Marina Tsvetaeva's poem "Motherland" was written in 1932. It can be attributed to the patriotic lyrics of the poetess. This poetic work became a pass for Tsvetaeva, she allowed the poetess to return home to Russia. But that will be later.
It so happened that Marina Tsvetaeva was forced to spend a third of her life in exile. At first she lived in France, where she studied literature. After the revolution, she was forced to emigrate with her family to Prague, and then to Paris. The poetess did not accept the utopian ideas of Bolshevism, which turned into a real tragedy for the country. In 1922, Tsvetaeva managed to obtain permission to emigrate. Together with her husband Sergei Efront and children, she left the country, which was mired in chaos and devastation, hunger and poverty.
But the calm and measured life quickly bored the poetess. Tsvetaeva began to yearn for her homeland. She dreamed of returning to Moscow again. Marina Ivanovna was not afraid of repression, bloody terror and the destruction of the intelligentsia, she wanted to return home. The decision was taken. The Tsvetaeva family began collecting documents that would allow her to return to Russia.
The poem "Motherland" became a decisive argument, because the Soviet authorities saw in it the patriotic mood of the poetess. At that time, the main task of the party was to create a myth about the greatness and invincibility of Russia and the cultivation of this idea among the common population. The Bolsheviks hoped to realize this idea through the creative works of Yesenin, Blok, Mayakovsky.
After reading the poem "Motherland", we will not find a single flattering word about the Bolshevik Party, it also does not contain its criticism. This is a memory piece. Tsvetaeva dreamed of returning to her homeland, forgetting all the horror that she had experienced during the years of the revolution. She calls Russia "far away land", which has become a foreign land for her and at the same time says that "Russia, my homeland!". The poetess is ready to step over her pride in order to return home again.
This poetic work has a rather complex structure and may seem incomprehensible at first. The patriotism of this work lies not in the glorification of Russia as a mighty power, but in the ability to accept and love it with all its shortcomings.
In the last stanza, Tsvetaeva once again emphasizes that for her homeland she is ready to lose both hands and "sign her lips on the chopping block." The poetess could not exchange the feelings of a vast country, her homeland for feelings of personal happiness and prosperity.
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Fate Marina Tsvetaeva has developed in such a way that she spent about a third of her life abroad. First she studied in France, learning the wisdom of literature, and after the revolution she emigrated first to Prague, and later to her beloved Paris, where she settled with her children and her husband Sergei Efront, a former White Guard officer. The poetess, whose childhood and youth were spent in an intelligent family, where high spiritual values were instilled in children literally from the first years of life, was horrified by the revolution with its utopian ideas, which later turned into a bloody tragedy for the whole country. Russia in the old and familiar sense ceased to exist for Marina Tsvetaeva, so in 1922, having miraculously obtained permission to emigrate, the poetess was sure that she would forever be able to get rid of nightmares, hunger, unsettled life and fear for her own life.
However, along with relative prosperity and calmness came an unbearable longing for the Motherland, which was so exhausting that the poetess literally dreamed of returning to Moscow. Contrary to common sense and reports coming from Russia about the Red Terror, arrests and mass executions of those who were once the color of the Russian intelligentsia. In 1932, Tsvetaeva wrote a surprisingly penetrating and very personal poem, which later played an important role in her fate. When the poet's family nevertheless decided to return to Moscow and submitted the relevant documents to the Soviet embassy, it was the poem "Motherland" that was considered as one of the arguments in favor of the officials making a positive decision. They saw in it not only loyalty to the new government, but also sincere patriotism, which at that time was actively cultivated among all segments of the population without exception. It was thanks to patriotic poems that the Soviet government turned a blind eye to drunken antics, unambiguous hints and criticism, believing that at this stage of the formation of the state it is much more important for the people to maintain the opinion that the Soviet Union is the best and fairest country in the world.
However, in the poem "Motherland" Tsvetaeva did not have a single hint of loyalty to the new government, as well as not a single reproach in her direction. This is a work of remembrance, permeated with sadness and nostalgia for the past. Nevertheless, the poetess was ready to forget everything that she had experienced in the post-revolutionary years, since she needed this “distant, distant land”, which, being her homeland, nevertheless became a foreign land for her.
This work has a rather complex form and is not easy to understand from the first reading. The patriotism of the poem does not lie in praising Russia as such, but in accepting it in any guise, and is ready to share the fate of its country, stating: "I will sign with my lips on the chopping block." Just for what? Not at all for Soviet power, but for pride, which, in spite of everything, Russia still has not lost, remaining, in spite of everyone and everything, a great and powerful power. It was this quality that was in tune with Tsvetaeva's character, but even she was able to humble her pride in order to be able to return home. There, where indifference, poverty, ignorance, as well as the arrest and death of her family members, who were recognized as enemies of the people, awaited her. But even such a development of events could not affect the choice of Tsvetaeva, who wanted to see Russia again, not out of idle curiosity, but out of a desire to feel like part of a huge country again, which the poetess could not exchange for personal happiness and well-being contrary to common sense.
The 17 years spent abroad (1922-1939) could not but evoke feelings of homesickness in such a vulnerable and subtle nature as Marina Tsvetaeva. In 1932, in May, the poetess wrote the poem "Motherland", the analysis of which I offer.
I'll start from afar - the poems were written in May and later the poetess had to toil and get to the grave when she, driven by the "Motherland", commits suicide. Of course, this comparison is nothing more, the month of May is not to blame for anything - such is the fate of Tsvetaeva, such were the mores of those in power who did not want to give the floor to a free voice.
The poem made its fatal contribution to the fate of the poetess. It was it that was evaluated when obtaining permission to return to the USSR. Severe examiners did not find anything indecent in him and allowed Tsvetaeva to return to her native land. They "let in" into the Union the one who glorified the Russian land, and there they drove him to suicide - isn't that cynicism?
Most critics claim that the poem "Motherland" is an example of patriotic poetry - I do not agree. The verses sing a song to the Russian EARTH, and not to the country to which the poetess returns and where rejection, oblivion and death await her. Other craftsmen to parse other people's lines to the bone say that the poems were written specifically for the return - their goal is to "appease" the Soviet authorities. Nonsense - in 1932 Tsvetaeva did not even think about returning.
These disagreements with a number of generally accepted assessments do not take away the value of the work. The complex iambic tetrameter allows you to digress from the attractiveness of the rhyme and focus on the inner content of the poem.
The distance, by which Russia is meant, beckons and calls the poetess, but only the Russian land remains the same, everything else has changed.
The last quatrain is symbolic:
You! I will lose this hand of mine,
At least two! I'll sign with my lips
On the chopping block: strife of my land -
Pride, my homeland!
The appeal to “you” is personal, which emphasizes the spiritual impulse, but at the same time Tsvetaeva calls the Motherland pride, although the lines can be interpreted as an appeal to her pride, which prevents her from returning. One way or another, but the motherland met her husband Tsvetaeva with a scaffold, a daughter with hard labor and poverty, which brought the poetess herself to the noose.
Oh, stubborn tongue!
What would be simply - a man,
Understand, he sang before me:
"Russia, my homeland!"
But also from the Kaluga hill
She opened up to me
Far away, distant land!
Foreign land, my homeland!
Distance, born like pain,
So homeland and so -
Rock that is everywhere, through the whole
Dal - I carry it all with me!
The distance that moved me near,
Dal saying "Come back
Home!" From all - to the mountain stars -
Me taking off seats!
Not without reason, doves of water,
I furrowed my forehead.
You! I will lose this hand of mine,
At least two! I'll sign with my lips
On the chopping block: strife of my land -
Pride, my homeland!
Marina Tsvetaeva is a famous Russian poet, each work of which is always unusual in its own way and filled with great power of experience, compassion, sincerity, and so on. I would like to note that Marina became one of the few women who managed to become famous thanks to the style of writing her poems.
While producing her poems, Marina Tsvetaeva never forgot about her homeland, about the place where she grew up and matured. Tarus became her small homeland, it was there that she spent her childhood and adolescence, it was there that she grew up, and found her own view of the world.
So her life happened that she had to leave after her husband abroad. It is the works written in a foreign land that are filled with special love and awe for the motherland, longing and sadness that the author experienced.
One of these works was the poem "Motherland", which perfectly reflects her love for her small homeland. Analyzing the poem, everyone will be able to see and feel what the homeland means for Tsvetaeva.
The poem "Motherland" was written after the October Revolution, at a time when this poet and her husband were in exile. It is worth noting that this emigration became forced for the author, and in it she very much yearned for her homeland.
This work perfectly shows the feelings of the poet, all this can be easily noted in the literary devices that the poem is filled with. It will also be interesting to note that the entire poem is built on the so-called antithesis, the opposition of her homeland to a foreign, cold country.
Analysis of the poem Rodin Tsvetaeva
Understanding your relationship with your native country is an important moment in the creative biography of every writer. Poets have been trying to determine their place in their homeland, the place of their homeland in the world and in their souls since the time of the Romantics, who turned to the history of their state and, against its background, reflected on the current state of affairs.
The poets of the twentieth century, who survived the revolution, observed the collapse of the national consciousness and the construction of a new ideology from scratch, especially sharply raised the issue of the relationship "I - the motherland" and "the motherland - the world", while trying not only to comprehend such relations, but also to give them some emotional evaluation - "good" or "bad". Marina Tsvetaeva often refers to this topic in her work.
The poem "Motherland" is a vivid example of how an emotional poetic assessment cannot be located on a scale between "plus" and "minus", and requires other categories of thinking. This poem is very close in mood to similar works by Blok, with whose work, as well as with him personally, the poetess was familiar. Already in the first stanza, the complexity of the task that the author takes on - to talk about the homeland - is affirmed.
The language is said to be "unyielding"; and the notion that talking about one's home country is easy is contested. The last verse of the first stanza will be repeated twice - "foreign land" in the second stanza will become part of the oxymoron "homeland - foreign land", on which the central part of the verse is built; in the finale, the homeland is called "pride". The lexical connotation of this word is important - pride in the reader is designed to evoke associations with one of the deadly sins; such sacredness intensifies the pathos of the poem. The appeal to "you" at the beginning of the last stanza in such a context can evoke associations with appeals to the biblical God; and then the lyrical heroine seems to be almost a martyr who gives her life on the chopping block for faith in the Promised Land. The poem does not have a clear plot, spatio-temporal relations are also violated.
As the author's thought develops, the space expands more and more - "Kaluga hill", "distance", "to the mountain stars", and then sharply narrows to a cinematic close-up, in which only lips and block fit. The heroine, who at the beginning affirmed that it was impossible to talk about her homeland, begins to talk about "distant" (cf. "The big is seen at a distance" - Yesenin; Gogol's statements that from Rome he "sees Russia better"). It is easier for her to talk about her homeland as a foreign land, and it is easier to come to the realization of the inseparable connection between herself and her homeland.
This idea is full of high pathos. Tsvetaeva's choice of intonational type of verse helps to fully express it. “Motherland” is a spoken verse of the oratorical type with a large number of exclamations and high vocabulary characteristic of this type (“mountain” - obviously refers to the odic tradition; “strife”, “this”), the complexity of syntactic constructions. So the author's thought finds its expression in the metrical, syntactic, lexical and intonation character of the poem.
Analysis of the poem Motherland according to plan
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“Longing for the Motherland” is a sad poem created by the famous poetess in exile, almost in exile, at a time when she was forced to leave Russia and go with her husband to Prague. A brief analysis of “Longing for the Motherland for a long time” according to the plan will help schoolchildren better understand the mood of the poetess during this period of her life and work. It can be used in literature lessons in grade 11 as the main or additional material.
Brief analysis
History of creation - due to difficult relationships with the Soviet authorities, Tsvetaeva, whose poetry was considered bourgeois and harmful, was forced to emigrate to the Czech Republic. There, in 1934, “Longing for the Motherland” was written.
Theme of the poem- nostalgia for the Motherland, sadness from separation from her.
Composition- the work is distinguished by a special rhythm characteristic of Tsvetaeva's poems. It creates a linear composition with gradually increasing tension.
Genre- a lyric poem.
Poetic size- tetrameter iambic.
epithets – “exposed hassle”, “bazaar purse”, “captive lion”, “human environment”, “Kamchatka bear”, “sharp detective”.
Comparisons – “like a hospital or a barracks”, “like a log”.
History of creation
The revolution became a difficult period in the life of the Russian nobility and intelligentsia. We can assume that Marina Tsvetaeva was lucky - she was not shot, branded as an enemy of the people, and not sent to the camp. But the fate of the silent poetess, who is not published anywhere and who does not perform anywhere, seemed to her even worse than such punishments. She supported her husband's decision to leave for Prague in 1922, but life in a foreign land also did not please her. The Czech Republic never became her home, she constantly yearned for Russia. The poetic expression of her nostalgia was the poem "Longing for the Motherland", written in 1934.
The idea expressed in it that, at the sight of a reminder of Russia, the poetess really wants to return, five years later will come true - in 1939 Tsvetaeva will indeed come to the USSR, but two years later she will commit suicide. And it seems that the premonition of this begins to haunt the poetess even when writing “Longing for the Motherland”.
Topic
The main theme of the poem is expressed in the first line - it is nostalgia for Russia. The poetess clearly makes it clear that she does not believe in a happy ending to her story, she cannot give up her convictions and become a supporter of the new government. But that doesn't mean she doesn't miss home—a home that no longer exists and where she would still like to return.
Composition
It develops linearly - from the first stanza, where Tsvetaeva expresses the idea that she doesn’t care where she is alone, to the last, in which she admits that she still misses her homeland a lot. From quatrain to quatrain, she reveals the idea of hopelessness and despair - if at one time she really felt sad for the places she had left, then over time this sadness became more and more like indifference. The poem comes to the conclusion that the poetess lives in memories. And at the same time, although she understands that there is no and cannot be a return to the past, and the gloomy reality has erased all joy from her life, Tsvetaeva cannot help but feel sad at the sight of a reminder of the places she left. The emotional and accusatory tone from which it all begins, gradually turns into a really sad one.
Genre
It is easy to recognize a lyrical poem in the work. Tsvetaeva, on behalf of his heroine, expresses her own feelings: she is really very attached to her Motherland, she misses Russian speech, familiar landscapes. And, it seems, she already understands that this will destroy her.
The four-foot iambic, common to her work, makes it possible to best convey Tsvetaeva's spiritual impulses due to its simplicity. The reader immediately feels all the emotions that are embedded in the poem.
means of expression
Compared to other works by Marina Tsvetaeva, this one uses quite a few artistic means. Mainly epithets- “exposed trouble”, “bazaar purse”, “captive lion”, “human environment”, “Kamchatka bear”, “sharp detective” - and comparisons- “like a hospital or a barracks”, “like a log”.
The emotional mood of the poetess expresses with the help of rhymes that are out of the general order, uneven, almost nervous presentation and due to exclamation marks used in large quantities.
The vivid narrative is very tense, and this tension is growing and growing - the poem almost screams, until at some point it sinks to quiet sadness, when the poetess talks about her beloved mountain ash, which she sees as a symbol of Russia.
The poetess has never been a cosmopolitan, and she expresses this idea very clearly - if not in her homeland, then she doesn’t care where to be lonely and “where to humiliate herself”.
Poem Test
Analysis Rating
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