in fact, it turned out to be a worthy crown of the lies, filth and abomination in which our homeland was bathed...” In the following years, Blok’s notebooks are replete with the following entries: "Bad news from the war», « It's bad in Russia", « Everything is worse in war», « Scary rumors" But just at this time, society silently recognized Blok’s right to be called first poet of Russia. All editions of his poems became a literary event and instantly sold out. Small volume "Poems about Russia", published in May 1915, was an incredibly resounding success. In April 1916, Blok was drafted into the army. True, he did not get to the front, but thanks to the efforts of his acquaintances, he was assigned as a clerk to the 13th engineering and construction squad of the Union of Zemstvos and Cities. The squad was stationed in the front line, in the area of ​​the Pinsk swamps, and was engaged in the construction of reserve defensive positions. The block was at headquarters all the time.

Alexander Blok and the 1917 Revolution

Alexander Blok returned to St. Petersburg in March 1917 after the February Revolution. He was appointed secretary of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry, which had just been established by the Provisional Government to investigate the illegal actions of the former tsarist ministers and senior officials.

Blok Beketova’s aunt wrote later: “Blok greeted the October 25 coup joyfully, with a new faith in the cleansing power of the revolution... He walked around young, cheerful, vigorous, with shining eyes and listened to that “music of the revolution,” to that noise of the fall of the old world, which, in his opinion, ceaselessly his own testimony rang in his ears.”“The collapse of the old world” is the theme of Blok’s entire life. From the first years of his work, he was gripped by a premonition of the end of the world; the theme of death is present in all his works. The revolution was not a surprise for Blok. One can say that he expected and predicted it long before it matured, and was preparing to accept the revolution in all its terrible reality. Already in 1908, at a meeting of the religious and philosophical society, Blok read two sensational reports: “Russia and the Intelligentsia” and “Elements and Culture.” In “Russia and the Intelligentsia” Blok says that in Russia “there really are” not only two concepts, but also two realities: “the people and the intelligentsia; one hundred and fifty million on the one hand and several hundred thousand on the other; people who do not understand each other in the most basic way".

Between the people and the intelligentsia - " irresistible line", which defines the tragedy of Russia. While such an outpost stands, the intelligentsia is condemned to wander, move and degenerate in a vicious circle. Without a higher principle, “all kinds of rebellion and rioting are inevitable, starting from the vulgar “fight against God” of the decadents and ending with outright self-destruction - debauchery, drunkenness, suicide of all kinds.” The intelligentsia, increasingly obsessed with the “will to die,” out of a sense of self-preservation, rushes to the people, who from time immemorial have carried within themselves the “will to live,” and encounters a grin and silence, “and, perhaps, something even more terrible and unexpected... .” In “Elements and Culture” this idea is even more pointed. Blok paints a figurative picture: the intelligentsia endlessly and stubbornly builds its anthill of culture on the “unhardened bark”, under which the “terrible earthly element - the element of the people”, indomitable in its destructive power, rages and worries.

Now, ten years later, in the article "Intellectuals and Revolution"(early 1918) and report "The Collapse of Humanism" (April 1919) Blok took his conclusions to their logical conclusion. For the last four centuries, he wrote, Europe has developed under the sign of humanism, the slogan of which was man, a free human personality. But at the moment when the individual ceased to be the main engine of European culture, when a new driving force appeared on the arena of history - the masses - a crisis of humanism arose. He died along with Schiller and Goethe, who were “the last of the flock of those faithful to the spirit of music” (by music Blok understood the fundamental principle and essence of being, a kind of highest harmony of life). XIX century loses the integrity and unity of culture, the spirit of music flies away from it, mechanical civilization develops with monstrous speed, “the balance between man and nature, between life and art, between science and music, between civilization and culture is eliminated - the balance that lived and breathed the great movement of humanism." Music left “civilized” humanity and returned to the element from which it arose - to the people, to the barbarian masses. “The masses, possessing nothing but the spirit of music, now turn out to be the guardians of culture.” Blok with astonishing acuity foresaw that a new, cruel, inhumane era was coming, when the place of the “humane, social and moral man” would be replaced by a new man - “animal man”, “plant man”, gifted with “inhuman cruelty” and striving “greedily live and act,” deaf to the melody about “truth, goodness and beauty.” And yet Blok announced that he was with this man! He did not feel the slightest sympathy for the old “humane” world. This world is perishing for “betrayal of music”, for fatal unmusicality (vulgarity, dullness). And hence Blok’s conclusion - you need to accept the cruelty of the new world, no matter what sacrifices it costs, and blindly surrender to the elements of music, for only music will save humanity from death in the clutches of “civilization.” In his diary of these days there is the following entry: “It is clear that the restoration of... the rights of music could only be achieved by betrayal of the deceased... But music has not yet been reconciled with morality. A long series of anti-moral ones is required. It is really necessary to bury the fatherland, honor, morality, law, patriotism and other dead people so that music agrees to reconcile with the world.” In the October Revolution, Blok saw the last, victorious uprising of the “elements”, “final destruction”, “world fire”. In the word “revolution,” he, in his words, felt something “terrible”: the mercilessness of popular reprisals, a lot of blood and innocent victims. In the dark mirror of “music” he saw the triumph of the “elements”: black night, white snow, red flag, red blood on the snow and blizzard, blizzard, blizzard. .. All these thoughts, sensations, observations and premonitions were embodied in Blok’s last great creation - "Twelve". This poem was fueled by the delight of death. He sang here exactly what Pushkin recoiled in horror at one time - the Russian rebellion, “senseless and merciless.” He made the central theme of the poem about the revolution the story of a criminal crime - the unnecessary and accidental murder of the prostitute Katka.

Alexander Blok's poem "The Twelve"

Blok began work on “The Twelve” in January 1918. (By his own admission, the first verses from it that came to mind were the line: “I’ll slash with a knife, I’ll slash!” Only then did he move on to the beginning.) The poem was finished on the 29th. On this day he wrote in his diary: “A terrible noise growing in me and around... Today I'm genius». The next day - January 30 - Blok wrote “Scythians”. Both works were soon published in the Left Socialist Revolutionary newspaper Znamya Truda. Not a single literary work of that time caused such a stormy resonance in society - such praise and blasphemy, such admiration and curses as “The Twelve”. The poem instantly spread into slogans, quotes, sayings, and went out into the streets. Soon Blok could see his poems on posters pasted on walls or displayed in store windows, on the banners of Red Army soldiers and sailors. However, both those who unconditionally accepted Blok’s poem and those who attacked it with angry attacks were equally embarrassed by Christ, who appeared with a red flag in front of the Red Guards in the last chapter of “The Twelve.” This image, which crowned the poem, did not appear in it as the fruit of rational reasoning - Blok “saw” it in “music”. But, by his own admission, Christ was a surprise even to him. Indeed, why him? On February 20, Blok wrote in his diary: “The terrible thought of these days: the point is not that the Red Guards are “unworthy” of Jesus, who is walking with them now, but that it is He who is walking with them, but it is necessary for Another to walk.”. The “Other” with a capital letter is undoubtedly the Antichrist...

After "Twelve" And "Skifov" Blok wrote only a few weak poems. Poetic inspiration left him forever, as if with these works he had brought his work to its logical end. To the question: “Why doesn’t he write anything more?” Blok answered: “All sounds stopped. Don’t you hear that there are no sounds?” He suddenly felt the most noisy, noisy and loud era as silence. Meanwhile, his life continued. For some time, Blok worked in the Theater Department, where he headed the Repertoire Section. Then he collaborates with Gorky in his publishing house “World Literature” - he is preparing for release an eight-volume collected works of Heine.

Blok's loss of interest in life

In April 1919, Blok was offered to become chairman of the artistic council of the newly founded Bolshoi Drama Theater. But all these activities soon ceased to satisfy him. The old feeling of the meaninglessness of existence returned. At the beginning of 1921, Blok was overcome by a feeling of endless fatigue. Symptoms of a serious illness arose and began to rapidly develop, including shortness of breath and severe pain in the arms and legs. Soon Blok lost all interest in life and once admitted to Chulkov that "really wants to die". The doctors he eventually had to see diagnosed him with advanced heart disease and acute psychasthenia. His condition soon became hopeless. In the last weeks of his life, Blok was painfully suffocating and suffered unbearably.

He died on August 7, 1921, unexpectedly for many and still a relatively young man. He was buried at the Smolensk cemetery. In 1944, the ashes were transferred to the Volkovo cemetery.