Literature of poetry beginning of the 20th century. Subject of study: Poetry of Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th century

The Silver Age is not a chronological period. At least not only the period. And this is not the sum of literary movements. Rather, the concept of "Silver Age" is appropriate to apply to the way of thinking.

Atmosphere of the Silver Age

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, Russia experienced an intense intellectual upsurge, which was especially pronounced in philosophy and poetry. Philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (read about him) called this time the Russian cultural renaissance. According to Berdyaev's contemporary Sergei Makovsky, it is Berdyaev who also owns another, more well-known definition of this period - the "Silver Age". According to other sources, the phrase "Silver Age" was first used in 1929 by the poet Nikolai Otsup. This concept is not so much scientific as emotional, immediately evoking associations with another short period in the history of Russian culture - with the "golden age", the Pushkin era of Russian poetry (the first third of the 19th century).

“Now it is difficult to imagine the atmosphere of that time,” Nikolai Berdyaev wrote about the Silver Age in his “philosophical autobiography” “Self-Knowledge”. - Much of the creative upsurge of that time was included in the further development of Russian culture and now is the property of all Russian cultured people. But then there was an intoxication with a creative upsurge, novelty, tension, struggle, challenge. During these years, many gifts were sent to Russia. This was the era of the awakening of independent philosophical thought in Russia, the flowering of poetry and the sharpening of aesthetic sensibility, religious anxiety and quest, interest in mysticism and the occult. New souls appeared, new sources of creative life were discovered, new dawns were seen, the feeling of decline and death was combined with the hope of the transformation of life. But everything happened in a rather vicious circle ... "

The Silver Age as a period and way of thinking

The art and philosophy of the Silver Age were distinguished by elitism and intellectualism. Therefore, it is impossible to identify all the poetry of the late XIX - early XX century with the Silver Age. This is a narrower concept. Sometimes, however, when attempting to determine the essence of the ideological content of the Silver Age through formal features (literary movements and groupings, socio-political subtexts and contexts), researchers mistakenly confuse them. In fact, within the chronological boundaries of this period, the most diverse phenomena in origin and aesthetic orientation coexisted: modernist movements, poetry of the classical realistic tradition, peasant, proletarian, satirical poetry ... But the Silver Age is not a chronological period. At least not only the period. And this is not the sum of literary movements. Rather, the concept of the “Silver Age” is appropriate to apply to the way of thinking, which, being characteristic of artists who were at enmity with each other during their lifetime, ultimately merged them in the minds of their descendants into some kind of inseparable galaxy that formed that specific atmosphere of the Silver Age that Berdyaev wrote about. .

Poets of the Silver Age

The names of the poets who made up the spiritual core of the Silver Age are known to everyone: Valery Bryusov, Fedor Sologub, Innokenty Annensky, Alexander Blok, Maximilian Voloshin, Andrei Bely, Konstantin Balmont, Nikolai Gumilyov, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Igor Severyanin, Georgy Ivanov and many others.

In its most concentrated form, the atmosphere of the Silver Age was expressed in the first decade and a half of the twentieth century. It was the heyday of Russian modern literature in all its diversity of artistic, philosophical, religious searches and discoveries. The First World War, the February bourgeois-democratic and October socialist revolutions partly provoked, partly shaped this cultural context, and partly were provoked and shaped by it. Representatives of the Silver Age (and Russian modernism in general) sought to overcome positivism, reject the legacy of the "sixties", denied materialism, as well as idealistic philosophy.

The poets of the Silver Age also sought to overcome the attempts of the second half of the 19th century to explain human behavior by social conditions, environment, and continued the traditions of Russian poetry, for which a person was important in itself, his thoughts and feelings, his attitude to eternity, to God, to Love are important. and Death in the philosophical, metaphysical sense. The poets of the Silver Age, both in their artistic work and in theoretical articles and statements, questioned the idea of ​​progress for literature. For example, one of the brightest creators of the Silver Age, Osip Mandelstam, wrote that the idea of ​​progress is "the most disgusting kind of school ignorance." And Alexander Blok in 1910 stated: “The sun of naive realism has set; it is impossible to comprehend anything outside of symbolism. Poets of the Silver Age believed in art, in the power of the word. Therefore, for their creativity, immersion in the element of the word, the search for new means of expression is indicative. They cared not only about the meaning, but also about the style - the sound, the music of the word and complete immersion in the elements were important for them. This immersion led to the cult of life creation (the inseparability of the creator's personality and his art). And almost always in connection with this, the poets of the Silver Age were unhappy in their personal lives, and many of them ended badly.

The feeling of an approaching catastrophe: retribution for the past and hope for a great turning point was in the air. The time was felt as borderline, when not only the old way of life, relationships, but also the system of spiritual values ​​itself requires radical changes.
Socio-political tension arises in Russia: a general conflict in which protracted feudalism intertwined, the inability of the nobility to fulfill the role of organizer of society and develop a national idea, the onslaught of the new bourgeoisie, the sluggishness of the monarchy, which did not want concessions, the age-old hatred of the peasant for the master - all this gave birth to the intelligentsia sense of impending upheaval. And at the same time a sharp surge, the flourishing of cultural life. New magazines are being published, theaters are opening, artists, actors, and writers have unprecedented opportunities. Their impact on society is enormous. At the same time, a mass culture is being formed, designed for an unprepared consumer, and an elite culture, focusing on connoisseurs. Art is crumbling. At the same time, Russian culture is strengthening contacts with world culture. Unconditional authority in Europe of Tolstoy and Chekhov, Tchaikovsky and Glinka. "Russian Seasons" in Paris enjoyed worldwide fame. The names of Perov, Nesterov, Korovin, Chagall, Malevich shine in painting; in the theater: Meyerhold, Nezhdanova, Stanislavsky, Sobinov, Chaliapin; in ballet: Nezhinsky and Pavlova; in science: Mendeleev, Tsiolkovsky, Sechenov, Vernadsky. Marina Tsvetaeva argued that "after such an abundance of talent, nature should calm down."
In literature, attention to individuality, personality has unusually increased: “War and Peace” (“War and Humanity”) by L. Tolstoy, “Man” by Gorky, “I” and the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky” by V. Mayakovsky. There is a rejection of traditional moralizing, preaching, teaching topics: “How to live?”, “What to do?”, “How to be?”. All this - both economic leaps and the development of science, the achievements of technology and ideological searches at the turn of the century - leads to a rethinking of values, to the awareness of the time that requires other ideas, feelings, new ways of expressing them. Hence the search for new forms.
A new trend is developing in literature - modernism. In turn, it is divided into the following areas: symbolism, acmeism, futurism. Symbolist poets - Bryusov, Merezhkovsky, Blok, Balmont, Gippius, Ivanov, Andrey Bely, Baltrushaitis - reflected the world of ideas, their worldview in poetry. Acmeists - Gumilyov, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Kuzmin, Gorodetsky - expressed in verse the worldview, the world of things and feelings, meaningful poetically. Futurists generally denied the former world in the name of creating the future; Mayakovsky, Khlebnikov, Severyanin, Guro, Kamensky belonged to this trend. At the turn of the era, passions raged, pouring out into magnificent poems that have become classics today, and then perceived almost as a challenge, but how melodic and beautiful!
It was by the sea, where there is openwork foam.
Where the city crew is rare
The queen played - in the tower of the castle - Chopin,
And, listening to Chopin, fell in love with her page.
Unusual time gave rise to the same unusual poems at the intersection of genres and themes. New forms of communication with readers appeared - creative evenings, in which the reading of poetry was accompanied by music.
You are my letter, dear, do not crumple.
Until the end of it, friend, read it.
I'm tired of being a stranger
To be a stranger on your way...
You are my letter, dear, do not crumple,
Don't cry about cherished lies
You have him in your poor knapsack
Put it at the very bottom.
The symbolist movement arose as a protest against the impoverishment of Russian poetry, as a desire to say a fresh word in it, to restore its vitality. Russian symbolism differed sharply from the Western in all its appearance - spirituality, a variety of creative units, the height and richness of its achievements.
Twilight, spring twilight,
Cold waves at your feet
In the heart - otherworldly hopes,
Waves crash on the sand.
Echoes, a distant song
But I can't tell.
A lonely soul cries
There, on the other side.
The Russian symbolists were greatly influenced by the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov. The idea of ​​two worlds - "two worlds" - was deeply assimilated by the symbolists.
And transparent stalls
In the resounding silence
Grow like glitter
Under the azure moon.
The naked moon rises
Under the azure moon...
The sounds are half asleep
Sounds caress me.
The Acmeists spun off from the Symbolists. They denied the mystical aspirations of the Symbolists. Acmeists proclaimed the high inherent value of the earthly, local world, its colors and forms, called to “love the earth” and talk about eternity as little as possible. They wanted to glorify the earthly world in all its multiplicity and power, in all its carnal, weighty certainty.
A transparent veil falls
On fresh turf and imperceptibly melts.
Cruel, cold spring
Poured kidneys kills.
And the sight of early death is so terrible,
That I cannot look at God's world.
I have the sadness that King David
Royally bestowed millenniums.
The Futurists entered the literary arena somewhat earlier than the Acmeists. They declared the classics and all old literature to be dead. “Only we are the face of our time,” they argued. Russian futurists are an original phenomenon, like a vague premonition of great upheavals and the expectation of grandiose changes in society. This must be reflected in new forms. “It is impossible,” they argued, “to convey the rhythms of a modern city with a Onegin stanza.”
I immediately smeared the map of everyday life,
splashing paint from a glass,
i showed on a platter of jelly
oblique cheekbones of the ocean.
On the scales of a tin fish.
I read the calls of new lips.
And you
nocturne play
we could
on the drainpipe flute?
The poetry of the Silver Age, understanding it broadly, threw its seeds into the future.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Russia lived in anticipation of grandiose changes. This was especially felt in poetry. After the work of Chekhov and Tolstoy, it was difficult to create within the framework of realism, since the pinnacle of skill had already been reached. That is why the rejection of the usual foundations and the stormy search for something new began: new forms, new rhymes, new words. The era of modernism has begun.

In the history of Russian poetry, modernism is represented by three main currents: symbolists, acmeists and futurists.

The Symbolists strove to depict ideals, saturating their lines with symbols and forebodings. The mixture of mysticism and realities is very characteristic; it is no coincidence that the work of M. Yu. Lermontov was taken as the basis. Acmeists continued the traditions of Russian classical poetry of the 19th century, striving to display the world in all its diversity. The Futurists, on the contrary, denied everything familiar, conducting bold experiments with the form of poems, with rhymes and stanzas.

After the revolution, proletarian poets came into fashion, whose favorite subjects were the changes that were taking place in society. And the war gave birth to a whole galaxy of talented poets, including such names as A. Tvardovsky or K. Simonov.

The middle of the century was marked by the flourishing of bard culture. The names of B. Okudzhava, V. Vysotsky, Yu. Vizbor are forever inscribed in the history of Russian poetry. At the same time, the traditions of the Silver Age continue to develop. Some poets look up to the modernists - Evg. Evtushenko, B. Akhmadullina, R. Rozhdestvensky, others inherit the traditions of landscape lyrics with a deep immersion in philosophy - these are N. Rubtsov, V. Smelyakov.

Poets of the Silver Age of Russian Literature

K. D. Balmont. The work of this talented poet was forgotten for a long time. The country of socialism did not need writers who created outside the framework of socialist realism. At the same time, Balmont left a rich creative heritage, which is still waiting for close study. Critics called him a "solar genius", since all his poems are full of life, love of freedom and sincerity.

Selected Poems:

I. A. Bunin- the largest poet of the 20th century, creating within the framework of realistic art. His work covers the most diverse aspects of Russian life: the poet writes about the Russian village and the grimaces of the bourgeoisie, about the nature of his native land and about love. Once in exile, Bunin is increasingly inclined towards philosophical poetry, posing in his lyrics the global questions of the universe.

Selected Poems:

A.A. Block- the largest poet of the 20th century, a prominent representative of such a trend as symbolism. A desperate reformer, he left a new unit of poetic rhythm, the dolnik, as a legacy to future poets.

Selected Poems:

S.A. Yesenin- one of the brightest and most original poets of the 20th century. The favorite theme of his lyrics was Russian nature, and the poet himself called himself "the last singer of the Russian village." Nature became the measure of everything for the poet: love, life, faith, strength, any events - everything was passed through the prism of nature.

Selected Poems:

V.V. Mayakovsky- a real block of literature, a poet who left a huge creative legacy. Mayakovsky's lyrics had a huge impact on the poets of the next generations. His bold experiments with the size of a poetic line, rhymes, tonality and forms became the standard for representatives of Russian modernism. His poems are recognizable, and the poetic vocabulary is replete with neologisms. He entered the history of Russian poetry as the creator of his own style.

Selected Poems:

V.Ya. Bryusov- another representative of symbolism in Russian poetry. He worked a lot on the word, each of its lines is a precisely verified mathematical formula. He sang about the revolution, but most of his poems are urban.

Selected Poems:

N.A. Zabolotsky- a fan of the "cosmists" school, which welcomed nature, transformed by human hands. Hence so much eccentricity, harshness and fantasticness in his lyrics. Evaluation of his work has always been ambiguous. Some noted his fidelity to impressionism, others spoke of the poet's alienation to the era. Be that as it may, the poet's work is still waiting for a detailed study by true lovers of belles-lettres.

Selected Poems:

A.A. Akhmatova- one of the first representatives of truly "female" poetry. Her lyrics can be safely called "a manual for men about women." The only Russian poetess who received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Selected Poems:

M.I. Tsvetaeva- Another adept of the women's lyric school. In many ways, she continued the traditions of A. Akhmatova, but at the same time she always remained original and recognizable. Many of Tsvetaeva's poems have become famous songs.

Selected Poems:

B. L. Pasternak- a famous poet and translator, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his lyrics, he raised current topics: socialism, war, the position of man in contemporary society. One of the main merits of Pasternak is that he revealed to the world the originality of Georgian poetry. His translations, sincere interest and love for the culture of Georgia are a huge contribution to the treasury of world culture.

Selected Poems:

A.T. Tvardovsky. The ambiguous interpretation of the work of this poet is due to the fact that for a long time Tvardovsky was the "official face" of Soviet poetry. But his work is knocked out of the rigid framework of "socialist realism". The poet also creates a whole cycle of poems about the war. And his satire became the starting point for the development of satirical poetry.

Selected Poems:

Since the beginning of the 90s, Russian poetry is experiencing a new round of development. There is a change of ideals, society again begins to deny everything old. At the level of lyrics, this resulted in the emergence of new literary movements: postmodernism, conceptualism and metarealism.

The Silver Age of Russian Poetry.

silver Age- the heyday of Russian poetry at the beginning of the 20th century, characterized by the appearance of a large number of poets, poetic movements who preached a new, different from the old ideals, aesthetics. The name "Silver Age" is given by analogy with the "Golden Age" (the first third of the 19th century). Philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, writers Nikolai Otsup, Sergey Makovsky claimed the authorship of the term. The Silver Age ran from 1890 to 1930.

The question of the chronological framework of this phenomenon remains controversial. If researchers are quite unanimous in defining the beginning of the “Silver Age” - this is a phenomenon at the turn of the 80s - 90s of the XIX century, then the end of this period is controversial. It can be attributed to both 1917 and 1921. Some researchers insist on the first option, believing that after 1917, with the start of the Civil War, the “Silver Age” ceased to exist, although those who created this phenomenon with their creativity were still alive in the 1920s. Others believe that the Russian Silver Age was interrupted in the year of the death of Alexander Blok and the execution of Nikolai Gumilyov or the suicide of Vladimir Mayakovsky, and the time frame of this period is about thirty years.

Symbolism.

A new literary trend - symbolism - was the product of a deep crisis that engulfed European culture at the end of the 19th century. The crisis manifested itself in a negative assessment of progressive social ideas, in the revision of moral values, in the loss of faith in the power of the scientific subconscious, in the enthusiasm for idealistic philosophy. Russian symbolism was born in the years of the collapse of Populism and the wide spread of pessimistic sentiments. All this led to the fact that the literature of the "Silver Age" does not raise topical social issues, but global philosophical ones. The chronological framework of Russian symbolism - 1890s - 1910. The formation of symbolism in Russia was influenced by two literary traditions:

Patriotic - the poetry of Fet, Tyutchev, Dostoevsky's prose;

French symbolism - the poetry of Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire. The symbolism was not uniform. Schools and trends stood out in it: “senior” and “junior” symbolists.

Senior symbolists.

Petersburg Symbolists: D.S. Merezhkovsky, Z.N. Gippius, F.K. Sologub, N.M. Minsky. In the work of the St. Petersburg Symbolists, at first, decadent moods and motives of disappointment prevailed. Therefore, their work is sometimes called decadent.

Moscow Symbolists: V.Ya. Bryusov, K.D. Balmont.

The "senior" symbolists perceived symbolism in an aesthetic sense. According to Bryusov and Balmont, the poet is, first of all, the creator of purely personal and purely artistic values.

Junior Symbolists.

A.A. Block, A. Bely, V.I. Ivanov. The "younger" symbolists perceived symbolism in philosophical and religious terms. For the "younger" symbolism is a philosophy refracted in the poetic consciousness.

Acmeism.

Acmeism (Adamism) stood out from symbolism and opposed it. Acmeists proclaimed materiality, objectivity of themes and images, the accuracy of the word (from the standpoint of "art for art's sake"). Its formation is associated with the activities of the poetic group "Workshop of Poets". The founders of acmeism were Nikolay Gumilyov and Sergey Gorodetsky. Gumilyov's wife Anna Akhmatova, as well as Osip Mandelstam, Mikhail Zenkevich, Georgy Ivanov and others joined the current.

Futurism.

Russian futurism.

Futurism was the first avant-garde movement in Russian literature. Assigning itself the role of a prototype of the art of the future, futurism as the main program put forward the idea of ​​destroying cultural stereotypes and instead offered an apology for technology and urbanism as the main signs of the present and the future. The founders of Russian futurism are considered members of the St. Petersburg group "Gilea". "Gilea" was the most influential, but not the only association of futurists: there were also ego-futurists headed by Igor Severyanin (St. Petersburg), groups "Centrifuga" and "Mezzanine of Poetry" in Moscow, groups in Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Baku.

Cubofuturism.

In Russia, "Budetlyane", members of the "Gilea" poetic group, called themselves Cubo-Futurists. They were characterized by a demonstrative rejection of the aesthetic ideals of the past, shocking, active use of occasionalisms. Within the framework of cubo-futurism, “abstruse poetry” developed. The Cubo-Futurist poets included Velimir Khlebnikov, Elena Guro, Davidi Nikolai Burliuki, Vasily Kamensky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexei Kruchenykh, Benedict Livshits.

Egofuturism.

In addition to the general futuristic writing, egofuturism is characterized by the cultivation of refined sensations, the use of new foreign words, and ostentatious selfishness. Egofuturism was a short-lived phenomenon. Most of the attention of critics and the public was transferred to Igor Severyanin, who quite early stepped aside from the collective politics of the ego-futurists, and after the revolution he completely changed the style of his poetry. Most ego-futurists either quickly outlived the style and moved on to other genres, or soon abandoned literature altogether. In addition to Severyanin, Vadim Shershenevich, Rurik Ivnevi and others joined this trend at different times.

New peasant poetry.

The concept of "peasant poetry", which has become part of historical and literary usage, unites poets conditionally and reflects only some common features inherent in their worldview and poetic manner. They did not form a single creative school with a single ideological and poetic program. As a genre, "peasant poetry" was formed in the middle of the 19th century. Its largest representatives were Alexey Vasilievich Koltsov, Ivan Savvich Nikitin and Ivan Zakharovich Surikov. They wrote about the work and life of the peasant, about the dramatic and tragic collisions of his life. Their work reflected both the joy of merging workers with the natural world, and a feeling of dislike for the life of a stuffy, noisy city alien to wildlife. The most famous peasant poets of the Silver Age period were: Spiridon Drozhzhin, Nikolai Klyuev, Pyotr Oreshin, Sergey Klychkov. Sergei Yesenin also joined this trend.

Imagism.

The Imagists claimed that the purpose of creativity is to create an image. The main expressive means of the Imagists is a metaphor, often metaphorical chains, comparing various elements of two images - direct and figurative. The creative practice of the Imagists is characterized by epatage and anarchist motives. The style and general behavior of Imagism was influenced by Russian Futurism. The founders of Imagism are Anatoly Mariengof, Vadim Shershenevichi, Sergei Yesenin. Rurik Ivnevi, Nikolai Erdman, also joined Imagism.

Symbolism. "Young symbolism".

Symbolism- the direction in literature and art first appeared in France in the last quarter of the 19th century and by the end of the century had spread to most European countries. But after France, it is in Russia that symbolism is realized as the most large-scale, significant and original phenomenon in culture. Many representatives of Russian symbolism bring new ones into this direction, often having nothing in common with their French predecessors. Symbolism becomes the first significant modernist movement in Russia; simultaneously with the emergence of symbolism in Russia, the Silver Age of Russian literature begins; in this era, all new poetic schools and individual innovations in literature are, at least in part, under the influence of symbolism - even outwardly hostile trends (futurists, "Forge", etc.) largely use symbolist material and begin with the negation of symbolism. But in Russian symbolism there was no unity of concepts, there was no single school, no single style; even among the symbolism rich in originals in France you will not find such a variety and such dissimilar examples. In addition to the search for new literary perspectives in form and subject matter, perhaps the only thing that united Russian symbolists was distrust of the ordinary word, the desire to express themselves through allegories and symbols. “A thought spoken is a lie” - a verse by the Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev, the forerunner of Russian symbolism.

Young Symbolists (the second "generation" of Symbolists).

In Russia, junior symbolists are mainly called writers who published their first publications in the 1900s. Among them were really very young authors, like Sergei Solovyov, A. White, A. Blok, Ellis, and very respectable people, like the director of the gymnasium. Annensky, scientist Vyacheslav Ivanov, musician and composer M. Kuzmin. In the first years of the century, representatives of the young generation of symbolists create a romantically colored circle, where the skill of future classics matures, which became known as the "Argonauts" or Argonautism.

“I emphasize: in January 1901, a dangerous “mystical” firecracker was planted in us, which gave rise to so many rumors about the “Beautiful Lady” ... The composition of the circle of Argonauts, students in those years, was outstanding ... Lev Lvovich Kobylinsky (“Ellis”), in those same years who joined us and became the soul of the circle; he was literary and sociologically educated; an amazing improviser and mime ... S. M. Solovyov, a sixth-grade gymnasium student, surprising Bryusov, a young poet, philosopher, theologian ...

… Ellis called it a circle of Argonauts, coinciding with an ancient myth that tells about a group of heroes traveling on the Argo ship to a mythical country: behind the Golden Fleece… the “Argonauts” had no organization; the one who became close to us walked in the “argonauts”, often without suspecting that the “argonaut” ... Blok felt like an “argonaut” during his short life in Moscow ...

…and yet, the “Argonauts” left some mark on the culture of artistic Moscow in the first decade of the beginning of the century; they merged with the “symbolists”, considered themselves essentially “symbolists”, wrote in symbolic journals (I, Ellis, Solovyov), but differed, so to speak, in the “style” of their manifestation. There was nothing of literature in them; and there was nothing of the outward brilliance in them; meanwhile, a number of interesting personalities, original not in appearance, but in essence, passed through Argonautism ... ”(Andrei Bely,“ The Beginning of the Century ”- pp. 20-123).

In St. Petersburg at the beginning of the century, the “tower” of Vyach is most of all suitable for the title of “center of symbolism”. Ivanov, - the famous apartment on the corner of Tavricheskaya Street, among the inhabitants of which at different times were Andrei Bely, M. Kuzmin, V. Khlebnikov, A. R. Mintslova, which was visited by A. Blok, N. Berdyaev A. V. Lunacharsky, A. Akhmatova, "world of art" and spiritualists, anarchists and philosophers. The famous and mysterious apartment: legends are told about it, researchers study the meetings of secret communities that took place here (Haphysites, Theosophists, etc.), gendarmes organized searches and surveillance here, most of the famous poets of the era read their poems in this apartment for the first time, here for several For years, three completely unique writers lived at the same time, whose works often present fascinating riddles for commentators and offer readers unexpected language models - this is the unchanged "Diotima" of the salon, Ivanov's wife, L. D. Zinoviev-Annibal, composer Kuzmin (the author of romances at first, later - novels and poetry books), and - of course the owner. The owner of the apartment himself, the author of the book "Dionysus and Dionysianism", was called the "Russian Nietzsche". With the undoubted significance and depth of influence in culture, Vyach. Ivanov remains "a semi-familiar continent"; this is partly due to his long stays abroad, and partly to the complexity of his poetic texts, which, in addition to everything, require rare erudition from the reader.

In Moscow in the 1900s, the editorial office of the Scorpion publishing house, where Valery Bryusov became the permanent editor-in-chief, was without hesitation called the authoritative center of symbolism. This publishing house prepared issues of the most famous symbolist periodical - "Scales". Among the permanent employees of the "Libra" were Andrey Bely, K. Balmont, Jurgis Baltrushaitis; other authors regularly collaborated - Fedor Sologub, A. Remizov, M. Voloshin, A. Blok, etc., published many translations from the literature of Western modernism. There is an opinion that the history of "Scorpion" is the history of Russian symbolism, but this is probably an exaggeration.

The “younger symbolists”, following V. Solovyov, who had a serious influence on them, not only denied the modern world, but believed in the possibility of its miraculous transformation by Love, Beauty, Art ... For the “young symbolists”, Art, Beauty have a life-creating energy, the ability to change, improve reality, so they received another name - theurges (theurgy - a combination of art and religion in an effort to transform the world). This "aesthetic utopia", however, did not last long.

The religious and philosophical ideas of V. Solovyov were accepted by the Young Symbolist poets, including A. Blok in his collection Poems about the Beautiful Lady (1904). Blok sings of the feminine principle of love and beauty, bringing happiness to the lyrical hero and capable of changing the world. One of Blok's poems of this cycle is preceded by an epigraph from V. Solovyov, directly emphasizing the successive nature of Blok's poetic philosophy:

And the heavy dream of worldly consciousness

You will shake off, yearning and loving.

Vl. Solovyov

I anticipate you. Years pass by

All in the form of one I foresee you.

The whole horizon is on fire - and unbearably clear,

And silently I wait, yearning and loving.

The whole horizon is on fire, and the appearance is near,

But I'm afraid: you will change your appearance,

And daringly arouse suspicion,

Replacing the usual features at the end.

Oh, how I fall - both sad and low,

Not having overcome deadly dreams!

How clear is the horizon! And radiance is near.

But I'm afraid: you will change your appearance.

After the revolutionary events of 1905, after the revolutionary crisis, it becomes obvious that the "aesthetic rebellion" of the older symbolists and the "aesthetic utopia" of the young symbolists have exhausted themselves - by 1910, symbolism as a literary trend ceases to exist.

Symbolism as a frame of mind, as a literary movement with its vague hopes, is an art that could exist at the turn of the eras, when new realities are already in the air, but they have not yet been minted, not realized. A. Bely in the article “Symbolism” (1909) wrote: “Modern art is turned to the future, but this future is hidden in us; we eavesdrop in ourselves on the thrill of the new man; and we eavesdrop in ourselves on death and decay; we are the dead, decomposing the old life, but we are not yet born into the new life; our soul is fraught with the future: degeneration and rebirth are struggling in it... The symbolic current of modernity still differs from the symbolism of any art in that it operates on the border of two epochs: it is deadened by the evening dawn of the analytical period, it is revived by the dawn of a new day.

The Symbolists enriched Russian poetic culture with important discoveries: they gave the poetic word a previously unknown mobility and polysemy, taught Russian poetry to discover additional shades and facets of meaning in the word; the search for symbolists in the field of poetic phonetics became fruitful (see the masterful use of assonance and spectacular alliteration by K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, A. Bely); the rhythmic possibilities of Russian verse were expanded, the stanza became more diverse, the cycle was discovered as a form of organization of poetic texts; despite the extremes of individualism and subjectivism, the symbolists raised the question of the role of the artist in a new way; art, thanks to the symbolists, became more personal.

Andrey Bely.

Andrei Bely created his own special genre - the symphony - a special kind of literary presentation, mainly corresponding to the originality of his life perceptions and images. In form, it is a cross between verse and prose. Their difference from poetry is the absence of rhyme and meter. However, both that and another seem to involuntarily merge in places. From prose - also a significant difference in the special melodiousness of the lines. These lines have not only semantic, but also sound, musical matching to each other. This rhythm most expresses the iridescence and coherence of all the soulfulness and sincerity of the surrounding reality. This is exactly the music of life - and the music is not melodic ... but the most complex symphonic. Bely believed that the symbolist poet was a link between two worlds: earthly and heavenly. Hence the new task of art: the poet must become not only an artist, but also "an organ of the world soul ... a visionary and secret creator of life." From this, insights, revelations, which made it possible to imagine other worlds by weak reflections, were considered especially valuable.

The body of the elements. In an azure-lily petal, the world is wonderful. Everything is wonderful in the faery, veiny, serpentine world of songs. We - hung, Like a stream above the foamy abyss. Thoughts are pouring with flashes of flying rays.

The author is able to see beauty even in the most ridiculous, unpretentious objects: "In an azure-lily petal." In the first stanza, the author says that everything around is wonderful and harmonious. In the second stanza, with the lines “Like a stream over a foamy abyss. Thoughts are pouring with sparkles of flying rays ”the author paints a picture of a stream, a waterfall tumbling down into a foamy abyss, and from this thousands of small sparkling droplets scatter in different directions, so human thoughts pour.

Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov.

Ancient sayings, unusual syntax, the need to capture the most obscure meanings of a word make Ivanov's poems very complex. Even in those verses that seem quite simple, there are many hidden meanings. But wise simplicity, which is understandable to anyone in them, is also found. Let's analyze the poem "Trinity Day".

The forget-me-not forester's daughter tore in the sedge On Trinity Day; Wreaths weaved over the river and bathed in the river On Trinity Day ... And a pale mermaid surfaced in a turquoise wreath. A resonant ax pounded on the forest aisle On Trinity Day; The forester with an ax went out behind a resinous pine On Trinity Day; He yearns and grieves and amuses the tar coffin. A candle in the room in the middle of a dark forest shines On Trinity Day; Under the image, a faded wreath over the dead is sad On Trinity Day. Bohr whispers softly. The river in the sedge rustles ...

This summary can be used both for an overview lesson on the topic "Poetry of the Silver Age", and as a repetitive-generalizing lesson using group technologies. This lesson allows you to repeat and summarize knowledge on the topic, develops the creativity and aesthetic taste of students, their research skills and the ability to work in a group.

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Literature lesson in grade 11
(using design technologies)

Prepared and conducted

Russian teacher and

Literature Zhagrova V.V.

Goals:

• to repeat and summarize knowledge on the topic "Poetry of the Silver Age": to consider the features of the largest literary trends that made up the poetry of Russian modernism - symbolism, acmeism, futurism and imagism; determine their general artistic principles;
• to develop the creative abilities and taste of students, their research skills, the ability to work in a group;
• contribute to the improvement of the general erudition of children.

During the classes.

Introduction by the teacher.

The Silver Age... This phrase itself is associated in our minds with something sublime and beautiful. The poetry of this period, in its essence, is like a melody of words, a kind of sound order.

Among the worlds, in the twinkling of the stars

One Star I repeat the name ...

Not because I love her

But because I languish with others.

And if it's hard for me in doubt,

I'm looking for an answer from her alone,

Not because it is light from Her,

But because with Her there is no need for light.

Innokenty Annensky ... Pay attention to how deeply, figuratively, philosophically!

However, the Silver Age, in contrast to the Pushkin era, called the "golden age" in Russian literature, cannot be called by anyone alone - even a great - name; his poetics is absolutely impossible to reduce to the work of one, two or even several outstanding masters of the word. This is the peculiarity of this period, that poets lived and worked in it, representing many literary movements, professing different poetic principles. Each of them was distinguished by the extraordinary music of the verse, the original expression of the feelings and experiences of the lyrical hero, and the aspiration to the future.

Today in the lesson we will talk about such a phenomenon in Russian literature as modernism. We talked about it a lot and in detail, and today, as it were, we are summing up. The result of our research was a book about Russian modernism of the late 19th - early 20th century, compiled by us based on the materials of literary criticism, our knowledge, tastes, and predilections.

Today we have invited you to our Literary Salon for the presentation of this book.The owner of the salon is Elena Valieva. Her word.

Presenter:

• The task that we set ourselves when creating this book is to consider the features of the largest literary trends that made up the poetry of Russian modernism - symbolism, acmeism, futurism and imaginism; determine their general artistic principles; try to recreate the general picture of the poetic era, called the Silver Age, without which it is quite difficult to understand its individual manifestations.
• The book was created by joint efforts. Groups of “symbolists”, “acmeists”, “futurists” and “imaginists” worked, who, having studied literary sources, tried to compile a brief note about the chosen literary direction, to name the most significant, in their opinion, representatives of this movement, to make a selection of poems of these poets reflecting their poetic style. At the same time, a group of art historians worked, selecting works by artists and composers of the Silver Age for decoration.
• The book opens with a general description of the concept of "modernism"

Page 1

Modernism.

The term "modernism" in French means the latest, modern and in a broad sense is a general designation of the phenomena of art and literature of the 20th century, which have departed from the traditions of external similarity.

The term "modernism" quite accurately conveyed the idea of ​​​​creating a new literature embedded in the literature of the Silver Age and embodied "into a system of relatively independent artistic movements and trends, characterized by a sense of disharmony of the world, a break with the traditions of realism, rebellious and shocking perception, the predominance of the motive for losing touch with reality, loneliness and illusory freedom of the artist, closed in the space of his fantasies, memories and subjective associations. The essence of modernism was that modernists were blinded by the "crazy dream of being only artists in life".

Symbolism, acmeism, futurism, imaginism are the main currents of modernism.

Page 2

Symbolism

Leading. The next page of the book is devoted to the largest literary trend of the late 19th - early 20th century - symbolism.Symbolism (from the Greek. Symbolon - sign, symbol) - a trend in European art of 1870-1910; one of the modernist trends in Russian poetry at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It focuses mainly on the expression through the symbol of intuitively comprehended entities and ideas, vague, often sophisticated feelings and visions.

The very word "symbol" in traditional poetics means "multi-valued allegory", that is, a poetic image that expresses the essence of a phenomenon; in the poetry of symbolism, he conveys the individual, often momentary ideas of the poet.

The poetics of symbolism is characterized by:

• transmission of the subtlest movements of the soul;
• maximum use of sound and rhythmic means of poetry;
• exquisite imagery, musicality and lightness of style;
• poetics of allusion and allegory;
• symbolic content of ordinary words;
• attitude to the word as a cipher of some spiritual secret writing;
• understatement, concealment of meaning;
• the desire to create a picture of an ideal world;
• aestheticization of death as an existential principle;
• elitism, orientation, on the reader-co-author, creator

Symbolism was a heterogeneous, colorful and rather contradictory phenomenon. He united in his ranks poets who sometimes held very different views. In literary criticism, it is customary to distinguish between "senior" and "junior" symbolists.

The division into "senior" and "junior" symbolists occurred not so much because of age, but because of the difference in attitude and direction of creativity.

The "senior symbolists" did not set out to create a system of symbols; they are more outrageous decadents, impressionists who sought to convey the subtlest shades of mood, the movement of the soul. Gradually, the word as a carrier of meaning for the symbolists lost its value. It acquired value only as a sound, a musical note, as a link in the overall melodic construction of a poem.

The "Young Symbolists" relied on the teachings of the idealist philosopher and poet Vl. Solovyov, who deepened Plato's idea of ​​"two worlds". Solovyov prophesied the end of the world, when humanity, mired in sins, would be saved and reborn to a new life by some divine principle - the “World Soul” (aka “Eternal Femininity”), which would lead to the creation of the “Kingdom of God on earth”.

• One of the founders of Russian symbolismwas Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky

D.S. Merezhkovsky was one of the founders of Russian symbolism. His poetry collection Symbols, published in 1892 in St. Petersburg, gave its name to the emerging trend of Russian poetry. But, developing the main motifs for the symbolists of the hopeless loneliness of a person in the world, the fatal split personality and preaching beauty that “saves the world”, Merezhkovsky failed to overcome rationality and declarativeness in poetry. He did not accept the revolution, since 1920 he lived in exile.

The most striking poem, reflecting the attitude of the poet, I consider the poem"No, it won't."

• One of the representatives of the Moscow group of senior symbolists wasKonstantin Dmitrievich Balmont

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, K.D. Balmont was perhaps the most famous among Russian poets. In his early poems, one can hear the motives of civil sorrow and self-denial, which arose under the influence of folk poetry. Following this, he acted as one of the early representatives of symbolism. In addition, Balmont is known as a prominent translator and passionate traveler: he visited all continents.

In 1920, pursued by hunger and disease, the poet left for France. Forgotten by everyone and half-mad, he died on the outskirts of Paris.

"bell ringing"

• And, of course, talking about symbolism would be incompletewithout Alexander Alexandrovich Blok.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok is the only symbolist recognized during his lifetime as a poet of national significance. In Russian poetry, he took his place as a bright representative of symbolism, but in the future he significantly stepped over the framework and canons of this literary trend, significantly expanding it, but without destroying it.

The romanticism of the mature Blok has nothing in common with the subjectivism of his youthful lyrics, clearly marked both in "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" and in the later demonic image of the Stranger.

Blok's contribution to Russian poetry is extraordinarily great. In his work, all the most important currents of Russian lyrics of the pre-October period were completed.

"I feel you..."

Page 3

Acmeism

Leading. Further in our book follows an article about the direction that was formed as a reaction to the extremes of symbolism - acmeism.Acmeism (from the Greek Acme - the highest degree of something, flourishing, maturity, peak, point) is one of the modernist movements in Russian poetry of the 1910s, formed as a reaction to the extremes of symbolism.

Basic principles of acmeism:

** liberation of poetry from symbolist appeals to the ideal, the return of clarity to it;

** rejection of mystical nebula, acceptance of the earthly world in its diversity, visible concreteness, sonority, colorfulness;

** the desire to give the word a specific, precise meaning;

objectivity and clarity of images, sharpness of details;

** appeal to a person, to the "authenticity" of his feelings;

echoes of past literary epochs, the broadest aesthetic associations, “longing for world culture”.

• One of the founders of acmeism wasNikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov

N.S. Gumilyov is a poet, prose writer, playwright, critic, one of the founders of acmeism, head of the "Workshop of Poets". His poetry is characterized by a craving for the exotic, a poetization of history, an addiction to bright colors, and a desire for compositional clarity.

In his youth, Gumilev traveled a lot. The husband of Anna Akhmatova, in 1914, volunteered for the front; was awarded two George crosses. In 1921, he was arrested on false charges and shot as a participant in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy."On my way"

• Along with men, a female voice sounded in the poetry of Russian modernism. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, who began her career within the framework of acmeism, became a truly great national poet.

The lyrics of A.A. Akhmatova entered Russian poetry with a fresh stream of sincere feeling. The clarity of the language, the balance of the poetic tone, simple but extremely expressive images fill her lyrical poems with great psychological content. The style of the poetess, as it were, fused the traditions of the classics and the latest experience of Russian poetry, and the feeling of the era, empathy for its events, the search for her place in them made Akhmatova a truly great national poet.

"Clenched her hands under a dark veil"

• The next page of our book is devoted toOsip Emilievich Mandelstam.

O.E. Mandelstam - poet, prose writer, essayist; adjoined acmeism from the first steps of this literary movement. His poetry is characterized by philosophical depth. heightened interest in history. Mandelstam is a brilliant master of the poetic word. His poems are extremely brief, full of historical and literary associations, musically expressive and rhythmically diverse.

After the revolution, the poet was gradually forced out of print. In 1934 he was arrested and sent into exile. In 1938 he was arrested a second time and died in a camp near Vladivostok.

"For the explosive valor of the coming centuries"

Leading. Any modernist trend in art asserted itself by rejecting the old norms, canons, and traditions. However, futurism was extremely extremist in this regard.

Page 4

Futurism.

Futurism (from lat. Futurum - future) is the common name for the artistic avant-garde movements of the 1910s - early 1920s of the 20th century, primarily in Italy and Russia.

The main features of futurism:

• rebelliousness, anarchic outlook, expression of the mass mood of the crowd;
• denial of cultural traditions, an attempt to create art directed towards the future;
• rebellion against the usual norms of poetic speech, experimentation in the field of rhythm, rhyme, orientation to the spoken verse, slogan, poster;
• the search for a liberated "self-made" word, experiments to create an "abstruse" language;
• cult of technology, industrial cities;
• outrageous pathos.

• Gilea is the first futuristic group. They also called themselves "cubo-futurists" or "budetlyane" (this name was suggested by Khlebnikov). The year of its foundation is considered to be 1908, although the main composition was formed in 1909-1910. David Burliuk, Vasily Kamensky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Alexei Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky became representatives of the most radical flank of Russian literary futurism, which was distinguished by revolutionary revolt, oppositional disposition against bourgeois society, its morality, aesthetic tastes, and the entire system of social relations.

Vladimir Mayakovsky

VV Mayakovsky is one of the leaders of cubo-futurism and Russian avant-garde art. In Russian poetry of the 20th century, he plays an exceptional role. The poet invaded the traditional system of versification, greatly transforming it. Mayakovsky's verse was based not on the music of rhythm, but on semantic stress, on intonation. The number of syllables in a line lost its decisive significance in his poems, the role of rhyme increased and qualitatively changed, and the colloquial nature of the verse was sharply manifested. It was a fundamentally new step in the development of Russian poetry.

The revolution largely changed Mayakovsky's views on the social role of art. In the late period of creativity, he moved away from futurism. The fate of the poet was tragic: unfortunate circumstances in the struggle of literary groups and in his personal life led him to suicide.

"Listen"

• Unlike cubo-futurism, which grew out of a creative community of like-minded people, ego-futurism was an individual invention of the poet Igor Severyanin. He did not have a specific creative program, and the slogans of his ego-futurism were:

1. the soul is the only truth;

2. self-affirmation of personality;

3. search for the new without rejecting the old;

4. meaningful neologisms;

5. bold images, epithets, assonances and dissonances;

6. fight against stereotypes and screensavers.

As can be seen, this "program" does not contain any theoretical innovations. In it, Severyanin actually proclaims himself the one and only poetic personality.

Severyanin was the only one of the ego-futurists who went down in the history of Russian poetry. His poems were distinguished by melodiousness, sonority and lightness. He masterfully mastered the word. His rhymes were unusually fresh, bold, and surprisingly harmonious.

Igor Severyanin

Igor Severyanin is the pseudonym of Igor Vasilyevich Lotarev. Already his first books secured for Severyanin the glory of an exclusively salon poet. Many of his poems were distinguished by mannerisms; excessive predilection for neologisms and foreign vocabulary brought the poet to the brink of bad taste. At the same time, Severyanin owns a number of works, which are characterized by colorfulness, expressiveness and melodiousness of poetic speech, complex rhyming, and the presence of original poetic forms.

In the summer of 1918, the poet was in Estonia, and after the creation of a bourgeois republic there, he ended up in exile. In his later poems, the drama of separation from his homeland is clearly felt.. "When at night"

• In the Mezzanine of Poets there were no large figures comparable to Mayakovsky or Khlebnikov, so it was rather difficult for its participants to develop some kind of independent theoretical base for their group. This movement was not built on a common ideological platform, but rather on the business, publishing interests of its participants. The association broke up at the end of 1913.
• The Moscow futuristic group "Centrifuga" was formed in January 1914. The main feature in the theory and artistic practice of the Centrifuge participants was that when constructing a lyrical work, the focus of attention shifted from the word as such to intonation-rhythmic and syntactic structures. Futuristic experimentation and reliance on traditions, the desire to connect their activities with the artistic creativity of previous generations organically combined in their work.

Boris Pasternak

One of the brightest representatives of the Centrifuge is B.L. Pasternak. The origins of Pasternak's poetic style lie in the modernist literature of the 20th century, in the aesthetics of impressionism.

His early poems are complex in form, densely saturated with metaphors. But already in them one can feel the freshness of perception, sincerity and depth. Over the years, Pasternak is freed from excessive subjectivity of images and associations. Remaining philosophically deep and intense, his verse is becoming more and more transparent, classical clarity.

"February"

"The Candle Burned" (romance)

Leading. The last sensational school in Russian poetry of the 20th century was Imagism.

Page 5

Imagism

Imagism (from French and English. Image - image) is a literary and artistic movement that arose in Russia in the first post-revolutionary years on the basis of the literary practice of futurism.

The main features of Imagism:

• the supremacy of the "image as such"; image - the most general category, replacing the evaluative concept of artistry;
• poetic creativity is the process of language development through metaphor;
• an epithet is the sum of metaphors, comparisons and oppositions of any subject;
• the poetic content is the evolution of the image and the epithet as the most primitive image;
• a text that has a certain coherent content cannot be attributed to the field of poetry, since it rather performs an ideological function; the poem, on the other hand, should be a “catalogue of images”, read the same way from beginning to end.

Imagism was the last sensational school in Russian poetry of the 20th century. One of the organizers and recognized ideological leader of the group was V. Shershenevich, who started as a futurist, hence the dependence of Shershenevich's poetic and theoretical experiments on the ideas of F. Marinetti and the creative searches of other futurists - V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov. The Imagists imitated the futuristic outrageousness of the public, but their not-new “impudence” had long been theatrically naive, if not frankly secondary, in nature.

• Poetic creativity largely influenced the development of the current. Sergei Yesenin , which was part of the backbone of the association.

S.A. Yesenin considered “lyrical feeling” and “imagery” to be the main ones in his work. He saw the source of figurative thinking in folklore, folk language. Yesenin's entire metaphor is built on the relationship between man and nature. His best poems vividly captured the spiritual beauty of the Russian people. The subtlest lyric poet, the magician of the Russian landscape, Yesenin was surprisingly sensitive to earthly colors, sounds and smells.

After the revolution, new “robbery and riotous” features appeared in Yesenin’s touching and tender lyrics, bringing him closer to the Imagists.

The fate of the poet was tragic. In a state of depression, he committed suicide.

"We're leaving a little now..."

Teacher: We have closed the last page of the book, but the conversation about the poetry of modernism is not over. We have already said that the peculiarity of this period is that poets lived and worked in it, often diametrically opposed in their artistic preferences and creative searches. Sometimes they started a furious controversy, offering various ways to comprehend being. Gathering in cafes with the colorful names Stray Dog, Pink Lantern, Pegasus Stall, representatives of different movements criticized each other, proving the viability of only their direction, their chosenness in creating new art. I suggest you organize such a discussion.

Discussion.

Acmeists:

I agree that the symbolist generation consisted of brilliantly educated people who felt free in the ocean of world culture, striving to revive the cultural heritage of their own country, but the requirement of mandatory mysticism, the disclosure of secrets, led to the loss of the authenticity of poetry. And the passion for the musical basis of verse led to the creation of poetry, devoid of any logical meaning.

Symbolists:

- We believe that the poetics of associations, hints that require deciphering, perception and comprehension of the artistic detail gives impetus to the work of the reader's imagination. And the maximum use of the sound and rhythmic means of poetry, the musicality and lightness of the style help to write about the most ordinary or even tragic things with exquisite imagery.

An example of this is Blok's poem"The girl sang in the church choir"written in August 1905, just as the Russo-Japanese War was ending. The singing of the girl and the choir is a prayer for those torn away from their birthplace, for those abandoned to a foreign land. And despite prayer and spiritual unity - a sad, unexpected, tragic result, given in a hint at the tragic outcome of the war for Russia in the summer of 1905:“participant in secrets”, i.e. knowing in advance, prophetic; “high, at the royal gates ... a child was crying” - the Savior-child in the arms of the Mother of God.Yes, sometimes it is difficult to “decipher” the symbols of a poem, but how beautiful it sounds!

Futurists don't understand anything at all! Solid "holes bul schyl ..."!

Futurists:

Not true, I will read only one stanza from Mayakovsky, and you will see how talented he was:

I want to be understood by my country

And I will not understand, well,

I will pass by in my native country,

How the slanting rain passes.

And I think that Yesenin's poetry is not intellectual, there are no philosophical reflections in his poems: neither the philosophy of love, nor the philosophy of nature!

Imagists:

- But there is the very feeling of love, deep, sincere! The very breath of nature. He tells us about ourselves, about our simple, natural feelings, and therefore is one of the popularly beloved poets even now, after more than half a century.

Excerpt "Yesenin sing"

(the song “Above the window is a month” sounds)

To end this debate, let's listen to Marina Kuznetsova. She did a little research work: she compared the work of the symbolist Blok and the Imagist Yesenin. What conclusions did she come to?

Research by Kuznetsova M.

Conclusions, summarizing.

The well-known literary critic M.L. Gasparov in his work “The Poetics of the Silver Age” rightly notes that “modernism in no way exhausts Russian poetry of the early 20th century. The poems of the modernists quantitatively constituted an insignificantly small part, an exotic corner of our then literature. Nevertheless, when it comes to the phenomenon called "Poetry of the Silver Age", it means, first of all, the poetry of Russian modernism, which consists mainly of the largest poetic movements - symbolism, acmeism, futurism, imagism.

Despite significant external and internal contradictions, each of them gave the world many great names and excellent poems that will forever remain in the treasury of Russian poetry and will find their admirers among future generations.

Final word.

The Silver Age was short. Short and dazzling. The biographies of almost all the creators of this poetic miracle have developed tragically. The time allotted to them by fate turned out to be fatal. But, as you know, "times are not chosen - they live and die in them." The poets of the Silver Age had to drink the cup of suffering to the bottom: the chaos and lawlessness of the revolutionary years and the civil war destroyed the spiritual basis of their existence.

Blok, Khlebnikov, and Bryusov passed away shortly after the revolution.

Many emigrated, unable to endure life in an unfriendly homeland, which suddenly became their stepmother: Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Bunin, Vyach. Ivanov, Balmont, Adamovich, Burliuk, Khodasevich, Sasha Cherny, Severyanin, Tsvetaeva and many others. Most of them lived the rest of their lives abroad, dreaming of returning to Russia.

Although, probably, this would have been an event no less sad for them, which is confirmed by the fate of Tsvetaeva, who committed suicide after returning to her homeland. In addition to her, Yesenin and Mayakovsky took their own lives.

Those who remained in Russia were destroyed by the totalitarian regime: Gumilyov was shot on false charges; perished in the Stalinist camps Klyuev, Mandelstam, Narbut, Livshits, Klychkov, Vvedensky, Kharms.

Those who survived this meat grinder were doomed to silence. And the poets who decided to cooperate with the new government also faced an unenviable literary fate: for Mayakovsky, Kamensky, Gorodetsky, it turned into a loss of talent and a loss of creative individuality.

Some deliberately sentenced themselves to silence, leaving poetry in other areas of literature, taking up journalism, prose, dramaturgy, and translations. Many of the names were forgotten for many years. But "nothing on earth passes without a trace." The phenomenon of culture called the "Silver Age" returned to us in the verses of its creators in order to remind once again that only beauty can save the world.

The song "Nostalgia"

performed by I. Talkov