Millions of you. We are darkness, and darkness, and darkness.
Try it, fight with us!
Yes, we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians
with slanted and greedy eyes!

For you - centuries, for us - single hour.
We, like obedient serfs,
Holding a shield between two hostile races
Mongols and Europe!

For centuries, centuries, your old forge forged
And drowned out the thunder, avalanches,
And wild tale was a failure for you
And Lisbon and Messina!

You have looked to the East for hundreds of years
Saving and melting our pearls,
And you, mocking, considered only the term,
When to point the cannons!

Here, the time has come. Trouble beats with wings
And every day resentment multiplies,
And the day will come - there will be no trace
From your Paestums, perhaps!

O, old world! Until you die
While you languish in sweet flour,
Stop, wise one like Oedipus,
Before the Sphinx with an ancient riddle!

Russia - Sphinx. Rejoicing and mourning
And covered in black blood
She looks, looks, looks at you
And with hatred, and with love! ...

Yes, love like our blood loves,
None of you love!

Have you forgotten that there is love in the world,
Which burns and destroys!

We love everything - and the heat of cold numbers,
And the gift of divine visions
Everything is clear to us - and the sharp Gallic meaning,
And the gloomy German genius...

We remember everything - Parisian streets hell,
And the Venetian coolness,
Lemon groves distant aroma,
And the smoky masses of Cologne...

We love the flesh - and its taste, and color,
And the stuffy, mortal flesh smell...
Are we guilty if your skeleton crunches
In our heavy, tender paws?

We are used to grabbing by the bridle
Zealous horses playing
Break horses heavy sacrum,
And to pacify the obstinate slaves ...

Come visit us! From the horrors of war
Come to peaceful embrace!
Before it's too late - the old sword in the scabbard,
Comrades! We will become brothers!

And if not, we have nothing to lose,
And treachery is available to us!
Ages, centuries will curse you
Sick late offspring!

We are wide through the wilds and forests
Pretty before Europe
Let's part! We will turn to you
With your Asian face!

Go everyone, go to the Urals!
We clear the battlefield
Steel machines, where the integral breathes,
With the Mongolian wild horde!

But we ourselves are no longer a shield for you,
From now on, we will not enter the battle ourselves,
We will see how the mortal battle is in full swing,
With your narrow eyes.

We won't move when ferocious hun
In the pockets of corpses will fumble,
Burn the city, and drive the herd to the church,
And fry the meat of white brothers! ...

AT last time— come to your senses, old world!
To the fraternal feast of labor and peace,
For the last time to a bright fraternal feast
Calling the barbarian lyre!

Analysis of the poem "Scythians" by Blok

A. Blok's poem "Scythians" is usually regarded as an expression of his hostile position against the West. This does not take into account the time of creation of the work. Blok wrote it at the end of January 1918, at the height of the peace talks. The poet's diaries show that he great attention related to the negotiations and fully shared the position Soviet government about universal peace without annexations and indemnities. The negotiations showed that Germany would never give up the occupied territories and would demand more. Blok expressed his indignation in a poem.

The work is based on an ongoing dispute: Europe or Asia is Russia. The main thing is not territorial, but cultural affiliation. Poet with full confidence declares: "We are Asians." Eastern culture is very different from Western. In Asia, the passage of time is perceived in a completely different way. Separate historical events not attached of great importance. In the East, the contribution of a whole people to history is valued, which can only be understood using a large time period (“for you - centuries, for us - a single hour”).

Therefore, the poet considers the entire history of Russia, leading it from the Scythians. This people was not a direct ancestor of the Russians, but had some things in common with the Slavs. cultural traits. Blok rightly believes that Russia has held back the invasion for centuries. nomadic peoples to the West, while she herself adopted many elements Eastern culture. The central episode of this containment is Tatar-Mongol yoke. Having got bogged down in Russia, the conquerors could not continue their victorious campaign. Europe has never appreciated the role of the Russian people and, at any opportunity, was the first to start a war with them. Russia, "drenched in black blood", repelled attacks from both sides. At the same time, she experienced both hatred and love for an ungrateful neighbor. Blok believes that the fusion of Eastern and Western culture spawned completely special type people capable of experiencing feelings that have long since died out in Western civilization.

The poet is not a supporter of the war. He is ready to greet Europeans like brothers. At the same time, he recalls that the fury of all generations of the Eastern hordes still boils in Russian blood. The answer to Western aggression will be the opening eastern border(“From now on, you will not have a shield”). A new invasion of the "fierce Huns" will turn Europe into ruins. The Russians will take on the role of a dispassionate observer.

In the last stanza, Blok calls on Europe to come to their senses and accept the conditions of universal peace, because this call may well be the last.

The poem "Scythians" has a great philosophical meaning. Blok expresses his view on Russia's place in the history of the whole world. In the West, the victory of the Bolsheviks was perceived as a return to dark ages Middle Ages. The poet draws attention to the fact that it was the “wild barbarians” who initiated the peaceful end of the First World War. The negotiations showed who is really interested in continuing the carnage.

Scythians

Pan-Mongolism! Though the name is wild
But it pleases my ears.
Vladimir Solovyov

And every day resentment multiplies,

And the day will come - there will be no trace

From your Paestums, perhaps!

O old world! Until you die

While you languish in sweet flour,

Stop, wise one like Oedipus,

Before the Sphinx with an ancient riddle!

And covered in black blood

She looks, looks, looks at you

With hate and with love!

Yes, love like our blood loves,

None of you love!

Have you forgotten that there is love in the world,

Which burns and destroys!

We love everything - and the heat of cold numbers,

And the gift of divine visions

Everything is clear to us - and the sharp Gallic meaning,

And the gloomy German genius...

We remember everything - Parisian streets hell,

And the Venetian coolness,

Lemon groves distant aroma,

And the smoky masses of Cologne...

We love the flesh - and its taste, and color,

And the stuffy, mortal flesh smell...

Are we guilty if your skeleton crunches

In our heavy, tender paws?

We are used to grabbing by the bridle

Zealous horses playing

Break horses heavy sacrum

And to pacify the obstinate slaves ...

Come visit us! From the horrors of war

Come to peaceful embrace!

Before it's too late - the old sword in the scabbard,

Comrades! We will become brothers!

And if not, we have nothing to lose,

And treachery is available to us!

Centuries, centuries - you will be cursed

Sick late offspring!

We are wide through the wilds and forests

Pretty before Europe

Let's part! We will turn to you

With your Asian face!

Go everyone, go to the Urals!

We clear the battlefield

Steel machines, where the integral breathes,

With the Mongolian wild horde!

But we ourselves are no longer a shield for you,

From now on, we will not enter the battle ourselves,

We will see how the mortal battle is in full swing,

With your narrow eyes.

Let's not move when the ferocious Hun

In the pockets of corpses will fumble,

Burn the city, and drive the herd to the church,

And fry the meat of white brothers! ..

For the last time, come to your senses, old world!

To the fraternal feast of labor and peace,

For the last time to a bright fraternal feast

Calling the barbarian lyre!

"We will fulfill our historical mission"

The "result" of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations (that is, no result, according to Novaya Zhizn, which is indignant at the Bolsheviks). None - good. But the disgrace of 3½ years (“war”, “patriotism”) must be washed away. Poke, poke at the map, German dud, vile bourgeois. Bump, England and France. We will fulfill our historical mission. If you don’t wash away the shame of your military patriotism even with the “democratic world”, if you destroy our revolution, then you are no longer Aryans anymore. And we will open wide the gates to the East. We looked at you with the eyes of the Aryans, while you had a face. And we will look at your muzzle with our squinting, crafty, quick look; we will exchange Asians, and the East will pour on you. Your skins will be used for Chinese tambourines. Having dishonored himself, so lying, is no longer an Aryan. Are we barbarians? Okay. We will show you what the barbarians are. And our cruel answer, a terrible answer, will be the only one worthy of a person (...) Europe (its theme) is art and death. Russia is life. Block's diary entry dated January 11, 1918

see also

Links

• Wikipedia: Block, Alexander Alexandrovich
• Wikisource:
• Wikipedia:

Liberation Manifesto

With poets it is always more difficult and easier. On the one hand, it is very easy to determine when a particular work was written, since most poets put down the date of writing. On the other hand, poetic thought is so ornate and unpredictable that interpretations of what has been written lead researchers into wilds that the poor author did not even suspect.

For Alexander Blok, one of these "problematic" poems was "Scythians", which in February 2013 "turned" 95 years old.

It is known that the poem was written the day after the end of the poem "The Twelve". The day before, January 29, according to the old style, the poet brought notebook a phrase that characterizes the problems of the future poem: "Asia and Europe", as well as the formula that the Soviet delegation had just come up with at the talks with Germany in Brest: "The war is ending, peace has not been signed."

Premonition civil war

Worth paying Special attention to the fact that Alexander Blok was close to the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party. He was friends with one of the prominent Left Socialist-Revolutionary writers, Ivanov-Razumnik, published in the newspaper of this party, Znamya Truda, where, in particular, The Twelve, Intelligentsia and Revolution, and Scythians were published. Blok was even arrested at the beginning of 1919, when the Bolsheviks carried out a real raid on their former allies Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Blok shared the point of view of this party on the events taking place in the country, but in his poetic worldview both these views and the surrounding reality were refracted and transformed, finding a way out through amazing and sometimes contradictory verses. Blok's extraordinary intuition found the most accurate and important definitions, which politicians and revolutionaries lacked so much.

Undoubtedly, Blok's attachment to his mentor and philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, whose ideas he does not fully accept, but absorbs and transforms, is also reflected in the poem:

We, like obedient serfs,

They held a shield between two hostile races,

Mongols and Europe!

It is here that Blok's dependence on historical concepts Vladimir Solovyov with his predictions of a new Mongol invasion. But for Solovyov, this concept is linked together with the catastrophe of the Russian autocracy, with the "crushing of the double-headed eagle" and the fall of the "third Rome." In "Scythians" we are talking about the fall of Europe, which dug its own grave aggressive ambitions and the rattling of weapons:

You have looked to the East for hundreds of years,

Saving and melting our pearls,

And you, mocking, considered only the term,

When to point the cannons!

Here is the time. Trouble beats with wings

And every day resentment multiplies ...

Undoubtedly, this also reflects the situation with the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk, which Blok recalled on the eve of writing Scythians. In the diary entry of January 11, which already contains in its main outline the concept of the future “Scythians”, it is about the entire European bourgeoisie: “Poke, poke at the card, German duds, vile bourgeois. Bump, England and France. We will fulfill our historical mission... If you destroy our revolution, then you are no longer Aryans anymore. And we will open the gates to the East wide ... We looked at you with the eyes of the Aryans, while you had a face, and we will look at your muzzle with a squinting, crafty, quick look. We will exchange Asians, and the East will pour on you. Your skins will be used for Chinese tambourines. The one who dishonored himself is no longer an Aryan. Are we barbarians? Okay. We will show you what the barbarians are. If you don’t wash away the shame of your military patriotism at least with the “democratic world”, if you destroy our revolution, then you are no longer Aryans anymore.

In the Socialist-Revolutionary newspaper Znamya Truda, the poem appeared on February 20, 1918, in the days German offensive, which Soviet authority so far, there was nothing to oppose. The revolutionaries were more occupied with the controversy, whether to make peace or decide on " revolutionary war”, which, according to Lenin, looked like a perfect gamble.

Blok perceived what was happening from a romantic point of view, in abstract categories, abstracted from reality.

“No more Realpolitik,” he writes in his diary on 21 February. - It remains to "fly". And this strange euphoria of flight at that moment captured all the leaders of the Left SRs. Apparently, that is why they published Scythians so quickly and with enthusiasm, and they perceived some of Blok’s lines as a utopian program of real actions:

We are wide through the wilds and forests

Pretty before Europe

Let's part! We will turn to you

With your Asian face!

Go everyone, go to the Urals!

We are clearing the battlefield.

Steel machines, where the integral breathes,

With the Mongolian wild horde!

“It is touching to 'revolt' rather than 'fight' (Left SRs)," Blok notes in his diary to those who think that Blok 'himself' is at one with them.

We must also remember that at that time there was a gap between Blok and the majority of the intelligentsia, who did not accept his article "The Intelligentsia and Revolution", not to mention the poem "The Twelve".

"Per recent times Block wrote whole line poems in the Bolshevik spirit, reminiscent of soldiers' songs in the provincial garrisons. The fact that Blok sympathizes with Bolshevism is his own business ... but why write bad poetry? When a girl is loved, they bring her gold (!!) and flowers as a gift, and no one brings a potato peel” (newspaper “Petrogradskoye Ekho”).

Scythian Brotherhood

But this refers to what has already been written, already spoken. The prerequisites for the appearance of the "Scythians" must be sought much earlier. At the beginning of the 20th century, ten years before the revolution, poets experimenting with pro-Western aesthetic doctrines - symbolism, imaginism - suddenly drew attention to the Asian features of Russia.

"Scythianism" was most likely perceived as a rejection of the old, exhausted culture. We needed an exit. Poets were among the first to feel this and were constantly looking for solutions to the problem. Scythian in this case a man of the ancient, still pre-Russian world - the forerunner and symbol of the future Russia.

Both Alexander Herzen and Apollon Grigoriev called themselves Scythians. Bryusov, Balmont, Sologub, Khlebnikov, Prokofiev wrote on the "Scythian" theme ("Scythian Suite"). Maximilian Voloshin said: "Our wild field is wide, our Scythian steppe is deep." And Ivanov-Razumnik, back in 1912, took the literary pseudonym "Scythian". Nikolai Klyuev, for example, wrote about the "soul of a peasant's paradise", calling it "My land, White India, full of Asian secrets and wonders." The theme of Kitezh-grad, which occupied so much important place, was related not only to Russia, but also to the East - Asia, to which he "undividedly attributed post-revolutionary Russia."

Yesenin contrasts machine, urban Europe with "Rasseya" - Asian, spontaneous, "Scythian": "our wolf, masculine, Russian, Scythian, Asian." “In that call, the Kalmyk and the Tatar / They will smell their longed-for city,” Yesenin wrote, calling the Scythians “our populist movement.”

By the way, about the Scythians. Herodotus tells that in ancient times they conquered all of Asia, reached Palestine, threatened Egypt: “For twenty-eight years the Scythians ruled over Asia, and during this time they, full of arrogance and contempt, devastated everything. Then the Medes invited most of them and, after getting drunk, killed them. The drunkenness of the Scythians became legendary. (Perhaps genes also affected here?) The same Herodotus has a story about a Hellenic who, “often communicating with the Scythians, learned from them to drink undiluted wine. And he went crazy with it." Since then, whenever they wanted to drink stronger wine, they said: "Pour it in the Scythian way."

Andrei Bely wrote in Silver Dove that both Russians and Europeans have degenerated, and only the Mongols have remained the same. In his opinion, Russia was a Mongolian country, and Mongolian blood flowed in all Russians.

And Valery Bryusov in his poem "Scythians" wrote this:

The Magi will accept me as a son.

I will compose a song for them to try.

But I will leave them in the squad.

Hey you! listen, free wolves!

Obey the call you've been waiting for!

The horses' bangs flutter,

We're on our way again.

In October 1917 peasant poet Pyotr Oreshin spoke of the Russian revolution as the triumph of Asia over Europe, spoke of the "sword of the East" and the approaching fall of Paris.

I was fond of the history of the Scythians then most of Russian intelligentsia. Ivanov-Razumnik, already mentioned above, and friend of Alexander Blok, around whom the "Scythian" writers grouped, spoke of himself as follows: "a man, a writer, a thinker, a socialist, an eternal Scythian." Scythism, as a property of a revolution and a revolutionary, became at that time the designation of boundless maximalism and intransigence of the spirit. First of all, in the confrontation with the West, which for Ivanov-Razumnik was the embodiment of the “eternally Hellenic” or “eternally petty-bourgeois” principle, the dominance of which always leads to the same thing: everything sublime dissolves into a superficial and empty philistine morality.

The "Scythians" of Blok became the apogee of such a worldview, giving him new life and support:

Millions - you. Us - darkness, and darkness, and darkness.

Try it, fight with us!

Yes - we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians!

With slanting and greedy eyes!

In August 1917, two issues of the almanac "Scythians" were published. Later, in the early 1920s, a Russian publishing house of the same name worked in exile in Berlin.

"Scythianism" embodied the sentiments that were subsequently translated into the famous call to the East, sounded in 1920 at the Congress of the Peoples of the East in Baku, where the holy war of the peoples of Asia against imperialist Europe was declared. At this congress, there were repeated calls for "the first real holy war under the red banner.

The "Scythians" of Blok is an ideological unity. They are close to the declaration that opened the first collection of the same name: “There is in this word, in its very sound, the whistle of an arrow, an intoxicated flight. There is no target against which he would be afraid to strain his bow, ! There is no prejudice that denigrates the hand when it draws; there is no God who would whisper doubts where the call of life is clear and resounding. Scythian is a brave discoverer of new paths in life, possessing a thirst for wholeness. He is an eternal rebel, devoid of historical prejudices. "Scythianism" is the eternal revolutionary spirit of an unreconciled and irreconcilable spirit. Justification of the Revolution.

Nikolai Berdyaev once wrote: “The “Scythian” ideology was a form of obsession with the revolutionary elements. A kind of pagan nationalism rooted in non-Christian or anti-Christian missionism."

And in conclusion, it must be said that Blok himself did not like the Scythians. He saw in this poem a political manifesto, and not the product of a genuine creative inspiration. It seemed to him, apparently, too declarative, too rational.

One way or another, Alexander Blok's "Scythians" are still quoted and remembered. Moreover, it seems that this poem has not lost its relevance today, forcing us not only to admire Blok’s poetic genius, but also to look back to the East and West in order to realize who is our enemy and who is our friend, and where they can lead own ambitions and indomitability.

In 1918, Alexander Blok published the poem "Scythians"

Block poem Scythians, text

Millions - you. Us - darkness, and darkness, and darkness.
Try it, fight with us!
Yes, we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians
With slanting and greedy eyes!

For you - centuries, for us - a single hour.
We, like obedient serfs,
Held a shield between two hostile races
Mongols and Europe!

For centuries, centuries, your old forge forged
And drowned out the thunder, avalanches,
And failure was a wild tale for you
And Lisbon and Messina!

You have looked to the East for hundreds of years
Saving and melting our pearls,
And you, mocking, considered only the term,
When to point the cannons!

Here is the time. Trouble beats with wings
And every day resentment multiplies,
And the day will come - there will be no trace
From your Paestums, perhaps!

Oh old world! Until you die
While you languish in sweet flour,
Stop, wise one like Oedipus,
Before the Sphinx with an ancient riddle!

Russia - Sphinx. Rejoicing and mourning
And covered in black blood
She looks, looks, looks at you
With hate and with love...

Yes, love like our blood loves,
None of you love!
Have you forgotten that there is love in the world,
Which burns and destroys!

We love everything - and the heat of cold numbers,
And the gift of divine visions
Everything is clear to us - and the sharp Gallic meaning,
And the gloomy German genius...

We remember everything - Parisian streets hell,
And the Venetian coolness,
Lemon groves distant aroma,
And the smoky masses of Cologne...

We love the flesh - and its taste, and color,
And stuffy, mortal flesh smell...
Are we guilty if your skeleton crunches
In our heavy, tender paws?

We are used to grabbing by the bridle
Zealous horses playing
Break horses heavy sacrum,
And to pacify the obstinate slaves...

Come visit us! From the horrors of war
Come to peaceful embrace!
Before it's too late - the old sword in the scabbard,
Comrades! We will become brothers!

And if not, we have nothing to lose,
And treachery is available to us!
Ages, centuries will curse you
Sick late offspring!

We are wide through the wilds and forests
Pretty before Europe
Let's part! We will turn to you
With your Asian face!

Go everyone, go to the Urals!
We clear the battlefield
Steel machines, where the integral breathes,
With the Mongolian wild horde!

But we ourselves are no longer a shield for you,
From now on, we will not enter the battle ourselves,
We will see how the mortal battle is in full swing,
With your narrow eyes.

Let's not move when the ferocious Hun
In the pockets of corpses will fumble,
Burn the city, and drive the herd to the church,
And fry the meat of the white brothers!...

For the last time - come to your senses, old world!
To the fraternal feast of labor and peace,
For the last time to a bright fraternal feast
Calling the barbarian lyre!

On January 30, 2018, the poet wrote these lines under the influence of the news that the Germans had entered the country. He considered Russia a bridge between East and West, and calls on the West to think again and not take advantage of the moment when, torn apart by contradictions after October revolution the country was weak. Russia will still rise from the ashes, and decrepit European civilization may regret that he stabbed in the back. The bloc not only threatens the West, it fears the unbridled and unpredictable reaction of the "Scythians" - no one knows what the war will turn out to be for everyone if it happens. This war will be terrible! The poet calls for peace and warns that without Russia, other evil forces will break free and then in Europe

... ferocious Hun
In the pockets of corpses will fumble,
Burn the city, and drive the herd to the church,
And fry the meat of the white brothers!...

So, the verse was written 100 years ago. Does it feel like it was just yesterday? 100 years is a turn of the spiral of history...

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A poem by Alexander Blok. This is not just a poem - it is the mystical insight of the Blok of the Russian spirit poured out in brilliant verses. In one of the last. "What courage, what determination - these are the Scythians" Napoleon at the sight of burning Moscow.

Millions - you. Us - darkness, and darkness, and darkness.
Try it, fight with us!
Yes, we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians
With slanting and greedy eyes!

For you - centuries, for us - a single hour.
We, like obedient serfs,
Held a shield between two hostile races
Mongols and Europe!

For centuries, centuries, your old forge forged
And drowned out the thunder of the avalanche,
And failure was a wild tale for you
And Lisbon and Messina!

You have looked to the East for hundreds of years,
Saving and melting our pearls,
And you, mocking, considered only the term,
When to point the cannons!

Here is the time. Trouble beats with wings
And every day resentment multiplies,
And the day will come - there will be no trace
From your Paestums, perhaps!

O old world! Until you die
While you languish in sweet flour,
Stop, wise one like Oedipus,
Before the Sphinx with an ancient riddle!

Russia - Sphinx! Rejoicing and mourning
And covered in black blood
She looks, looks, looks at you
With hate and with love!

Yes, love like our blood loves,
None of you love!
Have you forgotten that there is love in the world,
Which burns and destroys!

We love everything - and the heat of cold numbers,
And the gift of divine visions
Everything is clear to us - and the sharp Gallic meaning,
And the gloomy German genius...

We remember everything - Parisian streets hell,
And the Venetian coolness,
Lemon groves distant aroma,
And the smoky masses of Cologne...

We love the flesh - and its taste, and color,
And stuffy, mortal flesh smell...
Are we guilty if your skeleton crunches
In our heavy, tender paws?

We are used to grabbing by the bridle
Zealous horses playing
Break horses heavy sacrum
And to pacify the obstinate slaves...

Come visit us! From the horrors of war
Come to peaceful embrace!
Before it's too late - the old sword in the scabbard,
Comrades! We will become brothers!

And if not, we have nothing to lose,
And treachery is available to us!
Ages, centuries - you will be cursed
Sick late offspring!

We are wide through the wilds and forests
Pretty before Europe
Let's part! We will turn to you
With your Asian face!

Go everyone, go to the Urals!
We clear the battlefield
Steel machines, where the integral breathes,
With the Mongolian wild horde!

But we ourselves are no longer a shield for you,
From now on, we will not enter the battle ourselves,
We will see how the mortal battle is in full swing,
With your narrow eyes.

Let's not move when the ferocious Hun
In the pockets of corpses will fumble,
Burn the city, and drive the herd to the church,
And fry the meat of white brothers! ..

For the last time - come to your senses, old world!
To the fraternal feast of labor and peace,
For the last time to a bright fraternal feast
Calling the barbarian lyre!