PENZA STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY
them. V. G. Belinsky
Faculty of Russian Language and Literature
Test
on the history of Russian literature
on the topic:
Ideological and artistic originality
A. Blok's poem "The Twelve"
Done: student
Faculty of Russian Language and Literature
6 course (correspondence department)
Gordeeva Xenia
Checked by: Gorlanov G.E.
Penza 2011
Content
:
Introduction
Symbolic images and their meaning in the poem "The Twelve"
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The poem "The Twelve" by Alexander Alexandrovich Blok is one of the most striking works of Russian literature of the 20th century. The work was created in January 1918. The author creates a poem in a few days, in a single inspirational impulse. Usually demanding of himself, he, evaluating his creation, writes: “Today I am a genius.”
The poem is interesting for researchers both in its original form and in the depth of its ideological content. What is this poem about? About wind, night darkness, snowstorm, human passions, people's feat, Russia, revolution. More precisely, about revolutionary Petrograd at the turn of 1917 and 1918. Even more precisely, about what happened in Petrograd on the eve of January 5, 1918, the day the Constituent Assembly was convened and dispersed. Soviet power was already two months old.
The theme of the revolution resulted in the poet's work in his most significant and inspirational poem - "The Twelve". Blok's work is an unbiased, objective diary of revolutionary events. Alexander Blok said that "The Twelve" is the best thing he ever wrote. The content of the famous poem, where the music of the revolution sounded at the top of its voice, where the uplifted people's element rushed into the future, was the greatest upsurge of the people's spirit and people's anger. And the poet consecrated and blessed her in a way that personified for him the highest principles of human life - the principles of equality and brotherhood. For the author, the revolution is the element of the people that has broken free. In the article "Intelligentsia and Revolution" he wrote: "It is akin to nature. Woe to those who think to find in the revolution only the fulfillment of their dreams, no matter how lofty and noble they may be. Revolution, like a thunderstorm, like a snowstorm, always brings something new and unexpected; she cruelly deceives many; she easily maims the worthy in her whirlpool; she often brings the unworthy to land unharmed; but - these are its particulars, it does not change either the general direction of the stream, or that formidable and deafening rumble that the stream emits. This rumble, anyway, is always about the great.
The poem, published in February, evoked stormy and contradictory responses. She was talked about everywhere. Much in it seemed unacceptable to fellow writers. It was greeted with an outburst of indignation by the Russian intelligentsia. Bunin attacked the author with angry criticism, some of his friends turned away from him. But, despite this, Alexander Blok's poem rightfully took its place in the history of Russian literature.
Features of the plot of the poem "The Twelve"
To understand the ideological and artistic meaning of Alexander Blok's poem, its unique genre structure and plot features mean a lot.
As a truly innovative work, The Twelve defies strict genre definition. It is no coincidence that the genre nature of this work remained not entirely clear to Blok himself: he called it either a poem, or a poetic cycle, or simply “a series of poems under the general title“ Twelve ”.
Its composition is built on alternation, interruptions of dramatic situations and lyrical motifs. It turns out that the chapters written on white paper, i. those with which work on the poem began contain precisely all the main moments of the dramatic plot of this work. Here is the appearance, the “first exit”, of twelve Red Guards, and the exposition of a dramatic action - a conversation about Vanka and Katya (ch. XI), and the murder of Katya - the climax of the drama (ch. VI), and the suffering of Petrukha (ch. VII), and the resolution of his torment is a kind of social catharsis: "We are on the mountain to all the bourgeois // We will blow up the world fire" (ch. VIII and XII to line 327). It is very significant that the entire XII chapter up to the lyrical ending with Christ is given in the poem as a continuationPetrukha's monologue, begun in Chapter VIII and interrupted by lyrical digressions of intermediate chapters.
The poem "The Twelve" is divided not only into chapters, but also - internally, hiddenly - into scenes with monologues and dialogues. The narrative part itself is presented in it very modestly, and to be more precise, the narration here constantly develops into a dramatic structure, and the author himself from a lyrical narrator now and then turns into a character. The first chapter of The Twelve is a kind of prologue in which the author himself plays a significant role. From the front of the stage, his voice is heard:
Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
At first, these words can be perceived as a remark by the playwright, giving an idea of the situation in which the stage action is to unfold. Blok uses such “remarks” in other places, for example: “The wind is walking, snow is fluttering. Twelve people are walking, ”but these are remarks of a special kind, which are filled with deep meaning and gradually turn into a monologue or a scene of a general conversation. The contrast of the remark that opens the prologue scene makes it expressive from the very beginning, and after the word "wind" is repeated several times, the emotional tension increases, at the same time being filled with semantic ambiguity, anxiety, and meditation on a person caught in the universal wind:
Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
A person does not stand on his feet.
Wind, wind -
In all God's world!
The first chapter of the poem is a general exposition. Here, as on a cinematographic tape, the panorama of evening Petrograd is captured. A sharp wind is blowing, a drifting snow is playing, “under the snow - ice”. On the streets - people, the motley population of a big city: an old woman confused from everything that is happening; an embittered bourgeois who hid his face in his collar; an intellectual - "vitia", muttering something in an undertone about the "death of Russia", a fat-bellied and frightened priest, whining and cutesy young ladies; just passersby; street prostitutes; homeless vagrant...
Against this backdrop, a story unfolds. Late in the evening, under a black sky, in a blizzard that has broken out, a guard patrol of the Red Guards of twelve people is walking through the empty city. They say: "Freedom, freedom, eh, eh, without a cross!" , complain about the cold ("It's cold, comrades, it's cold!" , wary ("Revolutionary, keep your pace! The restless enemy does not sleep!", They remember Vanka and Katya, who have fallen in love, sit in a warm tavern and are busy with fun things.
Vanka, as it turns out, was also with them until recently. He could have been the thirteenth on the patrol, but he betrayed the common cause and duty: “There was our Vanka, but he became a soldier!” . That is, according to the exact meaning of the words, he went (also voluntarily) into the soldiers of Kerensky - perhaps he signed up for the shock battalions that Kerensky formed as his main support - and then, apparently, he deserted and is now full and drunk, " rich” (probably speculates), drags around taverns, drives reckless cars, has become a “son of a bitch” and a “bourgeois”. Katya is also a girl with a past: a street prostitute is not one of the most shabby. She walked in "lace underwear" and walked even with officers, but the vicissitudes of the times also touched her: “Walking with the cadetI went - now I went with the soldiers. In the recent past, she was the mistress of one of the twelve - Petrukha (this was the custom for the girls of her profession: a lover for the soul, "guests" for business), but she cheated on him for the sake of the wealthy, prosperous Vanka. Life with the jealous and violent Petrukha was full of vicissitudes: he, as it turns out, butchered some officer with whom Katya was "fornicating"; and she got it too:
On your neck, Katya,
The scar didn't heal from the knife
Katya is under your chest,
That scratch is fresh!
Here a dramatic picture of the struggle of passions and characters, hot love and blind jealousy opens up.
Petruha is having a hard time with Katya's betrayal and is full of hatred for Vanka, who violated the unwritten law of the street - he began to walk with "a strange girl". And now - on this blizzard, anxious night, a screaming, screaming reckless driver comes across towards the Red Guard patrol, and in the sledge - the traitor Vanka hugs the traitor Katya. For the second time, Petrukha, tormented by jealousy, with the help of his comrades, takes revenge: they shoot from rifles - they shoot, of course, at Vanka, but a stray bullet inadvertently hits his companion. The reckless driver with the surviving Vanka disappear in a snowstorm, and an accidental victim remains in the snow with a bullet through his head. Petruha threatens Vanka, who has carried off his legs:
Duck, scoundrel! Wait, stop
I'll deal with you tomorrow!
And, blinded by malice, hatred, a thirst for revenge, he addresses the dead Katya with cold contempt:
What, Katya, are you glad? - No hoo...
Lie down, you carrion in the snow!
But Petruha loved Katya deeply. And, when the haze of anger and revenge left his eyes, the "poor killer" completely lost heart, "stupefied." With sincere heartache, he recalls his Katya, the intoxicating nights spent with her, the miserable prowess of her fiery nights, the cherished “crimson mole”:
I ruined, stupid,
I ruined it, in the heat of the moment ... ah!
The comrades shame and encourage Petrukha, sternly reminding him of the great common cause for which they united. They are not up to his misfortune. They have their own worries: "Forward, forward, working people!" . And again he goes with a measured, iron, sovereign step - through the darkness and blizzard, protecting the revolution from the machinations of lurking, but restless enemies ...
V. Orlov in his monograph noted as follows: “But this whole dramatic story of love clashes and betrayals is only the frame of the poem, and not its flesh. The Twelve captures a grandiose historical picture of a decisive revolutionary turning point. It does not fit into the story just outlined. Like any great work of art, The Twelve leads the reader's thought and imagination in breadth and depth. Behind the plot, a tree of a general “world fire” grows, behind the scenes of a Petrograd street - all of Russia, which has broken its anchors, behind twelve Red Guards - all the people moving towards a new life. The main thing that can and should be said about the poem is that it brilliantly conveys the thunderous atmosphere of October.
The question of the features of the plot of the poem remains controversial at the present time. First of all, this is due to a change in ideology, understanding of social events. Modern researchers note that Blok captured a grandiose historical picture of the struggle between good and evil that took place in Russia after the 1917 revolution. Behind the love plot rises the glow of the "global fire", behind the Petrograd street - not only Russia, but also "the whole world of God", behind the twelve Red Guards, not only the Russian people, but all of humanity.
Between the beginning and the end of the poem, an important event occurs: Petruha kills Katya. And although it is unlawful to separate the “poor killer” from the rest, rewarding only him with the “ace of diamonds”, a special role is really given to him in the poem. What is the meaning of this dramatic episode, which occupies such a large place in the poem?
Consider the structure of the poem. Let us recall the course of events. The first chapter of the poem is expositional in nature. The main characters appear in the second chapter. Several people take part in the conversation about Vanka and Katya. Petrukha owns the last remark:
Well, Vanka, son of a bitch, bourgeois
Mine, try, kiss!
This is Petrukha's personal theme, the voice of his jealousy and anger at the traitor and the lover. Here it still sounds like an accidental cry and is immediately drowned out by the voice of common duty.
The third chapter develops this theme: "How did our guys go to serve in the Red Guard ...". But in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh songs, we find ourselves in a circle of completely different motives: Vanka and Katya are rolling on a reckless car, Petrukha lovingly and rudely recalls Katya and her infidelities, in every possible way shows her zatbenny prowess (“Eh, eh, sin! It will be easier for the soul! ", the Red Guards are hunting for Vanka, and a stray bullet from Petrukhina overtakes Katya. All twelve participate in the scene of the chase and murder(“Stop, stop! Andryukha, help! Petrukha, run back! ..”, but here and further, in songs seven and eight, Petrukha is the main character. According to the critic, his drama begins, unfolds and ends, to which the rest there is no special matter. The scene of the murder is significant in this sense, ends with the already familiar call not to forget about the common duty: "Revolutionary, keep stepping! The restless enemy does not sleep!". Petrukha is left alone with his small human tragedy. Now he is a deeply unhappy person, hard who has sinned and fallen into bitter, hysterical repentance:
And twelve come again
Behind the gun.
Only the poor killer
Can't see a face...
Everything is faster and faster
Slows down the step.
Wrapped a scarf around his neck -
It won't get better...
He is so discouraged that his comrades, who are not at all up to his little tragedy, are trying to cheer him up. First - in a friendly, affectionate way:
What, comrade, are you not cheerful?
What, my friend, dumbfounded?
What, Petruha, hung his nose,
Or did you feel sorry for Katya?
Then (since Petruha is tearing herself up more and more) - much more severely, demandingly and implacably:
Look, bastard, started a hurdy-gurdy,
What are you, Petka, a woman or what?
- That's right, the soul inside out
Thinking of turning it out? Please!
- Maintain your posture!
- Keep control over yourself!
- Not such a time now.
To babysit you!
The burden will be heavier
Us, dear comrade!
The last argument is decisive: Petruha slows down her hurried steps, tosses her head. Again, as we see, the theme of common duty triumphs. The last couplet - in terms of its ideological load - is one of the most important in the poem. Here the nature of its collective hero is fully clarified: the Red Guards are aware of the greatness of the times and know that even more severe trials lie ahead of them.
The ashamed Petruha stops twisting his soul, tries to pull himself together, "he has become cheerful again." But his joy - bitter, hoarse - is not fun, but all the same ostentatious, dashing, noisy prowess, behind which hides both heavy anguish and unceasing remorse. It was then that he begins to “scare”, threatens to pour blood over the memory of the “darling”, in vain remembers the Lord God:
Eh, eh!
Having fun is not a sin!
Lock up the floors
Today there will be robberies!
Open cellars -
Walking now nakedness!
But who is he afraid of? The answer to this is given by the following, eighth song, brilliant in verse, which recreated the spirit, color and form of the folk “lament” with amazing skill:
Oh, you, grief - bitter!
Boredom is boring
Mortal!
I'm on time
I'll go, I'll go...
I'm already dark
I'll scratch, I'll scratch...
I'm seeds
I'll get it, I'll get it...
Already I am a knife
Stripe, stripe!
And then this bitter, hoarse, feigned prowess finds a single goal: You fly, bourgeois, like a little sparrow!
I'll drink blood
For a sweetheart
Chernobrovushka...
This furious outburst has its own deep psychological certainty: Petrukha has his own scores with the bourgeois world, with which his Katya (who walked with officers and cadets) got mixed up and which ultimately turned out to be the culprit of her accidental death - after all, Vanka, because of whom she died, also "bourgeois".
The eighth and ninth chapters are the central and turning point of the poem. Here the plot breaks down: everything personal that was brought to the forefront of the narrative - reckless prowess, love tragedy, jealousy, crime, despair and the “woe-bitter” of the killer - is absorbed by a wide, free and powerful melody. It is here, in the song of the Red Guards, that the image of the old world, the "lousy dog", first appears. The question is: why did Blok assign such a large place to the personal drama of Petrukha, and then reduced it to nothing? “Now is not such a time” - this is the formula of this belief. Every personal tragedy at such a time is drowned in the "sea" of revolution, in the universal, world-historical tragedy of the catastrophic collision of two worlds. In his personal plan, Blok resolved this issue categorically: "The revolution is me - not alone, but we"; there is no personal - because the world Revolution becomes the content of all life; a person who has fallen to witness the birth of a new world should remember as little as possible about personal weaknesses and tragedies. Just don't oversimplify. The categorical nature of the decision did not mean that it was a simple and easy matter to make it. Hatred of the old world was in Blok a dominant, all-consuming feeling that justified everything. He understood, of course, that along with the violence, lies, meanness and vulgarity of the old world, in the fire of the revolution, some of what he “soloved", with which his lonely "demonic delights" were connected. But hehe also understood that in the name of the great, universal historical truth one must sacrifice one's own little "truths". This is where Blok's spiritual strength, that "fearless sincerity" that Gorky noticed in him, was expressed. Blok's idea of the immeasurability of "personal tragedies" with the grandeur of what is happening in a peculiar way (adjusted for the plot and character) echoed in the story of Petrukha. It cannot be said that the poet condemns Petrukha. Rather, he pities him. And the mental anguish of this desperate, "stupid" man who had gone astray, and his passionate, stuffy love with painful memories of "drunk nights" and "fiery eyes" - all this could not but be close to the poet, who always found a source of high inspiration in the themes of tragic passion and human despair. But all this must burn out in the fire of the revolution. This is how a new person should be born. After all, Blok saw one of the important tasks set by the revolution in directing its purifying fire into "Rasputin's corners of the soul and there fanning it into a fire to the sky so that the cunning, lazy, slavish lust burns out."
Desperate, headless Petruha is the weakest of the twelve. If they themselves do not constitute the vanguard of the revolution, then Petruha is their own rearguard. Even now he helplessly commemorates the Savior, and again his comrades read him a harsh rebuke:
- Petka! Hey, don't lie!
What saved you from
Golden iconostasis?
Unconscious you, right,
Judge, think sensibly -
Ali hands are not in the blood
Because of Katya's love?
- Take a revolutionary step!
The restless enemy is near!
So Petruha received the correct characterization, and from his own comrades: "unconscious." They know in the name of what they are holding their revolutionary step. “We are ready for everything, nothing is a pity”, “The burden will be heavier ...”, “Their rifles are steel against an invisible enemy”, “They go far with a sovereign step ...”. Doesn't this such a distinct and so constant note of revolutionary duty drown out the hysterical cry of spiritual revelry that we hear in the remarks of the "poor murderer" Petrukha?
Twelve are busy with their work: they are patrolling the city at night. They are on the alert: "Here - a fierce enemy will wake up ...". And they sing not thieves couplets and not hysterical lamentations, but they pick up the motive of "Varshavyanka": "March, march forward, working people!" And in the tempos and rhythms of this beautiful fighting song of the working class, the motifs of reckless revelry dissolve without a trace (Petrukha, in the end, also pulled himself up and joined the step of his comrades), and the theme of the invincible strength of the insurgent people, the irresistible movement of the twelve to the distant goals:
And they go without the name of a saint
All twelve - away.
Ready for everything
Nothing to be sorry...
It beats in the eyes
Red flag.
Is distributed
Measure step.
Here - wake up
Fierce enemy...
And the blizzard dusts them in the eyes
Days and nights
All the way...
Go-go,
Working people!
And so on - with ever-increasing expression, in order to achieve the highest tension and pathos in the finale. The violent "freemen" turns into a strict, musically organized revolutionary will.
An ideologically significant question can be answered only by building a structural chain of events that took place. Having built this chain, we will see that the personal drama in the poem occupied a large place. It was this construction of the poem that helped to determine the place of this episode in the work.
Revolutions, as you know, are different. That revolution, the fighting force of which the “twelve” considered themselves to be, was unique, one of a kind. It was the destruction "to the ground" of the "old world", a "break" between two historical zones. "The Twelve" are the apostles of the new world, heralds of the "new heaven and new earth." Blok's Red Guards are also children, "children in the Iron Age," as the author of The Twelve called them in his diary entry. They do not know what they are doing, but this does not relieve them of the guilt for creating a world in which violence will be the main principle.
--- More than once, critics have noted that "The Twelve", for all its apparent simplicity, is not a simple work at all. Let us pay attention to the mysterious central episode of the poem. Why, in fact, is a criminal offense devoid of any class or revolutionary grounds at the center of this poem about the Revolution? Why did Vanka and Katka annoy the Red Army soldiers so much, why do they seek to deal with Vanka, and Katya's death is perceived by them as a fair retribution? But let's deal first with the first, with the soldier Vanka. The poem seems to explain the reason for the hunt for him:
Fuck - ramble! You will know
How to walk with a strange girl! ..
If with a stranger, then with Petkina, but why are all the "twelve" so eager to deal with Katya's new lover? What do they care, after all, about Petka's feelings? And then: Katya is a prostitute, she is not Vankina, not Petkina, she is for everyone and a draw. Something is obviously wrong here, but let's leave these considerations for now and talk about other possible motives for the strange hatred of the Red Guards for their former comrade. These are two motives. Firstly, Vanka is a stranger; second, rich. Both motifs are present in the replica of one of the "twelve":
Vanyushka himself is now rich ...
There was our Vanka, but he became a soldier!
In the same chapter, Vanka is called a bourgeois. Vanka is a soldier of the Petrograd garrison, who did not defend the Provisional Government in the October days. And the word "soldier" sounded then by no means counter-revolutionary. Why, after all, Vanka is "not ours" - from the point of view of the Red Guards? Were there any conflicts or friction between the Red Guards and the soldiers then? Friction between the soldiers and the Red Guards, therefore, was, and the soldiers were jealous of the Red Guards, and not vice versa. But there were no armed conflicts. Perhaps the reason for the lynching that the "twelve" seek to arrange over Vanka is that he is a thief? However, theft and robbery then - a mass phenomenon. This way of enrichment was not closed to the "twelve", although they preferred to rob only wine cellars. But they obviously envy Vanka's "wealth" and therefore call him "bourgeois". So the envy of Vanka's "wealth" is undoubtedly present in the "twelve". But she is not the reason for the hostility, moreover, the hatred of the Red Guard patrol for him. The reason is something or someone else.
Was Katya's murder accidental? Petka commits it in a state of passion, the rest of the patrolmen were not going to kill her. But they do not grieve, but perceive what happened with purely criminal cynicism:
What, Katya is happy? - No hoo...
Lie down, you carrion, in the snow!
But no "music of the revolution" can, however, relieve the mental anguish of the "poor murderer" Petrukha. If there had been a policeman who would have dragged him to the station, it would probably have been easier for him. But during the Revolution there are no policemen, the Red Guard patrol is itself a representative of the revolutionary order, and therefore Petka is alone with his pain before God. An attempt to forget himself in a drunken spree leads him only to "mortal boredom", to spiritual devastation. Comrades do not understand him. For them, stepping over blood is not a crime, but communion with the truth of the Revolution. “Among them there are those,” Blok wrote in the article “The Intelligentsia and the Revolution,” “who go crazy with lynching, cannot stand the blood that they shed in their darkness ...”. Here is one of those Petka. He is tormented, he wants enlightenment, and he is offered to keep the “revolutionary step”. And yet from this torment of the “poor murderer” Petka is a thin thread to Christ, not to what appears in the finale, but to the real, gospel.
etc.................
Ideological and artistic originality of A. Blok's poem "The Twelve"
Candidate Ped. Sciences, Associate Professor KFU
The poem "The Twelve" marked a new stage in his work. Written in the first winter after the October Revolution, it surprised contemporaries with its unusual content and form. “Immortal as folklore,” O. Mandelstam, a contemporary of Blok, assessed the poem in this way.
In the poem "The Twelve" Blok pointed out the question of the spiritual essence of the arbiters of the new history of the 20th century. In the center of the poem "The Twelve" is the state of human souls. The main internal theme of the poem is the question of faith, conscience, the precariousness of convictions, the Russian reckless inclination to sin and repentance.
The problematics of the poem demanded an update of the aesthetic arsenal, a qualitatively different artistic expressiveness. The author sets out to convey the "music of the revolution". He seeks to find a new form that best matches the content of the poem. The many-voiced noise of the revolutionary city breaks into it with its rhythms, sounds, its songs.
A. Blok's poem "The Twelve" traces the traditions of oral folk poetry.
Just as in a Russian folk tale there is a fairy-tale "two-world", in which there is "one's own" world (the kingdom of the hero) and a "foreign" world (the kingdom of the enemy), so in Blok's poem the real world is divided into two contrasting halves. A concrete manifestation of reality is “bourgeois at the crossroads”, “hungry dog”, brothel, officer debauchery, “disassembly” with a knife blow, the murder of an officer, a priest, etc. The polar world found its expression in the “holy” beginning of the revolution - the image Christ associated with the idea of renewal.
Blok's small poem, due to the presence of ambiguous, symbolic details in it, strikes with the depth of insight.
The action of the poem takes place "In all God's world" against the backdrop of raging natural elements. Noises, rhythms, voices of Russia embraced by a revolutionary whirlwind were brilliantly embodied by Blok in the poem.
There are images of wind, snow and blizzards in the poem. These images are symbols not only of the raging elements, but also of future changes. It seems that everything is mixed up, spun in a whirlwind. There is chaos and disorder all around, where there is a battle between good and evil, black (the old world) and white (the new world). The raging natural element of snow takes the heroes away from the comfort of home, from love and passion to another world - cruel, cold, requiring courage.
In "The Twelve" the element itself sounds. Here are her musical themes, her rhythmic play, dissonances and contrasts. The rhythmic structure of the poem is based on the colloquial-song system of Russian folk speech. These are ditties, and popular prints, and crying, and lamentations. They are adjoined by urban romance and march. "Twelve" is Blok's most unconventional work.
The poem has real and metaphorical plans. The procession of twelve sailors is really a movement along the snow-covered streets, but also symbolic - as the path of revolution and history.
Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
A person does not stand on his feet.
Wind, wind -
In all God's world!
The "old world" is present in the poem in the form of a bourgeois and the image of a dog, rootless, lonely and feral. The twelve are fused into a single, monolithic image, because the elements are embodied through them. Their unity is expressed in gait.
Blok does not close his eyes to the rampant elements. Her cruelty causes an internal protest in him. But there is simply no other way than through tragedy, through "sin". The violent freemen with robbery and drunkenness are perceived by the poet not as the personal fault of the barbarians, but as their tragic misfortune.
Cosmic and earthly, worldly and worldly are inseparable in the poem. The elements of nature echo the human, human storms evoke reciprocal winds in the surrounding world. After Katya's death: “Something blizzard broke out, oh, blizzard, oh, blizzard! Not to see each other at all for four steps!” A raging snowstorm makes Petrukha remember, exclaim: “Oh, what a blizzard, Savior!” But the comrades again correct him: “- Petka! Hey, don't lie! Why did the golden iconostasis save you? You are unconscious, really, judge, think sensibly - or are your hands not covered in blood because of Katya's love? And again the refrain - it is addressed not only to Petrukha - to all the soldiers of the Red Guards, to the entire rebellious people: “Keep the revolutionary step! The restless enemy is near!” And in confirmation - persistent, imperious, obliging, on behalf of History - a three-fold call to exert strength: "Forward, forward, forward, working people!"
An important place in the poem is occupied by the idea that there is freedom, but there is still no holy beginning:
Freedom, freedom
Eh, eh, no cross!
The heroes of Blok go "without a cross." But at the head of them, the poet sees none other than Jesus Christ. The author wanted to embody the symbol of the new world in the image of Christ, bringing moral purification to humanity, the age-old ideals of humanism. Blok draws an analogy between the era of the collapse of tsarist Russia and the era of the death of Rome, when the legend of Christ arose as the herald of a new world religion. Christ, the symbol of the renewal of life, was to act as such a herald in the poem. But for the majority of the real Red Guards, Christ was in fact identified with the religion and tsarism against which they fought.
Blok himself felt the lack of persuasiveness of the image of Christ in the text of The Twelve. However, it was in this way that he concluded his work. It was in the image of Christ that Blok embodied both his expectation of the revolution, and his faith in its purifying power, and his disappointment in it, and the acquisition of a new faith - faith in the moral rebirth of people.
Blok wrote: “When I finished, I myself was surprised: why Christ? But the more I looked, the more clearly I saw Christ. And then I wrote down at my place: "Unfortunately, Christ."
In the plot of the poem, one can see similarities with the biblical legend. The new era, in Blok's understanding, is the renewal of public consciousness: instead of pagan beliefs and sacrifices to the gods, a new faith has been established, associated with the need for universal equality. On the one hand, an obsolete world deserves to be destroyed. The poet rejoices that this ugly world is being replaced by something new, perhaps more perfect. On the other hand, this affirming new in some details is inextricably linked with the past. That's why:
Anger, sad anger
Boiling in the chest...
Black malice, holy malice...
A detachment of twelve Red Guards, associated with the apostles, does terrible deeds on its way: the murder of Katya, robbery and stabbing. This shows their connection with the old world - the world of the wild, unbridled, evil:
And they go without the name of a saint
All twelve - away,
Ready for everything
Nothing to be sorry
Blok does not accept the moral squalor of the twelve Red Guards, but that is precisely why he puts Jesus Christ at their head. Christ in the poem acts as a symbol of the new, a symbol of the spiritual renewal of the nation.
The Red Guards are not yet aware of the renewal that, according to the poet, they bring to the people, but they undoubtedly bring it. That's why
Ahead - with a bloody flag
And invisible behind the blizzard
And unharmed by a bullet
With a gentle step over the south,
Snowy scattering of pearls,
In a white corolla of roses -
In front is Jesus Christ.
The chapters of the poem are heterogeneous, but in general, this stylistic disunity is intended to give a real reflection of reality. In the poem, you can find elements of folklore, prison lyrics, ditties, vulgarisms. Here, next to the revolutionary pathos, the elements of the declassed lower classes freely “get along”, and all manifestations of life are taken in some minor details, as in real reality.
wrote about the poetic richness of Blok's poem: "Immersed in his native element of the popular uprising, Blok overheard her songs, spied on her images ...".
During the period of writing the poem, Blok was especially interested in urban folklore, he recorded the voices of the city streets he heard. Here are the turns of modern vernacular (even abuse), and the traditional song vocabulary. Familiar words and vulgarisms ("electrical", "junkerier", "already") determine the social coloring of the characters' language.
Blok sought to convey "the music of street words and expressions". He heard the sounds of this music in everything: "in passion and creativity, in the popular revolt and in scientific work, in the revolution." The music of the revolution is conveyed in the poem not only by the elements of vernacular, with which the scenes on the Petrograd bridges are saturated. In place of "earthiness" comes oratorical pathos.
Lines from "The Twelve" returned to folk speech: the poet penetrated so deeply into its specificity. Many formulas of the poem sounded like proverbs and sayings: “Wind, wind - in all God's world!”, “What did the golden iconostasis save you from?” The slogans of the poem could be seen on the Red Army banners, posters and armored trains. "Twelve" is Blok's pinnacle achievement in mastering folklore.
In folk oral poetry, the symbolism of numbers is traditional. Often there are words that are multiples of three and reflect the ancient mythological thinking of people: 3,6,9,12. Twelve is the key number of the poem, and many associations can be associated with it. First of all, it is twelve hours - midnight, twelve months - the end of the year. It turns out some kind of “borderline” number, since the end of an old day (or year), as well as the beginning of a new one, is always overcoming a certain milestone, a step into an unknown future. For A. Blok, the fall of the old world became such a boundary. It's not clear what's ahead. Probably, the “global fire” will soon spread to all things.
Another numerical association is the twelve apostles. This is indirectly indicated by the names of two of them - Andryukha and Petrukha. Let us also recall the story of the Apostle Peter, who denied Christ three times in one night. But with A. Blok, the opposite is true: Petrukha returns to the faith three times in one night and retreats again three times. In addition, he is the killer of his former lover.
Wrapped a scarf around his neck -
No way to recover.
The musicality of the poem is expressively conveyed by its rhythm. The impetuousness and at the same time the complexity of moving forward are emphasized by the impulsive and difficult rhythm, as if the poem itself is in motion, in constant interruptions. The rhythm of the verse changes all the time, emphasizing the turbulent changeability of life itself, corresponding to the depicted episode. When a detachment of twelve Red Guards enters the poem, the rhythm becomes clear, marching. The change of rhythm causes the extraordinary dynamics of the verse. Thanks to the energy of rhythm, literally every word “works”. Blok wrote: “The power of rhythm raises the word on the spine of a musical wave...”
The language of the poem combines the usual for the former book vocabulary with the common people, "street" dialect, slang expressions. The poet uses words from folk songs, ditty forms of verse. Inserts real slogans of those days into the text:
From building to building
The rope is stretched.
On the rope - poster:
"All power to the Constituent Assembly!"
The range of vocabulary is unusually wide - from solemn intonations:
Revolutionary keep step!
The restless enemy does not sleep!
to gross vulgarisms:
wore gray leggings,
Chocolate "Mignon" ate,
I went for a walk with the cadet -
With the soldier now went!
“The poem The Twelve, however, managed to make a hole in the broad crowd, the crowd that had never read Blok before. The poem "The Twelve" was identified by this crowd by ear, as related to it in its verbal construction, verbal phonetics, which could hardly be called "bookish" at that time and which rather approached the ditty form. Despite the poet’s creative silence, his popularity, thanks to the “street” phonetics of The Twelve, grew from day to day, ”Shklovsky assessed the artistic originality of the poem.
Blok's poem "The Twelve" was the result of Blok's knowledge of Russia, its rebellious elements, and creative potential.
Literature
1. Alexander Blok. Collected works in six volumes - L .: Fiction., 1982. - V. 5. - S. 248.
2. Zhirmunsky Alexander Blok. Overcoming symbolism. M., 1998.
3. Kling O.: the structure of the “novel in verse”. Poem "Twelve". M., 1998.
4. Orlov Block - M .: "Tsentrpoligraf", 2001. - S. 533-534. - 618 p.
5. Shklovsky table // Shklovsky account: Articles - memories - essays (1914-1933). M .: Soviet writer, 1990. S. 175.
6. Etkind of A. Blok's poem "The Twelve" // Russian Literature. 1972. No. 1.
"Twelve" is a poem of revolution. Not only and not so much a poem describing the general atmosphere that reigns in a country that is dying after the revolution, but a poem of a revolution in the dying soul of the poet himself. This poem is a mockery of the "revolution". Blok in every word, in every sound makes fun of the bloody revelry of the elements in impotent rage:
Anger, sad anger
Boiling in the chest...
Black malice, holy malice...
He himself cannot influence the historical course of events in any fundamental way, he cannot (or does not want to) "say in an undertone: "Traitors! Russia is dead!" He desperately laughs at the discrepancy between the ideals set by the "revolution" and the surrounding reality. He laughs evilly at the representatives of the old world - priests, bourgeois, ladies - everyone who brought the country to a revolutionary situation, and at the representatives of the so-called "new" world - insignificant individuals who can fight only with street girls and with shadows in the doorways:
Revolutionary keep step!
The restless enemy does not sleep!
Comrade, hold the rifle, don't be afraid! Let's fire a bullet at Holy Russia...
Eh, eh!
Having fun is not a sin!
Lock up the floorsToday there will be robberies!
Open cellars -Walking now nakedness!
A cigarette in the teeth, a cap is crushed,
On the back you need an ace of diamonds!
"Freedom, freedom, eh, eh, without a cross!" - sounds like a wild, robber cry. It is no coincidence that the author noted that “there should be an ace of diamonds on the back” - such a patch of red or yellow fabric was sewn on the back of convicts. These people "go without the name of a saint...":
What saved you from
Golden iconostasis?
Unconscious you, right,
Judge, think sensibly -
Ali's hands are not in the blood ...
They pass like the elements, they rush like a blizzard, they obey only the inner desire for destruction: “We will fan the world fire to all the bourgeoisie.” The author constantly compares the driving forces of the revolution with a blind element that destroys everything in its path:
Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
A person does not stand on his feet.
Wind, wind -
In all God's world!
Something blizzard broke out
Oh, blizzard, oh, blizzard!
Can't see each other at all!
In four steps!
The poem consistently uses an artistic technique based on the effect of contrast. It immediately catches the eye that the visual range is based on the alternation of motifs of night darkness and snow blizzard. This color symbolism is clear in its meaning. It marks two vital historical beginnings: low and high, lies and truth, past and future - everything that opposes both in the whole world and in every human soul. This symbolism is socially clarified, in it is a reflection and artistic generalization of real historical phenomena.
What is a snowstorm in The Twelve if not an image of "historical weather", an image of the upheaval itself and the chaos it brought? Black evening and white snow embody in their contrast the historical storm that shook the world. White, light, snowy triumphs at the end of the poem, where it completely defeats the impenetrable darkness from which the twelve emerged. Here the author veiledly prophesies the victory of the white, light force over the black-red chaos brought by the element to which the twelve belonged.
"Twelve" is a complete triumph of the elements. She is the main character of the poem. Both the poem itself and the elements in it are united and synthetic, although independent characters with their own individual traits act within it.
Twelve Red Guards make their way through a fierce blizzard; they are “ready for anything”, they “sorry for nothing”, they are wary; they are driven forward by instinct, but they still do not fully understand the whole meaning of their struggle, their "powerful step" into the future. They are still newborns in this struggle, born together with the "new" world, born by this "new" world itself.
In the heroes of the poem, who selflessly stormed the old world, perhaps more from the anarchist “freemen” (active in the October days) than from the vanguard of the Petrograd working class, which, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, ensured the victory of the revolution.
The feeling of the "take-off" of the revolution with enormous force was reflected in "The Twelve" in the motifs of a night blizzard, gusty, sharp wind, whirling snow. These motifs run through the whole poem like the main theme in a symphony. At the same time, the wind, snow blizzard, blizzard as dynamic images of the rebellious, raging elements in The Twelve acquire a different meaning in relation to different characters of the poem. For the shadows and debris of the old world, the evil and cheerful (gloating) wind is a hostile force, ruthlessly sweeping them out of life, but for the twelve, it is their native element, they are like a product of this wind, they are the brainchild of chaos, striving for destruction. This twelve blizzard is not terrible, not dangerous.
The red flag appears at the end of the poem, it - this symbol of the revolution - here becomes the symbol of the new cross of Russia. The country is at a crossroads - "behind the hungry dog", and ahead of the supposedly "bright future". There is an opinion that Christ, at the head of the Red Guards, blesses the revolution, its ultimate goals and ideals. But the fact of the matter is that it is not at the head - nowhere in the poem it is said about this - but "ahead". We are simply accustomed to perceive that ahead, with a red flag - that means, at the head, but here the situation is different: the flag here personifies the new cross of Christ, the new cross of Russia, and Christ is not at the head, but he is led - led to execution, to new crucifix...
"Why did you come to disturb us? For you have come to disturb us, and you yourself know it. But do you know what will happen tomorrow? Who are you? Is that you? Or just a likeness of it. But tomorrow I will condemn and burn you at the stake, as the worst of heretics, and the same people who today kissed your feet, tomorrow, at my one wave, will rush to rake coals to your fire. Do you know this? Yes, maybe you know that...” This is Dostoevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov”, a dialogue between the Grand Inquisitor and Jesus Christ.
No one needs His help, no one needs His blessing: “From what did the golden iconostasis save you?” What kind of "moral blessing" can we talk about when "... they go without the name of a saint ... they are ready for anything ...". These twelve do not need anyone's blessing, just as those who made the revolution did not need it either. It was just that at that time it was convenient to use the verses of such a great poet in their favor, in order to justify the revolution and bloody lawlessness, and after all, Blok himself said that there was absolutely no politics in his poem.
He loved everyone, he loved Russia and the more painfully experienced its political, economic and spiritual crisis. Blok lived through all the events that took place in Russia, together with the country. He, along with his Rus, suffered, froze, starved. Therefore, Blok in his poem feels the mood and experience of each character and accurately conveys the emotions of each. The author constantly emphasizes how far the "high" ideas of the revolution are from earthly life:
A rope is stretched from building to building.
On the rope poster:
"All power to the Constituent Assembly!"
The old woman is killed - crying,
He won’t understand what it means, what is such a poster for,
Such a huge patch? How many footcloths would come out for the guys,
And everyone is undressed, undressed ...
In the October upheaval, the poet heard only one "music" - the thunderous music of the catastrophic collapse of the old world, which he had foreseen and expected for so long. Yes, he was waiting, but rather not so much the collapse of the world itself, but rather changes in the psychology of people, changes in human consciousness, improvements in the world not due to its fracture and redistribution, but due to internal changes in each person, that is, changing the world due to changing the person. Therefore, Blok perceived the bloody upheaval proclaimed by the socialist revolution as a sudden onslaught, but already predicted and expected element. The revolution, according to Blok, is universal, universal and unstoppable. It was embodied for him with the greatest fullness in the image of an unstoppable "world fire" that broke out in Russia and will flare up more and more for a long time, transferring its centers to both the West and the East - until "until it blazes and burns the old world is gone."
In January 1918, A. Blok created his most famous poem - he creates it in a few days, in a single inspired impulse. Usually demanding of himself, he, evaluating his creation, writes: "Today I am a genius." The poem, published in February, evoked stormy and contradictory responses. She was talked about everywhere. Much in it seemed unacceptable to fellow writers. It was greeted with an outburst of indignation by the Russian intelligentsia. Bunin attacked the author with angry criticism, some of his friends turned away from him. But, despite this, Blok's poem rightfully took its place in the history of Russian literature.
In The Twelve, Blok captured the image of the revolution in which he believed, which was revealed to him in the glow of fires, in snowstorms, in the breath of Russia. The author showed in his poem the revolution as a cleansing fire, in the fire of which everything old must be destroyed:
We are on the mountain to all bourgeois
Let's fan the world fire
World fire in the blood -
God bless!
In every line we hear the music of the revolution - the one that Blok called for listening to "with the whole body, with the whole heart, with the whole consciousness." But he no longer has an incomprehensible and barely audible rumble, as in his early poems, but a powerful symphony of time: the laughter and crying of a blizzard, fragments of revolutionary songs, shots, the steps of the Red Army.
The creative method of Blok the symbolist is also clearly manifested in this work of his: it is with the help of symbols that the author shows what is happening. The old, rotten world, represented by Blok's "bourgeois at the crossroads", the "long-sleeved" priest, the reactionary intellectual, contemptuously called "vitiya", is personified in the poem by a street dog:
And the old world, like a rootless dog,
Standing behind him with his tail between his legs.
The old world is like a lousy dog
Failed - I'll beat you
Blok shows post-revolutionary chaos and anarchy as an inevitable process that accompanies the great break. The revolution itself is shown in the poem in a generalized symbolic image of the universal wind, a blizzard that breaks into the life of an inhabitant:
Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
A person does not stand on his feet.
This is an element, albeit cleansing, but ruthless, destructive. And twelve Red Guards become its representatives. Nothing is said about each of them individually, but together they are a force that will destroy the world "to the ground." They themselves are very vaguely aware of what their goal is. The author shows at the beginning of the poem how much they have in common with ordinary criminals:
In the teeth - a cigarette, a cap is crushed,
Would you like an ace of diamonds on your back?
Their progress down the street should be a symbol of their evolution. At the first stage of their journey, the twelve appear as anarchists, destroyers. It costs them nothing to shoot "into holy Russia." They have only their "holy malice", but no organization. They are driven by hatred, not love for people. They are attracted by freedom - "oh, without a cross." Their movement is spontaneous, instinctive and sometimes disastrous, not only for enemies. They do not have God in the highest sense of the word: the old religion - the religion of slaves - is unacceptable to them, and they have not yet found a new one. And here the author shows a senseless, unjustified murder - this is the culmination of the action of the poem. After that, everything changes in the story. The internal shock makes the heroes realize their destiny, discard the anarchist and frivolous approach to their revolutionary activities. Playful remarks, extraneous conversations disappear, the lines acquire rigor, rhythmic precision:
Revolutionary keep step!
The red flag flies in the eyes.
A measured step is heard.
Being previously part of the elements, from now on, the twelve must fight it themselves. However, until the very end, they go “without the name of a saint,” which means that they do not understand and do not finally accept the ideals of the new life. And then Elok displays the figure of Christ, who leads the heroes with a bloody flag:
And invisible behind the blizzard
And unharmed by a bullet
With a gentle step over the wind,
Snowy scattering of pearls,
In a white wreath of roses
In front is Jesus Christ.
The image of Christ is not amenable to unambiguous interpretation. Either this is not yet recognized and recognized by God, the leader, or a victim not visible in a snowstorm, or a dumb witness and judge. Intentionally or not, the author left this unsaid in his poem. It is up to the reader and his time to decide.
In the poem "The Twelve" Blok also acted as a reformer in the field of art form. He justified the change in his usual manner by saying that it was necessary to write about the new, about the revolutionary, in a new language. Therefore, the work is a striking contrast compared to what was written earlier.
The poem consists of twelve small chapters - according to the number of title characters. At the same time, the author did not avoid the symbolist passion for the magic of numbers - after all, the mystical "loading" of the number "twelve" is well known. In addition, it was precisely so many apostles, disciples that Christ had, and biblical motifs enter the poem directly with his image. "The Twelve" can be called a dramatic poem, since the main thing in it is the action, the bearer of which is the main characters. Most of the story is made up of lines and dialogues of the characters. Each of them has his own language: a poor old woman, a lady, a writer, the Red Army. The poem is characterized by a variety of artistic and speech styles, its language includes lofty poetic and colloquial vocabulary, even vulgar. Political slogans, folklore motifs, urban romance, robber songs and ditties - the author seems to be trying to express all the polyphony of the street using various genres of artistic speech. The rhythm and size of the verse are also varied: from ditty to marching, from four-foot trochaic to dolnik.
The combination of different speech styles, genres, rhythms, the very dramatic form of the poem allowed Blok to express, embody what he called "the music of the revolution", its polyphony, spontaneity. The poet strove for the unity of content and form, and his poem is a vivid confirmation of this. At the same time, Blok does not avoid the usual symbolist techniques and methods.
In his poem, the author tried to reflect as accurately as possible what he saw and felt. His point of view may not be accepted by everyone. In principle, art does not require recognition of its images as reality, and even more so, as the only possible truth. The poem "The Twelve" can be interpreted in different ways, especially now that Blok's dying words have become known that the poem should be destroyed as a failure. I believe that the poet sacredly believed, wanted to believe in what he wrote, in the greatness and nobility of the plans and ways of the revolution, but already in 1921 he managed to see how far his dreams were from reality. And the poem lives on as indisputable evidence of the intense search - whether ideological or formal - of its author.
The writing
A. A. Blok's poem "The Twelve" was created in 1918. The poem was born as an inspirational impulse, harmoniously whole, but many images are unclear to the poet himself, which only proves the complexity and depth of the work. The poem was published in the Znamya Truda newspaper on February 18, 1918.
The poem "The Twelve" is characterized by a combination of realistic and symbolic principles. The content of the poem is history. Blok sought to capture a turning point in the development of Russian history. This determines the genre and poetics. Images, details, without losing their concreteness and realism, acquire a generalizing and symbolic meaning, which is typical for all of Blok's work.
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok is a brilliant master of the word, one of the first Russian poets who managed to hear and pour into verse the “music of the revolution”. In the poem "The Twelve" Blok tried to capture such an unusual, stormy and interesting time.
The composition of the poem is quite complex, but extremely important for the perception and understanding of the work. Let's try to consider it.
Important for the perception of the composition of the poem is its plot. The plot is based on a love story, the relationship between Katya and Petrukha, and his attempt to deal with Vanka. The accidental murder of Katya reflects Blok's understanding of the revolution, in which an innocent person most often dies. The murder of Katya reflects the murder of old Russia. The element is raging not only on the streets of St. Petersburg, but also in the souls of people. The main conflict of the poem - the struggle of the old - the new, light - darkness, good - evil - is reflected in the fate of the characters. The living situation in which the world's first socialist revolution is carried out enlarges the scale of the image to the world-historical one. Every detail has a symbolic meaning.
One of the compositional techniques used by A. Blok is the combination of real and symbolic plans. So, for example, the image of the wind. On the one hand, the wind is perceived as a sign of the winter of 1918, and on the other hand, the “merry wind” personifies the revolution, which A. Blok perceived as an element.
Let's take another example. It is known that the detachments patrolling Petrograd in 1918 consisted of twelve people. At the same time, the number "twelve" refers us to the biblical story of the twelve apostles. Therefore, we can say that the twelve Red Guards in the poem are not only a historical sign of the times, but also a deeply symbolic image.
Another artistic device is the circular composition of the poem. The poem consists of twelve chapters, which is also not accidental. I and XII chapters are correlated with each other. In the first chapter there is a narrowing of the real space. First it's the whole world:
Wind, vete -
In all God's world!
But buildings gradually appear, social signs of the times (the slogan "All power to the Constituent Assembly"), and finally, individual passers-by: an old woman, "bourgeois at the crossroads", "comrade priest" and others. The rope between the buildings, as it were, pulls together the real space.
In the last chapter, the reverse process occurs: space begins to expand. Moreover, not only the real space is expanding (because of the blizzard, the outlines of houses and specific details that characterize the city disappear), but also the symbolic one. Before our eyes, the lousy dog turns into a symbol of the old world:
Get off you, mangy, I'll tickle with a bayonet! The old world, like a lousy dog, Fail - I'll beat you!
The action of the rest of the chapters is enclosed in the strict framework of city streets: a patrol of twelve people is walking along Petrograd. A. Blok resorts to narrowing the space in order to show as fully and voluminously as possible the life that the country lives after the revolution. The author uses the expansion of the symbolic space in order to give the events taking place in the inner chapters a universal scale.
The poem consists of twelve chapters, this number will be repeated once again in the twelve revolutionary soldiers guarding order in Petrograd, and in a semi-allusion to the disciples of Jesus walking in front, "buried behind the houses." The poem is surprisingly musical: each chapter has its own rhythm and melody. Starting with a reckless Russian hour-carcass:
How did our guys go To serve in the Red Guard -Serve in the Red Guard -Buipu lay down his head!
They walk into the distance with a stately step ... - Who else is there? Come out! This is the wind with a red flag Played out ahead ...
Blok is not afraid to include in his work the colloquial vocabulary of a simple soldier, an old woman, a passer-by. These words are not exotic inclusions, but an essential detail of the poem. The author shows the life of revolutionary Petersburg with real heroes:
There is a lady in doodle
She turned to the other:
The snakes were crying, crying...
slipped
And - bam - stretched out.
The poem "The Twelve" is built on Blok's favorite device - the antithesis:
Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
A person does not stand on his feet.
Wind, wind -
In all God's world!
Two contrasting colors, white and black, dominate the poem. Only at the end will a red banner appear. In this poem, the revolution is presented in two colors. In the poem, Blok paints a merciless portrait of the participants and winners of the revolution:
The wind is blowing, the snow is falling. Twelve people are coming. Rifles black straps. All around - lights, lights, lights ... A cigarette in the teeth, a cap is crushed. On the back you need an ace of diamonds!
The compositional center of the poem is chapters VI and VII. In Chapter VI, Katya is murdered. The chapter is stylistically chaotic, there are many exclamations, dots, but everything is covered by one call:
Revolutionary keep step! The restless enemy does not sleep!
And in Chapter VII, we see the repentance of the killer, a lyrical motive of recollection appears, but at the end, dashing cries are already heard:
Eh, eh!
It's not a sin to have fun! ... Unlock the cellars - Now the squalor is walking!
The poet shows that the shedding of blood is an everyday event for that time.
Another compositional technique is the constantly changing size of the verse. This technique serves to accurately convey the chaos that reigned at that time in Petrograd. The poem also contains the motif of the march (“Forward, forward, working people!”), And ditties (“Eh, eh, dance! It hurts good legs!”), And the romance (“You can’t hear the noise of the city ...”), and requiem services ("God rest the soul of your servant...").
All these techniques, combined and intertwined in the poem, express the full depth of this work and the author's attitude to the events.
