Poems for Easter, of course, like the holiday itself, are very bright and sincere. Such poems will surely appeal to both the kids and their parents. With their help, you can congratulate every Orthodox Christian on the bright holiday of Easter. So, I offer a selection of wonderful poems for Easter.

Poems for Easter

POEM "Easter Annunciation"
S. Yesenina

The dormant bell woke the fields,
The sleepy earth smiled at the sun.
Blows rushed to the blue skies,
A voice resounds through the woods.
The white moon hid behind the river,
A roaring wave ran loudly. T
their valley drives away sleep,
Somewhere behind the road, the ringing stops.

POEM "Bells"
V. Shamonina

Good at the belfry
Ring the bells
To make the holiday more spacious,
So that the soul can sing.
Like an angel's song
This wonderful call
Bright hymn of Sunday
Sounded from all directions.

Wake up, mountains, valleys, rivers!
Praise the Lord from heaven!
He conquered death forever,
Wake up and you, green forest.
Snowdrop, silver lily of the valley,
Violet, bloom again
And send up a fragrant hymn
To the one whose commandment is love!

The grass is green, the sun is shining
A swallow with spring in the canopy flies to us.
With her, the sun is more beautiful, and spring is sweeter,
Chirp from the road hello to us soon!

POEM "The Resurrection of Christ"
Prince N. Gorchakov

I woke up and heard
Spring is knocking on the window!
Drops rush from the roof
Everywhere is light!
And it seems - not birds,
And the angels are flying.
That Easter is coming soon
They tell us.

In Russia, as the snow melts,
And in nature - silence,
Willow comes to life first
Artless and gentle.
Before Easter Sunday
They go to church with a willow,
After water blessing
Sprinkle her bear.
And hymns of praise
With a shrine in hand
Pray for a blessing
With repentance in our hearts.

Willow, willow, our palm tree -
You look very simple!
But we meet with you
The coming Christ to us.
That's why we give
Every year, in the spring, again
White willow our tenderness,
Our affection and love.

Boys yes girls
candles and willows were carried home.
The lights are glowing
passers-by are baptized, it smells of spring.
The wind is distant, the rain,
little rain, don't blow out the fire!
Palm Sunday, tomorrow
I will get up first for the Holy Day!

For Easter
Bell ringing.
Souls - wide open!
It blows with triumph
Coming Easter.
The altar is open
Until the end of the week -
The Heavenly King Himself
Shares joy with us.
I will pray in the temple
And I will go, comforted.
Will rush into my chest
Morning freshness.
Young ice
The puddles have been drawn in.
At heart - easy
From the Easter Service!
Alexey Korovin

I know for sure - He is risen!
And I know firsthand.
I read in one wonderful book,
In which there are many miracles.
But it's a miracle, I'll tell you
Under the power of God alone.
After all, only God Jesus Christ
He suffered for us and suffered death.
But having shown the teachings of love,
Christ is risen! And Sunday -
This is the miracle of miracles.
I know for sure He is risen!
Tikhonin Sergey

Listen, all people
one story
Oh Sunday of God.
Praise be to him forever!
Because He rose from the dead
And He is always with us.
Will no longer be crucified
He never again.
Our great God is risen
He rose from the grave
Sunday hope
He gave us all.

Tikhonin Sergey

Christ is risen! Saint again
It's Easter. And golden
The head of the capital shone
And my heart became sweeter:
Today the sun shines brighter
Stronger wind beats in the window,
And the cry rushes to heaven:
Christ is truly Risen!
Zhanna Kosinova

Earth and sun
Fields and forest
All praise God
Christ is risen!

In the smile of blue
living skies
All the same joy
Christ is risen!

The enmity is gone
And the fear is gone.
No more malice
Christ is risen!

How wonderful the sounds
holy words,
in which you hear:
Christ is risen!

Earth and sun
Fields and forest
All praise God
Christ is risen!
L.Charskaya

Easter
The fields are black and flat
Again I am God's and nobody's!
Tomorrow is Easter, the smell of wax,
The smell of warm cookies.

Before my life flowed like this
A bright change of exact days,
And now the rest
Somehow more joyfully.

After all, winter, spring and summer,
Easter, Lent and Christmas,
If you can get into it
In a small drop is the Divine.

Let it be petty, let it be stupid,
May we be proud
But in a sip of mushroom soup -
The joy of the same sequence.

What I remember with a sweet heart,
Let's not disgrace that.
Sweeter for us is a dull post
Sweet poison of spring dawns.

Will be trembling and vigilant
Run couples on the dew
And on Red, Red Hill
They get married like everyone else.

birthday pies,
Children, the sun ... live peacefully,
To the domina boards
The body is cute to lay down.

In this life, God's grace
Like embroidery is visible
And now you, Easter, Easter,
We are left with one.

You won't forget her
How smart you are.
Cool your warm heart -
The bells will warm up.

And they sing, bright, not strict:
Dili-bom, dili-bom bom!
You got lost on the road
So return to your home.
M. Kuzmin

I got up early this morning
I went to church with my grandmother.
Because the holiday is in the church,
And I feel good too.
The pastor is in a hurry to congratulate everyone,
The brothers want to sing songs.
Everyone rejoices and shines
And I feel good too.
To make it clear to everyone
Why are we gathered here
So let's say in rhyme:
JESUS ​​CHRIST IS RISEN!
Tikhonin Sergey

In the morning at dawn.

In the morning at dawn
Jesus has resurrected,
Praise, children
Lord of heaven!
No Christ in the tomb
The seal is broken
And the birds are chirping,
How can we be silent?
Death Winner
He brought us joy.
Praise God children
Jesus Christ lives!

I love this spring day
April wonderful day.
christ jesus resurrection
I'm not too lazy to celebrate.
After all, he, destroying all barriers,
Resurrection for me too!
With Jesus I will be forever happy,
And my whole family.

Tikhonin Sergey

EASTER MORNING

predawn haze,
The sun is about to rise
And in the cold dew
The sky is reflected.

The blood runs cold with grief
Who will lighten the burden?
Heart of God's Son
The third day does not knock.

The world is shrouded in sadness
From the dying Dawn.
Heavy stone with seal
The entrance to the Messiah was closed.

Suddenly a radiant radiance
Illuminated coffin and garden,
And lit up with amethyst
Dew on the leaves.

And the caress of the Savior
Covers the whole world again...
There are no colors in poetry
Describe this moment.

Let the words be angular
And I stand confused
But the story of the Crucified,
How do I hide in my soul?

Through hills and valleys
Remembering the will of heaven
I'll hurry with Magdalene
Proclaim: "He is risen!"
What a joyful miracle
My brother tells me.
Can they buy me a present?
Maybe something will be given?
This miracle is not simple,
Impossible to touch.
But, about this miracle, you can
To tell in our church.
Early in the morning at dawn
Jesus Christ is Risen!
Praise adults and children
Praise, angels from heaven!
Praise, all fields and mountains,
Oceans and seas!
Everyone praises today
Resurrection of the king!

Tikhonin Sergey

CHRIST IS RISEN
A miracle of miracles happened, a prophecy from heaven
And the ringing of bells brings the good news:
Christ is risen, Christ is risen, truly risen!
The people rejoice and sing, and it is heard to heaven:
"Christ is risen, Christ is risen, truly risen!"
Polina Dovzhenko

HOLIDAY!
"Happy Holidays!" - heard in the singing of birds,
And in the vastness of the universe rush
Hymns of the saved about God's majesty,
Hymns about the glorious victory of Jesus!

Bright angels flew into the garden
On a spring morning with the Easter message:
"Alive!" - and in the holy assembly in Galilee
There was no place for memorial speeches.

"Peace to you!" - Christ says, as in the past,
Faith in the hearts and love claiming
Meeting the living Jesus is possible,
Easter invites you to meet Christ.

Cross and betrayal - it was all,
He went to the resurrection through Golgotha,
To triumphantly rise from the grave,
To the tree of life open the way for us!

SONG OF JOY

Fields, hills, gardens and forest -
Everything was announced around
A beautiful song of jubilation.
Justification came true
All sinners, no more tears:
Christ rose from the tomb in the morning!
He conquered all the powers of decay
With your wonderful Sunday
Let the human race rise up all:
Christ is truly Risen!

Lugovskaya N.N.

EASTER MORNING...

Easter morning, wonderful morning,
Victory morning, Sunday morning.
Now our Savior has risen from the tomb
Sing this song over and over again
And tell it to everyone today
How great is the mercy of the Lord!

Lugovskaya N.N.

GOOD NEWS...

An angel appeared to the wives in the morning:
"There is no Jesus, only a veil
Stayed here, and He rose!” -
So the Angel happily said.
He is risen from the dead forever.
Death is not terrible for a person.
He conquered decay by Himself.
He gave heaven to us all in return.
And the angels sing from heaven;
Christ is risen! Christ is risen!

Lugovskaya N.N.

SUNDAY MORNING

The sun has risen
In the fields across the river.
Morning has come
Already blue.
The birds are chirping
In one rapture
Praise Christ
For His Sunday!
Children, you too
Praise Jesus.
That morning He dissolved
Deadly bonds!

Lugovskaya N.N.

EASTER MORNING

It's dark all around
A cluster of clouds.
A beam broke through my window.
And I sing:
Christ is risen.
In holy paradise
I have a place.
I lived in Him
He is my Shepherd.
I am a bright day
I am going home.

EASTER JOY

Happy Easter
And we sing: “Christ is risen!”
We all answer together:
"He is truly risen!"
Years go by
Under the azure sky.
And the nations sing everywhere:
"He is truly risen!"
Everywhere joy and hugs:
“Brother, sister, Christ is risen!
Hell is destroyed, there is no curse:
He is truly risen!"

V. Kuzmenkov

EASTER GREETINGS

Us through the Blagovestiv
The distant era is near:
With Maria we hear together
Easter greeting.

The time for weeping has passed
It's time to sing
- pledge of justification
We are served by the Resurrection!

Life without Christ is confusion
On noisy roads.
Easter Day - Confidence
In the promises of God.

Outside of God there is no salvation
Only darkness and eternal torment.
Christ's resurrection
– The hope of mankind!

A rainbow shines in the clouds...
So, even in times of trouble,
We are both invigorated and happy
Easter greeting!

EASTER DAY

Easter Day - The Appearance of the Living Jesus
- Not only Mary in the garden among the olives
- To all who thirst for truth and seek God,
Living at different latitudes of the earth.

Easter Day brings wonderful news.
In the Easter greeting - the cry of joy.
The Savior is risen! And gives you the opportunity
For mortal creatures to achieve immortality.

And even if we, grieving for the loss,
Saying goodbye, we stand at the grave fences,
That Easter, like the word of the Savior to Martha,
Gives birth to hope: "Your brother will rise again!"

Rejecting, as a filth, vice leaven,
Opening your mouth to Easter tunes,
We will solemnly celebrate
Easter, Revealing the Living Christ before the world!

Everything blooms, lives, smells sweet,
Grass roots break the pavement
The buds on the trees swell
Light steam curls over the fields.

About spring, birds are broadcasting a little light,
About spring, water sings in the stream ...
And again I remembered the tomb,
That remained empty forever.

I remember the stone rolled away to me,
Angel of light with a fiery face
And the words "He is risen!", which for centuries
Were connected to a loving Father.

He is risen! Christ lives today!
Death is forever conquered by Christ!
The power of the Lord's resurrection
For all believers forever given.

Birds sang about spring today.
My soul sings about spring.
The earth came to life again in April,
I lived with Christ forever.

From B. Yangfeldt's book "Language is God"

fiery anti-pagan

Joseph Brodsky was a Jew - as much as one can be: “I am absolutely, one hundred percent Jewish, that is, in my opinion, it is impossible to be more Jewish than me. And mother, and father, and so on, and so on.

The family was assimilated and non-religious, but Brodsky realized early on that he was not Russian. With post-war, state-fueled anti-Semitic sentiment, it was hard for Jews to forget who they were. “At school, being a ‘Jew’ meant a constant readiness to defend oneself,” and Brodsky had to “climb with his fists.” Thus, the person was Jewish, whether he wanted it or not, which in turn led to an identification with Jewishness.

One of the first people Brodsky met in London in the summer of 1972 was the philosopher Isaiah Berlin - they immediately and forever became friends with him. Berlin, who was born in 1909 in Riga, which was part of the Russian Empire, was also a Jew. “When we were talking to him, one Russian Jew was talking to another” — and this was natural, thought Berlin, in whose opinion this specifically Jewish community was determined historically as a result of the need to “hold on to each other”: “There were no interference - I was not an Englishman, he was not specifically Russian. It was very clear that we were of the same breed.” Meanwhile, Brodsky refused to consider his own conflicts with the authorities in the light of his Jewishness. “My problems come from the position I take, not from the fact that I am a Jew,” he explained in 1970, while still living in the Soviet Union.

Brodsky's statement that he "had never been happier than during the six-day war" sounded less like a declaration of support for the Jewish state than an expression of satisfaction that the Arab states and their patron, the USSR, were getting what they deserved. He was not a Zionist, and the fact that he never visited Israel despite numerous invitations caused great irritation in some Jewish circles. But he did not allow himself to be used for political purposes, did not want to be enrolled in a certain category. He was not a “Jew Brodsky”, but sought to define himself “more precisely than in terms of race, faith or nationality”: “First you should try to understand whether you are a coward or an honest or dishonest person. Your personality should not depend on external criteria. In other words, he was, by his own admission, a "bad Jew" and added: "And I hope a bad Russian too. I'm hardly a good American. The most I can say about myself is that I am me, that I am a writer.”

Provoking those who demanded confirmation of his own Jewishness from him, Brodsky said that he was almost more Jewish than those who, living in Israel, observe all religious rituals. In fact, he preferred the God of the Old Testament to the God of the New Testament: “the idea is grander, the idea of ​​a supreme being who does not operate on the basis of ethical, i.e. human categories, but on the basis of his own will, which is arbitrary, i.e. God is arbitrary". However, this “Jewishness” of his was not an expression of religiosity, but of a “sense of supreme justice”, which, in turn, reveals an addiction “not so much, perhaps, to ethos as to its spiritual offal,” to the writer’s activity. "... The nature of this craft in a sense makes you a Jew, Jewishness becomes a consequence." By this, Brodsky wanted to say that writers, especially poets, are always "in a position of isolation in their society" - an echo of Tsvetaev's "poets are Jews in this most Christian world."

Brodsky put the Old Testament above the New, because "the metaphysical horizon, or metaphysical intensity" is much grander in it. But he himself belongs, he emphasized, to a tradition where the difference between Christianity and Judaism is not as great as in the West, and where the New Testament is seen rather as a lateral escape from the Old. In the New Testament, he disliked, above all, what he called "commercial psychology": "do this, you get that, right?" Nevertheless, he was attracted to "some things about Christianity." One of them is the ability to forgive learned from Akhmatova.

No matter how Brodsky perceived himself - as a Jew or a Christian - this should be understood not in a dogmatic, but in a figurative, metaphorical sense. Was he even religious? He was reluctant to answer such a question, considering it a matter of too personal a nature. But when he did have to define his position, he always expressed himself rather in terms of agnosticism. “I’m not that religious, not at all. For better or for worse, I don't know," he once explained, and on another occasion, when asked about his religiosity, was even more vague: "I don't know. Sometimes yes, sometimes no". When I reminded him that in the photograph of 1972 he wears a pectoral cross, he said:

In those days, I treated this somewhat more, as you say, systematically. But it's gone. This is again connected with Pasternak, if you like. After his "Poems from the Novel" the mass of the Russian intelligentsia, especially Jewish boys, became very inspired by the New Testament ideas. Partly it was a form of resistance to the system, on the other hand, there is a completely phenomenal cultural heritage behind it, on the third hand, a purely religious aspect, with which I have always had a rather unfavorable relationship.

For Brodsky, as for many other young Soviet people, Christianity offered a more nutritious diet than the meager atheistic food fed in the Soviet Union. “Usually he who spits on God / spits on man first,” he wrote in Spilled Milk Speech (1967). “I am a Christian because I am not a barbarian,” was the argument he often made. Thus, he was a Christian because he refused to be an atheist, which was prescribed for a Soviet citizen. “In one thing, Brodsky remains consistently intolerant, almost fanatical,” states his friend Igor Yefimov. “He is a fiery anti-pagan.” When his collection of Christmas poems was published in 1992, it was presented to Alexander Sumerkin by the author with the inscription: "Alexander ... from a Christian correspondence student." There was even more self-irony in the inscription on my copy: "To a Christian from a pagan." I was a "Christian" because I belong to the Christian civilization reflected in Western culture - a culture in relation to which Brodsky, as a former citizen of a country deprived of this civilization for many years, was a "pagan".

Not being a “Christian,” according to Brodsky, is the same as being a barbarian. In a review of the collection Part of Speech, Czesław Milosz interpreted Brodsky’s thoughts in such a way that the poet “must fear God, love his country and his native language, trust his conscience, avoid alliances with evil and be true to tradition. These are elementary rules which the poet has no right to forget or ridicule, for imbibing them is part of his initiation or, rather, initiation into the holy craft. Milos understood everything correctly. “In general, it seems to me that my work, by and large, is work for the glory of God,” Brodsky explained. “I’m not sure that He pays attention to her ... that I am curious to Him ... but at least my work is not directed against Him.” Brodsky was convinced that literary creativity "means much more than standard piety," as it "prevents you from holding on to a doctrine, in one religious system or another." As an example, he cited Dante's Divine Comedy, which is "much more interesting than the same with the Church Fathers": "... When you write a poem, you very often feel that you can go beyond religious doctrine: the metaphysical radius expands or lengthens ". When the American poet Anthony Heckt asked Brodsky: “Does it not seem to you, Joseph, that our work is ultimately an elementary desire to interpret the Bible?” He agreed right away.

The possibility of transcribing the Bible into poetry was discussed by Brodsky and Akhmatova.

At that time, we were just discussing the idea of ​​transcribing the Psalms and, in general, the entire Bible into verses. The thought arose that it would be good to put all these biblical stories in verse accessible to the general reader. And we discussed whether it is worth doing it or not. And if so, how exactly to do it. And who could do it better than anyone, so that it turns out no worse than Pasternak's ...

Akhmatova in the twenties wrote three short poems on themes from the Old Testament ("Rachel", "Lot's wife" and "Mechola"), and Brodsky began his work in the spring of 1963, when he first read the Old Testament. A few days later he began to write the poem "Isaac and Abraham", not quite understanding "what" he was trying to say.

The impulse was primarily the Book of Genesis, but also the painting by Rembrandt “The Sacrifice of Abraham” hanging in the Hermitage. Other sources of inspiration were the books read at that time: Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling with her reflections on the subject of Abraham's self-denial, and Shestov's Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy. The poem "Isaac and Abraham" is in fact a poetic development of Kierkegaard's concept with its three stages (aesthetic, ethical and religious) and the interpretation of despair as the basis of human existence. But the poem is not "religious" in the sense that the author identifies himself with the Old Testament (Jewish) theme; according to Losev, it has become "a tool for the formation of one's own existential philosophy, self-identification" for a person "doomed to incessant and painful spiritual searches."

Ten years after Isaac and Abraham, Brodsky wrote The Candlemas (1972) - undoubtedly the most perfect of all that he wrote on biblical topics. And this time, one of the sources of inspiration was Rembrandt's painting "Simeon in the Temple", which Brodsky knew from reproductions. Righteous Simeon learned from the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he saw the promised Messiah. The essence of the story set forth in the Gospel of Luke is that the Infant is brought to the Temple on the fortieth day after birth, and Simeon, who was led there by the Holy Spirit, takes the Infant in his arms and says: “Now you release Your servant, Master, according to Your word in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”

What is described in the Gospel - and in the poem - is the transition from the Old Testament to the New, the border zone between Judaism and Christianity. The poem was conceived, Brodsky told me, partly as an attempt to complete the Zhivagian cycle of Pasternak, which does not include this holiday; but it also had an autobiographical connotation, since his son was born on Candlemas. Even more important, however, is the fact that on this day, February 15 according to the Orthodox calendar, Anna Akhmatova's name day (the Day of Simeon the God-Receiver and Anna the Prophetess) fell. The poem is dedicated to Akhmatova, and it is no coincidence: it is a replica in the ongoing dialogue between them, which now, after her death, Brodsky led with that part of himself that she occupied.

Despite Brodsky's vagueness in matters of faith, The Candlemas is permeated with a strong metaphysical feeling, defined by Eliot as "a fusion of thought and poetry at a very high temperature." There is no "Christian art, just as there can be no Christian science or Christian cuisine," Auden wrote. “There is only the Christian spirit in which the artist, the scientist either works or does not work. The image of the Crucifixion is not necessarily more Christian in spirit than a still life, and may well be less so. This is what Brodsky had in mind when he said that his work is "work for the glory of God." If a poem evokes religious feelings, it is not the result of the subject matter or the poet's faith, but of his ability to "write well."

At the age of twenty-five, Brodsky decided to compose a Christmas poem every year. “This is, in general, my attitude towards Christianity,” he explained to me with a laugh. Partly it was a matter of discipline, but at the same time, as it were, a notch for memory - “how a person is photographed every year in order to know how he looks”: “From this, it seemed to me, one can more or less trace the stylistic development - the development soul in a way, that is, these poems are like photographs of the soul.” In total, he wrote almost twenty poems, in the last decade (1985-1995) - one a year.

In the Russian poetic tradition, they wrote more about Easter, but it was the Nativity of Christ that occupied Brodsky, an event that, among other things, meant a radical change in the chronology. With the birth of the God-man, time began to be structured into “before” and “after”. It was precisely this that interested Brodsky, and not at all doctrinal aspects - the appearance of Christ as confirmation of the coming of the Messiah, etc. “What is included in this “before”? - he asked and answered himself: - Not only, say, Caesar Augustus or his predecessors, but embraces, as it were, all the time, which includes geological periods and ends up practically in astronomy. The uniqueness of Jesus is that from his birth chronology became associated with the life of a particular individual; in this sense he was the first man.

Brodsky's views on religion should not be expected to be consistent or systemic. He took a little here, a little there, for his purposes. And these goals were not religious, but artistic. Saying that the work of a writer is closely connected with a “sense of higher justice” and that the nature of the craft itself “makes you a Jew”, he meant not only the poet as a being standing outside of society, but also the categorical, absoluteness inherent in Jewish (Old Testament) thinking. But, as is often the case with Brodsky, these epithets are primarily metaphors, approximations. Speaking of the moral standard, he refers to Calvinism as often as to Judaism. “I think that by the nature of my character I am a Calvinist. In the sense that you are your own judge and judge yourself more severely than the Almighty,” he explained. "You are your own last, often quite terrible judgment."

Brodsky's "Calvinism" was not an accurate interpretation of the religious dogmas of the Reformation leader John Calvin. He was attracted by the idea of ​​a person's full responsibility for his own destiny before a strict and absent God - Deus absconditus. In support of his interpretation, he referred to the same Tsvetaeva, from whom he took the idea of ​​the poet as an eternal renegade Jew. We are talking about the ruthlessness of the approach (to oneself, to reality) and the honesty of the presentation. The Catholic practice of forgiveness and remission of sins was rejected by Brodsky, as well as its secular version - psychoanalysis. Therefore, he also had a good attitude towards another ascetic denomination, Protestantism, which in his system of values ​​was almost synonymous with Calvinism. “For to be a writer inevitably means to be a Protestant, or at least to use a Protestant conception of man,” he writes in an essay on Dostoyevsky, The Power of the Elements (1980), and continues:

Both in Russian Orthodoxy and in Roman Catholicism, a person is judged by the Almighty or His Church. In Protestantism, a person himself creates a semblance of the Last Judgment on himself, and during this judgment he is much more merciless to himself than the Lord or even the church, if only because (by his own conviction) he knows himself better than God and church. And also because he does not want, or rather, cannot forgive. Since, however, no author writes exclusively for his own income, literary heroes and their deeds deserve an impartial and fair trial. The more thorough the investigation, the more convincing the work - and after all, the writer, above all, strives precisely for credibility.

By the time Brodsky began to read the Bible for the first time (as we have seen, quite late, at the age of twenty-three), he had already read both the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata. “And the metaphysical horizons of Hinduism made a much greater impression on me, and they stayed with me forever ...,” he told me, “what Hinduism gives a person is really the metaphysical equivalent of some kind of Himalayas, that is, all the time for the fact that you you see, a higher, grander mountain range is emerging. Judaism can rather be compared to a stream in a narrow channel, but of colossal intensity.”

Recognizing that "the spiritual potential of a person ... is more realized in the Bhagavad Gita than, say, in the New Testament," he at the same time realized that he had to make a choice, and taking into account his biographical data, the choice was made "in favor of Judaism, or rather even Christianity": "This is my world."

If Brodsky was attracted by the metaphysical panoramas of Hinduism, then he did not see any such mountain ranges in Islam, whose leveling collectivism he found disgusting. His views on this religion are explained by the historical perspective in which he considered it. Russia is a Eurasian country whose history is permeated by the conflict between East and West: the Tatar yoke in the 13th-15th centuries, the wars with the Turks in the 18th-19th centuries, etc. The geopolitical expression of this contradiction is the presence in Russia of two capitals: Moscow facing the East and Europe-facing St. Petersburg. In the Russian tradition of ideas, the northern capital is associated with Hellas and Rome, while Moscow is seen through the prism of the Byzantine or even Asian tradition. So, for example, Mandelstam saw it, calling Moscow "Buddhist", that is, in his then understanding, motionless, frozen, turned inward.

True, Russia is a Christian country, but its Orthodoxy is rooted in Byzantium. Asia, Byzantium are part of the Russian self-understanding. “However, Christianity, adopted by Russia, no longer had anything in common with Rome,” Brodsky writes in Journey to Istanbul. - Christianity that came to Russia left behind not only togas and statues, but also the Code of Civil Laws worked out under Justinian. Apparently, to make the journey easier."

Based on our private conversations, I can attest to Brodsky's very negative attitude towards the Orthodox Church, precisely because of her anti-individualism. The same goes for Islam, a religion he flatly rejected. As Losev writes, “Asia, Islam, Tatarism in Brodsky act as metaphors for collectivism not only in society, but also in individual consciousness.” In the choice between individualism and collectivism, justice and legal arbitrariness, tolerance and intolerance, order and chaos, movement and stagnation, Brodsky never hesitated. “I don’t want to generalize,” he writes, “but the East is first of all a tradition of subordination, hierarchy, profit, trade, adaptation - that is, a tradition largely alien to the principles of the moral absolute, whose role - I mean the intensity of sensation - fulfills here the idea of ​​the genus, the family.

On Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence against Salman Rushdie for the "blasphemous and blasphemous" novel The Satanic Verses, Brodsky warned in The Times Literary Supplement of the formidable danger rooted in demographic expansion; this death sentence is the cry of the future, and the future is always trying to usurp the present: "Every bullet comes from the future." Civilizations based on the Upanishads, Confucius and the Old and New Testaments need to be looked at in both directions at the colossal increase in population in Muslim countries. International compliance, justified by real-political considerations, puts an equal sign between intolerance and tolerance - “but the latter is not a colleague of the former, but its master: having freed itself from this youthful arrogance, tolerance should not allow intolerance to outshout others in the class. We need to let the future know that the past is also charged.”

Brodsky quite seriously argued that in the face of the threat of Islam, Western civilization must arm itself - if not with bullets, then at least with arguments. In a 1989 interview - after the announcement of the fatwa against Rushdie - he expressed his misgivings about the chances of the "vaguely Christendom" to defend and defend itself in the coming struggle with the Muslim world, which will inevitably lead to demographic changes:

The future as it can be foreseen, as I can foresee it… it is a future torn apart by the conflict between the spirit of tolerance and the spirit of intolerance, and every effort is now being made to resolve this conflict. Pragmatists try to argue that there is some equivalence between these two principles. I don't believe it for a second. I believe that the Muslim view of the world order must be suppressed and destroyed.

Brodsky was not and did not want to be "politically correct". There is no doubt that Islam, with its anti-intellectualist and anti-individualist pathos, embodied in his eyes everything that he deeply hated.

birdie

In a foreign land I sacredly observe
Native custom of antiquity:
I release the bird
At the bright holiday of spring.
I became available for consolation;
Why should I grumble at God,
When at least one creature
I could give freedom!

A. S. Pushkin

In the spring of 1823, the third year of his southern exile expired. Life in seedy Chisinau is unbearable for Pushkin. He becomes more and more depressed, asks his friends to take care of him, to persuade the tsar to soften his exile, to let him go to St. Petersburg for at least a couple of months. But the king rejects all petitions. Alexander Sergeevich's immediate superior, General Inzov, a kind man, lets the poet go on a visit to Odessa, which, in comparison with Chisinau, seems like Europe. This probably happened in May 1823 on Easter, which was celebrated on May 8 that year.

On May 13, sending “The Bird” to N. I. Gnedich, Pushkin writes: “Do you know the touching custom of a Russian peasant on bright Sunday to release a bird into the wild? Here are some verses for that." Of course, in the poem he hinted at his fate, he hoped that the king would give him freedom. The publisher, printing "The Bird", made a note: "This applies to those benefactors of mankind who use their wealth to ransom the innocent, debtors, etc." from prison.

Interestingly, on this Easter of 1823, a certain landowner, Count Morkov, gave freedom to his serf artist Vasily Tropinin, who became a brilliant portrait painter. In four years he will write one of the best portraits of Pushkin. He also owns the "Boy releasing a goldfinch from a cage." Neofit.ru

On the Resurrection of Christ

My soul, rejoice and sing
Heiress of Heaven:
Christ is risen,
Your Savior has truly risen!

So! Hell before the Strong was exhausted:
From coffin chains
From the night of the death of the Son of God
And raised you up with Him.

From eternal light
The Lord has descended into the dwelling of darkness,
Clothed in dust, dressed in flesh -
May we not die!

Unspeakable love
All sacraments height!
For us His holy blood
He shed from the cross.

With the purest of His blood
He has redeemed us fallen ones
From torment and coffin, from nets
And the powers of the dark forces.

Christ is risen my Savior
Truly resurrected.
Rejoice soul; He is in front of you
Opened the gates of heaven!

W. K. Kuchelbecker (1797-1846)

Resurrection of Christ

Darkness everywhere, silence everywhere
The earth is silent, full of premonitions;
The soldiers standing at the coffin are also silent,
Where He rested, Who is all love,
He whose divine blood
Crazy shed malice!

Darkness everywhere, silence everywhere...
But what? into the darkness is not the first wave
Life-giving rays of the golden sea of ​​light
Surfed? The shadow is thinning
The day began to fight with the night,
And now the firmament is dressed in crimson.

And suddenly the sun rose to the review -
And suddenly the valley and the heart of the mountains shuddered,
And a voice was heard like the voice of a victory trumpet.
And an angel from joyful heaven
Flew and rolled off the cliff,
And the guard embraces pale horror.

Winged fear drove them from the coffin;
They fall without feeling into the dust.
And He, desecrated, torn to pieces, slain,
Who accepted shame and death for us,
He is our God, our Lord and Savior,
Arise, radiant with glory!

Fill my chest, holy delight!
Christ is risen! Christ, my leader, dissolved
Chains of eternal darkness, rising from the grave.
Christ defeated both death and hell,
He gave us the name of the Lord's children,
Ripped from us the bonds of dark power.

And for me (alas me!), for my sin,
He was a frantic laughter to the enemies,
And he took dishonor and torment for me.
For the burden and my guilt
They were pierced with iron
Christ's ribs, legs, arms!

And for me (oh joy!) aroused
And the Lord of forces brought Him into life.
O joy! I am also washed by the blood of Christ.
I, a prisoner of decay and sins,
I will leave their chains,
And I will rise to a new life!

Get on your knees! stream of tears
Teki, spill from my eyes!
You, heart, be full of silent tenderness!
Soul, trembling, call
To the Incomprehensible in love,
Raise up a voice of praise to Him!

All my life let there be a song to Him!
I swear, to the Leader, my Lord
From now on I will devote every breath!
His me and in my enemies
I love from now on: and for them
My Lord has tasted suffering.

***
Day of the Orthodox East,
Holy, holy, great day,
Spread your blessings wide
And clothe all of Russia with them!
But holy Russia is the limit
Do not hesitate to call him:
Let it be heard in the whole world,
Let it pour over the edge
With your distant wave
And seizing that valley,
Where it fights with the infirmity of evil
My dear child, * -
That bright land, where in exile
She is obsessed with fate
Where the sky of the southern breath
Like medicine, she only drinks.
Oh, give healing to the sick,
Breathe joy into her soul,
So that on Christ's Sunday
Whole life was resurrected in her.

* This poem was written by F. Tyutchev on April 16, 1872, on the day of Holy Easter, and sent to the daughter of the poet M. F. Tyutcheva, who was dying at that time in the city of Reichenhall (Bavaria).

Christ is risen!

Everywhere the blessing is buzzing
Of all the churches, the people bring down.
The dawn is already looking from heaven ...

The cover of snow has already been removed from the fields,
And the rivers are torn from the shackles,
And the nearby forest turns green ...
Christ is risen! Christ is risen!
The earth is waking up
And the fields dress
Spring is coming full of wonders!
Christ is risen! Christ is risen!

Apollo Maykov
1883

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen! He is the King of the worlds
Mighty kings Lord,
He is all humility, all is love,
For a sinful world holy blood
Shed like an angel - redeemer!
Christ is risen! He gave people
Testament of holy forgiveness,
He gave mercy to the fallen
And for holy convictions
He ordered to suffer as he himself suffered!
Christ is risen! He announced
That on earth all people are brothers,
He renewed the world with love,
He forgave his enemies on the cross,
And he opened his arms to us!
Christ is risen! Christ is risen!
May these joyful sounds
Like the singing of angels from heaven
They will dispel anger, sorrow, torment!
Join all brotherly hands
Let's hug everyone! Christ is risen!

God has no dead

Change times, roll into eternity years,
But once the unchanging spring will come.
God lives! Soul alive! And the king of earthly nature,
Man will be resurrected: God has no dead!

N. I. Gnedich

***
How the sun shines brightly
As the sky is deep bright,
How fun and loud
The bells are ringing.

Silently in God's temples
Sing "Christ is Risen!"
And the sounds of a wondrous song
They reach heaven.

He walked resignedly on a thorny path ...

He walked resignedly on a thorny path,
He met joyfully both death and shame;
The mouth that spoke the doctrine of strict truth,
They did not utter a reproach to the mocking crowd.

He walked meekly and, crucified on the cross,
He bequeathed to the peoples both brotherhood and love;
For this sinful world, embraced by darkness,
His holy blood was shed for the neighbor.

O weak children of the skeptical age!
Or does not that mighty image tell you
About the appointment of a great man
And does not call the sleeping will to a feat?

Oh no! I don't believe. Not completely muffled
In us the voice of truth is self-interest and vanity;
Another day will come ... Inhale both life and strength
In our dilapidated world the teachings of Christ!

1858
Alexei Nikolaevich Pleshcheev (1825-1893)

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen! Again with the dawn
The shadow of the long night thins,
Again lit up above the ground
For a new life, a new day.
Thickets of boron are still blackening;
Still in the shade of his damp,
Like mirrors, lakes stand
And breathe the freshness of the night;
Still in the blue valleys
Fogs are floating ... But look:
Already burning on mountain ice floes
Rays of fiery dawn!
They are still shining in the sky.
Unattainable like a dream
Where the voices of the earth are silent
And immaculate beauty.
But, getting closer every hour
Because of the crimson peaks,
They will sparkle, flaring up,
And into the darkness of the forests, and into the depths of the valleys;
They will ascend in the beauty of the desired
And they will announce from the heights of heaven,
That the promised day has come
That God is truly risen!

I. A. Bunin
1896

On Holy Week

The groom is coming at midnight.
But where is His blessed servant,
Who will he find to keep watch?
And who with a lighted lamp
He will enter the marriage feast

In whom the darkness has not swallowed up the light?
Oh yeah get it right like smoke
fragrant censer,
My prayer is before You!
I am inconsolable longing
In tears I look from afar
And I do not dare my eye
Raise up to your chamber.

Where can I get clothes?
Oh God, shine through the clothes
My tormented soul,
Give me hope for salvation
In the days of Your holy Passion.

Hear, Lord, my prayers
And your Last Supper
And all-honored ablution
Accept me as a communicant.

I will not give out my secrets to my enemies,
Remember I will not give Judas
You in my kiss, -
But I'll be behind the robber
Before Your Holy Cross
Call out on your knees;
Oh remember, Creator of the universe,
me in your kingdom!

Praise to the Risen One

Praise the Lord from heaven
And sing incessantly:
The world is filled with His miracles
And glory unspeakable.
Praise the host of incorporeal forces
And angelic faces:
From the darkness of mournful graves
The light shone great.
Praise the Lord from heaven
Hills, cliffs, mountains!
Hosanna! The fear of death is gone
Our eyes light up.
Praise God, the sea is far
And the ocean is endless!
Let all sorrow be silent
And hopeless murmur!
Praise the Lord from heaven
And praise, people!

And trampled death forever!

***
Thank you, the Risen One!
The night has passed and a new dawn
Let the world be renewed
In the hearts of people love grief.

Praise the Lord from Heaven
And sing incessantly:
The world is filled with His miracles
And glory unspeakable.

Praise the Host of the Incorporeal Forces
And angelic faces:
From the darkness of mournful graves
The light shone great.

Praise the Lord from Heaven
Hills, cliffs, mountains! Hosanna!
The fear of death is gone
Our eyes light up.

Praise God, the sea is far
And the ocean is endless!
Let all sorrow be silenced
And hopeless murmur!

Praise the Lord from Heaven
And praise, people!
Risen Christ! Christ is risen!
And trampled death forever!

K. R. (Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov)
(1858-1915)

the beauty

There is only one beauty in the world -
Love, sorrow, renunciation
And voluntary torment
Christ crucified for us.

Blagovest

I waited for him with understandable impatience,
Keeping the holy delight in your soul,
And through the harmony of prayer singing
He shook me like thunder from the sky.
Since ancient times, the blessing over the Russian land
He spoke to us about heaven with the voice of a prophet;
So the sun is a ray of spring time
To the heyday of nature illuminated the path.
To you, O God, to your throne,
Where is the truth, the truth is brighter than our words,
I keep the path according to Your verb,
What I hear through the ringing of bells.

K. D. Balmont

Resurrected!

The day has come, the daylight has lit up,
The face of the dead steppe turned red;
The jackal fell asleep, the bird woke up ...
They came to look - the coffin was empty! ..
And the peace-bearers fled
Tell the miracle of miracles:
That there is none to be sought!
He said: "I will rise again!" - and resurrected! They run ... they are silent ... they do not dare to admit,
That there is no death, that there will be an hour -
Their coffins will also be empty
Lighting up the sky with fire!

Konstantin Sluchevsky (1837-1904)

Easter news

The news that people began to torment God,
Rooks brought us to the north ...
Coniferous slums darkened,
Quiet cried keys ...

On the hillocks the stones were exposed
Bald patches covered in frost...
And tears began to fall on the stones
Angry winter peeled birches.

And other news, worse than the first,
The starlings were brought into the wilderness:
Crucified on the cross, forgiving everyone,
God, the Savior of our souls, is dead.

Clouds thickened from such news,
The air roared with stormy rain ...
Rise - the rivers became the seas
And the first thunder swept through the mountains.

The third message was extraordinary:
God is risen and death is defeated!
This victory rushed the news
Spring resurrected by God...

And all around the forests turned green,
And the chest of the earth breathed with warmth,
And listening to the nightingale's trills,
Lilies of the valley and roses bloomed.

Yakov Polonsky

***
Christ is risen! - just two words
But how much grace is in them!
We are unearthly bliss again
Illuminated in your hearts.
Sorrow and suffering are forgotten
Forgotten grief and need
Silent groans and murmurs,
Envy and enmity are gone...

***
All faces shine with joy
Hearts free from passions...
So miraculous effect
Holy words on people!..
Christ is risen!..
Oh sacred moment!
O miracle, above all miracles,
What were in the universe! ..
Christ is risen!
Christ is risen!

Easter bells

There was also an early light autumn;

Pavel Potekhin (1852-1910)

***
Christ is risen! The starlings sing
And, waking up, the steppes rejoice.
In the snow, murmuring, streams run
And with a ringing laugh they quickly tear
Chains shackled in winter.
Still thoughtful dark forest,
Not believing the happiness of awakening.
Wake up! Sing the Sunday song
Christ is risen!

***
Christ is risen! In the rays of love
Sorrow gloomy cold will disappear,
Let joy reign in the hearts
Both those who are old and those who are young!
Covenant of blessed Heaven
Sounds to us the song of Sunday, -
Christ is risen!

Vladimir Ladyzhensky (1859-1932)

bells

The booming sounds of bells
Fly away into the sky
For meadows, for free steppes,
For the dense dark forest.
A billion joyful sounds
A melodious wave is pouring ...
All moments wondrous, sweet
Easter night is full
In them, in those sounds - a moment of forgiveness,
Evil vanity - the end.
Boundless humility
And the golden crown of love
They have endless prayers
Hymns wondrous words.
They have eternal sorrow and tears
Washed away by the blood of the Divine.
In them the earth delight mysterious
And the holy delight of heaven,
In them the Immortal and the Only
God is truly risen!

***
Earth and sun
Fields and forest -
All praise God
Christ is risen!
In the smile of blue
living skies
All the same joy
Christ is risen!
The enmity is gone
And the fear is gone.
No more malice
Christ is risen!
How wonderful the sounds
holy words,
in which you hear:
Christ is risen!
Earth and sun
Fields and forest -
All praise God
Christ is risen!

Lydia Charskaya (1875-1937)

consolation

One who with eternal love
He repaid evil with good,
Beaten, covered in blood
Crowned with a crown of thorns,
All those who are close to Himself through suffering
In life, the share of the offended,
Oppressed and humiliated
He overshadowed with His cross.
You, whose best aspirations
They perish in vain under the yoke,
Believe, friends, in deliverance,
We are coming to God's light.
You, twisted bent,
You, afflicted with chains,
You, Christ, are buried together,
Resurrect with Christ.

A. K. Tolstoy

holy news

Luminous spring -
During the day and at the late hour of the night -
Many songs are distributed
Above the native side.
Lots of wonderful sounds
Many prophetic voices -
Over the fields, over the meadows,
In the semi-darkness of dense forests.
Many sounds, many songs, -
But most heard from heaven
The holy news is distributed
Song-news - "Christ is Risen! .."
Leaving your shelter
Above the resurrected earth
Choirs of angels sing;
They echo the angelic stump
Free bird voices,
Mountains echo, valleys echo,
The dark forests echo, -
Rivers echo, tearing
Your icy chains
Spilling into space
White streams…
There is an old legend
What in spring sometimes -
At the hour when the stars twinkle
Midnight game -
Even the very graves
To the holy hello of heaven
They respond with the words:
“He is truly risen!”

Easter bells

Oh, this ringing, spring red ringing!
How much he reminds me
How many forgotten feelings he awakens
For those whose lives the evening comes ...

He says: “Your spring has bloomed,
May was magnificent, and the summer was hot,
There was also an early light autumn;
Meet the coming winter calmly!

The ice is cold, the snow is lifeless,
But do not fear the winter of numbness:
Death brings life into silent shores,
But there - behind them - Sunday awaits us.

Behind them - the firmament of cloudless skies,
To which our all sorrows are alien ...
Risen Christ! Truly risen
It is for us all to be resurrected.

Death is not terrible: behind it is eternal light
We will be illuminated under a new sky.
Here is our sunset, and there? .. And there is dawn
With the unceasing Sunday chime.

Life is short, life is a fleeting dream
He passes - awakening will come! .. "
Oh, this ringing, Easter red ringing -
On the holy night of Christ's Resurrection!..

After all, spring comes to our world with him,
Snowdrop hope blooms
Again the heart believes that the sorrows of all ice
It will melt in the rays of Divine love.

Apollo of Corinth (1868-1937)

Stichera

***
Today contains a coffin
Containing the hand of the creature.

This cramped coffin contains That,
Who holds the hand of the creature!
Behold the cold stone covers
You, immortal King of the worlds!
Life fell asleep - and hell trembles!
Adam is free from fetters
Death is sacrificed - and the enemy gnashes,
Christ destroyed the evil cove -
Watching made suffering,
And opened the doors of heaven!

***
Come, we see our belly lying in the tomb.

Look at Life lying in the tomb!
She will revive all the dead -
Behold the King of ages in the earthly womb!
He gives us life by death,
And hell, we will not die!
He slept in Judas prophesying -
Fell asleep like a lion - and who will excite?
Arise Himself! - He got hurt
He died willingly. - Resurrect
And resurrect, glorify us!

Mikhail Mikhailovich Vysheslavtsev
(1757/58(?)-1830)

***
To the tune of Easter prayers
And to the sound of bells
Spring is flying to us from far away,
From the midday regions.
In a green dress
Dark forests are fading
The sky shines like the sea
The sea is like heaven.
Pine trees in green velvet
And fragrant resin
Along scaly columns
Amber flowed,
And in our garden today
I noticed how secretly
christened lily of the valley
With a white-winged moth.
Drops drip loudly
In front of our window.
The birds sang merrily.
Easter has come to visit us.

Konstantin Fofanov (1862-1911)

Resurrection of Christ

On Easter day, joyfully playing,
The lark flew high
And disappearing into the blue sky
He sang the song of resurrection.
And that song was loudly repeated
And the steppe, and the hill, and the dark forest.
"Wake up, earth," they said,
wake up: your King, your God is risen.
Wake up mountains, valleys, rivers.
Praise the Lord from heaven.
He has conquered death forever.
Wake up and you, green forest.
Snowdrop, silver lily of the valley,
Violet - bloom again
And send up a fragrant hymn
To the one whose commandment is love.

Book. Elena Gorchakova (1824-1897)

Resurrected!

They went on to confirm the tomb, signifying the stone with the Custodia.
(Matthew 27:66)

... They came, carrying aromas with them,
On a Saturday, as soon as the dawn broke,
And they see, terrified: That,
Who was crucified, is no more in the tomb.

And the Angel appeared to them in snow-white clothes,
That the stone rolled away, descending from Heaven.
He told them: “Why, with hopeless longing
Are you looking for Him? Risen Christ! Risen!”

Yes, He is risen - a patient sufferer,
He is all - goodness and light, forgiveness and love.
Christ is risen - and the dead live with Him!
Christ is risen - and the world with Him rises again!

From the realm of lies and wild hatred,
From the pool of passions and from the vale of tears
He showed us the way - our great teacher,
An example of suffering is our Sufferer Christ.

Mikhail Simonov (1851-1888)

Before the image of the Savior

Before You, my God,
I extinguished the candle
wise book
Closed before you.
Your heavenly fire
Burning unquenchable;
Infinite Your World
Open before the eyes;
I love you
I plunge into it;
I stand with tears
Before a bright face.
And in vain the whole world
I rebelled against you
And in vain to death
He condemned you
On the cross, under the crown,
And calm and quiet
Until the end you prayed
For their villains.

A. Koltsov

Myrrhbearers at the tomb

Zion sleeps and anger slumbers,
Sleeping in the tomb of the King of kings,
Behind the seal is the stone of the coffin,
There are guards at the door everywhere.

The mute night embraces the garden,
The terrible guard does not sleep:
Her sensitive hearing does not sleep,
She looks far into the distance.

The night has passed. To the tomb of the Messiah
With scents in hand
There were sad Marys; -
Anxiety in their features

And their anxiety saddens:
Who with a mighty hand
A heavy stone will roll them away
From the cave of the tomb.

And they look, both marvel;
The stone is moved, the coffin is open;
And, like the dead at the coffin,
The guard is formidable.

And in a coffin full of light
Someone wonderful, unearthly,
Dressed in white robes,
Sat on a grave stone

Brighter than lightning flash
Shine of the heavenly face!
In fear of the messenger of revolt,
And their hearts flutter!

“What are you, timid ones, in confusion?”
They were told by a holy stranger,
"With the message of peace and salvation
Come back home.

I am heaven sent
I brought wonderful news:
There is no Living with the dead;
The coffin is already empty; Christ is risen!"

And the wives hurry from there,
And with the delight of their lips
Preach to Zion
Resurrection of Christ.

M. Yelenov

Christ is Risen!

Christ is Risen! Brother people!
each other in a warm embrace
Hurry up to accept!
Forget quarrels, insults,
Yes, bright holiday of Sunday
Nothing will darken.
Christ is Risen! Hell trembles
And the sun of eternal truth shines
Over the renewed earth:
And the whole universe is warm
A ray of divine light.
Tastes joy and peace.
Christ is Risen! Holy day!
Thunder in all ends of the universe
Praise be to the Creator!
Gone are the sorrows and sorrows,
The shackles of sin fell from them,
The soul recoiled from evil.

Holy holiday

How easy is my soul!
The heart is full of tenderness!
All worries and doubts
Fly away!

The world fills my soul
Joy shines in the eyes
And as if in heaven
The sun is shining brighter!

People are brothers! Has come
Great day, day of salvation!
Bright holiday of Sunday
God of truth, God of strength!

Away from us, enmity and malice!
Let's forget everything! We'll forgive everyone!
Let's honor reconciliation
Day of the Risen from the grave!

He did not spite, did not take revenge -
But with fatherly love,
By His most honorable blood
He washed the unworthy of us ...

He is risen! The time will come
Sundays for us...
We don't know this time...
Why don't we throw off the burden of sins?

Why don't we think about
With what in the moment of rebirth
From nothingness and decay
Will we stand before Christ?

He is risen! abode of paradise
Reopened to the public...
But there is one way to get there:
Life is sinless, holy!

Vasily Bazhanov (1800-1883),
Protopresbyter, Confessor of Their Imperial Majesties

Christ is risen

Christ is risen and hell is conquered by him.
Christ is Risen and the world is redeemed by Him.
Christ is risen and the angels rejoice.
Christ is Risen and people are celebrating.
Christ is risen and paradise is open to us.
Christ is risen and the power of hell has fallen.
Christ is risen and the sting of death is erased.
Christ is Risen and saved the world from torment.

O. Osipov

On the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women

Men are more philosophical
And they doubt with Thomas,
And the Myrrhbearers are silent,
Christ's feet sprinkled with tears.
The men are scared of the soldiers
Hiding from the fury of malice,
And Wives boldly with fragrances
A little light hurry to the Coffin.

Alexander Solodovnikov

Easter Annunciation

Dozing bell
Woke up the fields
smiled at the sun
Sleepy land.

Blows rushed
To blue skies
loudly heard
Voice through the woods.

Hid behind the river
White moon,
ran loudly
Rough wave.

Silent Valley
Drives away sleep
Somewhere across the road
The call fades.

S. Yesenin

Easter in St. Petersburg

There was a smell of hyacinths in the dining room,
Ham, Easter cake and Madeira,
It smelled of spring Easter of Christ,
Orthodox Russian faith.

It smelled of the sun, window paint
And lemon from the female body
Inspirational merry Easter,
What around the bell buzzed.

And at the monument to Nicholas
In front of the Great Sea,
Where was the pavement from the ends,
The tarred smell of board.

Because of the glasses washed for the holiday,
Because of the frames without sand and without cotton wool
The city stomped, rang and clattered,
Kissed, embraced with delight.

It was sweet to the womb and spirit
Youth rushed, pinning the flowers.
And the elders, although it was dry,
Fur coats, cotton wool in the ears and galoshes ...

The poetry of religion, where are you?
Where is the religiosity of poetry?
All "idle" songs are sung,
"Business" from now on seriousness ...

Let it be ridiculous, funny, stupid
It was in my young years,
But the heart was embraced
Those that are peculiar only to Russia!

I. Severyanin

Easter in April

Bell ringing and eggs on a platter
Joy warmed the soul.
What is more radiant, tell me, people,
Easter in April?
The rays caress the grass, burning down,
From the street phrases echoes ...
Quietly I wander from the porch to the barn,
I measure boards.
In the sky, like a glow, an external dawn,
Waves of Easter chimes...
Here the neighbors cried so bitterly
gramophone sound,
They echo him endlessly, depressingly
Shrieks of harmonica from the kitchen...
There was a lot, oh, there was a lot...
Past, crash!
No, eggs on a platter will not help either!
Too late... The beams burned out...
What is more hopeless, tell me people
Easter in April?

Marina Tsvetaeva
Moscow. Easter, 1910

Easter
On the death of a father

I see a shining cloud, a roof
shining in the distance like a mirror... I hear
how the shadow breathes and the light drips ...

So why aren't you? You died and today
the moist world shines, the spring of the Lord is coming,
grows, calls... You are not there.

But if all the streams of the miracle again sang,
but if the chime and gold drops -
not a blinding lie
and the trembling call, the sweetest "resurrect",
great "bloom" - then you are in this song,
you are in this brilliance, you live! ..

Vladimir Nabokov
1922

From the cycle "Sonnets"

2
Easter first

Troubles and sorrows visited me
From the days of infancy to gray hair;
I finally have both grief and sorrow
So I will meet, like a cliff, the pressure of a wave.
But what - did the blasphemy excite me?
What are all my feelings outraged about?
Servant of Christ, disgraced by the world, am I
Lost your peace of mind all of a sudden?
Who am I? worthless sinner! And wonderful
Divine, Lord, lord of forces,
Did he appear dressed in the splendor of heaven?
Not! in the dust he, the brightest of all luminaries,
He ended his narrow path in baseness
And the spirit on the tree of shame gave up!

3
Easter second

“Almost I don’t speak peruns
And I can’t command the thunders to strike?
Not! I will not endure: the insidious villain,
I will repay the one who forged my death!” -

So, drunk on revenge, zealous and noisy with it,
Ferocious, infernal sacrificing spirits,
Oh my goodness! before your goodness
The sinner raises his cries to heaven.

But the one that from the very creation
One was innocent before you,
Took unspeakable suffering,
And all, full of love saint:
"My father, forgive them the sin of ignorance!" -
Prayed for the blind.

4
Magdalene at the Holy Sepulcher

Maria, blind in heavy grief,
Called him a gardener
Who, leaving the coffin, told her: “Who
Here in the coffin are you looking, weeping and sobbing?

And she answered: “I did not find the body ...
Oh! Give me my Lord!"
But suddenly he said: "Maria!" - and his
The holy wife will be delighted to know ...

Isn't it, more than she, a blind man,
I called out, arguing with the Providence of the Most High:
“Why did my creator leave me?”
And you - you were with me in the midst of grief!

I drowned, but by the hand, father,
You held me above the abyss of the sea.

1832
Wilhelm Karlovich Küchelbecker (1797-1846)

Easter

At the Savior at Euphemia
The bells are ringing.
involved
bright scheme I
When spring came.
Cheerful through the green
Meadows are visible for a long time,
I look at the forest and I sat down
Through a narrow window.

The bad time has passed
And it's time to go, it's time!
Sounds good news to me
From night to morning.

We have ceased to be orphans,
Again Christ is among us, -
Victory stichera
The resurrection voice thunders.

O beloved brothers,
Lead me
Where the updated
The earth turns black.

Ah, the sky, the sky is blue!
Ah, old love!
I won't live to see frost
Let's meet again there!

get off
not with funeral
I songs in the coffin:
With Easter canons
Decorate the whisk forehead.

I cross my arms happily
I look at the spring forest
Both good and sweet
I will say:
"Christ is risen!"

1912
Mikhail Kuzmin

Easter

The fields are black and flat
Again I am God's and nobody's!
Tomorrow is Easter, the smell of wax,
The smell of warm cookies.
Before my life flowed like this
A bright change of exact days,
And now the rest
Somehow more joyfully.
After all, winter, spring and summer,
Easter, Lent and Christmas,
If you can get into it
In a small drop - Deity.
Let it be petty, let it be stupid,
May we be proud
But in a sip of mushroom soup -
The joy of the same sequence.
What I remember with a sweet heart,
Let's not disgrace that.
Sweeter for us is a dull post
Sweet poison of spring dawns.
Will be trembling and vigilant
Run couples on the dew
And on Red, Red Hill
They get married like everyone else.
birthday pies,
Children, the sun ... live peacefully,
To the domina boards
The body is cute to lay down.
In this life, God's grace
Like embroidery is visible
And now you, Easter, Easter,
We are left with one.
You won't forget her
How smart you are.
Cool your warm heart -
The bells will warm up.
And they sing, bright, not strict:
Dili-bom, dili-bom bom!
You got lost on the road
So return to your home.

1916
Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin (1875-1936)

***
Idle speeches fell silent,
Prayer lit up the temple,
Lamps and candles shine
The holy incense rises.

Raising Easter Songs
From tear-sparkling dew.
Resurrect, resurrect
Resurrect, Christ

Lighter news pours in
In a reciprocal jubilant verse;
To the bride who saved her crown
The heavenly Bridegroom descends.

***
I know the last knowledge
That this darkness is powerless
And I do not believe in dark nonsense
Superstitious mind.

Encroach on the truth of God -
The same as crucifying Christ
Cover with earthly lies
Immaculate lips.

But the Risen One will again proclaim,
Life will be clear again
And smoking will tremble
Defeated Satan.

Fedor Sologub
from the book of poems "Incense"
1921

On the Resurrection of the Lord

Risen, Christ is risen! from the dead
Lifegiver!
Death trampled death! - and smoldering in the ground
He revived life again, Creator and Recreator!
Risen - and enlightened those sitting in the darkness of death.
We see, we feel, by faith, by skill,
In Him is our future greatness of destiny.
Let us worship Jesus with our foreheads and hearts,
Sinners to the Holy, and servants of the Lord.
He took on mortal flesh like sinful flesh,
Sin appeared alien among mortals alone.
We honor the Sinless One - and spiritual zeal,
O true Highest Anointed One and Son!
We fall face down into the dust of the earth
Before Your banner, before the image of the cross.
You are our God, You are one! - we do not know otherwise;
We sanctify our mouths in Your name;
And with songs of praise we crown admiring
From the dead your rise triumph.
Come faithful! and sanctified by faith
Let us glorify the Resurrected Christ the Godhead,
Let us glorify the victim of tender prayer.
He was crucified for the world - and the world by His cross,
Over predatory death, the monster of the universe,
Victory boasts in holy joy.
He crucified for us - and we are in harmony
We bless him for many bounties,
And mortal servants to the resurrected Lord
Let us sound consonant praise to generation and generation.

Shirinsky-Shikhmatov Sergey Alexandrovich
(1783-1837)
1823

Mary Magdalene

Loving with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind
Sweetest Christ, Mary Magdalene,
And I was an obvious witness
Calvary end of the Divine Son,
You are fearless in the darkness of the night,
Drawn by love's irresistible force,
Putting aside the fear of women, on His holy tomb
Maria hurried with other wives,
Forgetting peace, an hour of rest and sleep.
To the sad garden You are with a contrite heart
Reached at last, full of desire,
To anoint the Lord with precious peace.
Fully occupied with a single thought ...
A pure flame burns in your soul,
You see the tomb ... and what? .. it is empty ...
A heavy stone is rolled away from the door of the coffin.
At a loss, then, in the morning,
Desiring to announce this to the students,
You will soon go to them, the supreme Peter
And to the confidant of Jesus, prophesying:
“I don’t know where it is now laid, only taken
My teacher, the Lord ... and carried away from the tomb.
With you, the disciples go to the sacred garden -
One in front of the other both rush to the place ...
And so they came ... And for sure: the coffin is open,
Only the robes of the Lord lay in one corner,
In the other, the sir is especially retinue from the head.
Surprised, the students hurried back.
Mary could not leave the tomb,
But, bursting into burning tears,
Came closer to the cavity of the tomb
And mournful eyes penetrated there.
What does she see there? - Two angels are sitting,
At the feet and at the head, like Jesus' body
It was supposed to. And their gaze is joyful ...
Shines festively their white attire.
"Why are you crying?" - she hears from disembodied voices;
"Laid where ... by whom my Lord was taken, I do not know!"
Having said so, he looks, turning back,
And, not recognizing Christ in the gardener,
With the same words, she approached Him:
“If you took the Lord, tell me, I beg you,
Where did he put him, and I will take him?
Without lowering her eyes, the Holy One is waiting for an answer ...
"Maria!" - publish the sweetest lips ...
Maria at the same moment recognized the Teacher
And seeing the risen Christ before me,
In immeasurable joy, she fell at His feet.

L. Butovsky
Butovsky (Leonid) - poet.
Educated at the School of Law;
served as secretary of the council of the Smolny Institute.
From 1866 to 1891 Butovsky wrote 57 short poems,
mostly on various solemn occasions or on religious themes.
In 1871, his poems were published in a special edition.

There is a mention that, when asked about his belonging to Christianity, Brodsky answered: "I am a Christian, because I am not a barbarian."

To some, this seems to be irrelevant to faith. Researchers of the poet's work usually write that Brodsky was more of an agnostic than a believer. Many refer to his poem "Pilgrims", ending with the words:

« And, therefore, there will be no sense / From faith in oneself and in God. / And, therefore, only / Illusion and the road remain ...»

Someone will remember that in the 1964 poem “In the village, God does not live in the corners,” the poet calls himself an atheist.

But I would not rush to such conclusions, and not only because the verses cited are early. The general context of Brodsky's work, and especially the poems that he wrote at Christmas for many years in a row, as well as The Presentation, and many others, give reason to assert that everything is not so simple.

For Brodsky, the question of Christianity lay not in the confessional or ideological plane, but in the historical, cultural and existential. The fabric of European culture, as well as Russian, to which he belonged, was created by Christianity, and is not clear outside this context. And in Brodsky himself, much is incomprehensible outside the Christian context.

When Brodsky died, many said that the last classic was gone. No, literature did not end with him, but he really closes the galaxy of those who had an integral worldview and possessed that “universal responsiveness” that Dostoevsky spoke about in his speech about Pushkin.

His poetic cosmos extends over many eras and times, including the Roman Empire and the Bible, the Middle Ages and the Baroque, a village house and Venetian palazzos, and Derzhavin, Baratynsky and, and, Dante and Donna, Auden and Eliot and much, much more. In it, as in the fugues of Bach (also his favorite hero!) Various voices, registers, themes sound, connecting into a complex polyphonic text.

The poet Cheslav Miloš once compared Brodsky to a gigantic building of baroque architecture. In general, the poet's complexity of metaphors usually leads researchers towards baroque analogies. But it seems to me that sometimes his voice resembles a lonely flute, sounding in an empty room with an open window, beyond which the endless sky stretches.

In 1987, Joseph Brodsky received "for an all-encompassing authorship, full of clarity of thought and poetic depth."

He was forty-seven years old, quite mature, but at the same time Brodsky turned out to be one of the youngest Nobel Prize winners in all the years of its award in the literary category.

His Nobel lecture is still an intellectual bestseller, in it he talks about the problem of the independence of the creative person and the moral obligations of the poet, about tradition and continuity, the tragedy of life and the lessons of history. Few people in the 20th century felt the poet's vocation so keenly, and this clearly shows the Christian attitude to poetry as a gift from above and responsibility for it, as well as an understanding of the ontological nature of the word itself and culture as a service.

In the Nobel lecture, Brodsky, in particular, says: "The poet is the means of the existence of language ... Or, as the great Auden said, he is the one by whom the language is alive." This idea is one of the cornerstones of Brodsky's philosophy and poetics.

Even earlier, in a letter dated June 4, 1972, addressed to the General Secretary of the CPSU L.I. Brezhnev, the poet wrote: “I belong to Russian culture, I recognize myself as a part of it, a component, and no change of place can affect the final result. will be able. Language is a thing older and more inevitable than the state. I belong to the Russian language ... "

And later, already in the West, in one interview, Brodsky declares even more radically: “Language is the beginning of beginnings. If God exists for me, then this is language.

But is it really so far from the Christian “In the beginning was the Word, and… the Word was God…” (John 1:1-2)? According to the Holy Scriptures, the cosmos is created by the Word, the speech of God Himself. And the Bible says that God gives a person speech, a language, so that he, overcoming his tongue-tied tongue, would bind the universe together with a word. Is not it?

Of course, Brodsky was not an apologist for Christianity, he already lives in the post-Christian era, but that is precisely why he defends what has always been important for Christianity: the word, speech, language, communication.

It was precisely this that was attempted by all those who persecuted Christianity, destroyed Christian culture, gagged poets and prophets, driving people into dumb masses. Recall from Voloshin: the revolution is created by "deaf-mute demons." And the poet, according to Brodsky, is the one who acquired "the gift of speech in the deaf and dumb universe."

The ontology of the word and language, so undoubted for Brodsky, has Christian roots, but the existential basis of the word is also very clearly expressed in him. In this, Brodsky is close to Heidegger, who proclaimed: "Language is the house of being." According to Heidegger, being can only be given in language, not in the language of everyday speech, but in the language of poetry and philosophy. Heidegger believed that language is more powerful than a person, not the poet himself, but the muses speak through it, not a person creates something with the power of his mind, but the voice of being heard by him forms his thoughts. Creativity is both divine and human. Through the word, different layers of being are interconnected, transforming reality.

The thought of a person, and in Brodsky's, clothed in a poetic word, becomes larger and more significant than its bearer, and it is able to change the world. Brodsky believed that if people who become politicians read more poetry, the world will become different. According to his project, an action was carried out in America - volumes of poems were distributed through hotels, supermarkets, gas stations. And this extended not only to politicians, but to all people.

And his famous must-read list! And his requirements for students who were supposed to know by heart the verses and poems that Brodsky told them about in lectures! This style of teaching is considered obsolete not only in America, but also in Russia, but for Brodsky, knowledge of literature and culture meant the life of the word within a person. This is the opposition to barbarism: culture is an embodied word, a connection with everything that was said before you, barbarism is wordless, it destroys all connections, the single fabric of the word and the world.

It is through the word, through the language that the poet enters different spaces of the world culture, the language connects him with different times and epochs, makes him involved in the world culture, in the spiritual experience of other people, through the language he becomes a contemporary with all living and lived on earth. It is language that makes a person immortal.

Brodsky's play "Marble" ends with the words: "A man is lonely, like a thought that is forgotten." But thanks to the word, Joseph Brodsky is not forgotten. He died not old, he was only 55 years old. He was buried in his beloved Venice, on the island of San Michele. The inscription on the monument "Letum non omnia finit" is the line of the Roman poet Propertius: "Not everything ends with death."

The word is a form of resistance to death, because the word gives life: Heaven and earth were created by the Word of God, and through the word man is able to comprehend being.

For Brodsky, the poetic word is the path of penetration into the meaning of being, and it itself leads it. This is clearly seen in his Christmas poems, of which twenty-three were written in his entire not very long life.

Brodsky wrote his first poem about Christmas in 1963, he was only 23 years old, he opened the Bible for the first time, and this book immediately captivated him. In this poem, the theme of loneliness, homelessness sounds. This is not new, the poet is always alone. But inside this loneliness and homelessness, Brodsky finds a deep connection with the entire universe, finds through the born Christ, who was an exile and had no place to lay his head. There is also a prophecy in this about Brodsky himself, who was to be exiled, a foreign land, long years of loneliness and homelessness.

The Savior was born in a fierce cold.
Shepherd's fires burned in the desert.
The storm raged and exhausted the soul
from the poor kings who delivered gifts.
The camels lifted their shaggy legs.
The wind howled. Star burning in the night
watched as the three caravans of the road
converged into the cave of Christ, like rays.

After the first reading of the Bible, even two Christmas poems were born, they were written with a break of several days, one seems to continue the other. They succinctly and accurately describe the circumstances of Christmas, from which a feeling of authenticity of the testimony, almost documentary, is born.

The star shone brightly from the sky.
The cold wind raked the snow into a snowdrift.
Rustling sand. The fire crackled at the entrance.
The smoke was like a candle. The fire curled up.
And the shadows got shorter
then suddenly longer. Nobody around knew
that the account of life will begin from this night.
The wolves have arrived. The baby was fast asleep.
Steep vaults surrounded the manger.
The snow swirled. White steam swirled.
The Child lay, and the gifts lay.

The following Christmas poem was written on January 1, 1965 in the village of Norenskaya, where Brodsky was exiled "for parasitism." Here the event of Christmas is experienced by the poet through the prism of his own fate, which threw him into exile. The poem begins with a feeling of abandonment and hopelessness: “The Magi will forget your address. / There will be no stars above your head ...” But with every line, with every word, the motive of hope grows.

It is essentially a prayer, a psalm that begins with lamentation and ends with a hymn of thanksgiving.

The poem ends with the assurance of the mercy and love of God and the acquisition of one's own worth in His eyes.

And silently staring at the ceiling
since the stocking is clearly empty,
you will understand that stinginess is only a guarantee
that is too old
it's too late to believe in miracles
and looking up to heaven,
you suddenly feel that
- a sincere gift.

The feeling that you are a gift for yourself can only occur in the face of the Highest Reality. The Nativity of Christ becomes, to some extent, your birth, a new birth. Since that time, Christmas poems have accompanied the poet throughout his life.

The researchers write that the Christmas cycle appeared as a result of Brodsky's discussion with Anna Akhmatova of the problem of poetic transcriptions of the biblical story, the height of which he set, so that after it it is no longer possible to read pious Christian verses.

In an interview, Joseph Brodsky says that the Christmas cycle grew out of the picture “Adoration of the Magi”, which he cut out from a magazine and hung on the wall, looked at it for a long time and once wanted to write poetry on this topic. But it seems to me that the reasons were much deeper, and this depth was determined by the fact that Brodsky very personally perceived the Sacred History itself, in which the vast cosmos and man, like a thinking reed, are united into a single harmony of the incomprehensible mystery of God's love.

During the Soviet period (1961-1972) Brodsky wrote seven poems on the theme of Christmas. And this cycle, of course, includes the poem "Christmas Romance", which he dedicated to his friend, the poet Yevgeny Rein. It was written on December 28, 1961, before Brodsky even picked up the Bible. There is, of course, the theme of loneliness in it, but there is also a premonition of mystery and a feeling of an invisible Presence, which will be characteristic of his subsequent poems.

The last of the Christmas verses of the Soviet period is dated December 24, 1971, very shortly before the expulsion: "At Christmas, everyone is a little magician." It begins with a description of the usual pre-holiday fuss, through which the light of otherworldly worlds breaks through, the expectation of a Miracle sounds, because “His approach, moving all the tables,” disrupts the usual course of things. The poem ends amazingly:

But when in the door draft
from the thick night fog
a figure in a scarf appears,
and the Child and the Holy Spirit
you feel in yourself without shame;
look up into the sky and see a star.

The motif of the star is clear in Christmas verses, and this is understandable, but here it has a special meaning, because in the Soviet Union everyone lived under the Kremlin stars, and here the Star of Bethlehem appears, which is higher than all earthly and heavenly stars, it sets the cosmic perspective.

In 1972 Joseph Brodsky was forced to leave the Soviet Union. He had several difficult years to find not only housing and work, a new language and recognition in the West, but also, to a certain extent, to rediscover himself. From 1972 to 1987, there was no Christmas theme in his lyrics.

The creativity of this time is permeated with melancholy, a feeling of God-forsakenness, loneliness, alienness to the world. This is understandable: exile, the inability to see parents, friends, disorder, a different linguistic and cultural environment, but Brodsky is, first of all, a poet, and his poetic word grinds everything in verse, forming a new poetic cosmos. And little by little Christmas verses appear. The star of Christmas, as a guiding one, rises again on his horizon, indicating the path from which he will now never go astray.

In the period from 1987 to 1996, Brodsky wrote a poem every year on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day 1987, in America, he wrote his famous poem "Christmas Star". The motive of loneliness again sounds in it, but it ends with the acquisition of the Other: “... the star looked into the cave. And that was the look of the Father.”

If in the Soviet period, Brodsky’s world is a fuss: shopping bags, tables, Christmas trees, pre-holiday crush, ignoring the silence and not noticing a miracle, then in the American one it is a desert, naked, unfriendly, overwhelming with its silence: “Get used, son, to the desert. Under the foot, besides it, there is no other stronghold” (“Lullaby”, December 1992). But again and again, a miracle invariably happens - a Divine Child is born, and this birth is capable of warming this cold universe. Each Christmas poem has its own motives, but almost everywhere there is a star as a sign of the victory of light over darkness, love over hatred, the theme of the value of human life and the reality of eternal life sounds.

The last poem of the Christmas cycle - "Flight to Egypt" - was written by Joseph Brodsky in December 1995, just a month before his death.

Poems about Christmas Brodsky wrote not just by chance, it was his form of standing before God and the mystery of His presence in this world.

By placing the Incarnation in the realities of everyday life, the poet wants to show that our whole life takes place in the context of the cosmos, no matter how small it may be, its scale is the whole universe, it takes place in the space where God and man meet. That Meeting, which Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh always reminded of.

This is especially evident in the poem "Candlemas", written on February 16, 1972, shortly before Brodsky was expelled to the West. As always, the poet follows the gospel narrative exactly, but after describing the event, the experience of it as a fateful meeting comes to the fore. Brodsky literally translates the prayer of Simeon the God-bearer, revealing to him the secret of his own destiny. The poem is dedicated to Anna Akhmatova, for him she is the prophetess Anna, who in many ways predicted his fate. But it is wrong to assume, as some researchers write, that the poem is dedicated to the meeting with Akhmatova. It is, of course, dedicated to the Meeting with a capital letter, which gave strength to step into the darkness with hope and see the light there:

He heard that time had lost its sound.
And the image of the Child with radiance around
fluffy crown of the death path
the soul of Simeon carried before him

like a lamp, into that black darkness,
in which no one has hitherto
there was no way to light the way.
The lamp shone, and the path widened.

The iconic nature of the poems of Joseph Brodsky has already been written more than once, his poems can really be likened to verbal icons. And here it is quite obvious that the expansion of the path is the construction of space with the help of a reverse perspective, as in an icon, where all lines do not converge inside the image, but expand, showing that the Divine world is boundless.

And I would like to mention one more poem by Brodsky here. This is the poem "Still Life", in the final part of which there are such lines:

Mother says to Christ:
Are you my son or my
God? You are nailed to the cross.
How will I go home?

As I step on the threshold
not understanding, not deciding:
Are you my son or God?
That is, dead or alive?

He says in response:
- dead or alive
no difference, woman.
Son or God, I am yours.

The poem was written in June 1971, when Joseph Brodsky was in the hospital. He was hospitalized with significant blood loss, and the doctors suspected a malignant tumor, but the diagnosis, thank God, was not confirmed. Perhaps for the first time, the question of death arose before the poet with all its acuteness. The result of his experiences was the poem "Still Life".

There is a play on words in the very title of the poem: on the one hand, “still life” is an image of things, the poem begins with them, on the other hand, the word “still life” appears here in the meaning of “nature morte” - dead nature, death itself. The epigraph contains the lines of the Italian writer and translator Cesare Pavese: "Death will come, and it will have your eyes."

Note that inside the poem there is an indication of Christmas time: “It's January. Winter. according to the calendar." The final part is devoted to the Passionate plot “Do not cry for Me, Mother”, in which the secret of overcoming death, the secret of love, is revealed, and through it the dead becomes alive, death is conquered by life. Death is always the horror of loss, but here Christ says: “Woman, I am yours.” The poet shows that the line between the Divine and the human (“Are you my son or God?”), between the dead and the living, does not pass at all where it is drawn by people who perceive everything as things, as matter, objectively. But reality is metaphysical, and life does not end with the disappearance of perishable matter, because relationships do not disappear if they are based on love.

Brodsky refutes the thought put forward in the epigraph: “This is absurd, a lie: a skull, a skeleton, a scythe. "Death will come, it will have your eyes." Death has no eyes, only eye sockets, it is blind, it mows down everyone. But love has eyes; under the gaze of love, the soul comes to life (remember: “And this was the gaze of the Father”). And therefore, Brodsky moves from a detached description of things, objects, from the perception of being as “it”, to the perception of reality in the mode of “I and You” (what Martin Buber wrote about), being is a dialogue, relationships.

It is this position of dialogue, communion, living view, love that Christianity asserts as the only true one in relation to reality.

My notes do not pretend to be any complete analysis of the work of Joseph Brodsky. The real reading of him as a Christian poet is yet to come. Although even the first approximation to his poems suggests that Christian culture of the 20th century and now even the 21st cannot do without his poetry. Brodsky wrote in a poem for Akhmatova's centenary:

Page and fire, grain and millstones,
axes with a point and a truncated hair -
God preserves everything; especially the words
forgiveness and love as your own voice.

The same is true of Joseph Brodsky himself.

Today is the bright holiday of Easter

Today is the bright holiday of Easter,
I hasten to congratulate you
I'll cook a beautiful kulich,
"Christ is Risen" I will tell you!

Let life go easy and smooth
There will be no sadness, troubles in it,
Always let the sun shine bright
And warm light warms the soul!

Easter is coming

Easter is coming
Brings good feelings
In our souls, as if in a fairy tale,
Blessed revolution.
We look to the sky with hope
Looking forward to happy change
Fills the heart with bliss
And the sad shadow leaves.
Daddy, Christ is Risen!
Keep you from adversity
Sun, light in the sky
On this and other days!

Christ is risen!

The earth is waking up today
And the fields are dressed in mystery,
Spring is coming, it is full of miracles!
Christ is risen! Truly risen!
Nature is full of gentle trembling,
And the birds curl in the blue of the sky.
Silence broken today
Christ is risen! Truly risen!
Noisy now green grass
She is echoed by the old, full of mystery, forest.
And the wind whispers gentle words:
"Christ is risen! Truly risen!"

He walked resignedly on a thorny path ...

Pleshcheev A. N.

He walked resignedly on a thorny path,
He met joyfully both death and shame;
The mouth that spoke the doctrine of strict truth,
They did not utter a reproach to the mocking crowd.

He walked meekly and, crucified on the cross,
He bequeathed to the peoples both brotherhood and love;
For this sinful world, embraced by darkness,
His holy blood was shed for the neighbor.

O weak children of the skeptical age!
Or does not that mighty image tell you
About the appointment of a great man
And does not call the sleeping will to a feat?

Oh no! I don't believe. Not completely muffled
In us the voice of truth is self-interest and vanity;
Another day will come ... It will inhale both life and strength
In our dilapidated world the teachings of Christ!

My soul, rejoice and sing...

Kuchelbecker W.

My soul, rejoice and sing,
Heiress of Heaven:
Christ is risen,
your savior
Truly risen!
So! Hell before the Strong was exhausted
From coffin chains
From the night of the death of the Son of God
And raised you up with Him.
From the light of the eternal Lord
Descended into the dwelling of darkness,
Wrapped in a finger
dressed in flesh
May we not die!

Unspeakable Love
All sacraments height!
For all His holy blood
He shed from the cross.
With His pure blood
He redeemed us fallen ones
From torment and coffin, from nets
And the powers of the dark forces.
Christ is risen my Savior
Truly resurrected.
Rejoice, soul: He is before you
Opened the gates of heaven!

Praise to the Risen One

Praise the Lord from heaven
And sing incessantly:
The world is filled with His miracles
And glory unspeakable.

Praise the host of incorporeal forces
And angelic faces;
From the darkness of mournful graves
The light shone great.

Praise the Lord from heaven
Hills, cliffs, mountains!
Hosanna! The fear of death is gone.
Our eyes light up.

Praise God, the sea is far
And the ocean is endless!
Let all sorrow be silenced
And hopeless murmur!

Praise the Lord from heaven
And praise, people!
Risen Christ! Christ is risen!
And trampled death forever!

When there is no urine to bear the cross ...

When there is no urine to bear the cross,
When sadness cannot be overcome
We raise our eyes to heaven
Praying day and night
For the Lord to have mercy.

But if after grief
Happiness smiles upon us again
Thank you kindly
With all my heart, with all my mind
Are we God's mercy and love?

Easter in St. Petersburg

Igor Severyanin

There was a smell of hyacinths in the dining room,
Ham, Easter cake and Madeira,
It smelled of spring Easter of Christ,
Orthodox Russian faith.

It smelled of the sun, window paint
And lemon from the female body
Inspirational merry Easter,
What around the bell buzzed.

And at the monument to Nicholas
In front of the Great Sea,
Where was the pavement from the ends,
The tarred smell of board.

Because of the glasses washed for the holiday,
Because of the frames without sand and without cotton wool
The city stomped, rang and clattered,
Kissed, embraced with delight.

It was sweet to the womb and spirit
Youth rushed, pinning the flowers.
And the elders, although it was dry,
Fur coats, cotton wool in the ears and galoshes ...

The poetry of religion, where are you?
Where is the religiosity of poetry?
All "idle" songs are sung,
"Business" seriousness from now on ...

Let it be ridiculous, funny, stupid
It was in my young years,
But the heart was embraced
Those that are peculiar only to Russia!

Christ is risen! Again with the dawn ...

Ivan Bunin

Christ is risen! Again with the dawn
The shadow of the long night thins,
Again lit up above the ground
For a new life, a new day.

Thickets of boron are still blackening;
Still in the shadow of his raw,
Like mirrors, lakes stand
And breathe the freshness of the night;

Still in the blue valleys
Fogs are floating... But look:
Already burning on mountain ice floes
Rays of fiery dawn!

They are still shining in the sky,
Unattainable like a dream
Where the voices of the earth are silent
And immaculate beauty.

But, getting closer every hour
Because of the crimson peaks,
They will blaze, flaring up,
And into the darkness of the forests and into the depths of the valleys;

They will ascend in the beauty of the desired
And they will announce from the heights of heaven,
That the promised day has come
That God is truly risen!

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen! He is the King of the worlds
Mighty kings Lord,
He is all humility, all is love,
For a sinful world holy blood
Shed like a redeeming angel!

Christ is risen! He gave people
Testament of holy forgiveness,
He gave mercy to the fallen
And for holy convictions
He ordered to suffer as he himself suffered!

Christ is risen! He announced
That on earth all people are brothers,
He renewed the world with love,
He forgave his enemies on the cross
And he opened his arms to us!

Christ is risen! Christ is risen!
May these joyful sounds
Like the singing of angels from heaven
They will dispel anger, sorrow, torment!
Join all brotherly hands
Let's hug everyone! Christ is risen!

Earth and sun...

Charskaya L

Earth and sun
Fields and forest -
All praise God
Christ is risen!

In the smile of blue
living skies
All the same joy
Christ is risen!

The enmity is gone
And the fear is gone.
No more malice
Christ is risen!

How wonderful the sounds
holy words,
in which you hear:
Christ is risen!

Earth and sun
Fields and forest -
All praise God
Christ is risen!

Resurrection of Christ

Elena Gorchakova

On Easter day, joyfully playing,
The lark flew high
And disappearing into the blue sky
He sang the song of resurrection.
And that song was loudly repeated
And the steppe, and the hill, and the dark forest.
"Wake up, earth," they said,
wake up: your King, your God is risen.
Wake up mountains, valleys, rivers.
Praise the Lord from heaven.
He has conquered death forever.
Wake up and you, green forest.
Snowdrop, silver lily of the valley,
Violet - bloom again
And send up a fragrant hymn
To the one whose commandment is love.

Day of the Orthodox East...

Fedor Tyutchev

Day of the Orthodox East
Holy, holy, great day,
Spread your blessings wide
And clothe all of Russia with them!

But holy Russia is the limit
Do not hesitate to call him:
Let it be heard in the whole world,
Let it pour over the edge

With your distant wave
And seizing that valley,
Where it fights with the infirmity of evil
My birth child,

That bright land, where in exile
She is preoccupied with fate.
Where the sky of the southern breath
Like medicine, she only drinks ...

Oh, give healing to the sick,
Breathe joy into her soul.
So that on Christ's Sunday
Whole life resurrected in her...

Christ is everywhere

Fedor Glinka

Christ is everywhere: in the rays of the daylight
He enters, Quiet and Holy,
To the orphanage, to the widow's yard
And gilds the dungeon gate
With His heavenly gold...

Christ is Everywhere: When Villains
Take the traveler by surprise
And the knife trembles over the living neck,
Not the gods of the ancient empyrean -
Christ hurries for a secret breath.

And the planner obviously trembled,
But from what? - does not know himself;
And, throwing the knife, the destroyer runs
And he feels that the invisible Avenger
He's on the heels of...

Christ is everywhere: when loopholes,
In the days of battles, the brave Ross plucked
And burned the brave eyelashes
From the vents flying lightning,
Who led the brave? - Christ...

Christ is everywhere: the infection boils,
And trouble walks through people,
And the sting of scum destroys the harvest...
But for their own, clearer than a diamond.
Christ's star glows!

Christ is everywhere: in the noise of excitement,
In the wards, in a poor hut,
In anguish of obscure languor,
And in a bright moment, and in a moment of eclipse,
He knows what to say to the soul! ..

Christ is everywhere. Creeps insidious
I snake under your feet,
And the ungrateful ditch digs...
But suddenly the Light-bearing one will shine
And crush the snake's head...

Will we read the pages of ancient years,
They say: "Christ is everywhere!"
Softening the stiffness of the hair shirt,
Destiny owning purple,
And He keeps passions in check...

We live by Christ, Christ carries us:
Swimmers, our Ocean is Christ;
Chicks, He brings us writing.
What does he ask of us in return?
Love, prayer, two or three tears!

Easter hear the bells ring

Do you hear the Easter bells?
Christ's resurrection has arrived!
Easter brings joy and love
To make the world a better and brighter place.

I wish this spring
The Lord has blessed you with gifts,
So that happiness and peace reign,
And you responded with good deeds.

Christ is risen! Saint again

Christ is risen! Saint again
It's Easter. And golden
The head of the capital shone
And my heart became sweeter:

Today the sun shines brighter
Stronger wind beats in the window,
And the cry rushes to heaven:
Christ is truly Risen!

Easter is the best holiday

Easter is the best holiday!
And we don't need a wallet.
Happiness is seen in the eyes.
Holidays are in the sky again.

Songs that we sing loudly.
The light of the earth and the laughter of a child.
Spring is on my mind now
They echo the joy of the voice.

And from end to end
Happiness we know.
Easter! Easter! Heaven's guest!
Everyone shouts: Christ is risen!

I will fall on my knees before Jesus
I will fall on my knees before Jesus
And I will kiss his wounds
For the precious Gift of His salvation,
For joy, for love, for grace.
For taking Golgotha ​​for me,
Trampled my death with his death
And took my soul out of hell,
And gave happiness to Eternal Life!
At such an incredible price
Redeemed me from the slavery of death,
In the gap he shielded me with Himself
For the Kingdom of Heaven keeping!
Praise be to Thee and Glory be my Savior
Because you died and rose again,
For the fact that You are now my Patron
May Glory to You pour to the Heavens!
Gardens bloom, nature rejoices,
The Earth gives all the Glory to the Savior!
Saved, let everyone triumph
And every heart sings Praise to Christ!!!
Bondarenko Lyubov

Poems for Easter are accepted from any authors!

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