Alexander Blok. Selected Poems

386 Pages·1972·12.87 MB·English

by  Avril Pyman

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ALEXANDER BLOK
Selected Poems
INTRODUCED AND EDITED BY
AVRIL PYMAN, Ph. D.
ILLUSTRATED BY
KIRILL SOKOLOV
P E R G A M ON PRESS
OXFORD-NEW YORK-TORONTO
SYDNEY- BRAUNSCHWEIG
Pergamon Press Ltd., Headington Hill Hall, Oxford
Pergamon Press Inc., Maxwell House, Fairview Park, Elmsford, New York 10523
Pergamon of Canada Ltd., 207 Queen's Quay West, Toronto 1
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N.S.W. 2011, Australia
Vieweg & Sohn GmbH, Burgplatz 1, Braunschweig
Copyright © 1972 Pergamon Press Ltd.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Pergamon Press Ltd.
First edition 1972
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 67-31506
Printed in Germany
This book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade, be lent,
resold, hired out, or otherwise disposed
of without the publisher's consent,
in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which
it is published.
08 012184 5 (flcxicover)
08 012185 3 (hard cover)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
1 Alexander L'vovich Blok (1852-1909) and Alexandra Andreyevna Beke-
tova (1860-1923), the poet's father and mother.
2 A road near Shakhmatovo.
3 Alexander Blok as a boy at Shakhmatovo.
4 Alexander Blok out riding with his groom near Shakhmatovo.
5 The chapel near Shakhmatovo, scene of Blok's marriage in 1903.
6 Lyubov' Dmitriyevna as Sophie in Griboyedov's Woe from Wit.
7 Lyubov' Dmitriyevna as Ophelia.
8 Sergey Mikhailovich Solov'ev (1885-1941).
9 Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev (Andrey Bely) (1880-1934).
10 Lyubov' Dmitriyevna Mendeleyeva (1881-1939), Blok's wife.
11 The Bronze Horseman—statue of Peter the Great which dominates
Blok's poetry about the 1905 Revolution.
12 E.M.Hunt.
13 V.V.Ivanova.
14 Nataliya Nikolayevna Volokhova, heroine of the cycles "Snezhnaya
Maska" and "Faina".
15 Valentina Petrovna Verigina.
16 Lyubov' Alexandrovna Del'mas ("Carmen", 1913).
17 Alexander Blok in St. Petersburg.
18 Alexander Blok at Shakhmatovo.
19 A typical courtyard on the "Islands".
20 The railings of the "Summer Garden".
21 The house on the corner of Offitserskaya Street where Blok spent the last
nine years of his life.
22 A childhood drawing.
23 A page from the first draft of "The Twelve".
24 Alexander Blok on his deathbed, August 1921.
xi
EDITOR'S PREFACE
THE ONLY effective introduction to a poet is through his verse and this book
has been conceived first and foremost as an introduction to the life and work
of Alexander Blok. Readers who are sufficiently interested can go on to the
nine-volume Collected Works recently published to which cross-references
have been made throughout this work.
Blok's total poetic output includes more than 1700 published verses,
counting parodies and translations. This book offers 103 poems, one extract
from a long poem and one prose passage. Obviously, the editor has had to be
rigorously selective and has had constantly to bear in mind the primary
purpose of producing an annotated edition of Blok's poetry for the English-
speaking reader: that is, to give that reader an immediate over-all impression
of Blok's complex development as a poet—full, as he says himself, of "diva-
xiii
XIV EDITOR'S PREFACE
gâtions, falls, doubts and regrets"—and, on a deeper level, some knowledge
of what Blok called his "road"—"straight as an arrow in its ultimate direc­
tion and, like an arrow, purposeful".
In order to give this bird's-eye view, the selection of verses has been
made on a strictly representational basis. Two or three poems have been
chosen from each book or cycle in an endeavour to convey the dominant
quality of each period of the poet's formative years and, subsequently, of
each major theme which he wove into the symphony of his mature poetry.
The task of editing Blok's poetry is made easier by the fact that he himself
edited the first three editions of his poems (1912,1916,1918) and, before his
death, worked out a detailed plan for the publication of his collected works,
the first four volumes of which, comprising his lyric poetry and his plays,
were actually ready for publication when he died.* Blok divided his poetry
into three volumes, each markedly different in theme and texture, yet
differing only as wayside scenery differs seen through the eyes of one pur­
poseful traveller.
The First Volume is a book of the Dawn, of Revelation and of Awakening.
Already, Blok writes not only of himself but, albeit quite unknowingly, of
his time and of his country. Later, he often pictured Russia as a Sleeping
Beauty and this early poetry describes the casting off of an evil enchantment
of sloth and pessimism, a prayerful reawakening to a golden morning in
which, as Blok's contemporary and spiritual "brother" Andrey Bely was to
recall after Blok's death,"... we experienced the violent change in our tempor­
al world as the onslaught of Eternity". "This poor child of my Youth", Blok
called his First Volume in 1916, but he added: "The Verses about the Most
Beautiful Lady remain the best. Time should not touch them, however weak I
may have been as an artist." It has been possible to print the extracts from
the First Volume in the order in which Blok last arranged them and in which
they have appeared in all subsequent Soviet editions of his work because, as
he says, there was in this early poetry "a single-stringed quality of soul which
made it possible to arrange all the verses...in strictly chronological order;
here, the chapters are divided up into years, in the following books—
according to subject".
However, in so brief an anthology, in which only a few poems must
represent a whole range of ideas and experiences, it seemed to make for
greater clarity to rearrange chronologically the poems written between the
years 1904 and 1908 which go to make up Blok's transitional Second Vo­
lume. This rearrangement of the material gives a clearer picture of the way
in which the themes of Blok's mature poetry gradually crystallized in the
* For the history of this edition see VI. Orlov, "JlHTepaTypHoe HacjieACTBO Απβκ-
caimpa BjiOKa", Jlumepamypnoe HacAedcmeo, 27-28 M., 1937, οτρ. 505-74.
EDITOR'S PREFACE XV
melting-pot of spiritual turmoil, rebellion, revolution and reaction which is
the poetry of the Second Volume. Blok considered the poetry which he wrote
during the year 1901 to be "of primary significance both for the first volume
and for the whole trilogy... the 'magic crystal' through which I first beheld,
albeit indistinctly, all the 'distance of a free romance' ". If, in the "Verses
about the Most Beautiful Lady", Blok stands, as it were, on a high mountain,
surveying the country through which he is about to travel through a golden
morning haze, in the Second Volume he is like a man who has plunged
impatiently down into the mists, forgetting both guide and compass in his
eagerness to test his own strength. Dimly, he is conscious of other people,
who, like him, seem to have waded in heedlessly and prematurely and to be
making towards the same distant goal; there are many of them and they seem
to know better than he where they are going and what they want. Momen­
tarily, the poet is acutely aware that it is these half-glimpsed, grey figures who
carry in themselves the vitality and patience to reach that Promised Land
which he had glimpsed from the mountain-top and taken for a private para­
dise. But ancient and powerful forces are working against them. Because
they have set forth unprepared, they are scattered and defeated and the poet
is left alone in a great, hushed expanse of treacherous marshland and wreath­
ing mists. Because this is the actual order of the experience mirrored in
Blok's poetry, the verses written about and during the 1904-1905 Revolution
are placed before those from the cycle "Bubbles of the Earth" with which
Blok himself elected to begin his Second Volume, even though most of
them were written in the summer and autumn of 1905 when he was already
beginning to lose interest in the revolutionary situation in Petersburg. After
"Bubbles of the Earth", a chronological arrangement has been attempted of
Blok's sorrowful post-1905 poetry, in which the "mystic" theme of "The
Stranger" is interwoven with the haunting humanity of "The Ring of
Suffering"—verses originally grouped, together with the poetry of the Revo­
lution, in two collections entitled simply "Various Verses" and "The Town".
Immediately after the Revolution, the stillness which resettled over the
country in a leaden, thundery hush seemed to eat its way into the very heart
of the poet. Still sustained by the memory of the Perfection from which he
had come and which, he believed, still awaited him with pardon and healing
at the end of his road, he is, for the moment, lost—drifting and circling,
living in the moment and not, as he believed one should live, for the future,
transforming his life into art, dreaming dreams and chasing shadows. But,
as the darkness deepens, the first snow-flakes of the soft winter of 1906 begin
to fall—and the poet is engulfed suddenly in a blizzard of snow and stars.
Turning his back on stillness and resignation, he surrenders himself to the
elements—from which he emerges, shaken and sober, into the bright, prosaic
XVI EDITOR'S PREFACE
light of day. "Free Thoughts", the blank-verse cycle written during the sum­
mer of 1907, is the firstfruit of this new clarity of vision and has been restored
to its chronological place between "The Snow-Mask" (January 1907) and
the poetry written in the autumn and winter of the same year. For the Second
Volume ends naturally, in poetry and in time, with the setting in of winter.
For at the end of the road, full of falls, contradictions, bitter ecstasies and useless
melancholy, there stretches one eternal and boundless plain, our home from the be­
ginning, perhaps Russia herself. And the snows which have dimmed the shining of the
One Star will die away. And the snows which have covered the earth—are there only
until the Spring. But in the meantime, the snow blinds the eyes and the cold freezes
the soul and blocks the roads.... (From Blok's own introduction to "The Earth in
Snow".)
The Third Volume does not recount a process. The poet is mature and, in
the settled winter of his heart, is free to write of things other than himself, to
fulfil his function as "a witness", to put the "excellent grand-piano" of his
talent at the service of the Spirit of his Age. Russia, particularly, he has
come to feel "as his own soul". But her course and his are already predeter­
mined by what has gone before, the situation has already crystallized,
the road ahead is seen with painful clarity, and it remains only to "bear
witness", to await events and, when they come, not to waste time opposing
the Music of History but to welcome the new harmonies and to preserve
what is worth preserving of the old in faith and dignity. For, Blok wrote, "it
is my destiny to become a catacomb". There is no development in Blok's
mature poetry—only various moods of varying intensity. For this reason,
the editor has felt free to adhere to Blok's own grouping—this time "accord­
ing to subject".
In the introduction, an attempt has been made to write briefly about Blok's
poetry in the context of his life and time. The notes are more detailed. Their
purpose is not only to make available in English much material contained in
the notes to the first three volumes of the nine-volume Soviet Collected
Works, but also to supplement these notes by providing references to English
translations, by making available relevant material from unpublished sour­
ces, and by cross-references to published works about specific aspects of
Blok's poetry and also to the poet's own letters, diaries, prose, plays and
other poems. Cross-references to Blok's published works have been given,
wherever possible, to the nine-volume Collected Works. The last three vol­
umes, however, which contain Blok's letters, diaries, and notebooks, had not
come out at the time of writing, so that all references to these materials give
only the dates and, in the case of letters, the names of the recipients. Ex­
ceptions have been made for letters only so far available in separate publi­
cations (monographs, newspapers, journals, etc.), and for those contained in
EDITOR'S PREFACE XVII
the two-volume Letters to Relatives, where the page reference has been given.
Other material is not difficult to locate under the date of writing. Letters and
extracts from Blok's diaries and notebooks have been published in a number
of editions of his works. P. Medvedev edited and published one volume of
Blok's notebooks (1930) and two of his diaries (1928). These, however, are
not always easy to come by, which is why it has not been thought necessary
to give page references to these particular editions, although the editor has
been careful to distinguish between the notebooks and the two diaries which
is not done, for instance, in the two-volume edition of Blok's Selected Works
published in Moscow 1955. Volumes 7 and 9 of the new Collected Works
give the fullest publications from the diaries and notebooks available to
date.
Much bibliographical material is contained in the notes. The Biblio­
graphy at the end of this book aims to acquaint the reader in some detail
with the literature about Blok published outside the Soviet Union in
English, French, German, Italian and Russian, with other bibliographies
which provide an excellent coverage of works on Blok in the U.S.S.R. until
the end of 1957, and with the main works on Blok's life and poetry published
in Russian and other European languages which have been listed in chrono­
logical order for the convenience of the student. I am particularly grateful
to Tartu University for permission to republish the sections on Blok in
English, French, German and Italian and would like to mention the great
debt I owe to librarians and bibliographers all over Europe and in the U.S.A.
and the U.S.S.R. who helped me in this work and whom I have thanked more
fittingly by name in the Tartu publication. I am also most grateful to the
Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. for permission to reprint (after the
section on Blok in English) a revised and extended list of Blok's verses in
English translation originally published in the collection MeMcdynapodnue
Cemu PyccKoü JIumepamypbi, ed M. P. Alekseyev, Moscow-Leningrad,
1963.
The chronology was an afterthought but, it is hoped, one that will be
found useful.
Finally, as editor, I would like to express my profound gratitude to the
personnel of the Manuscript Department of the Pushkin House, Leningrad;
of the Manuscript Room of the Lenin Library, Moscow; and of the Central
State Archives of Literature and Art, Moscow. They not only gave me access
to almost all the material I wished to see, but also co-operated tirelessly and
enthusiastically in deciphering difficult handwriting and in locating and
suggesting material. I should like also to thank the British Council, whose
Graduate Exchange Scheme enabled me to spend two years in the Soviet
Union preparing this book, a great privilege which would have been quite
XV111 EDITOR'S PREFACE
unthinkable without their patience in negotiation and organization. There
are, of course, always individuals also "without whom this book could not
have been written"—in this case, my parents, who kept me in peace and
plenty for two years on my return from Russia, and Dr. Nikolay Andreyev,
who, ever since he set my feet on the path of learning, has helped me in
every conceivable way and whose letters of introduction opened many doors
to me—in Paris, Germany, Russia and at home in England—which might
otherwise have never creaked ajar. Warmest thanks are also due to the follow­
ing individuals who bore patiently with my insatiable curiosity: the late
O.V.Kirschbaum, Blok's cousin and my dear grandmother-in-law, who
remembered the poet as a youth reciting Shakespeare at family parties;
V.P.Verigina, who still smiles at the memory of an Alexander Blok of
hypnotic charm, wild imagination and irresistible humour; N. N. Volokhova,
who "took Blok down from the bookshelf" for me and showed me an artist
of explosive, youthful talent, not without affectation in life but, as an artist,
dedicated beyond the measure of his fellows; N. A.Pavlovich, who loves and
remembers a stern teacher, a tragic figure of absolute spiritual integrity;
Yuriy Shaporin, the musician, who talked of Blok's punctilious courtesy and
of his "piercing, inhuman beauty"; N.A.Kogan-Nolle, who evokes in her
reminiscences a sophisticated and experienced man of literature—but a man
with his own deep and radiant dreams into which she modestly refrained from
prying; E.F.Knipovich, almost the only person to "get on" with Blok, his
wife and his mother during the poet's last years, who talked with affection of
Lyubov' Dmitriyevna's elemental spontaneity, of Alexandra Andreyevna and
her sister Mariya—"incredibly 'sweet-scented' old ladies—in a spiritual
sense, that is—living for ideas and literature, pure and disinterested and quite
cut off from life", and of Blok himself who "like all good men had much of
the little boy in him", who loved, at the age of 39, to ride on the back of
trams, dangling his legs in the sun, or to see a squirrel running across his
path when out walking. Sincere thanks are also due to the late Professor
Gudzy, who helped to cut a great deal of red tape for me in Moscow ; to
Vladimir Orlov, who spent a whole day showing me Blok's Petersburg; and
to many younger and so far less distinguished friends who helped explore the
town, find Blok's old school, photograph his last home, follow in his footsteps
along the sandy dunes above the Stranger's Lake at Ozerki, or risked being
caught by the bridges, which are drawn up between two and four in the
morning to let the shipping pass through, in order to wander about Blok's
"Islands" when the canals reflect the glowing green skies of the White
Nights and the tall cranes and factory chimneys appear to hang weightless
above the insomniac city. Above all, my thanks are due to my Director of
Studies in Leningrad, D.E.Maksimov, who helped me with his advice,