The cycle “On the Kulikovo Field”, consisting of five poems interconnected by a common theme, is central to the cycle of poems “Motherland” (1907-1916). It was received ambiguously by critics and contemporary poets and prose writers of Blok, but everyone recognized it as a stunning reflection of reality through its connection with Russia’s historical past.

The cycle of poems “On the Kulikovo Field” was written in 1908. The revolution of 1905 was left behind, but the people did not calm down, a premonition of future unrest was in the air. In the period from 1905 to 1917, Blok rethinks historical events and draws analogies between them and the present. Using the image of the battle on the Kulikovo Field, the poet shows the image of contemporary Russia, the unrest that he anticipates, and those that have already passed. He worries about the future of the country and anticipates the second wave of the revolution.

The poet was a very educated person, he knew the history of his country perfectly, so he often wrote poems based on historical motives. His patriotism is deep and emotional, because the author does not love illusions, but what he knows well. Therefore, his works about war and revolution, about ancient peoples and their connections with their descendants always evoke strong feelings.

Genre, direction and size

The genre of the cycle is lyric-epic. The cycle contains a storyline that develops from poem to poem. Moreover, the text is an allusion to Russia at that time.

The entire cycle is written in iambic, but iambic pentameter, hexameter, two-foot and trimeter iambic are used, this rhythm gives dynamics to the narrative. Stanzas consist of four lines. Both exact and imprecise rhyme are used, and masculine and feminine clauses alternate. There is also cross rhyme.

Images and symbols

The entire cycle is permeated with symbols indicating the restless mood prevailing in Russia in 1908. The steppe path along which warriors gallop to the battlefield is a symbol of the metaphorical historical path along which the homeland goes. As warriors move towards battle, so the country moves towards a new revolution and civil war.

Wife's image is no longer interpreted so simply. Even in the first part of the series, Blok, instead of the classic comparison “Mother Russia,” compares Russia with his wife. But this is not a wife in our everyday understanding, but a reference to the early work of the poet and to Solovyov’s ideas about sacred femininity. This is confirmed by the presence of a quote from Solovyov himself before the final part of the cycle. The image of a certain wife, who will have to mourn the lyrical hero after the battle, runs through the entire cycle. Thus, the final phrase of the second poem can be understood both literally, that is, “remember me later, wife,” and as “remember me, Russia.” The third poem is entirely devoted to the image of a certain beautiful woman. This could be Solovyov’s saint, or an image of Russia.

They also go through the entire cycle symbols of fog and haze. They point to the uncertainty and anxiety that have long shrouded the homeland.

Steppe mare is a whirlpool of events that drags people into carnage. This is an inexorable fate that rushes without clearing the road. The very element of war is expressed in this image.

Lyrical hero - warrior, who gallops to defend his homeland from the Tatar-Mongols. Whether the hero is a reflection of Blok himself, or is he simply an abstract character necessary to convey the main motives of the poem, is not known for sure. The poet leaves this question to the reader’s imagination.

Thus, the main characters are inextricably linked. Wife and husband are a family whose bonds are sacred and eternal. So the Russian person is forever connected with his land.

Themes and mood

The entire poem leads the reader to a feeling of anxiety, to the expectation of something bad, a bloody massacre. Blok became disillusioned with the events of 1905, he saw human cruelty and realized that this path did not suit him. In 1908, the year the poem was written, people were aware of the approaching world war and a possible new revolution. Anxiety and fear due to the unknown of the future and the premonition of approaching disaster permeate the entire poem.

1. The main theme of the work is patriotism. The hero is ready to fight for his homeland, to defend it at the cost of his own blood. He loves her as jealously and tenderly as a wife, and intends to protect her as stubbornly as a family hearth.
2. The author also talks about beauty and wealth countries, comparing her to a woman of unearthly beauty. She is healthy, powerful and fertile, with a strong and rebellious spirit living in her body. Her rich nature, her priceless gifts, her captivating charms are dedicated to her husband - a protector who responds to the earth with ardent love and devotion.
3. War theme also takes not the last place. The author shows a holy battle, which can only be considered defense. Enemies came to Rus', and all its people rose in a sacred impulse - to liberate their homeland. This bloodshed is a sacrifice on the altar of love.
4. In addition, the poet lifts the veil of the past, speaking about historical memory. We must remember the courage and bravery of our ancestors: they defended their future, which became our present.
5. Another significant topic is anticipation of change. As we remember, the main version of the cause of the Battle of Kulikovo is the uprising of the Russians against the Mongol-Tatar yoke. The terrible massacre of that time preceded positive changes and marked the beginning of the liberation struggle of the Russian people against the invaders. This means that what the poet foresees can bring people a long-awaited solution to pressing problems.

Idea

Blok turns to the past, to the Battle of Kulikovo, not in order to educate people in the spirit of military patriotism, but to draw an analogy with the present. Express anticipation of big changes, show reluctance to a new bloody battle that may precede change. This allusion to the present was highly appreciated by Blok’s contemporaries.

The author, without a doubt, does not want a fight, but realizes that sometimes it is impossible to do without it. This is what happened on the Kulikovo field; the same troubled time was approaching the country during the time of the author. Sometimes war is a force of nature that cannot be stopped by the will of individuals. It is simply inevitable, but in the heat of battle it is necessary to defend the one who cannot stand up for herself - beautiful, dear and beloved Russia.

Means of artistic expression

The cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” is simply replete with interesting metaphors, and they all serve to create an atmosphere of anxiety: “our path pierced our chest,” “sunset in the blood,” “age-old melancholy,” and so on. Numerous personifications (“the haystacks are sad”) and epithets (“he is lazily sad”) serve the same purpose.

An interesting comparison is also used, which stands out against the background of other means of artistic expressiveness and once again refers us to the image of Solovyov’s lady: “The princess did not clean herself with fog like a veil.”

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Written by A.A. Blok in 1908, the poem “On the Kulikovo Field” is part of the cycle of the same name. In it, the poet reflected his thoughts about the past and future of Russia. You are offered a brief analysis of “On the Kulikovo Field” according to plan. This analysis will be useful when studying the work in a literature lesson in 9th grade.

Brief Analysis

History of creation- the poem was written by A. A. Blok in 1908 after the First Russian Revolution, when the poet, committed to its ideas, realized what disasters it brought with it.

Subject- Russia, since its ancient history, has been in a constant struggle for its independence, and at the beginning of the twentieth century it again found itself at a crossroads.

Composition– the poem consists of five parts, each of which has its own plot, but all parts are united by a common line - a parallel is drawn between the past, present and future of the country.

Genre- lyric-epic, the work combines some features of a poem and an epic, it has a storyline.

Poetic size- all five parts of the work are written in iambic, the verse is divided into stanzas, each of which consists of four lines, different types of rhyme are used: accurate and inaccurate, masculine and feminine, as well as a cross method of rhyming, that is, the first and third, second and fourth rhyme lines.

Metaphors - "Our path... pierced our chest", "arrow of the ancient Tatar will", "sunset in the blood", "...with a prophetic heart", "Under the Yoke of the Flawed Moon", "Free Clouds".

Personifications- “The river spreads out... lazily sad and washing the banks”, “...the haystacks are sad”, “frightened clouds are coming”.

Epithets – “...The dark and sinister Don”, "quiet lightning", "age-old melancholy", "... like a harsh cloud", "High and Rebellious Days".

Comparison – “And Nepryadva cleaned up with fog, like the princess with a veil”.

History of creation

1908-1917 in the life of A. A. Blok is a period of rethinking the historical past of Russia, its present and future impending changes. The poet creates a short cycle consisting of five poems called “On the Kulikovo Field.” It was based on real stories from the history of the country: the Mongol-Tatar yoke, which enslaved Rus' for several centuries, and the heroic resistance to the steppe conquerors.

Subject

The theme running through the entire work is Russia's eternal struggle for its freedom. The Battle of Kulikovo becomes a symbol of liberation from the Mongol yoke. A. A. Blok transfers the problem of the historical confrontation between Rus' and the Horde to the entire course of the country’s development, including the present, predicting a new “Battle of Kulikovo” for Russia, which will free it from the monarchy. The poet's revolutionary ideas were caused by the events that took place: the revolution of 1905-1907, the maturation of a new social explosion by 1917.

Composition

The cycle consists of five interconnected poems, so it is necessary to characterize its compositional content in parts. In the first part, the reader is presented with a picture from the history of Russia: the Tatar-Mongols are advancing on the country (“In the steppe smoke the holy banner and the steel of the Khan’s saber will flash…”).

Blok associates the image of the Motherland with a “steppe mare” who rushes forward: “The steppe mare flies, flies and crushes the feather grass...”, “The steppe mare rushes at a gallop!” as a symbol of strength and femininity. Here the poet uses a phrase that will later become popular; it accurately conveys the author’s idea that Russia is destined to constantly defend its independence: “And eternal battle! Rest only in our dreams…" .

The second and third parts are devoted to a description of the preparation for the Battle of Kulikovo and victory over the enemy. The image of the Mother of God appears as the defender of the Russian land and its warriors: “Your face, not made by hands, was forever bright in the shield.”

The last two parts of the series are devoted to a description of modern Russia through the prism of its ancient history. The poet feels the rise of revolutionary forces, the already obvious changes in life, saying: “Again, darkness has risen and spread over the Kulikovo field.” The thunder of battle and the ringing of weapons have not yet been heard, but the lyrical hero clearly foresees them, addressing: “But I recognize you, the beginning of high and rebellious days!” .

Genre

Genre - lyric-epic. The work combines the experiences of the lyrical hero, the features of a poem, and at the same time is characterized by the presence of a plot. It consists of five parts, which, in turn, are divided into stanzas (quatrains) written in iambic. The rhyme used is exact (pain - will), inaccurate (lazy - cliff), masculine (Rus - I'm afraid), feminine (bonfires - banner).

The rhyming method is cross ABAB.

Means of expression

Blok used various artistic means. We will include among them personifications: “The river stretches out... it’s lazily sad and washes the banks”, “... the haystacks are sad”, “frightened clouds are coming”, metaphors: “Our path... pierced our chest”, “with an arrow of the ancient Tatar will”, “sunset in blood”, “... with a prophetic heart”, “Under the yoke of the flawed moon”, “Free clouds”. In addition, the poet used epithets: “...a dark and ominous Don”, “quiet lightning”, “age-old melancholy”, “...a harsh cloud”, “high and rebellious days”, and comparison: “And Nepryadva cleaned up with fog, like the princess with a veil.”

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Rating analysis

Average rating: 4.8. Total ratings received: 54.

To the one who bears this name - an incomplete commentary, not at all formal, but only thematic. However, the thematic moment in Blok’s work undoubtedly takes precedence. All of it can be perceived as the movement of several basic symbols (perhaps even a symbol), moreover, outgrowing the plane of art. Blok's symbols are rooted in the very depths of his personality and, by their unfolding, determine his life and even death. They have a tragic meaning for him.

However, not only for him. Some of them have such meaning for all of us. This is, first of all, the symbol of Russia.

National self-awareness is a continuously unfolding spiritual act, the meaning of which, in the words of V. Solovyov, is the comprehension in the fate and spirit of the people of “what God thinks about them in eternity.” We always contemplate individual aspects of this mysterious personality incompletely and fragmentarily. The most stable national characteristics have to be revised and rebuilt, because we are dealing with a moving object, with a changing image. The self-awareness of a people directly coincides with its actualization. A new feat, a new sacrifice - and a new sin - entail a new attitude to national consciousness. Following in the footsteps of the historical figure, clarifying his often blind intuition, philosophers, historians and poets participate in this identifying work. But here too the poet often turns out to be a harbinger. It is given to him to anticipate not only historical thought, but also historical experience itself.

It has become a truism to assert that the poet Blok was a prophet of the revolution, but it is still impossible to read among youthful “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” without excitement:

My end of destiny is near,
Both war and fire are ahead.

I will see how it will die
The Universe, my homeland.

His poems contained not only “the fatal news of death” - the death of the old world. They had a premonition of a new Russia: more precisely, the elements that created it. We, who survived the revolution, have vast experience in it for a new understanding of Russia. The ending revolution, of course, takes us far from the world of Blok, caught and incinerated by fire. But there is still a long way to go to comprehend all the new experience. The lava from the eruption has not yet hardened. Our thought is not yet able to transform new life. Even Blok’s experience is not fully accepted and understood by us, although it is no longer modern: new generations look at it as a stage long overcome. We believe that it is useful for the new national consciousness to take stock of this already forgotten experience of the poet.

By this I want to say that we approach our task neither disinterestedly nor aesthetically. We want to enrich our knowledge about Russia through Blok.

We choose “On the Kulikovo Field” as our starting point, because this work is central (even in terms of time - 1908): in it the ends and beginnings of Blok, “Ante lucem” (1898) and “Scythians” (1918) converge. Let’s say in advance that the last goal of our work should be to understand “Scythians,” Blok’s last word about Russia. The key to them is “On the Kulikovo Field.” At the same time, the Kulikovo cycle, taken by itself, is very mysterious. It directly requires comment. But, having revealed its meaning, we directly get the answer to the “Scythians”.

I

The river spread out.
Flows, lazily sad
And washes the banks.
Above the meager clay of the yellow cliff
The haystacks are sad in the steppe.
O my Rus'! My wife! To the point of pain
We have a long way to go!
Our path is an arrow of the ancient Tatar will

Pierced us through the chest.
Our path is steppe, our path is in boundless melancholy,
In your anguish, O Rus'!
And even the darkness of the night and foreign...
I'm not afraid.
Let it be night. Let's get home. Let's light up the fires

The steppe distance.
The holy banner will flash in the steppe smoke
And the Khan's saber is steel.
And eternal battle! Rest only in our dreams
Through blood and dust.
The steppe mare flies, flies
And the feather grass crumples...
And there is no end! Miles and steep slopes flash by...

Stop it!
The frightened clouds are coming,
Sunset in the blood!
Sunset in the blood! Blood flows from the heart!
Cry, heart, cry...
There is no peace! Steppe mare
He's galloping!

Already this first leaf of the lyrical five-leaf leaf excites with the contradictory images. Where are we? On the banks of a northern river or in the southern steppes? The sadness of the river and haystacks, the scarcity of clay point to the Great Russian north, close and dear to the poet. But the mare crushes him with feather grass! And why is it “steppe” (twice)? The symbol of the steppe here is very significant, as it is repeated up to five times. Of course, the steppe where the haystacks are “sad” is not at all the same steppe where the feather grass grows. In the first case, the steppe is taken instead of meadows, but it is taken deliberately, anticipating the main theme: the melancholy-sadness of the northern field flows into the melancholy-passion of the southern steppes. This boundless melancholy is “yours, O Rus'!”, and at the same time it “pierces the chest with an arrow of Tatar will.” The melancholy of Rus' is the Tatar melancholy. The poet rushes to battle with the Tatar army, carrying in his chest the Tatar longing for the ancient, steppe will. This is the main contradiction that determines the entire shift in images. There is something else connected with it. Steppe will sounds different lyrically. At first there is this joyful rapture: “I’m not afraid... Let’s get home. Let's illuminate." And suddenly horror: “Stop!.. Frightened clouds... cry, heart, cry!..” So, the whole play takes place in three variations of the main theme of steppe melancholy. First variation: sadness and fidelity (“wife”, “long journey”). The second is passion; the third is despair. Fractures occur in the second and fifth stanzas. The “Arrow of the Tatar Will” invades completely unexpectedly, destroying the sad loyalty of the “long journey.” But the horror of despair is prepared by the horror of eternal battle: “We only dream of peace through blood and dust.” Expressed in the language of ethics, we can say that crime (treason) is less motivated than punishment.

It is often said that in the lyrics of a romantic poet like Blok one cannot look for strict clarity of images. Ideological identity cannot be demanded. This is of course true. But it is also true that the shifts in the semantic meaning of Blok’s image are not accidental: they mark a change in emotional tones, a series of steps that form a certain path, and the development of a theme. That is why we consider ourselves entitled to subject this lyrical passage to such a meticulous analysis. As a result of analysis, it did not fall into pieces, but revealed its true meaning. This meaning is the real theme of the entire pentaptych. Subsequent plays develop individual themes already contained here: the second and third - the theme of fidelity, the fourth - passionate despair.

Light and pure trochees - like songs of childhood - unite the second and third plays, isolating them by their very form from the rapid, abrupt iambs of the first and the languid, weak-willed amphibrachs of the fourth. The theme of fidelity is strict and simple. The night before the battle. As in the chronicle, they listen to the voice of the earth. Not the joyful anticipation of battle, not the thought of victory - the sacrificial doom of the “legend of the city of Kitezh”, “Do not return, do not look back...”, “The bright banner will never fly over our regiments again.” And this obedient sacrifice is humble: “I am not the first warrior, I will not be the last.” To perish, to dissolve in the people's sacrifice. Her prayer ritual, church and national, is the only reward she expects. The personal note in the final call to the bright wife is timid and modest - “to remember a dear friend at early mass.”

From humility and sacrificial fidelity to the joy of heard love, to the delight of unearthly visions. In the third poem, the thunderous voices of the battle recede into the distance, becoming only harbingers of a mysterious meeting. “You and I were in a dark field.” Only two, me and you. Rus', “my wife” of the first play, “bright wife” (with a small letter), another earthly image, Light, here retreats before Her, nameless, called You. The bright vision leaves its “miraculous face” on the friend’s shield, which will be his aegis before the “black cloud of the horde”: “Lightened forever”!

Forever?

Again with age-old melancholy
Feather grass bent down to the ground,
Again beyond the foggy river
You call me from afar.

The collapse after the mystical ascent is dizzyingly abrupt

Wild passions unleashed
Under the yoke of the flawed moon.

And I, with age-old melancholy,
Like a wolf under a bad moon,
I don't know what to do with myself.
Where should I fly for you?

I listen to the roar of the battle
And the trumpet sounds of the Tatars,
I see far over Russia
A wide and quiet fire.

Rus' is far away. All around is the Tatar steppe. Yesterday's warrior of the white banner wanders aimlessly in the power of the dark, enemy elements.

Bright thoughts rise
In my torn heart,
And bright thoughts fall
Burnt by dark fire...

In an aimless struggle with himself, he is not yet a traitor, he finds the strength to pray to the disappeared:

Appear, my wondrous wonder!
Teach me to be bright!

But he forgets her face, he doubts her nature. He writes it with a small letter. Who is she, a celestial or a mortal?

The final play does not resolve the contradictions; she pushes his decision into the future. The restrained calm of almost classical iambics only muffled the severity of the tension. We return to the starting position:

Again over the Kulikov field
The darkness rose and spread...

The armor is heavy, as before a battle,
Now your time has come. Pray!

Pray to be faithful, to be "bright forever" to make the final choice. And yet, after the experience, we are least sure what this choice is. The poet does not meet “the beginning of high and rebellious days” not in humility, not in sacrificial readiness. Rebellious? Is death for the holy banner a matter of rebellion, even a high one? The rapture of battle beckons. “The heart cannot live in peace.” But we already know this: “We only dream of peace... There is no peace.” This is howling the steppe melancholy, a passionate wind over the feather grass expanse. The poet has already firmly connected the spirit of restlessness and rebellion with the Tatar elements. It is against him that he casts his last spell: “Pray!” But it remains dark to the end: when the hour of the last battle comes, which for Blok was not a poetic fiction, but a real expectation of his whole life, in whose camp will he be, Russian or Tatar?

II

By posing the question this way, we may be posing it incorrectly. We have already seen that for Blok the “path of the Tatar will” is the path of Rus'. The betrayal of Rus' would have been impossible without the variability of its own image. The very motive of betrayal was not invented by us, nor was it forcibly inserted into the lyrical cycle of Kulikovo Field (“dark thoughts”, “wild passions”), But still we made a deep cut where the poet had barely visible scars. He wished to hide his betrayal in the game of the changing face of Rus'. But he didn’t want to hide it completely. The very theme of the Kulikovo Field requires a merciless separation of two elements (“fight the Tatars”). Blok was aware of both this inevitability and the personal impossibility of an irrevocable choice. Hence the unresolved conflict. For us, the task arises: to find out how the split face of Russia arose and what meaning it has in Blok’s poetry.

Blok's theme of Russia begins to sound with particular force in the last period of his work. But already the third play of the Kulikovo cycle directly tells us - assuming that we do not know this - that Russia, the homeland for Blok, is one of the incarnations of the One about whom he first sang under the pseudonym of the Beautiful Lady. This makes it inevitable to connect the theme of Russia with the main - in essence, the only - theme of the Bloc. But speaking about the generally known, we can be brief.

Blok's poetry grows and strengthens in the decomposition of the single image that illuminated his youth. He follows the path of creative failures and enriching poverty. His talent was nourished and watered with the blood of a dying personality. The many faces of the Beautiful Lady are not just a series of icons, incarnations, but a series of betrayals. In days of calm delight, he is gnawed by a premonition, and with amazing clarity he predicts his own fate:

The whole horizon is on fire, and the appearance is near,
But I’m scared: you’ll change your appearance,

And you will arouse impudent suspicion,
Changing the usual features at the end.

Oh, how I will fall - both sadly and lowly,
Without overcoming deadly dreams!

Already here his impending betrayal is justified by Her many faces, as if by Her deception.

In the fateful year (1902) of “Accomplishments” (Art. about Pr. D. IV), when demonic temptations begin to tempt the poet, he expresses his suspicion aloud:

They are waiting in you
Great light and evil darkness...--

and I’m ready to see the nature of eternal femininity in lies and deception:

I love this lie, this shine,
Your alluring girlish outfit...
How deceitful you are and how white you are!
I like white lies...

White - let's remember the epithet - is still the same one about which he just sang:

You are white, unperturbed in the depths...

Always in hours of cold reflection, in hours of “retribution,” the poet defines his life’s path as the path of betrayal:

Before eternity you are full of betrayals, -

and sees his lot marked in a circle of hopeless repetitions: “to love Her in heaven and betray her on earth.”

Of course, this ontological betrayal also determines the above-mentioned law of his poetry: gradual shifts of images that change their meaning.

We, of course, will not keep track of all the masks that the Beautiful Lady wears. We are only interested in the image of Russia. Its meaning is truly special, incomparable to others. The word “mask” is least applicable to it. The Medieval Lady, the Snow Maiden, Columbine, the Stranger - they all bear the stamp of ghostliness, an airy dream. The poet consciously surrenders to their deception, only drawing an unchanging face in their features. Therefore, his hands inevitably embrace emptiness, and his soul is scorched by the “tongues of the underworld fire.” He returns to Russia, his homeland, seeking salvation from deceptions, as in the true truth. Russia - and only Russia - is the real embodiment of the Virgin, that is, living flesh, and not a romantic dream. Touching his native land, the poet ceases to be a romantic, in a thirst for genuine, true earthly love. Not because he was “seduced” by the image of Russia, but because he can no longer live without Russia.

He is ready to accept her as she is, dear to him in both the holy and the sinful, so that, by joining her powerful life, he can heal his sick self in her.

But before this return to the homeland, what a long, painful journey!

For many years, the memory of German blood struggled in the poet with the memory of his homeland. He feels like a “descendant of the northern skald”; he is drawn to the Romanesque Middle Ages, to the world of Scandinavian sagas. Rhine, Heine, Solveig, Night Violet, kings, knights and ladies - this is the world in which the poet lives, which merges for him even with the land of the St. Petersburg outskirts (“Night Violet”) and with the St. Petersburg seaside (the theme of “Ships”). But already Russian motives, at first timidly and distantly, begin to illuminate this complex music.

In “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” (1901-1902), even in “Ante lucem” (1898-1900), so detached and bloodless, there is some specific background: an earthly landscape. Heavenly azure and the dawn belt are the usual scene of action or even the protagonist. There, in the skies, a real drama is played out, in the struggle of light, darkness and clouds. But the earth also serves as the foot of the heavenly theater. The lines of the landscape are given sparingly, as in an icon, but they are specific, they unmistakably characterize the poet’s native Russian landscape near Moscow: “A grove near a ravine, a green hill... A sea of ​​clover... A white church in the distance... Reeds, sedge... All around is a distant plain and crowds of burnt stumps.”

They are repeated, these hints, and the white church, and the clover, and the reeds, testifying to the memory of the native, never-dreamed-of land. There is one detail that, as we know from Beketova’s book, is characteristic of the Chess landscape:

There above your high mountain
The forest stretched jagged.

This image, strongly associated with the sunset vision of the Virgin, expands to a cosmic meaning: “the jagged earth.”

The Russian sky rises above the Russian land, the heavenly towers of the Princess are burning in the lights of dawn, with patterned carvings of skates, with a porch, “like a porch,” at an angle the roar of bells rings. Enter the “patterned door” and you will see a “patterned tablecloth”; in the corner there are images and red lamps. Here the queen looks at the screensavers, “letters made of red gold,” the princess feeds white doves, and her appearance is depicted with the features of Russian fairy-tale beauty: “young, with a golden braid, a moon and stars in her braids.” The poet himself then feels like a hero of a Russian fairy tale:

Come in, my dear prince...
My beloved, my prince, my groom.

Occasionally, the princess's tower expands into a fairyland, into a transformed Rus', where the hawthorns march on the evening of Palm Saturday, where the tsar and boyars dream of overseas guests. Almost everywhere, against the vague everyday background of this fantastic Rus', there is an icon, a candle, a lamp, the gentle poetry of church rite.

This whole world of images is completely devoid of density, heaviness, characteristic of the conventionally national Russian style. What impressions is this world built from? We saw reflections of Russian art (wooden architecture of the North, book miniatures), Russian fairy tales, songs, spiritual poetry and church ritual. This world is built from the same elements as picturesque Rus', discovered by Vasnetsov, Bilibin, Nesterov at the turn of the 20th century. Blok's Rus' is even more airy, ethereal, unreal. Her idea is girlish purity and male fidelity. This is holy, “white” Rus'. Behind the azure of the sky, behind the scarlet dawns, it is the white color that is especially dear to the poet (see above: “White You”).

White birds flew in...
And white feathers splashed...

A white hand, a white, white-breasted horse, white flowers and even white words... The original image of the snow has the same meaning:

I went into the snow without returning, -

before turning into a blue blizzard and bewitching the poet with evil witchcraft. For Blok's "Beautiful Lady" the white color is as characteristic as the blue romantic color for the poet of "Snow Mask" and "Stranger".

No matter how poorly the early Blok outlined the Russian landscape and the image of fairy-tale Rus', having gotten used to them, one cannot help but feel some contradiction between them. Blok's Central Russian Moscow landscape is too calm, real, blooming for a dreamed paradise and for the soul yearning for it. Over the years, Blok realizes this and forever renounces the “green feast” of the earth. In one of the poems of the second volume, in the Koltsovo trochees, the poet convincingly shows why the Koltsovo naive and joyful rapture of his native nature is impossible for him:

Don't beckon me, please,
Don't call me to the fields!

But here the motivation is already complex. With Blok’s usual shift of images and emotional tones, the poet makes here two essentially opposite confessions. Pagan merging with his native land is impossible for him because he received religious initiation from the “white hand” (this is in the past), but it is also impossible because he lives in the present with an empty, impoverished soul.

We understand why the Chess fields and groves will not return in the poet’s poems, but the pink fairy-tale images of “White Rus'” will not return either. But more on that later. Now it is necessary to point out that the Russian themes of the singer of the Beautiful Lady are interspersed with another motive that most excites us: the feeling of historical fate. The poet experiences him in the past of his homeland, before Vasnetsov’s Gamayun, who

The yoke of the evil Tatars is broadcast,
Broadcasts a series of bloody executions,
And coward, and hunger, and fire,
The strength of the villains, the death of the right.

He reads this fate in the future, according to some signs of the times known to him alone. We have already seen examples of his historical clairvoyance. Particularly striking is the famous poem “Is everything calm among the people?” with his terrible ghost of the “people's pacifier” (“Crossroads”, 1902-1904).

Concluding this analysis, we emphasize that the image of Rus' in the early Blok is composed of three elements: it includes the Central Russian, Moscow region landscape, the religious and fairy-tale perception of ancient Russian culture (White Rus') and the insight into Russian historical destinies, always tragic. All this is only outlined, outlined palely, just as Russian themes in general are drowned in a mass of other, mostly abstract, themes that inspire the singer of the Beautiful Lady.

III

When the inevitable happened - “You went into the fields without returning” (or “into the snow”) - the poet woke up on the ground. But this is not a solid, flourishing earth, but the most unstable, the most fantastic, unreal of the earth’s elements, akin to clouds and fogs - swamps, “bubbles of the earth.” According to him, he cannot “speak without emotion” about these bubbles of the earth, having read about them in Macbeth. The theme of swamps is extremely characteristic of all our symbolists: it corresponds to their common feeling of life as mysterious decay. This symbol contains depravity and, at the same time, defenselessness, doom, and longing for a gentle death. Everyone experiences this exciting topic in their own way. Blok experienced the bubbles of the earth most purely and even religiously. Not here, not in the corruption of the flesh, did his demonic temptations lurk. Oddly enough, in the motionless silence of the swamps the poet sees an image of eternity and fidelity, incorruption through eternal decay:

Love this eternity of swamps...
This bush, without incorruption, is thin.

Sinking so deep to the bottom of the earth, he still sees above him the “scarlet ribbon” of the dawn of his girlfriend and swears fidelity to her:

I'm with you forever, I'll never leave
And I will give up autumn freedom.

Here is salvation from passions, from wild will, in humble submission.

The marsh schema is a welcome peace for me.

But, of course, the poet deceives himself, seeing the “caress of a friend” in the “old illuminated swamps.” There he finds himself in a completely different society - “spring creatures”, “swamp devils”, “swamp priests”. Childishly touching, humble creatures, but, of course, unbaptized, of course, “undead, sickness of the waters.” And the poet descends into these depths of the created world, devoid of consciousness of good and evil.

My soul is glad
To every reptile,
Every beast
And about all faith.

The poet merges with this world in oblivion, in the loss of his personality:

I'm like you, child of the oak forest,
My face is also erased...
We are forgotten traces of Someone's depth.

This is no longer just humility, not humiliation, but the destruction of the “I”, the renunciation of immortality. Let us remember this trait: readiness for ontological renunciation of one’s personality, immensity in descent - it is also characteristic of some moments in Blok’s attitude towards Russia.

From these swamps it emerges - a new, no longer fabulous Rus' of Blok. No matter how unsteady the swamp soil is, it is still soil, earth. The poet really came into contact with it, really experienced the land - we know where: in the swampy environs of St. Petersburg during his solitary wanderings, which he told us about in “Night Violet.” In Shakhmatovo, the flowering land almost did not stop his gaze, riveted to the heavenly landscapes. In St. Petersburg, he first fell in love with the land, surrendered to the elements of the swamps, seeking to lose his fallen-out-of-love self in them. The St. Petersburg swamps revealed to him the ascetic beauty of northern Russia and its religious idea. The “swamp schema” takes concrete forms, and a monastery emerges from the swamps:

I live in a remote monastery...

The swamps harden into a northern Russian landscape, perhaps perceived not without the influence of Nesterov, and on this meager and impoverished land Blok’s first meeting with Christ takes place. In the poem “Here He is - Christ - in Chains and Roses,” the beginning sounds unpleasantly false: there is a taste of Rosicrucianism, the religious feeling of Andrei Bely. For some reason, Blok values ​​this symbol of the rose when he decides to talk about Christ: this is the Christ of the “Twelve.” But further the image of Christ develops in complete unity with the “salary of wretched nature.”

United, Light, a little sad -
Behind him comes the grain,
There is a cabbage garden on a hillock,
And birches and fir trees are running into the ravine.
And everything is so close, and so far, That, standing nearby, it is impossible to comprehend
And you will not comprehend the blue Eye,
Until you become like the path yourself...
Until you are the same beggar,
You won’t lie down, trampled, in a remote ravine,
You won’t forget about everything, and you won’t stop loving everything,
And you won’t fade like dead grain.

“Deaf ravine”, “trodden path” repeat the theme of swamp humility, and the beggar Christ appears against the backdrop of impoverished Rus' almost as a symbol of non-existence.

But this humble nothingness is unattainable. The peace of the swamps is replaced by the melancholy of autumn timelessness, destruction - by crucifixion. Scarlet bunches of rowan in rusty foliage - like drops of blood. He himself, the poet, was elevated to the cross above the leaden ripples of autumn rivers “in the face of his harsh homeland.” And he sees:

Along the wide river
Christ is sailing towards me in a boat.
There are the same hopes in the eyes,
And the same rags are on Him.
And looks pitifully from his clothes
Palm pierced by a nail.

Christ loses the last signs of divinity, turning into a double of the poet. The destroyed face becomes pitiful and the crucifixion hopeless. Blok could only religiously experience the Son of Man, seduced by the idea of ​​his consubstantiality with him. He himself knows that his Christ is “not risen.”

Let us not forget these words thrown out as if by chance: “before the face of the motherland.” They say that both the autumn melancholy of the earth and the image of Christ for the poet merged into an inseparable feeling of homeland. Her face becomes more and more clear, and a moment comes when it finally no longer shines through the northern landscape, but dresses in it. There is a difference between the living feeling of the homeland, which was always characteristic of Blok, and treating it as a living person. From now on, it is no longer the heavenly Friend and not Christ who accept his songs, but the living homeland, Rus', Russia.

How characteristic of Blok that the birth of this new love of his is associated with a new - for moral judgment - fall. Northern ascetic Rus' turns to the poet with a new face: the blood of rowan trees, the song of rain and wind suddenly begin to sound for him not like the flour of the cross, but like drunken revelry:

Autumn has cleared up in the wet valleys, -
Revealed the cemeteries of the earth,
But thick rowan trees in passing villages
The red color will shine from afar.
Here it is, my joy, dancing...

The mad, intoxicated soul of the poet responds to this call of “autumn will,” and he solemnly and somewhat declaratively makes his way out to Rus': “I’m setting out on the road...”

For the first time, Rus', the homeland - “you”, alive, although not at all holy - is it a mother, a wife, a lover? - with which the poet binds himself with an eternal, this time unbreakable vow:

I will love your space forever...

Rus' will change its appearance many times, but the poet will never change it again.

IV

We necessarily isolate the theme of Russia from Blok and refuse to show the life of the image of Russia in the general lyrical flow of his work. This task is impossible in the exact and strict sense until the chronological grid of his “Works and Days” is established. However, chronology is not of decisive importance here. There is no doubt that the first sounds of Russia were heard even when the poet was a prisoner of the “Snow Masks” and “Strangers”. The interruption of the last “harps and violins” and new songs of the homeland continues for a long time. But what does it matter if “Songs of the Motherland” and “Retribution” are simultaneous? Thematically, the transition from:

I'm pinned to a tavern counter...
In "Autumn Will":

Should I sing about my luck?
How I lost my youth in drunkenness.

Until this moment, the origin and growth of the Russian theme takes place in the background, like a secondary motif, which only now becomes the main motive. This breakthrough of the theme of Russia with the increase of realism in Blok’s poetic element is expressed, as we said, in the humanization of the image of the homeland.

Blok's new Russia immediately reveals its feminine face. For every nation, the element of the homeland, like the element of motherhood, appears in a woman’s face. For Blok, this, of course, could not be otherwise, although filial feelings for Russia are alien to him. His attitude towards her is always erotic. As the image of her beloved, she does not tolerate any masculine traits in herself. In Blok’s Russia there is no place for the peasant, there is no place for labor suffering, which destroys erotic contemplation. This alone creates a gap between Blok and the populist poets from whom (Koltsova, Nekrasov) he borrows rhythms. This also distinguishes him from the young peasant poets who were brought up on him.

Of course, Blok has no traces of aristocratic contempt for the people as the working people of the lower classes. He was always acutely affected by their suffering. But, as a singer of poverty and grief, Blok knew only the St. Petersburg street, workers, seamstresses, prostitutes - the peasant world remained alien to him. The voice of peasant Rus' did not reach his consciousness. He wandered along Russian roads, deaf to these sounds, blind to everything except his native land and women’s faces merging into one face:

Forest and field
Yes, the patterned board goes up to the eyebrows...

A woman's face is clothed in a landscape and characterized culturally and ethnographically (“patterned cloth”). We recognize two of the three elements that made up the image of the homeland in the “Beautiful Lady” cycle. Soon the third, the element of historical fate, will unite with it, gaining predominance in Blok’s last poems about Russia. But both the landscape and the cultural stamp have changed. Instead of ancient art - living ethnography, instead of Central Russian landscape - for now - Northern Rus'.

This Northern Rus' appears to the poet, naturally, not in summer or spring decoration, but in the tears of autumn rains or buried in winter snowdrifts. We saw the double meaning of autumn for Blok: free revelry and crucifixion. There is a third meaning in autumn - also familiar to us:

the meaning of swamp peace and destruction. When the wind and rain subside, “the autumn day is high and quiet,” and in the compressed fields, where smoke spreads over the barn, the cry of flying cranes can be heard.

And low, poor villages
Can't count, can't measure...
O my poor country,
What do you mean to your heart?

The poverty of his beloved pierces the poet’s painfully impoverished hearts and binds them with an unbreakable ring, a “ring of suffering.” Only such and only here Rus' is his wife, not his mistress.

This field, and even a compressed one, is the most impassive and stern feature of a native face. But in all the autumn lighting - on a cloudy, quiet day, in the raging winds and in the crucifixion of autumn death - the unity of this face is felt. One and the same, on different paths of suffering, the homeland remains pure, fearless, Christ-like. But the movement of the image has only just begun. With Russia, with fatal necessity, the same thing that happened with the Beautiful Lady is repeated. As the poet peers into her face, he discovers other, frightening features in it. Trembling begins, the face decomposes into many changing faces. With one difference. This disintegration of Russia is at the same time its knowledge. It is here that Blok’s work achieves such objectivity that makes it for us equivalent to a historical discovery. The face of Russia, which is mysterious to us and now coming to life in history, is being resurrected from oblivion and is being assembled piece by piece.

Dangerous exploration begins in the Russian North, with a slight change in landscape.

Forested steeps:
Once upon a time there, on top,
Grandfathers chopped down a flammable log house
And they sang about their Christ.

Historical memory - schismatic log cabins - pushes the image of the landscape into the distance of centuries. The past is still alive today. “Forest drops” of streams emerging here

Carrying frightened Russia
The news of the burning Christ.

The poet suddenly saw the alien face of Christ in ancient Rus' - as if the Savior's Ardent Eye looked at him from a Novgorod icon.

But it is not only the formidable Christ that frightens him in northern Rus'. He sees witchcraft, pagan charms in her.

Only damp moss hangs from a cliff,
Like witches a broken tow.

But the spell works. The image of a sleeping witch with moss-lined eyelashes unfolds into a whole vision, into a dithyrambic hymn - “Rus”:

You are extraordinary even in your dreams.
I won't touch your clothes...

Unfaithful, he immediately throws off the veils that shroud the mystery, and sees a strange, “extraordinary”, but far from sacred Rus'.

With swamps and cranes
And with the dull gaze of the sorcerer...

Where are the sorcerers and sorcerers?
The grains in the fields are enchanting,
And the witches make fun of the devils
In road snow columns.

We barely recognize the face of Rus' in this evil witch. What’s most remarkable is that Rus' loses its Slavic features here, turning into a round dance of “diverse peoples.”

We, however, have not yet left the northern swamps and wilds. Only autumn gave way to a blizzard winter - the unkind magical element of the poet - and alien Rus' looked at us with Finnish eyes. Historical clairvoyance reveals layers of enormous depth. The poet himself gives an ethnographic clue to his Rus'.

You are not resting in a rich coffin,
You wretched Finnish Rus'!

Having seen its pagan, pre-Slavic nature, he no longer believes the crosses of its churches, which once arose for him from the northern swamps, does not believe its “blue, dewy incense.”

And “not an old, not a lean face” seems to him under a colored Moscow scarf.

Through prostrations and candles,
Litany, litany, litany, --

Whispering quiet speeches,
Your flushed cheeks...

Blok knew the charms of Russian, burning, unmemorable passion. From the Snow Lady through the gypsy - to the “quiet soldier”, scattered in a whirlwind of Malyavin women:

I look - I threw up my hands,
I went into a wide dance...
Unfaithful, crafty,
Insidious, dance! --

to the sounds of Russian harmonica.

And in passion, as in witchcraft, the old theme of betrayal - “unfaithful, crafty” - invades, poisoning, and perhaps enhancing the charm.

However, the poet loves to listen to harmonica in working-class suburbs. An insidious dancer, she must be a suburban girl, and her dancing and revelry are from bourgeois themes, from Faina’s songs. For Northern Rus', the poet left witchcraft, like the reverse side of holiness. Northern revelry - autumn, through drunken sobs. For the theme of free, gypsy revelry, the poet is looking for other landscapes.

Galloped across the wild steppe
On a foamy horse.
- How long will you keep clanking the chain?
- Come out and dance with me!

Who is this steppe Mlada, “sister of wild liberty”? Somehow I can’t believe her Slavic name. Whether she is a gypsy, a lover of “stolen treasures,” or some other heavy blood flows through her, the theme of the steppes is immediately associated with a non-Slavic element. And where is the real, “free” Rus' with “bright eyes” (“Free Thoughts”)? with the expanse of fields and sinless love? We have already seen, speaking about the “Beautiful Lady” Block, why it is impossible for it to merge with the “earthly feast” of the earth. Only once did Blok make an attempt to clothe his Russian love in light, Slavic clothes:

Hello, prince!
Here I have a bush of white roses.
This is where the dodder was curling yesterday.

Dodder among golden fields
I curled up on the other side.

No, Slavophile Rus' is alien to Blok, perhaps even more so than populist Rus'. Rus' is not an icon for him, and looking at it he is afraid of new deceptions. We all know that there are no limits of baseness where he would renounce Russia (“To sin shamelessly”) - rather, he would renounce Christ:

In the fog and in the weeds,
Look - you'll sell Christ
For greedy geraniums,
For scarlet lips!

Inextricably linked: the Slavic element, the expanse of fields and Slavophile, idealized Moscow. Blok undoubtedly does not like Moscow. We guess this already from his silence. Random memories of “the transparent tenderness of the Kremlin at a clear and crystal hour in the morning” do not count for him, who sang St. Petersburg. Not believing in holy Moscow, Blok saw the gloomy weight of her historical calling:

My Rus', my life, shall we suffer together?
Tsar, yes Siberia, yes Ermak, yes prison...

He, who is ready to forgive her everything, now threatens to break off the love affair, remembering the Moscow “darkness”. Of course, this is an impotent threat to an eternally chained heart. But his love for his homeland is as keen as hatred. Under his painful gaze, the historical myth of Russia disintegrates, leaving a grave doubt:

Did you know anything, or did you believe in God?
What will you hear from your songs?
It was a miracle, but Merya intended
Gates, roads and milestones.

A familiar world: Finnish Rus' is more real for the poet than Slavic Russia. The historical feat of Rus' failed:

I didn’t reach the Constantinople shrines...

Sokolov, you released the swans into the steppe -
A black haze rushed out of the steppe.

From the decomposition of the old Slavophile scheme of Holy Rus', a new philosophy of its history is born: Finnish northern Rus' dared to fight the steppe, Tatar elements, and c. in this struggle darkness overcame her. She accepted the enemy's darkness into herself, and from then on

The numb face looks wild,
Tatar eyes flicker with fire...
Quiet, long, red glow
Every night above yours.

Rus' itself turned into a khan's nomad land - that is why the heaviness and darkness of Moscow. And in vain the poet curses his love and remains silent to Mlada’s call. The voice of Tatar Rus' sounds loudly in the heart, drowning out the Slavic sounds.

In “New America” we have a kind of historical and geographical map of Blok’s Russia. The poet begins his journey through snow-covered “wretched, Finnish Rus'.” But he barely saw her “flamed cheeks” -

That's all it is - black earth, truly Russian Russia: a complete wasteland, about which there is nothing to say: even the deacon bush is almost from Andrei Bely. This failure of Slavic, black-earth Russia is the most remarkable thing in Blok’s national intuition. In the very center of its geographical map (here it is, the true “impoverishment of the center”) there is a gaping black spot. The black spot around Moscow, spreading in radii of hundreds of miles, foreshadows the imminent failure of national unity: the USSR.

And there, beyond the deep river,
Where the feather grasses bent to the ground,
Pulls flammable fumes, free,
You can hear distant sounds.
Or is it again... the Polovtsian camp
And the Tatar violent fortress?
Was it not the fire of the Turkish fez that set the wild steppe in turmoil?

Polovtsian, Tatar Rus' is being resurrected before our eyes with a riot of factories, the kingdom of Donetsk coal.

Black coal is the underground Messiah,

in the new America the old Horde rises. But behind the chaos of fire in blast furnaces there must be a system of machines, a heavy order - and the Tatar horde appears for a moment in Blok in the form of a “violent fortress”, anticipating the Eurasian concept of the Golden Horde statehood.

V

Our analysis is complete. Tatar Rus' directly leads us to the “Kulikovo Field” cycle, from which we started. Now there is nothing mysterious about it for us. We understand the split face of Russia, we understand the meaning of treason. The only thing new for us is the “white” image of Rus', ecclesiastical and elevated into the immediate vicinity of the “Heavenly Wife”. Since the time of the Beautiful Lady, Blok has not dared to paint iconographic faces, and only here does he take on a religious attitude towards Holy Rus'. There is nothing Finnish, mysterious, witchcraft in this Northern Rus'. The more terrible and rapid the betrayal.

Another exciting feature of this cycle is its relevance.

It looks to the future, not the past. Blok mentally faces the coming revolution, “the beginning of high and rebellious days,” and is aware of the imperative need for choice. But he is objectively right: the image of Russia is doubled not only in his treacherous heart, but there is no united Russia. Perhaps, in this split of hers, the explanation of why the homeland could not heal the poet, could not teach him fidelity.

With all Blok’s social radicalism, with all his disgust from the world of the “well-fed,” he long believed in the sanctity of the “white banner.” In the October days of 1905 it still seemed wonderful to him.

With the wild mob in a futile fight
To lie down dead for an ancient fairy tale.

And during the terrible years of the war, he still assures: “I did not betray the white banner.”

Obviously, the revolution must have been felt by him in its orgiastic, Tatar element. For the poet, loyalty to her, service to her are excluded - he could only fall into her, drown in her.

But he perceived the revolution of 1917 not only as a Russian phenomenon. For many years the poet listened to the underground rumble in the European world, anticipating the collapse of the hated bourgeois world. It was then that the poet Blok became a publicist in order to understand for himself the meaning of the impending energy that was discharged in the creation of “Scythians.”

There is only one thing left for us to do: outline the genesis of the very image of the “Scythians”. His “Twelve” is not Russia. “The Twelve” were created not along the line of incarnations of the homeland, but pro-. The urban, factory, street motifs of “Unexpected Joy” owe their place. The “Scythians” are undoubtedly born from the “Kulikov Field”.

This birth, however, is devoid of an organic character. The germs of this image cannot be found in Blok’s work. It was created artificially, deliberately, and in this sense should be studied in connection with journalism: the theme of the “collapse of humanism.” However, one can be aware of how this image arose.

Taking the side of the revolution, Blok surrenders to the power of the wild, Mongolian elements. But he does not want to commit treason to the end and defends himself against fate with an eclectic image of “Eurasian” meaning.

Yes, we are Asians
With slanted and greedy eyes.

But the “barbarian lyre” calls “to a fraternal feast.” This lyre, in fact, is not a Scythian, but a Slavic lyre, and it goes back not only to Pushkin (like the very image of the “Scythians” with their rhythm), but even to Zhukovsky, “a singer in the camp of Russian warriors.” Between the “peaceful lyre” and the passion for destruction, which constitutes the true pathos of the poem, there is, of course, a discrepancy, of course, two-facedness. That is why the poet took this almost mythological (akin to centaurs) image, because he is two-faced: the Asian face must correspond to the Slavic face. But this melodious Slavism has nothing in common with the White Russia of the Blok. It is completely artificial in its magnificent rhetoric. Zhukovsky's patriotic muse echoes the manifesto of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Therefore it is inconclusive. But the “Asian face” was an extraordinary success. And its preponderance indicates that the beginnings of chaos, decay, and the “flawed moon” won for the poet on the Kulikovo Field.

Alexander Blok is a very talented person who wrote poetry beautifully, and besides, he was his own person - a deep person who understood and appreciated a lot.

Alexander Blok wrote a work in the genre of poem “On the Kulikovo Field...” in 1908. Blok himself was a man who loved his country in which he lived, and therefore it was a matter of honor for him to show everyone how much he loved and appreciated his homeland, the place where he was born and raised. Some people prefer to write about love, a topic that is always popular and recognized, but Blok was more patriotic than many other poets of his time. And he, like many, nevertheless, creative and ordinary people, was worried about the future of Russia.

Alexander Blok, in this work, showed himself to be a real fortune teller. After all, it was in this work that he wrote what seemed more acceptable to him, that is, his assumptions about the future of Russia, this great country for him. And, oddly enough, he was almost exactly able to predict everything that would happen in the near or not-so-soon future of this country. No wonder there is a hidden meaning here. Indeed, in this work, the Battle of Kulikovo is, as it were, similar to real Russia, that is, of that time. The block seemed to draw a parallel between that battle and that time, and subtly hinted that Russia would have to defend itself from possible enemies. Because there are always a lot of them, no matter what.

It is not for nothing that Blok predicted the fate of Russia in many ways. After all, he also had his own reasons for this. Once upon a time, during the revolution and before it, Blok very actively supported the very opposition to the tsar, this power of his, which seemed so despotic. But after the revolution, his eyes were somehow opened in a new way. He realized that a revolution is not only the overthrow of a government that is unacceptable to anyone, but he realized that it also means that tens of thousands of innocent people will die. And this, he believed, was too high a price, even for freedom and equality.

This great poet meant that Russia is like a mare, which rushes without knowing where, and this mare does not understand what it is doing, but, nevertheless, nothing can be changed. And therefore, it is clearly evident how Blok regrets that such upcoming changes will not make this as possible as possible. But he, too, will not be able to help in any way, even if he predicts the future too clearly. Therefore, he asks in this poem to remember those who will still have to die in this bloody massacre, which, alas, will not bring freedom and something better than everyone expected.

Option 2

The poem “On the Kulikovo Field” is written in iambic in five parts. The work is based on real events from the history of the country.

The entire poem consists of contrasts. At first, time in the work flows calmly slowly, then the running accelerates sharply. A mortal battle begins with blood, dirt, corpses. The heroic struggle of Russia with the army of the Golden Horde for the right to throw off the Tatar-Mongol yoke and gain sovereignty. Good always triumphs over evil.

Russia has been fighting for freedom and independence at all times of its existence. The victory on the Kulikovo Field was the beginning of the liberation of the Russian people from the oppression of the Tatar-Mongols.

The phrase “And eternal battle! We only dream of peace…” become winged. Russia is personified as a symbol of strength in defending its independence. This was the bloodiest battle in Russian history. Thousands of dead, maimed and wounded, died under the hooves of horses.

With a request to protect the Russian state, the poet turns to magical forces, the forces of nature. And they respond to his call. The Mother of God appears, inspiring fighters to feats, instilling in them faith in victory.

The poet loves his country, foresees changes, the rise of revolutionary forces, worries about the fate of Russia, and thinks with anxiety about its future. Feels the Motherland as a living organism, feels a connection with it.

With the words “And eternal battle! We only dream of peace,” expresses the spirit of the time, its basis, the transience of human life.

The poem intertwines the country's past, its present and future. The poet admires the heroism of ordinary people who are ready to die in defense of the Fatherland.

A. A. Blok predicts the future of Russia, its ruin and destruction, a civil war in which thousands of innocent people will die. Many will leave Russia wherever they look and never return back. The poet is worried, but does not know how to prevent this. Tries to comprehend the confrontation between the people and the tsarist government. The tragedy is emphasized by the image of the sky: “Sunset in the blood!”

Analysis of Blok's poem On the Kulikovo Field

Alexander Blok is a man who captivates his readers, and just people – the most ordinary or not, it doesn’t matter, but he still captivates. Because all his works are full of some kind of inexpressible sadness, or, on the contrary, inexpressible loneliness. But that’s how he is – and he doesn’t need to change.

His poem, which appeared in 1908 of his life. He called this work “On the Kulikovo Field.” It is very beautiful, but still very unusual. Because it is not only written in an unusual style of form, but also touches on all very important aspects in people's lives. Russia is Blok’s native country, and therefore it is not surprising that he was always a patriot, and simply always loved his native land, beautiful and beloved.

And it was Alexander Blok who seemed to predict the future of his Russia. At that time, a serious incident was brewing - a revolution. And he chose to spend this time in his own region, and did not leave it, no matter how they told him that it could be very dangerous. He can be attributed to the group of those people who consisted of poets and writers who were always patriots of their country and remained so. That is why the work soon saw the light of day, which was unambiguously called “On the Kulikovo Field.” After all, the author seems to be trying to draw a parallel with the battle, which was once called “Kulikovo”. Because the circumstances seem to be very similar to that battle, and to the incidents that had already occurred in the region of the Blok.

Alexander Blok, even in his work, defends the position of always being close to his people, and in his land. He knew that the fate of people, ordinary people, would most likely be tragic and sad. But he stayed anyway, despite his fate.

It is not for nothing that the poem draws a parallel with the famous battle on the Kulikovo field. After all, Russia will have to defend itself again, and even stronger. After all, there are still people in the country who have submitted to their idea to the point of madness - to make the country simply unthinkable, and only because of a great idea. They are ready for anything, and therefore the country can be destroyed by its own people.

In his work, Blok seems to be talking about the past, but in reality he remembers the present, and even talks about the future, which is so inevitable. He also emphasizes that the Motherland will have to heal for a long time after this.

The poem is extensive, and has, as it were, divisions that are numbered.

The poem refers to the poet's late love lyrics. It expresses the power of feelings with great force, plunging into memories of past love, the author was able to recreate and convey a vivid picture of feelings.

Analysis of Tyutchev's poem The Enchantress in Winter, grades 3, 5

The famous poet Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev wrote the poem “In the Enchantress in Winter” at a surprisingly opportune time - on the eve of New Year's Eve, it was 1852. The theme of the poem is perfectly suited for the famous holiday

Analysis of the poem On Bunin's Pond

The work, which describes a morning on a pond located near a small settlement, was written in 1887. The author is just beginning his creative journey and is learning a lot from his mentor in the person of Fet

Composition

According to Alexander Alexandrovich Blok himself, the theme dedicated to Russia is the main one in poetry. A. A. Blok turned to this topic at the very beginning of his creative career and remained faithful to it until the end of his life.

The cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” is entirely dedicated to Russia. This cycle is one of the most famous by A. Blok. This work was written in 1908, during the years of the first Russian revolution, when everything around was dark from bloody orgies. Here are his words: “The Battle of Kulikovo belongs to the symbolic events of Russian history. Such events are destined to return. The solution to them is still ahead.”
The poetic cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” was of great importance both for the poet himself and for all of Russia:
I am not the first warrior, not the last, The Motherland will be sick for a long time. Remember at early mass Dear friend, bright wife!

They said that Blok knew how to feel the history of Rus', dear to his heart, sensitively and reverently: I see a wide and quiet fire over Russia far away...

The work “On the Kulikovo Field” is divided into five chapters. In the first poem of this cycle, the theme of the path arises, revealing itself in two planes: temporal and spatial. The image of the historical path of Russia presents us with a time plan:
In the steppe smoke the holy banner will flash And the steel of the Khan's saber... And eternal battle! We only dream of peace Through blood and dust...

The cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” reveals the past, present and future of Russia.
It is in the past that the poet is looking for a life-giving force that allows Rus' not to be afraid of the “darkness - nightly and foreign” that hides its long journey. This vulture is in perpetual motion and is characterized by a lack of rest. This is how the image of the Motherland appears - a “steppe mare” rushing at a gallop...

The steppe stake embodies both Scythian origins and eternal movement. A. Blok's search for the future is tragic. Suffering is the price to pay for moving forward, so the path of the Motherland lies through pain: Our path has pierced our chest with the arrow of the ancient Tatar will.

The combination of a temporal plan with a spatial one gives the poem a special dynamism. Russia will never freeze in deathly immobility, it will forever be accompanied by changes: And there is no end! Miles and steep slopes flash by...

It is perhaps worth noting the special originality of Blok’s depiction of the Motherland. The main role in the poet’s perception of Russia is played not by his external impressions, but rather by their refraction in the poet’s soul, comparison with his inner experiences. The image of a sunset, stained with blood from the poet’s heart, best illustrates such a deep personal perception of his native land. The image of the Motherland is traditional for world literature. Blok associates Russia, rather, with the woman he loves. Her face is bright, she preserves the original purity of the poet’s soul: Oh, my Rus'! My wife! The long way is painfully clear to us!..

The lyrical heroes in this work are an ancient Russian warrior and a modern poet. ,
The poem “On the Kulikovo Field” is a real artistic masterpiece. The poet uses epithets (“meager”, “yellow”, “long”, “ancient”, “night”, “holy”), metaphors (“the river is lazily sad”, “stacks are sad in the steppe”, “frightened clouds are coming”). , lexical repetitions (“our way”, “sunset in the blood”).

There are exclamatory sentences with emotional connotations here. All these artistic and expressive means of language carry an emotional load, make the poem more expressive, and help to understand the writer’s inner world. The poetic meter of the work is iambic.

In Blok’s poem “On the Kulikovo Field,” one can hear pride in a country that managed to rise from oblivion and defend its statehood and independence. Blok feels like a poet of this huge country; he is happy thanks to his participation in the great era of upheaval. With this patriotism and pathos, he was close to the generation of the “fatal forties” and to us today. From his “distance” he teaches us to love and hate, to be tolerant and be content with what we have.

It is impossible not to notice the connection between the poems from the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” and the article “Russia and the Intelligentsia.” Here is one of the quotes: “...there are really not only two concepts, but 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.

Among hundreds of thousands there is a hasty fermentation, a constant change of directions, tunes, and battle flags. There is a hum over the cities that even an experienced ear cannot understand; such a roar that stood over the Tatar camp on the night before the Battle of Kulikovo, as the legend says. Countless carts behind Nepryadva are creaking, people are screaming, and on the foggy river geese and swans are anxiously splashing and screaming. Among tens of millions, sleep and silence seem to reign.

But there was silence over the camp of Dmitry Donskoy; However, the governor Bob rock began to cry and pressed his ear to the ground: he heard how the widow was crying inconsolably, how the mother was beating against her son’s stirrup. A distant and ominous lightning blazed over the Russian camp. There is a certain line between the two camps - between the people and the intelligentsia - on which both converge and come to an agreement. There was no such connecting line between the Russians and the Tatars, between the two camps, which were clearly hostile; but how thin is this current line - between camps that are secretly hostile! How strange and unusual the alignment on it! There are so many “tribes, dialects, states” here! The worker, the sectarian, the tramp, and the peasant come together - with the writer and public figure, with the official and with the revolutionary.

But it's a fine line; as before, the two countries do not see and do not want to know each other, as before, those who want peace and collusion are treated by the majority of the people and the majority of the intelligentsia as traitors and defectors... Isn’t this line as thin as it is foggy? Nepryadva river? The night before the battle it curled, transparent, between two camps; and on the night after the battle and for seven more nights in a row it flowed, red with Russian and Tatar blood.”