Alexander Blok

• 1. A Boy At Shakhmatovo

  ›

  Alexander Blok was born in Saint Petersburg on the 7th of August 1880. He grew up within an intellectual family that included a law professor and a famous botanist. His maternal grandfather, Andrey Beketov, served as rector of Saint Petersburg State University. After his parents separated, Blok lived with aristocratic relatives at the manor Shakhmatovo near Moscow. This estate became the setting for his early philosophical awakening. There he discovered the writings of Vladimir Solovyov. He also read the verse of then-obscure poets like Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet. These influences shaped his first publications, which were later collected under the title Ante Lucem.

• 2. The Beautiful Lady Cycle

  ›

  In 1903 he married the actress Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva. She was the daughter of the renowned chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. Later she involved him in a complicated love-hate relationship with fellow Symbolist Andrei Bely. To Lyuba he dedicated a cycle of poetry called Stikhi o Prekrasnoi Dame. The English translation is Verses About the Beautiful Lady. It appeared in 1904. This work made him famous across Russia. The idealized mystical images presented in this book helped establish Blok as a major poet of Russian Symbolism. His early verse remained musical while introducing daring rhythmic patterns. He created unforgettable otherworldly images from banal surroundings. One such poem came from Fabrika in 1903.

• 3. The Twelve And The Red Guards

  ›

  Blok enthusiastically greeted the 1905 Russian Revolution. During the last period of his life he emphasized political themes. He pondered the messianic destiny of his country through works like Vozmezdie and Rodina. In May 1917 Blok was appointed as a stenographer for the Extraordinary Commission. He transcribed interrogations related to Grigori Rasputin. A few days after the October Revolution Anatoly Lunacharsky invited leading writers to a meeting. Only five people attended including Vladimir Mayakovsky and Vsevolod Meyerhold. Blok wrote The Twelve in 1918. It describes twelve Red Guards marching through Petrograd during a fierce winter blizzard. They are likened to the Apostles while Jesus Christ goes ahead of them. This poem alienated many intellectual readers who accused him of lacking artistry. Yet it earned him honor from the Bolsheviks despite his earlier mysticism.

• 4. A Poet Without Words

  ›

  By 1921 Blok had become disillusioned with the Russian Revolution. He had not written any poetry for three years. He complained to Maksim Gorky that his faith in humanity had ended. He explained to friend Korney Chukovsky why he could no longer write. All sounds have stopped, he said. Can't you hear that there are no longer any sounds? Within a few days Blok became sick with asthma. He had earlier developed scurvy as well. His doctors requested that he be sent abroad for medical treatment. He was not allowed to leave the country. Gorky pleaded for a visa on Blok's behalf. On the 29th of May 1921 he wrote to Anatoly Lunacharsky stating that if they forbade him to go abroad and he died they would be guilty of his death. A resolution on departure was signed by members of the Political Bureau on the 23rd of July 1921. Permission for his wife to leave Russia was signed by Molotov on the 1st of August 1921. The permission was delivered on the 10th of August but Blok had already died on the 7th of August.

• 5. Trotsky And Bukharin Praise

  ›

  Blok continued to be honoured by the Bolsheviks despite his pre-revolutionary religious imagery. In 1923 Leon Trotsky devoted a whole chapter of his book Literature and Revolution to Blok. Trotsky stated that Blok belonged to pre-October literature but overcame this. He entered into the sphere of October when he wrote The Twelve. Nikolai Bukharin praised Blok in an official report to the First Congress of Soviet Writers. He called Blok a poet of tremendous power whose verse achieves chiselled monumentality. Bukharin added that Blok thought with the sign of the Cross he could bless and exorcise the image of the unfolding revolution. He perished without having spoken his final word. Several months earlier Blok had delivered a celebrated lecture on Alexander Pushkin. He believed the memory of Pushkin could unite White and Soviet Russian factions.

• 6. Songs From Hard Times

  ›

  Dmitri Shostakovich wrote a late song cycle for soprano and piano trio titled Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok Opus 127. Mieczysław Weinberg composed a song cycle for soprano and piano called Beyond the Border of Past Days Opus 50. Arthur Lourié created a choral cantata named In the Sanctuary of Golden Dreams. Georgy Sviridov considered Blok a favourite poet. He wrote Petersburg as a vocal poem and Nightly Clouds as a cantata. Songs From Hard Times was written as a concerto to Blok's poetry. Yevgania Yosifovna Yakhina and Valentina Ramm set Blok's poems to music. These musical adaptations kept his work alive long after his death in 1921. They transformed his words into enduring soundscapes for future generations.