Northerner to my people analysis. "Russian", analysis of Severyanin's poem, composition. Analysis of Severyanin's poem "My Russia"

Igor Severyanin is a poet of the 20th century.

The beginning of the 20th century in Russia was marked by the emergence of avant-gardism and its various poetic trends. In 1911, a group of ego-futurists arose, of which he became the head.

"Futurum" in Latin means "future", and "Ego" - "I". Denying all the traditions of Russian poetry, they tried to create a new language, constructed new words, declared a new morality, where the focus of the poet's attention was his own "I".

Egofuturist Igor Severyanin is the brightest representative of this outrageous poetry. His collections "The Thundering Cup", "Zlatolira", "Pineapples in Champagne" were incredibly popular, and his "poetry concerts" gathered full houses and caused a stir.

"Pineapples in champagne" is one of Severyanin's most famous poems, written in 1915. It shows a favorite urban theme: the city, technological advances, the rapid pace of life.

It is not without reason that each sentence in it is one-part and with an exclamation point at the end. There is no general picture, only fragmentary flashing of “video frames”, from which a contradictory impression is formed: among rushing express trains, cars and planes, salon life is going on, refined, elegant against the background of “wind whistles” and “chirping of airplanes”.

In this beautiful life pineapples and champagne reign, something Norwegian and something Spanish, inspiration, kisses, nervous girls. But unexpectedly, like the 25th frame, a scene of ... a fight flickers among the evening brilliance. This is rude and completely unacceptable for a carefree, bright, sparkling salon life.

And then, if it is already impossible to avoid the lowland, the decision comes: to turn the “tragedy of life” into “a dream-farce”. Not without unexpected neologisms: “wind whistle”, “winglet”, “impulsively”, “dream-farce”. They are "meaningful" and give the poem a kind of extravagance proclaimed by the program of ego-futurists.

"Kenzel". For reference: kenzel in literary criticism is called the form of a poem, which includes three five lines. "Kenzel" was written in 1911. He was very fond of listening to fans performed by Severyanin at numerous performances in different cities. Literally after the first words "In a noisy moire dress ..." enthusiastic applause was heard.

The poem depicts before us an exquisite, exotic world belonging to a mysterious woman. She walks along the night, “lunar” alley, associating with the sea (“pass the sea”), because her dress is noisy, moire (silk shimmering in different shades) talma (cloak) “azure”.

Refined, "elegant", "aesthetic", it makes a charming impression against the backdrop of a moonlit night and a sandy path, "patterned with leaves", like the fur of a jaguar. The beauty and mystery of a woman evoke thoughts of love. Of course, “love intoxication” is “destined” for her, because for such an unearthly woman, “the night is always a newlywed.” But "is there a couple" for such a miracle? Unlikely

She will sit in a gas landolet, entrusting her life to “a boy in a rubber mackintosh”, will close his eyes with her “jasmine”, “noisy”, “moiré dress” ... What will follow this? A wrecked car, a ruined life, a fleeting, meaningless connection? Neologisms in the poem are accessible and extravagant, they reinforce associations, carry away into a magical and mysterious world.

A. was concerned about the lack of theme in the lyrics of I. Severyanin. Critics reproached him for mannerisms, pretentiousness, boudoir, salon dandyism and even vulgar sophistication. Of course, there is also this. But it is impossible not to notice that the poet is sometimes ironic and self-ironic, and this is characteristic of intelligent and deep people. The main thing is that it is distinguished by the finest lyricism, sophistication, elegance, and an amazing sense of rhythm. His poems touch aesthetic feelings, reveal the beauty of the human soul and the richness of experiences.

"My Russia" Igor Severyanin

And painted knitting needles
In loose ruts...
Al. Block

My godless Russia
My sacred country!
Its plains are snowy,
Her gypsies are nomadic, -
Oh, are they not given joy?
Her bursts of fire
Her dreams are advanced
Her writers are alive
Comprehended to the bottom!
Her thieves are saints,
Her flights are blue
And our sun and moon!
And these lands are unearthly,
And these riots are remote,
And all of them, all of their depth!
And her nightingales,
And the nights are fiery and icy,
And ancient intoxicating brews,
And goblets full of wine!
And the troikas are wildly steppe,
And these knitting needles are painted,
And these harnesses are golden,
And winged tie-downs,
Their necks are swan-like steepness!
And our women are beaten
And their sundresses are colored,
And the voices of the girls are chesty,
Such Russians, relatives,
And young as spring
And pouring like a wave
And songs, discontinuous songs,
What is our chest full,
And all of her, and all of her
My creeping Russia
Winged my country!

Analysis of Severyanin's poem "My Russia"

The poet Igor Severyanin refused to accept the ideas of the revolution and in 1918 emigrated to Estonia, which, before the Great Patriotic War remained an independent European state. However, one of the brightest Russian ego-futurists closely followed the events in the USSR and never ceased to be surprised that his homeland still finds the strength to rise from its knees. And this despite the fact that all spiritual principles are being actively destroyed, and ideological slogans, devoid of philanthropy and sometimes even common sense. "My godless Russia" - this is how the poet refers in his poem "My Russia" (1924) to a country that was not needed. There were a lot of people like him, talented and restless, after the revolution. Those who did not have time to leave Russia were simply crushed and destroyed by that merciless force that broke free and, under the guise of changing the world for the better, turned it into ruins. However, Igor Severyanin is convinced that not a single revolution is able to destroy the primordially Russian spirit, thanks to which this country still remains invincible. And no "gusts of fire" are able to erase from the human memory "these unearthly lands", filled with the voices of "baby girls", their songs, the clinking of goblets with wine and the jingling of horse harnesses.

The author understands that his homeland surprisingly combines Orthodoxy and paganism, love and hatred, dirt and purity. It is no coincidence that as an epigraph to this work, Igor Severyanin took a line from Alexander Blok's poem "And the painted knitting needles get stuck in loose ruts." Indeed, luxury in Russia borders on poverty, and torn bast shoes can stick out from under a sable coat. However, it is precisely these contradictions that make up a strong country, which the author, in spite of everything, endlessly loves and remembers with special tenderness. The northerner sincerely believes that his homeland, despite not all the trials that have fallen to its lot, will be able to maintain that primordial and unsophisticated nature that protects against the enemy more reliably than any weapon. That is why the poet simultaneously exclaims with pain and joy: “My crawling Russia, my winged country!”. And in this phrase there is no pathos inherent in many poems of the post-revolutionary period. It reflects the very essence of the country, which can be revived even when it is almost completely destroyed, bled and desecrated.

The poem "My Russia" was written by Igor Severyanin. It is very beautiful and meaningful. The author wants to show the whole Motherland: both its nature (“snow plains”, “nightingales”, “fiery-ice nights”), and its inhabitants (“living writers”, “hut women”, “nomadic gypsies”). The author admires and is proud of the Fatherland, and everyone who reads this poem experiences the same feelings. The poet very often uses the pronoun "her", but also proudly uses "our" (the sun and the moon). That is, Russia is not only all its vast expanses and natural resources but also human merit.

Igor Severyanin achieves his poetic goal using paths. There are comparisons in the poem (the voices of the girls are “young like spring”, “bottling like a wave”). Also in this work there are many exclamatory constructions:
Their cups are full of wine!
Their necks are swan-like steepness!
There is an anaphora in the poem:
Her dreams are advanced
Her bursts of fire
Her writers are alive
Comprehended to the bottom.
The poem is rich in epithets that help to describe all the virtues of Russia (“disruptive songs”, “winged country”, “remote riots”) ... This work is written in iambic, where pyrrhic is also found. There are simple, masculine, exact (country - given) rhymes. Rhyming - circular. Also in this poem you can see the techniques of alliteration:
And frenzied steppe triples, And these are golden harnesses,
And winged tie-downs
Their necks are swan-like steepness.
The author objectively shows Russia in his work. Yes, it has both disadvantages and advantages! But this is our country! Although Russia is "godless" and "creeping", at the same time it is "sacred" and "winged".

My godless Russia

My sacred country!

Its plains are snowy,

Her gypsies are nomadic, -

Oh, are they not given joy?

Her bursts of fire

Her dreams are advanced

Her writers are alive

Comprehended to the bottom!

Her thieves are saints,

Her flights are blue

And our sun and moon!

And these lands are unearthly,

And these riots are remote,

And all of them, all of their depth!

And her nightingales,

And the nights are fiery and icy,

And ancient intoxicating brews,

And goblets full of wine!

And the troikas are wildly steppe,

And these knitting needles are painted,

And these harnesses are golden,

And winged tie-downs,

Their necks are swan-like steepness!

And our women are beaten

Such Russians, relatives,

And young as spring

And pouring like a wave

And songs, discontinuous songs,

What our chest is full of

And all of her, and all of her -

My creeping Russia

Winged my country!

Ticket number 17

Analysis of one of the works of A.S. Serafimovich (optional).

Composition of the story. two parts in the content of the story?

The first part is a story about the life of an old miller with a young wife, the second is a story about the life of an aged mill owner with a young farmhand. All the characters in the story are victims of the severe and contagious disease of possessiveness, and each of them transmits to the other the destructive microbes of this serious disease. The originality of the compositional structure of the story is that in the image of an old miller the writer shows the end of the life path of the owner, and, revealing the character of his wife, restores all this path.

We proceed to the analysis of the main images of the story.

The image of the old miller is the personification of the destructive effect of gold, things, the obedient slave of which a person becomes. The old man is a slave, unable to understand how miserable and miserable he lived his life.

The scene of attempted murder (the ideological and dramatic climax of the story), it is emphasized that terrible force money - in their merciless power over the thoughts and feelings of a person. And if a person fell under the influence of this power, then it is almost impossible for him to escape on his own.

Scenery. It is designed to create a mood, to emphasize one or another state of mind of the characters. It is a necessary link in revealing the ideological content of the story.

Sand image. The image of sand is a symbol of the destruction and dying of what is unworthy of life. There is a scene in the story where the impotence of man in front of nature, in front of the advancing sands, is especially expressively shown. The old miller is instinctively drawn to where the sands are slowly creeping up.

Serafimovich, in "Sands", returns to the understanding of the image of sand by ancient man and endows it with deadly properties.

Artistic means of the authorwhen creating an image of sand. AT In the text of the work, the author makes extensive use of repetition, making this image the bearer of the main idea of ​​the story, that is, its leitmotif: "... white, with gently breaking grass, the sand was pristine and dry ...". Giving the image of sand a deep ideological meaning. At the beginning of the story, the sands simply “turn yellow”, “there is silence” above them. By the end of the story, the situation is getting more and more aggravated, and now “swirling sands rose up to the very sky ...”. And, finally, everything perishes under the sands: “the sands inevitably moved.

As strong remedy emotional impact, the author uses an antithesis in his story, which helps him to more clearly outline the image of sand. The author already in the next paragraph puts everything in its place: "... but already a few steps above the heavy, motionless-dead sands there was silence."

As an extremely important link in the chain artistic means epithet appears. The epithets in the story are very diverse and remarkable for their multicoloredness: "... white sand with gently breaking grass...", "... made of loose sand...".

In order to achieve the reader's perception of the image of sand, Serafimovich actively uses personification: "... he went out on a hillock, but the sands did not please, they lay motionless, exhausted, and the heat flowed with an elusive tremor ...".

Why at the endin the end everything dies under the sands? Because life shouldn't be like this. The heroes did not fulfill their natural destiny - they did not continue the family, they did not give joy to anyone, and they themselves did not know it. The author does not allow Ivan to survive the old woman for a long time, so that not one more will be ruined. human life. And the image of sand in the story symbolizes the power that destroys what is unworthy of life.

Analysis of one of O. Mandelstam's poems (optional).

self-portrait

In raise and winged heads

Hint - but the frock coat is baggy;

Close your eyes, rest your hands -

The cache of movement has not been opened.

So that's who to fly and sing

And the words are fiery malleability, -

So that the inborn awkwardness

Overcome with innate rhythm!

The poem "Self-portrait"

Leading principles of O.E. Mandelstam can be traced on the example of the poem "Self-Portrait":

The details of the self-portrait in the poem are united according to the principle of contrast of apparent rest (statics) and hidden movement, volcanic energy: “lifting the head”, “winged hint” - “baggy frock coat”; unfinished."

Mandelstam himself called this principle "collision of opposites", "combination of signs of different quality". The antithesis of rest-movement gives the artist's style an inner tension. Note important detail: "Cache of movement not opened". This is the hidden quality of the soul, the human essence of Mandelstam.

In the second stanza, the central image of the author's artistic world is given: "And the words are fiery malleability." Note that in the context of the poem, the “word” is comparable to metal, a rock that has colossal internal potencies.

The last two lines of the poem attract the reader's attention, where, according to the principle of antithesis, words similar in sound come together: “inborn awkwardness”, “innate rhythm”.

The motif of the hidden internal movement declared at the beginning of the poem is realized in the form of “innate rhythm”; the word "innate" semantically in the context of the poem is perceived as an integral quality of the personality. And here, in terms of sound similarity, “innate” approaches - in the meaning of a temporary difficulty, some kind of barrier that needs to be overcome.

The metaphor at the grammatical level becomes a global metaphor for the tongue-tiedness of one's own, family, era...

This means that “innate awkwardness” is tongue-tiedness and even lack of language of one's own, of a family, of an era; this is childish babble, which, having been filled with the “growing noise of the age”, acquires the strength and power of a language transformed by “innate rhythm”.

The May anniversary of Igor Severyanin caused a new surge of interest in the work of one of the most famous poets Silver Age. Igor Severyanin has been a poet of spring all his life, a poet of nature, he himself spoke about this in his prose memoirs “Sleeping Springs”. “It is impossible not to love forests, lakes, rivers – the nature of God… And what else is left to love here on earth?” - he asked a rhetorical question, answering it with his poetry: "Spring Day", "Spring Apple Tree" and many other northern poetry - about the spring beauty of awakening nature. Most of them are dated exactly 1910. The poet was then 23 years old, his blood was boiling, he was overwhelmed with feelings, the main of which was love. It seems that he was ready to love everything - forests, rivers, sophisticated girls and simple village women.

In February 1910, during the long winter evenings, during which the poet missed spring, he wrote the poem "Russian", which was subsequently included in the collection "The Thundering Cup", which "blew up" all domestic literature. Very light, very simply written poetry - only eight couplets, where every two lines rhyme in succession, creating a very energetic motive, under which you want to beat the rhythm, dance and enjoy with the poet. But even without knowing the author of this poem, we recognize the hand of Severyanin, his unique style, with precise definitions, with beautiful neologisms. We read a poem and hear how a sleepy rooster crows, a distant echo answers us, we see sleepy birch trees, wattle fence, brilliant cheerful dew. And, of course, the magnificent line “the forest turns pink in the morning”, containing a neologism. Laces is a great word that gives us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in that magical atmosphere, where tree branches seem to be woven into beautiful patterns with lace.

Now about the title. I must say that Igor Severyanin calls all his poems poetry from his youth. To this title of his works, he does not change the whole creative life. The collection of 1913 that brought fame to the poet is called “The Thundering Cup. Poetry". Then there was “Zlatolira. A collection of poetry”, “Pineapples in champagne. Poetry", fourth, fifth books of poetry. Up to the Berlin edition of “Menestrem. Recent Poetry. I must say that Severyanin was very careful about his poems, worked hard on the word, rewriting the poem several times in his beautiful handwriting, dated them, gave each one a name. It is unlikely that we will be able to unambiguously unravel the riddle of the “Russian”. This definition includes the “soul” of the author, the breadth of which we naturally feel, and the “picture”, written with great love and understand the beauties of nature, and the “song”, because not only the author wants to shout and compete with the echo, but also we, readers, I want to repeat these “sparkling lines” loudly, in a singsong voice. And yet, I think that the author had in mind precisely poetry. Of course, the phrase may not be the most compatible. Russian poetry. After all, "poetry" is a word that came from the French language. Therefore, perhaps, the poet left only the word “Russian” in the title, believing that that says it all. Moreover, Bryusov, respected by Severyanin, had a poem called “Native”. By the way, Severyanin himself will write another poetry in a few years and call it “Folk”, about how the Earth fell in love with the Sun. The author's point on the sun and spring is felt in the poet's winter poems. Only in the “Thunder-boiling Cup” is the “Russian”, “CHANSONENGLISH”, “Easter Hymn”. All of them are about the poet's desire to bring spring closer, because Easter, which happens only in April or May, is a symbol of life. The life that Igor Severyanin dreams of, and for the sake of which he wants to “push apart” the girl he met in the birch trees, and us, his readers.

Years go by even now, more than 100 years later, from the date of writing "Russian", the generation "next" clearly lacks the ease and immediacy of live communication, they cannot, with such Northern simplicity, "grab a trembling chest" and "push for life" even themselves. Today's teenagers spend most of their lives in social networks and various messengers in which they cannot feel all the charm of the world around us, see “a spider crawling along a cobweb”, “a bird, a frog and a wasp” and “hear a sleepy rooster-throat”. Videos with cats and parrots, which are touched by modern girls on Instagram, will not replace real wildlife, "whirling" forest, "diamond" dew ... Therefore, these fresh Severenyan lines are so valuable, calling to awakening, inviting to live in harmony with nature and with a positive mindset.

Volshonok Fedor, 10a, MOU "Gymnasium No. 17", Elektrostal

Igor Severyanin. Royal clown: autobiography. materials, letters, criticism: [collection / comp., entry. Art., commentary: V. N. Terekhina, N. I. Shubnikova-Guseva]. - St. Petersburg. : Rostock, 2005

V. Pashukanis

Valery Bryusov IGOR SEVERYANIN

"When a poet appears, the soul is agitated," F. Sologub wrote in the preface to "The Thundering Cup". Of course, the singer of the star Mair, usually stingy with praise, could not be mistaken in pronouncing such a decisive verdict. Sensitivity did not betray F. Sologub when he greeted Igor Severyanin with the high name of the Poet. Yes, Igor Severyanin is a poet, in a beautiful, in the best sense of the word, and this at one time prompted the writer of these lines, one of the first in print, to draw the attention of readers to him and seek meetings with him in life. The author of this article is proud that he, together with F. Sologub and N. Gumilyov, was among those who, much earlier than others, appreciated the true talent of Igor Severyanin.

However, the very name "poet", in each individual case, requires explanation and definitions. Of course, "not the poet who knows how to weave rhymes." On the other hand, we only conditionally call a "poet" someone who does not know how to "weave rhymes" at all. In one epigram, Baratynsky joked: "And you are a poet, and he is a poet, but they find a difference between you ..." Even between great poets, the "difference" is undeniable. Perhaps, in terms of the power of direct spontaneous talent, Tyutchev was not inferior to Pushkin. And yet Pushkin became the ancestor of all new Russian literature, and the role of Tyutchev in the history of our poetry is much less significant. This is because one talent does not yet determine the entire significance of the poet and writer.

We know that genius sometimes "lights up the head of a madman, an idle reveler." It’s good if Mozart turns out to be such a reveler, and even then Salieri did not tell the whole truth: from Mozart’s biography we know how much he studied and how much he worked. When a genius combines with a huge mind, thirsty for knowledge, with an unmistakable taste and tireless diligence, a titan of literature is obtained, like our Pushkin or the German Goethe. Volumes of Pushkin's writings, his profound judgments on the most diverse issues of history, politics, science, art, his draft manuscripts, testifying to painstaking work, refute the idea of ​​​​our great poet, which he himself was ready to support: as a "rake, forever idle" . The versatility of Goethe's knowledge and interests is well known. When the poetic gift is not combined with either an exceptional mind or irresistible patience, in best case Russian Fofanov or French Verlaine comes out.

“The soul is excited when a poet appears. But after the first joyful excitement, the time comes for analysis. The one who finds the treasure first only pours gold from hand to hand, but then begins to count it and determine the value of the coins. The navigator who discovered the island, after the first minute of proud happiness , sets off to explore a new land, finds out whether it is suitable for living, whether it is rich in plants, animals, minerals, whether there are convenient bays in it.Similarly, having "discovered" a new poet, having experienced a joyful "excitement of the soul", the reader involuntarily begins to be critical to a new acquaintance, trying to determine its proportion.I would like to know whether the new poet belongs to the number of rare "messengers of Providence", blessed guests of the world, like Pushkin and Goethe, or to the number of minor luminaries, like Fofanov and Verlaine, or, finally, to those fleeting fires that, like shooting stars, sometimes illuminate for a moment the firmament of literature.

And if it happened that we wished to abandon the analysis, if we only wanted to sort through the coins of the found treasure, only to admire the newly discovered island, only to rejoice at the stanzas of the new poet, Igor Severyanin himself would not allow us to surrender to this immediate feeling. The first large book published by him (he himself calls it the "first" book, as if repudiating his previous editions), The Thundering Cup, is a book of true poetry. F. Sologub rightly said about her poems: "Let one or the other in them be wrong with the rules of piitika, what do I care!" But after the first one, the "second one" appeared, "Zlatolira", which upset everyone who managed to fall in love with the new poet - so many verses appeared in it that were hopelessly bad, and most importantly, hopelessly boring. No better was the "third" book, "Pineapples in Champagne". Supporters of the poet explained this by the fact that in both books were collected mainly the former, youthful poems of Igor Severyanin. We were waiting for the "fourth" book; it came out under the title "Victoria Regia", with notes under the verses of 1914 and 1915. Alas! and it did not live up to good expectations: it contains many imitations of the poet himself and many unsuccessful and weak poems: it cannot go to any comparison with the "Boiling Cup".

What is left for readers of Igor Severyanin to do? Throw away three of his books and re-read The Thundering Cup, again and again rejoicing at the freshness of the jet beating in it? Or - to ponder over a strange phenomenon and decide, finally, what kind of poet Igor Severyanin is: is he destined to remain the "author of one book" (of which we meet many in the history of literature), or is it possible for him to develop, move forward, new happy creations? The latter is the direct business of criticism, and it is also her business, if she is serious about her task, to point out to the poet, to the best of her ability and understanding, what reasons prevent him from developing his gift and moving towards new artistic conquests: is this something fatal, irresistible for the poet himself, or something temporary with which he can fight. Later, an impartial history of literature will show Igor Severyanin his place in his native literature; now we, critics, can and must show the poet the paths that are open to him. True, critics are rarely listened to, but this is no longer their fault, and they are obliged to fulfill their duty.

Let us approach the poetry of Igor Severyanin with all the benevolence of a reader who is grateful to him for the "Thundering Cup", and try to understand for ourselves and for him why we and, as far as we know, so many who love poetry, are not satisfied with his last books [Here I have to say a few words pro domo mea. Igor Severyanin is very angry at criticism and showers it with curses: "Look, what vile criticism is in Russia!" In Russia, critical articles were written by Pushkin, Gogol, Baratynsky, Belinsky, Ap. Grigoriev, today they are written by D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, N. Gumilyov, M. Kuzmin and so many others whose names serve as sufficient protection from the abuse of Igor Severyanin. I will also rank myself among the Russian critics, if 25 years of work, guided by deliberate convictions, knowledge and personal taste, and by no means personal relationships with this or that writer, give me the right to do so. Dissatisfied with my critical remarks about his books, Igor Severyanin allowed himself to say in verse that I "envy" him. It is curious in what way I could "envy" Igor Severyanin. I would be ashamed if I turned out to be the author of "Pineapples", and I would be offended if I became the object of pop success that fell to the lot of Igor Severyanin. The poet, who must have become a little delirious because "there are some unnecessary poems in the sixth edition," should learn the simple difference between critical appraisal and envy. You don't have to envy, and you can never stop loving, judging critically and sometimes severely condemning this or that page of prose and poetry. Is it possible that Igor Severyanin does not understand the noble love for literature that prompts us, critics, to evaluate the creations of poetry, but does he understand only "nepotism" or "envy"?].

We do not think that it is necessary to prove that Igor Severyanin is a true poet. Anyone who can understand poetry will feel it, who will read The Thundering Cup. But it is important to determine the range of Igor Severyanin's poetry. Therefore, at least briefly, one has to take a look at his best poems.

The first sign of a poet is the ability to convey, to draw what he sees. The poet has the ability to notice such features in the environment that alone recreate the whole picture in the reader's imagination. Without this ability there is no poet, or rather, he may be, but he will remain mute for everyone; he will perceive the world artistically, but we do not recognize this from his inept, impotent lines. Igor Severyanin possesses this ability to "draw" to a great extent. He is a poet-painter; he draws whole pictures, preserving all the freshness of colors and even, as it were, the whole flavor of reality. When you read The Thundering Cup, you see before you the fields, and the forest, and the sea, and the living room and sofas of the limousine.

Such, for example, is "A Day at the Farm" (I, 23) [We mean the books of Igor Severyanin in Roman numerals: I, III; the pages in them are in Arabic numerals. We try to give examples mainly from poems. recent years, starting from 1913. In many cases, however, the dates under the poems are not affixed, and we were not able to check the time of their writing], when "the sun ran over the rake", such is the "Nocturne" (I, 47), depicting how " the orange west grew pale"; such are the poems "On the Trout River" (I, 32), "January" (1.34) and many others in the first section of the "Thundering Cup". With a few strokes, Igor Severyanin recreates complex paintings. Look and listen, for example, to such verses (I, 13):

Alosis Day. lemon leaf forest

Draprite trunks in a foggy tunic ... -

evaluate such a feature (I, 25): "The sunset west was lilac" ... such an epithet (ib.): "It was snowing quietly", the courage and fidelity of such an image (I, 49): "The old month limps like half a wheel" , or else (I, 27): "The night cradled the evening, laying it in the trees." All these are the touches of a true poet, as well as a long series of individual "happy" expressions, trouvailles: "puddles drunk by frost" (I, 50), "lunar alley" (I, 66), "a garden drowned in the moon" (I, 89), "a breeze tumbled" (I, 68), "nights in blue sombreros" (I, 117), etc.

The second necessary property of a poet is the ability to experience events deeply and sharply. The lyric poet has almost the only object of observation - himself. He closes his own passion, his happiness and his sorrow "in the pearl of the word." The poet should not be afraid of suffering, because strong feelings give him themes for inspiration. "Climb the fire", "go to Golgotha" - these conditional expressions contain a terrible truth for the lyric poet. Whoever is not able to feel strongly is not capable of influencing readers with force. The poet "with a cold soul" is nonsens, a contradiction in terms.

By the power of Igor Severyanin's lyrical confessions, we judge that he experiences his life acutely. Such seemingly ordinary relationships, which are retold in the verses "It's all for the child" (1.16), gave Igor Severyanin lines that are exceptional in their impressionism:

We cannot be seen.

Is it just by chance. Except in the theatre.

Except in concert.

Yes, and it's wordless. And yes, it's relentless...

Like a true tragedy, the verses of Zlata are read, for example, these (I, 45):

You will not return to me: you are now wearing velvet;

He hides the winglessness of weary shoulders...

We believe, we are sure (there is no other evidence), that only deep experience could suggest such exciting rhythms (1,14):

Oh dear, how sad I am! Oh dear, how I miss!

I want to see you - sad and blue ...

The other poems of "The Lilacs of My Spring", a small number of pieces from the "Zlatolira" and the best stanzas at the beginning of the "Victoria Regia" speak of the same. The poet lives and, experiencing " old fairy tale", which is reacquainted with by everyone who recognizes our earthly life, accepts it in his own way, as it was destined only for him ...

The peculiarity of Igor Severyanin is an ironic attitude to life. He very truly said about himself (IV, 31): "I am a lyricist, but I am also an ironist." This is a rare gift these days; satire in poetry is dying out, and one has to cherish the poet who is able to resurrect it. And that Igor Severyanin has all the data for that, one "Dissona" (I, 77), a poem, beautiful from beginning to end, can prove:

Your Excellency to the age of thirty - fashionable - age

You have a universal body... like a bas-relief...

A fragrant soul, carefully hidden in a silky rustle,

Very convenient for prostitutes and queens...

A lot of such wicked irony is scattered throughout Lilac Ice Cream. A number of individual expressions are directly striking in their accuracy and versatility: "ladies' toilets are suitable for shop windows" (1.70), "women's club ... where the stupid has the right to be known as not stupid, but the smart one is certainly stupid" (I, 71), "under the powder prayer book, and on it is Paul de Kock" (I, 70), "grooms paid off for effect" (1,100), etc.

Irony saves Igor Severyanin in his "reasonable" poems. Therefore, his poetic characteristics of Oscar Wilde (1.101) are good, with a beautiful opening verse: "His soul is a spitting Grail," as well as Guy de Maupassant (1.101), with a good comparison: "Descent into debauchery, breathed like a diver." Where Igor Severyanin refers to the "crowd" ironically, you forgive him even naive narcissism, and there is its own strength and its own truth in such expressions as "decent scoundrels" (1.123). In the last books of the poet, perhaps the most successful are those verses where this irony is resurrected. Thus, for example, although with some reservations, we willingly "accept" the verses "In the Brilliant Darkness" (III, 14).

As a true artist, Igor Severyanin has the gift of reincarnation. He knows how to write in other styles than his own, of course, if someone else's style is familiar to him. Therefore, we fully believe the poet when he says that he could write "like everyone else." Igor Severyanin's poems, written "in the Russian style", in which he managed to remain himself, successfully adopting either the warehouse of our folk song, or the features of the folk dialect, are a guarantee. These are the poems: "Idyll" (I, 15), "Chanson Russe" (I, 37), "Dance of May" (I, 36), "Russian" (I, 37), some pieces from "Victoria Regia". On the contrary, when Igor Severyanin tries to adopt styles unfamiliar to him, for example, antique, or write "exotic" poetry, his attempts end in a sad failure.

It has long been pointed out that each new poet brings with him new, his own, rhythms. It cannot be said that Igor Severyanin did much for Russian verse. But in some places he nevertheless went forward along roads that had only been outlined before him. So, he widely used peonies, which entered the literature only after K. Balmont. Due to the fact that Igor Severyanin does not read his poems, but sings, he could freely use iambs with pyrrhic on shock feet, which was previously used only in romances assigned for singing (as, for example, the verse: "And therefore - not an elephant", IV, 127). Among the new word formations introduced by Igor Severyanin, there are several successful ones that can be preserved in the language, for example, the verb "lunit". Finally, assonances, for which Igor Severyanin is very generous, sometimes sound good with him and, indeed, replace rhyme; his attempts to use dissonance instead of rhyme are interesting - words that have different stressed vowels, but the same consonants (for example, Ш, 39: "cedar - squadron - cheerful - wise - otters").

Such is Igor Severyanin, as he appears in his best creations. This is a lyricist who subtly perceives nature and the whole world and knows how to characteristic features make you see what he draws. This is a true poet, deeply experiencing life and making the reader suffer and rejoice with himself with his rhythms. This is an ironist, keenly noticing the ridiculous and low around him and stigmatizing this in well-aimed satire. This is an artist who has discovered the secrets of verse and who consciously strives to improve his instrument, "his lyre", speaking in the old way. With such data, it would seem, is it possible to wish for more? What does Igor Severyanin lack in order not only to be a poet, but also to become a "significant", and perhaps even "great" poet. This is the question we aim to answer.

The Abbot Delisle assured that the whole genius of Virgil lay in his taste. In relation to Virgil, this is unfair, but true in the sense that taste is of great importance in art. Unmistakable taste can replace genius. But no amount of genius will make up for the lack of taste. Errors against taste, bad taste, disfigure the most inspired artistic creation; they are felt especially painful and for them we find no excuse. Meanwhile, it is precisely good taste that is lacking in the poems of Igor Severyanin. In one of his "poez" (what a tasteless word!) Igor Severyanin, mocking criticism, assures that she, laughing at his "Habanera", did not catch the irony in the verses, she was looking for lyrics "in stinging satire" (IV, 123) . In justification of criticism, it must be said, however, that it is not always easy to distinguish between Igor Severyanin's lyrics and irony. It is not always clear whether the poet ironically depicts human vulgarity or, alas! he himself falls into painful vulgarity. We are afraid that Igor Severyanin himself would not have been able to accurately draw this demarcation line.

When the seller of "lilac ice cream" proclaims: "It's time to popularize the delicacies, refine the tastes of the people!" (1.59), we hope this is irony. But now, in January 1915 in Petrograd, Igor Severyanin writes an "overture" to his third collection, where he threatens: "I will turn the tragedy of life into a farce of dreams" (III, 7). Is this said ironically, or does the poet really dream of making a farce out of life, even if it is a "dream"? Praising a certain Miss Lil in verse, the poet assures her: "You are even more piquant" (I, 116). Are we dealing with satire, or is the poet's true ideal piquancy? And praising himself, Igor Severyanin informs us: "Venus herself gave herself to me" (II, 9). Only the assumption that the poet here is ironic with himself (as in his other self-praised poems) will make it possible not to see such a recognition as monstrous vulgarity.

One can understand the author's love for his works and the desire to preserve even the weaker of them, justified by others, more perfect. But there is a limit in such love, and only complete bad taste, the absence of any critical instinct can explain that Igor Severyanin overflowed the II and III collections of his poems with hopelessly bad things. Here, rhymes of the most banal type, which are usually filled with provincial newspapers and the most unsuccessful illustrated weeklies (especially in the section "Moon Shadows"), and obvious technical exercises that a poet with any self-respecting leaves in his papers, have found their place, and, finally, simply stillborn creatures, which it is excusable to write at an unfortunate moment, but it is inexcusable to put on display and to the shame of readers.

What, if not the lack of taste, can explain the appearance of such a thing as "The Blackmailer" (III, 45), where, in bad verse, it is told how a certain lady demanded money from the author (or from the hero of the poem) to feed the child he had adopted , and the author (or the hero of the poem) suggested that instead of going with the first person she met to a hotel? Or well-intentioned rhymes (II, 26), in which the poet (or the hero of the poem) convinces his beloved not to persecute the child, advising her: "Spit on all condemnations, as on vile swine"? Or another verse (II, 32), which tells how the poet (or the hero of the poem) came to his former mistress and confessed that she had cheated on him with five men, and asked: "Spit in my face," and he answered her chivalrously: "Out of sight!" And a long series of the same narrative poems of the second collection, conveying, perhaps, real facts from the life of the poet, but absolutely not interesting for the reader, conversations that I want to say in the words of Lermontov:

Where can you hear these conversations?

And if they did,

So we don't want to hear them!

On almost every page, especially the last three books by Igor Severyanin, there are expressions that are directly offensive to every reader with a taste. Then the poet writes the comic: "I ... from the bliss of spring could expire" (IV, 28) and even so pleased with this image that he repeats it: "the child could expire" (not with blood, but "from dreams"); then he puts an incredible combination of words: "I inspiredly got into the courier" (I, 107); then he gives his “friend” such advice in a poem with an epigraph from F. Sologub: “Friend, expose your Oile!” (II, 123). Igor Severyanin can’t say: “I have comprehended the process of immortality” (1.111), “I will kiss you like an idea, a brahmin” (II, 124), “the world has started dancing, having entered into excitement” (II, 10), about prostitutes - “to hell their day" (II, 115); .

Top, perhaps, bad taste reaches Igor Severyanin in poems dedicated to modern war. The section of these poems begins with a disgusting boast that the greatness of Germany "is a blow to the nose of a Russian soldier" (IV, 93). We do not think that the Russian soldier himself, known for his modesty and in fact acquainted with the power of the Germans, subscribed to this boastful cry of a pop poet. Further, the author comically exclaims, referring to Germany: "Tremble before my lyre!" (or is it also a satire on oneself?) Then Igor Severyanin's civic poetry turns into street abuse; "jester" (IV.96), "bourgeois woman" (IV, 93) "impudent" (IV, 99), "apache" (IV, 99), "marauder" (IV, 94), "shame" (IV , 95) - these are the methods by which the poet wants to humiliate our enemies. Cursing from behind others is hardly the same as fulfilling your duty as a poet in war, and it doesn’t take much taste to understand to what extent this is ugly, namely "not aesthetically pleasing ". The military poems of Igor Severyanin, with which he breaks the cheap applause of the public, make a painful impression.

To paraphrase the words of Abbé Delisle, we can say: all the shortcomings of Igor Severyanin are in his bad taste.

But besides bad taste, there is another reason that closes the path to development for the poetry of Igor Severyanin. Poetically, talent gives a lot when it is combined with good taste and directed by strong thought. In order for artistic creativity to win great victories, broad mental horizons are necessary for it. Only the culture of the mind makes the culture of the spirit possible. The poet, whose mental interests are limited, is fatally doomed to the paucity and monotony of topics, and instead of the infinity of the world's paths, he will always have only the paths of his small garden before him.

Igor Severyanin himself does not hide the fact that thoughts are not his destiny. "I am a self-taught intuitive" - ​​he says in one place (IV, 111). That would not have been a big problem, and Pushkin was self-taught in many respects; it is worse that Igor Severyanin treats teaching in general with disdain. "It's not for me to draw in soulless books!" (I, 136) "- he proudly declares. And from his poems it is clear that he really did not "scoop" so much from books. As soon as he approaches topics that require knowledge (even if very elementary), For example, in Igor Severyanin, Nero curses his throne (1.107), and hetaeras (!) Look at him from the stalls of the stalls; the redskins in Mexico throw a boomerang (I, 68); the word "chimpanzee" gets an emphasis on "a" ( II, 111); a brahmin kisses an idea (II, 124), etc. Even acquaintance with literature is not visible, which, it would seem, is necessary for a poet. Only the most popular writers are mentioned in Igor Severyanin's poems, and a little less well-known, how noticeable that the poet knows him only by hearsay: as, for example, he speaks of the stanzas of Verhaarn, this almost always astrophic poet!

If you try to fish out thoughts, abstract judgments from Igor Severyanin's poems, the catch will be the poorest. In essence, only a single thought emerges: "Live, living!" (II, 9), which the poet repeats in different ways: "Love the living, the living!" (IV, 136), "I ... brightly rejoice in the living" (IV, 139), etc. The idea is not wrong, but no newer than the maxim (Vl. Solovyov): "Do not eat cannibals." There are also sayings that have just as "set the teeth on edge": "One madness is ingenious, and the thought is worthless dreams" (II, 112, how many times Fet repeated at least about "the madness of the poet's thing"!) Or else: "Oblivion is in sin" (1 , 11), and therefore: "Sin more courageously" ("If you want, go sin," D. Merezhkovsky wrote 20 years before Igor Severyanin, repeating, of course, the old words). And what is "sin" according to Igor Severyanin? - "quench the instinct" (I, 13). That's the whole mental baggage of the poet; this does not prevent him from assuring that "all-Russian", i.e., everyone in all of Russia is convinced that he said something "first" (IV, 124).

As soon as Igor Severyanin takes on a topic that requires mainly thought (maybe lyricists shouldn't take on such topics, but if that's happened!), his impotence is clearly revealed. Such is the poem "Under the Impression of the Cliff" (II, 43), i.e., the reasoning about the author (long overdue!) Goncharov's novel "The Cliff" read by the author. The poem is written in the form of a letter, and in the first lines Igor Severyanin seriously proves to his correspondent that "Goncharov is a poet." Of course, it is possible, and even commendable, to explain in letters to persons who are poorly educated, some elementary truths, but why should pedagogical exercises be translated into verse and offered to readers? Further, the author of the letter declares that the “struggle for the right to enjoyment” is good, exclaims: “The free Mark is great!”, Instructs: “Happiness is not in years,” etc. do not read "Cliff"!

This "holy simplicity" of the poet, his "inexperience" in the history of literature, probably explains his self-conceit, which comes very close, in verse at least, to "delusions of grandeur." To someone who does not know everything that the poets of the past have done, of course, it seems that he himself did a lot. Every thought, every image seems to him found for the first time. It may very well be that Igor Severyanin, stating, for example: "I never lied to anyone, because I am doomed to suffer" (II, 42), is sure that he expresses such an idea for the first time and speaks in verse for the first time in such a tone (but let us recall at least Dobrolyubovsky: "Dear friend, I'm dying because I was honest..."). It is clear, after this, that what Igor Severyanin did by him (that is, the fact that he wrote a book of not bad poems) seems "colossal", "great", etc. He declares that he "conquered literature" (I, 141), although it is very difficult to determine what it actually means that he will be "rejected by the Marseillaise" (II, 11), that he is a "presidential tsar" (ib.), etc. .

Lack of knowledge and inability to think belittle the poetry of Igor Severyanin and extremely narrow its horizon.

They say that Igor Severyanin is an innovator. At one time he was considered the head of the Futurists, namely the "ego-Futurists" faction. However, for the role of maitre, Igor Severyanin did not have the necessary data. He had nothing to say to his followers; he didn't have any program. This inner consciousness of his impotence should explain the exit of Igor Severyanin from the circle of futurists, even if he himself, even for himself, explained it differently. A "teacher" who has nothing to teach is an almost tragic situation!

Nothing new in Igor Severyanin is brought by every true poet who "came into this world to see the sun." If a poet has nothing new, he is not a poet. True, Igor Severyanin is trying to give a kind of program, but the matter does not go beyond the message that "now airships are flying everywhere, grumbling with a propeller" and that therefore we need "sharp and instantaneous" (I, 133 - 4), i.e., beyond repetition thoughts that have long become the property of the small press. However, here the advantage of assonances over rhyme (1.133) is also pointed out, but this seems to be not enough for the program of a literary school, taking into account that for a quarter of a century, assonances have been widely used in Russian poetry!

In a hot moment, in that era when Igor Severyanin was still "unrecognized", he still flaunted his contempt for "authorities", the denial of the great poets of the past. Thus, one day, a bold, but not devoid of outwardly seductive, statement escaped him: "For us, Pushkin became Derzhavin" (I, 133). This, however, did not prevent the poet from repeating Pushkin's verse almost word for word in the same poem: "In the stunted and empty desert" (I, 135). However, after the "confession" Igor Severyanin, apparently, wanted to abandon the compromising statement, and he hastened to declare: "Yes, Pushkin is old for modern times, but Pushkin is Pushkin's great" (IV, 128). And then Igor Severyanin extended his indulgence towards his "predecessors" to the point that he agreed to admit: "Blok and Balmont were behind Pushkin" (III, 14).

In general, unlike other futurists, Igor Severyanin preaches contempt for old literature only in words. It is not surprising that in individual verses (as we have just seen) he coincides with the poets who wrote before him. In old poetry, directly and through secondary writers, is it all the same? - he borrowed the sizes, figurative techniques, rhymes, the whole warehouse of his speech. Throwing aside small extravagances, consisting almost exclusively in the use of newly invented words or word forms, we will see in the poems of Igor Severyanin a natural continuation of the path of our poetry, along which it has been since the time of Pushkin or even Derzhavin. The poet himself admits to imitating Fofanov and Mirra Lokhvitskaya. But he goes deeper into history in his borrowings. So, for example, he uses the conventional images of classicism, speaks of his "lyre" (II, 103, IV, 93 et ​​passim), commemorates Aphrodite (II, 124.), Venus, etc. Falling completely into Derzhavin's style, he writes that the people will "rattle praise" to him (II, 11), that Paris will "tremble" (ib.), uses the expressions "gold" (II, 46), "to the marinas" (II, 12), "zane" (II , 10), etc.

Some rights to the title of innovator give Igor Severyanin only his neologisms. Among them there are many verbs formed with the help of the prefix "o", for example, the successful "to lun" and the ugly "to forget"; there are compound words, for the most part constructed inconsistently with the spirit of the language, like some kind of "moon-finger"; there are simply foreign words written in Russian letters and with a Russian ending, like "ignore"; there are, finally, simply distorted words, mostly for the sake of rhyme or meter, like "eyes" instead of "eyes", "mink" instead of "minks", "king" instead of "royal". The vast majority of these innovations show that Igor Severyanin is deprived of a sense of language and has no idea about the laws of word formation. The same lack of a sense of language is indicated by unpleasant, pretentious rhymes, such as: "watercolor itself - to the rails", "air - dreams of the spirit", "rags - light already", "greedy - general rank", etc. In this regard, Igor A northerner could learn a lot from humorous poets.

No, Igor Severyanin got into the innovators by accident, yes, it seems that he himself is burdened by this title and is trying in every possible way to throw off the label of a futurist alien to him.

The conclusion from everything we have said suggests itself. Igor Severyanin lacks taste, lacks knowledge. Both can be acquired - the first is more difficult, the second is easier. A careful study of the great works of art of the past ennobles the palate. A broad and thoughtful acquaintance with the achievements of modern thought reveals boundless prospects. Both make the poet a true teacher of mankind.

One of two things: either poetry is fun, a pleasant rest in moments of idleness, or a serious, important matter, something deep what people need. In the first case, it is hardly worth worrying about how and with what someone has fun. In the second, the poet must be strict about his feat, understand what responsibility lies with him. In order to go ahead of others and teach, one must understand the spirit of the times and its demands, one must, in the words of Pushkin, "become on a par with the age in enlightenment," and perhaps even above it. For us, the true poet is always the vates of the Romans, the prophet. Such we are ready to crown and welcome; there are many others, and it is worth honoring them only with "careless praise." The one who consciously refuses the wonderful opportunities open to him is the "evil servant" who buries his "talent" in the ground.

Sergey Bobrov

SEVERYANIN AND RUSSIAN CRITICISM

To describe, to present in a completely definite form the relationship between a writer and his critics is a rather difficult task. First of all, it is very clear to us: what is a writer, but what is criticism? We do not encroach on any speculative definition of this concept, this is a matter for a special study, and our tasks are already many - but even in this narrow area "there is something to despair of." Shall we understand by critics only those who have specially devoted themselves to this cause; will we call critics people who have fallen into the position of experts - the same writers who judge their fellow, consistent with their own - often very complex and deeply intimate - special knowledge; Will publicists seem worthy of the name of critics? finally, by criticizing the whole heap of newspaper rubbish, where they philosophize, censure, praise, defame, grovel the martyrs of a penny of silver, the zealous readers of Brockhaus-Efron - gentlemen of the newsmen?

You can forever freeze in the pose of Buridan's donkey in front of these four kinds of critics!

Let's try to act heroically - to accept them all at once ... But here it would be interesting to compare these four genera, to compare - at least in terms of their shortcomings. So: the first grade - professional critics. Their main sin: isolation from the essence of creativity and deep attachment to outdated methods. Indeed, the critic does not "make literature," and his hasty pursuit of it in itself predetermines eternal lag. - Second grade: writers-critics. This, of course, is the only kind of informed criticism, but at the same time, it may be characterized by a sin that the professional critic is alien to, this sin, clearly forbidden by the tenth commandment, envy - but we will hardly have to touch on it - Severyanin's weather about almost no one wrote to him, and the elders stand apart from the public of Severyanin [But there is another terrible sin from which very few are free - partisanship.]. The third class of critics is nothing but the most definite curiosity: these "critics" start out as the extreme Right of the literary parliament, as Andrei Bely once said; this curious, reticent and stupid line begins with some Kranichfeld, Fritsche, characters from "Russian wealth", and disappears into the darkest abyss, where anthropophagi from "Russian Banner" swarm. Finally, there is the fourth grade - who obviously knows nothing, is not interested in anything, lives on fragments of uncut "serious" articles on economics and statistics from "thick" journals. But this variety is also interesting in some ways - it does not cunningly and clearly explains to us - what is happening in the depths of this mysterious "public" that creates success.

Let us now try to run through the mass of these sheets, which have been marking the path of Igor Severyanin since 1905. Run through to some extent in chronological order.

There are many of these sheets. There are so many of them that if they were to reprint everything, ten volumes of well-cut print would come out. Therefore, we stop only at those leaflets that are characteristic (and not so much for Severyanin, but for the most criticism); further on, the reader will have the opportunity to familiarize himself with the most important articles in the original.

First - times, so to speak, prehistoric; the time when Severyanin was published in thin pamphlets that few caught the eye of; i.e., the time before the release of the "first book" of Severyanin's "Thundering Cup". - Here we are met by the usual touchy bewilderment, with which it is customary for us to meet a new poet. The one grins, the other does not notice, the other jokes: "Not a poet, but a poetic machine gun" ("Modern words." 29 - 1 - 10), the great critic of the Russian land, the city of Izmailov, after reading Severyanin's books, muttered something about that "history has condemned decadence, but modernism (!), has degenerated from decadence - a vigorous and vital current" - and not a word about the book itself. One writer, whose name even now immediately puts to flight the buyer who gapes at the book counter, Mr. Nazhivin, went with I. S.'s poems to Yasnaya Polyana and read them to Tolstoy. Tolstoy at first laughed, and then he seemed to say: "What are they doing!., what are they doing ... This is literature! Around - the gallows, hordes of the unemployed, murders, incredible drunkenness, and they have the elasticity of a cork!" ["Birzh, Ved.: 29-1-10]. This stunning incident gave rise to another famous and great writer, Mr. Yablonovsky, to print a feuilleton ("South. kr." 31 - 1 - 10), - so-so, the most ordinary feuilleton The province quietly mumbles over the books of Severyanin, something about the "refinement and sincerity" of his poems ("Krasnoyarsk, Vestn." 14 - X - 10). "Birzhevye Vedomosti" finds that S.'s poems are "poetic leapfrog" (" B.V." 28 - X - 10), "New Time" (1 - XI - 10) do not like compound rhymes; complains about the poet's treatment of the Russian language of the academic organ of Russian thought "Blue Journal" (No. 1 - 1910). G. Shebuev, who at that time published the "magazine for the young" "Spring", devotes S. a rather long article of a pedagogical nature - "do not write like that, otherwise it will come out funny." "Saratov sheet" (5 - IV - 11) announces S. "a degenerate of literature", as one should in such a smart city as Saratov. But in Kerch ("Goal of Crimea" 1911, No. 386) they think that Severyanin is not bad in general, although Pyotr Murinsky (?) writes hello better than him. - But in May 1911, "Apollo" publishes an article by Gumilyov, where this one says about I. S.: "It is difficult, and I don’t want to now judge whether this is good or bad; this is new - thanks for that too." From that time on, the critics' curses take on an even more gloomy character - a sign that J.S. is beginning to be reckoned with. They blaze with malice "Exchange, we know." (2 - VIII - 11), "New Time" (6 - VIII - 11), "Niva" (No. 8, 1]. - "Ezhem. Pr."), "Russian Word" (5 - VIII - 11) and etc. The best Russian poet, the world-famous Mr. E. Vensky, already senses where the wind blows from, and scribbles the first parodies ("Birzh, ved.", 9 - VIII - 11). G. Izmailov decides ("Nov Zh" 1911, No. 218) that I. S. is a "relapse of decadence", etc. The province is still the same: both praises and scolds slowly ("Varsh. day", 20-X -11, etc.). - At the same time, in the small newspaper Nizhegorodets, where ego-futurists huddled at one time, Mr. Ivey (I.V. Ignatiev) puts laudatory reviews of I. S. ("Nizhegor." 1911, No. 78, 84). Most of the reviews are full of sweet memories of Poprishchina, megalomania and other funny stories. For some reason, they are especially dissatisfied with I. Severyanin in Harbin, Vladivostok, Kostroma and Vyatka. - The end of 1911 is marked by a special howl of criticism - for at that time a "manifesto of ego-poetry" was published, which completely excited the newspaper thugs. The books of I.S. meet the same attitude - "mischief and ugliness", as the "Voice of the Earth" writes (5 - III - 12), "it has gone to the end", says the aristocratic newspaper "Early Morning" (10 - III - 11) . I. V. Ignatiev again writes extremely sympathetically about I. S. in his new newspaper "Petersburg Herald" (11 - III - 12). And the best Russian philosopher-moralist, the well-known handsome Mr. Ark. Bukhov writes parodies... and rather bad parodies. - "New time" (31 - III - 12) screams about masochism; why exactly about masochism is the secret of the critic. G. Izmailov believes that things have gone too far and finds it necessary to slightly modify his point of view on I. S.; now instead of "relapse of decadence" he already writes "recidivist of decadence". ("R. Sl." 26-IV-12). G. S. Krechetov, with his characteristic sophistication ("U. R." 26-V-12), says: "In this absurd young man, in this" donkey's tail "from literature ... there is still a spark of genuine talent." Lycanthropes from some "Spider" rejoice that there are no ... Jews in the editorial office of the "Petersburg Herald", and therefore they welcome J.S. - "The Bell" shouts about "certain Bryusovs and Severyanins" who seduce "our children", (what a Badlam!), - and "Zemshchina" immediately states that all those guilty of "polluting the language", i.e., ego-futurists, are "Kids and Judaizers", arranging "sabbaths" ["Spider" ( ed. in Petrograd) 1912, No. 17; "Bell" 1-VI-12; Zemshchina 18-VI-12. - Ego-futurists, in a letter to the editor, declared that they were Orthodox, after which Zemshchina, apologizing, explained its mistake by the fact that "until now only Jews spoke this language"]. - But sympathetic lines by Valery Bryusov appear in Russian Thought. And then comes the Thundering Cup.

The Loud-Boiling Cup was published by the Grif publishing house, which critics had to reckon with in one way or another. The preface to it was written by Fyodor Sologub, who also could not be ignored. The book was preceded by articles by Valery Bryusov in Russian Thought. All this, all these prerequisites for opinions, created a completely different attitude towards I.S. - Now we read in The Day (1 - IV - 13): "In the person of I.S. we have an undoubted talent, a poet" by God's grace ", with a determined poetic worldview ... etc ["R. next." 16-V-13]. In the "Morning of Russia" (16 - III - 13) Mr. Vl. Khodasevich places a definitely benevolent review. " modern word ", with some reservations, - praises ("S. sl." 17-III-13), the newspapers "Baku" (9-IV-13), "Orenburg Territory" (23-V-13), "Perm Vedomosti" (9-V-13)" "Ural Life" (27-IV-13), "Kyiv Thought" (1-V-13). - Anton Krainy in "New Life" (February, 1913) speaks of the work of I. S. as a "description", where "ego" "did not spend the night." In "The Testaments" (January, 1913), Mr. Ivanov-Razumnik says: "The undoubtedly talented Igor Severyanin gives hope, if only he renounces his "poes", from miserable antics and wriggles." In the same "Testaments" a month later (1913, No. 3), the same critic devotes an entire article to I.S., where we read: "I. S. is undoubtedly a talented poet, an original and colorful lyricist. "In the Modern World, Mr. Kranichfeld repeated all his non-diverse and dusty trifles, which had sufficiently bothered him even in his polemic with the modernists ("S. m." No. 4, 1913 But he too "welcomed a great and promising talent in the person of J.S.", which is very understandable, because critics like Mr. Kranichfeld, in spite of all their butads, borrowed all their taste baggage from the Symbolists, who welcomed J.S. - In The Russian Word, Mr. Izmailov, the most sensitive Russian critic (who is also the most intelligent), begins to speak in a completely different tone. Now it turns out that I. S. "has beautiful, tender, soulful plays," etc. when, so recently, I. S. in the eyes of Mr. Izmailov was a “recidivist of decadence.” K. D. Balmont, in an interview with an employee of Early Morning [“R. u." 7-IV-13] says that he "finds I. S. talented." - G. Lunacharsky, a writer like Kranichfeld, calls I. S. "talent" ["Kiev. m. "17 - V - 13]. - The most famous Gr. Petrov speaks about I. S. to an employee of the Voronezh Telegraph: "As a technician, I. S. is a rare poet; unusual forged verse, magnificent chasing of rhythm, but I don’t like his antics "(" Voor. t. "4 - VI - 13). - The dilapidated and boring resonator of the Northern Notes, Mr. A. Polyanin "more than doubts that from genius I. S. developed a real poet "(" Sev. z. ", No. 4 for 1913). - "Volzhsky Vestnik" (7 - V - 13) praises I. S. - V. Gippius in "Speech" (24 - V - 13) generally accepts I. S. as a poet, with some modernist reservations. - "Minsk Voice" (19 - VI - 13) praises I. S., considering him a very intimate poet, calling him " poet-sorcerer" [It should, however, be noted that the reviewer praises the most unfortunate poems]. G. Voitolovsky in "Kievskaya thought" (30 - VI - 13) praises I. S. as a poet, but attacks him from others points of view. As a curiosity, it is interesting to note the following passage from Mr. Voitolovsky's review. Our critic is sure that I.S. Since this utterance seems very unconvincing even to the author himself, he tries, "without having the slightest connection to the loudly boiling goblet of windy Hebe," to write "exactly the same (!) verses." And this is what he comes up with:

Howls like a propeller along the paths of the garden

And the bushes azhurit northern Borey (!)

Tears with an insane gesture (!) the beauty of the outfit (!)

And the maples are rubbed by a terrible dream-bray.

Autumn has already sighed with a funeral sigh (!)

Geese caravan from north to south ...

A dull cloud, a sad cloud (!)

Sadness anesthetizes me, oh, my dear friend (!!).

That's what it means to teach poets, "not having the slightest touch to the loud-boiling goblet of windy Hebe"! This is how small children drown ... - We found definitely negative reviews of the "Thundering Cup" only in a few publications, whose general character urgently requires the epithet - "yellow" ["Sib. Zh." 27 - III - 13; "R. morning" 16-Sh-13; "Russia" 26 - III - 13; "Russian banner" 23 - III - 13; "Volgar" 20 - IV - 13; "Odessa leaf." 11 - IV - 13; "New vr." 6 - IV - 13; "Week of the "Herald of Knowledge"", 23 - VI - 13.]

The following books by I.S., "Zlatolira", "Pineapples in Champagne" and "Victoria Regia", largely composed of the poet's youthful poems and did not give their readers anything new, compared with "The Thundering Cup", cooled the enthusiasm of critics. G. Izmailov, let's say, a little lost and burned on the "Thundering Cup", mumbles something extremely sweet about "Zlatolir". - G. Talnikov, from " of the modern world ", calls "Zlatolira" "a misunderstanding in verse", the poet himself - "a buffoon", etc. in his usual illiterate and foolish style. - G. Schmidt (in "Northern Notes" !!) finds at I.S. "the desire for monumentality" ["Sev. z." 1913, No. 12]; the discovery of "monumentality" in I. S. is an act worthy of the most exquisite "Northern Notes". G. Deutsch in the "Monthly Supplements" to "Niva" speaks of I. S. with all praise - "Tyutchev's pantheism", "young, bright songs of youth" - and other highly subtle trifles. - G. Nevedomsky, in a lecture given in Baku, called I. S. "a boy from modernism"; the same Mr. Nevedomsky, writing in " Day", did not dare to expose his wit in front of Petrograd: "I. S, for all his faults, is a really talented poet" [The Day, 1913, No. 167.]. - G. Piast (at a lecture in December 1913 in Petrograd) praised I. S. - G. Tinyakov, the author of the collection " Navis nigra, who lately has been especially inclined to indiscriminately reject “mechanical culture,” wrote about I. S.: “Indeed, isn’t it scary to go from Tyutchev’s verse about the Cosmos to S.’s rhymes about the motor?” (“Day” 1 - V - 14), "the later poems of I. S. are completely outside of poetry and even outside of literature" ("Day" 26 - 11 - 15), "S. far from being a stranger to rudeness "(Den" 18 - IV - 15), etc. - "Russian Vedomosti" (25 - X - 13) calls the poetry of I. S. "boudoir lisping", although later (quite soon) the newspaper came to a diametrically opposite view of S. - G. V. Strazhev, a petty epigone of A. Blok, at a lecture in the Art Circle considered I. S. "the offspring of modernism." - The great "acmeist" Mr. Gorodetsky in "Speech" ( 25 - XI - 13) wrote: "The pathos of the poetry of Ig. S. is the pathos of a triumphant tradesman." - I. V. Ignatiev (in August 1913) says: "We are afraid that S.'s cup will be drunk to the bottom." - G. Izgoev ("Odessk. l." 19-11- 14) called I. S. "a great talent" - G. Gumilyov in "Apollo" (No. 1 - 2 for 1914) wrote: "I. S. is really a poet, and besides, a new poet. "- An interesting article by Mr. Amfiteatrov about I. S. ("A man who is sorry" - in the "Russian Word"). G. Amfiteatrov, a man of the old school, to poetry before Until now, if we are not mistaken, he had no connection, except for his "satirical" akathist to Count Witte, very cheekily scolded Severyanin. It is not worth looking for motivations - the whole article is sheer sneer and mockery. Boring, vulgar and stupid. that even the "Southern Territory" (23-V-14) found it necessary to intercede for Severyanin, saying: "With such an attitude towards poetry, one can subject the poet not to criticism, but to torture in the dungeon, that Mr. He makes amphitheaters with great skill. "- D. S. Merezhkovsky ("R. sl." 8-VI-14) calls J. S.'s poems, albeit jokingly, fascinating; later, however (two months later), Mr. Merezhkovsky in the same "Russian Word" equated Futurism, and I. S. with it, with "the coming boor."

The later books of I.S. Due to the abundance of weak, Pleshcheev-like poems in them, newspaper critics considered them "their own" and praised them [See, for example, "Uralsk, Zh." 25-V-14]. G. Burnakin, a worthy successor to Burenin, wrote more than once about I. S. in Novoye Vremya, but since it is indecent to even mention Mr. Burnakin, we will refrain from quoting. - "Voice of the South" (5 - II - 14) considers I. S. talented. "Odessa News" (13-11-14) simply choke with delight; but here in Maykop (Cub. region) they think that "from the author (I. S.) a fine poet could be developed, if ... etc. ("Maikop. gaz." 22-KHI-13 ); in Khabarovsk (29-1-14) they believe that I. S. is not literate enough; in Kharkov (South. kr. 25-11-14) they write that "I. S.'s poems are sonorous and figurative"; in Samara ("Volzhsk, v." 29-XII-13), that S. has a "fragile, elegant, charming verse"; while in Voronezh ("Voron, tel." 13-V-14) it is believed that "FROM. strange wretchedness of thought." - "Early Morning", a newspaper of ministers, counts, envoys, princes of the blood, etc., writes that I. S. (29 - III - 14) "rubbish, worse than Uncle Mikhey, hairdresser, perfumer store. - "Morning" (in Kharkov, - ZO-Sh-14) speaks of S. about "Zlatolira": "The boy became an old man", but "Nizhny Novgorod leaflet" (15-IV-14), "Kamsko- Volga speech" (29 - III - 14) and "Volga sheet" (12-IV-14) really like "Zlatolir". On the same occasion, "Vyatka speech" (11-IV-14) finds in S. "such a degree perfection, which makes him related to the great writers"; however, "Odessa News" (24 - III - 14) consider "Zlatolira" - "commemoration". At the same time in Khabarovsk ("Amur Region", 1 - III - 14) they consider I. S. "a very talented poet", but Kharkov again disagrees with this and says ("Southern kr." 27-V-14) that "Zlatolira" is "just a poor book."

The third book of I. S. causes even less enthusiasm than "Zlatolir"; - "Champagne I. S. recalls as a fake of a very bad brand" ("K.-Volzh. R." 15 - III - 15); in Yalta they are still afraid of the "decadents" and classify I. S. among them; "Chernigov Word" (28-IV-15) says: "I. S. collected in his books everything that testifies to bad taste," - after all, everyone knows the great aesthetics of the city of Chernigov, second in this part after New York ; "All the new verses of I.S. are much weaker than the verses of The Thundering Cup," says Novaya Zhizn (III-15). - "Pineapples in denatured alcohol!" - shouts "Voice of Moscow" (14 - IV - 15), "Pineapples in hypocrisy!" - corrects the more knowledgeable "Voice of Life". "Apukhtin No. 2!" - declares "Morning of Russia" (1 - III - 15); "Coffee shop days," cries out Mr. Kranichfeld ("Modern words." 1-1-15). - "IS belongs to the number of the most striking futilities," - finishes the most respected prof. N. F. Sumtsov ("South. kr." - 28-V-15).

"In Victoria Regia, S. parodies himself," says the Kharkov "Morning" (28-IV-15); however, "Morning of the South" (Sh-15) even here finds "all-conquering youth" in S.

Further already clear curiosities. - "Kyivlyanin" (17 - V - 13) writes: "When "poets" like K. Balmont and Ig. S ..." or (3-V-13): "The Artsybashevs, Verbitskys, Soll ( ?) lips. In the field of poetry (poetry, obviously, not literature ??) - Igor Severyanina and Ivana (?) Twisted (??) ". - The "herald of knowledge", this laureate of ignorance, mumbles something about Trediakovsky and opposes I. S. as an ideal unattainable for him - some kind of "original" worker poet ... to buy his books from I.S. in time, they say that S. is “a phenomenon not entirely healthy” (No. 5-1914), - in Odessa they believe that I.S. 1-14). - The newspaperman Mr. Vilde calls S. an "ego-clerk" (alas, how can we call Mr. Vilde after that??). - Known for his work on didactics, a follower of Lao-Si, Ark. Bukhov, gasping: "You understand, this is a literary horror: I. S. is now selling out in the 6th edition" ("P. kur." 4 - Sh-14 "), etc.

It's all.

Let's do some calculations. - Professional critics condemned I. S. 4 times and praised 14 times; critics-writers condemned 9 times and praised 9 times; publicists condemned 3 times and praised 7 times; Newspapermen blamed 54 times and praised 21 times. Total: 70 censures and 51 praises. As a percentage, these numbers are 57.85% and 42.15%, that is, they are approximately the same. - These figures, of course, are approximate, since we did not count everything, but, in general, they give a correct idea of ​​the attitude of criticism towards Igor Severyanin.

Let us now try to somehow comprehend, to systematize all this mass of opinions.

We proceed, generally speaking, from the premise that Igor Severyanin is really and undoubtedly a true poet, highly gifted as a technician and new in the sense that he gave us a kind of synthesis of Fet and Tyutchev of similar modernism with simpler poets like Sluchevsky, Fofanov, Lokhvitskaya, and even (there is nothing wrong with this, from the historical and literary point of view) Apukhtin and Nadson. Severyaninskaya "petty-bourgeois drama" [The reader, of course, knows that the expression "petty-bourgeois drama" is not a curse, as newspapers think, but is a kind of credo of the English literary school of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.] is not, of course, his own invention, but - drawing the content of it directly from the poets we have just listed - Severyanin here came very close to Alexander Blok (compare, for example, Blok's "Petty-bourgeois Life" in his book "The Earth in the Snow"), Andrei Bely ("Ashes"), who touched this kind of creativity, so to speak, from the other end.

And now - imagine - a poet with such, to a certain (very small) degree, original habitus "oM, the unusualness of which is aggravated by many neologisms, love for multi-foot, long-line verses, which often gives the impression not of poetry, but of rhythmic prose, a mass of assonances and composite rhythm - unexpectedly turned out to be a poet with the simplest plots, appears before criticism.

A professional critic, a publicist critic in more and the newspaper critic to an even greater extent has an idea, established once for all, of the state of such and such a year, about the lyric, its merits, about the nobility of the poet, etc. The critic expects from the poems of any author the same, he has familiar and almost written emotions in his critical passport, and since there are none, then he has no choice but to choose the most appropriate, in his opinion, curse and print it in the largest possible font - insert this curse into the title articles, for example. This ability of criticism, this main quality of it, explains the curses of Izmailov and many others that appeared before The Thundering Cup. But after all, the same Izmailov, who poked Severyanin in the nose with some kind of "cheerful modernism", scolded and abused the same symbolists in the most obscene way, until they made their way! [Cm. at least "Exchange, Ved." 1901, No. 140] This also explains such curiosities when some Ark. Bukhov, for example, dares to cry out about Igor Severyanin's petty-bourgeois worldview, and the newspapermen, who have gone through fire, water and copper pipes, "straight Child Harolds" rise up to defend Polyhymnia, desecrated by Igor Severyanin.

The only decent criticism was that of the writers. There is no malice or mockery in it, but direct benevolence towards a new talent. And Gumilyov, and Bryusov, and Sologub, and Khodasevich, and even in the end Krechetov did not try to swear and spit. Criticism of Merezhkovsky, Krainy, Tinyakov is clearly partisan, and this consideration is easily dismissed. The swearing of Mr. Gorodetsky, who has long since flown out of literature into the newspaper, for this very reason does not deserve any attention. Winks of old people from almshouses and boarding houses, like "The Modern World", "Northern Notes", etc., are also of little interest.

And immediately after the criticism of the writers, the rest of the criticism hastened to bow before Igor Severyanin. The high appreciation of the Severyaninskaya muse by the writers so firmly settled in the minds of critics that they did not dare to scold even Severyanin's clearly weak books, which happened to Izmailov, who praised Zlatolira.

Here is a wonderful and illustrative lesson for the public - indicating which of the critics it should believe - whether the hyenas are professionals, or foolish publicists, hooligans, or newspapermen - or expert specialists, people who love deeply literature - writers.

THE MAN WHO IS SORRY

Russkoye Slovo kindly sent me two books of poems by the poet, who writes under the pseudonym Igor Severyanin, with an offer to speak about this new and, it seems, a very noisy phenomenon of Russian Parnassus.

Unfortunately, after reviewing the books sent, I see that I am able to fully judge only a very small part of their content, and more or less about the part, although the most extensive in comparison with the first, but still too small in the total amount of pages ... As for the vast majority of the works of Mr. Igor Severyanin, I admit that I am completely incapable of judging, for the simple reason that I am not familiar with the language in which they are written. Unfortunately, the book publishing house, which publishes collections of poems by Mr. Igor Severyanin, did not think of attaching a dictionary and grammar of this language to their elegant volumes. This is a big mistake. When Gogol published Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, he, bearing in mind the convenience of readers, attached to the book a dictionary of Little Russian sayings found in it. Meanwhile, the Little Russian dialect is much closer to the Russian language than that in which Mr. Igor Severyanin writes for the most part, sometimes indulging in this enigmatic dialect entirely, sometimes dividing between it and Russian speech.

About the part that I do not understand, I will confine myself to the remark that, judging by the confusion in its language Latin roots with Slavic suffixes and inflections, this language is close to Romanian. The musicians of the Romanian orchestras speak approximately in this dialect after they lose two or three seasons in Russian restaurants and pleasure gardens. My philological guess about the Romanian origin of the language of Mr. Igor Severyanin finds confirmation in the poet's rather frequent mention of the Romanian nation, and precisely in its restaurant version. For example:

Either strawberry or banana

Smells like creamy jasmine

Magnificently sugary dope

Recreating the Romanian Orchestra.

And two pages later:

What about Chartreuse needles? and champagne pins?

And glass beads on the windows? what about flowers? and the Romanians? [However, in addition to the Romanian language, Mr. Igor Severyanin sometimes resorts to the help of other dialects. So, for example, in the "Overture" to the "Princess Necklace" section:

Princess necklace - lyre chords,

Wreaths of constellations and ribbons of leagues,

And we, aesthetes, we are jewelers,

We are jewelers of such necklaces.

It is clear that "lea", in the second verse, is the third person singular of the present tense from the verb "to pour", conjugated in the Little Russian dialect ... The meaning of the verses is as follows: "Necklace of the princess lie, chords of the lyre, wreaths of constellations and ribbons" ... True , one ill-wisher of Mr. Igor Severyanin assured me that the "lie" here is the French lieu, but this is unbelievable already because lieu is pronounced in Russian "leu". And then, in order for the verses to retain consonance, one would have to read at the end of the fourth verse not “necklace”, but “necklace”, which makes a big difference. "Princess necklace" - this is God forbid everyone, but "princess necklace" - this is from Turgenev's Pigasov ...]

It is all the more regrettable for me not to understand Mr. Igor Severyanin in the most significant part of his work, because in the part that is completely understandable to me, I really like his poetry. Isn't that, for example, a charm?

Maybe because you're not young

But somehow touchingly painfully youthful,

Maybe that's why I always want to

to be with you; when, laughing slyly,

Open your eyes wide,

And you expose your pale face to kisses,

I feel that you are all bliss, all thunder,

All youth, all passion; and feelings without a name

They squeeze my heart with captivating longing,

And my fear of losing you is immeasurable ...

And you, having understood me, are anxious with your head

You suddenly droop nervously with your beautiful,

And here is another you: all - autumn, all - peace ...

(Thundering cup. Enchanted)

A girl was crying in the park: "Look, daddy,

A pretty swallow has a broken paw, -

I'll take the poor bird and wrap it in a handkerchief"...

And the father became thoughtful, shocked by the moment,

And forgave all the future and whims and pranks

Sweet little daughter, crying with pity.

(With the exception of two words fitted for rhyme: "Shocked by the minute," which dampen the impression with their newspaper prose).

There are more than a dozen such gizmos in two books by Mr. Igor Severyanin - "The Thundering Cup" and "Zlatolira" (which in Russian should probably mean "Golden Lyre"), there are more than a dozen: "Everything is the old way", "Victoria Regia", "Gazella", "Echo", "You are both my wives", "Nocturne", "Just a moment", "The sun kissed the earth", "Prelude" ("Moon shadows"), "Stars", "Saying nothing", "And if not," "Grad" ... All this is extremely, as they say, "nice": melodious, young, fresh, sincere, often passionate. Bribes with simplicity and tenderness, shows in the author the ability for the elegance of verse and rhyme, great flexibility, bright sonority ... True, all these verses without exception are undoubtedly imitative and "inspired", and in the choice of samples, Mr. Igor Severyanin shimmers in a thousand ways, from Lermontov to Balmont, but in a young poet this is not such a big sin. The young Lermontov imitated Byron, why shouldn't the young Mr. Igor Severyanin imitate Lermontov? Modest people even find that a good copy is better than a bad original... And one cannot but admit that this rule is justified in the best possible way by Mr. Igor Severyanin [pseudonym variant (Ed.)]. As long as he is all - a talented rehash of what he heard and read. In the field of rehashing, he is not only strong, but even downright striking in the extensibility of his ability to apply to other people's melodies, often to the point of completely merging with them. He begins to show this ability already from the title of his first book "The Thundering Cup", which he borrowed from Tyutchev, and continues to the last page of the second ... il prend son bien oh il le trouve - and at the same time, we must do him justice, good-natured undemanding to sources. So, for example, the very first page of the first book sings and coos to the reader:

To you alone all ardent desires,

My soul and happiness and peace,

All joys, delights, hopes

You alone...

Oh, no, it's my fault: it's just not Mr. Igor Severyanin's work. It's not exactly like this:

To the eyes of your soul - prayers and sorrows,

My illness, my fear, the crying of my conscience,

To the eyes of your soul...

Isn't it nice? Reading, I sincerely regretted that I. Prigozhy and Sasha Davydov had died ... What kind of music would the first write for these rhymes, and the second, as it were, perform it, “with a tear”, to the guitar! .. And how many sensitive young ladies then touchingly rang would be her fake little voices in houses where geraniums bloom on the windows, and cells with canaries are hung from the ceilings ...

Mr. Igor Severyanin's favorite models, whom he emulates quite consciously and with conviction, and declares this many times, remain Fofanov and Mirra Lokhvitskaya. I must admit that here I fully share the taste of Mr. Igor Severyanin, especially with regard to Mirra Lokhvitskaya, a poetess who sometimes exalted (in lyrics) almost to the point of genius ... I know less about Fofanov. Mr. Igor Severyanin dedicated many poems to him, many of which are good, and if not always coherent, then they bribe with sincerity. As for Lokhvitskaya, Mr. Igor Severyanin exclaims so bluntly: - Me and Mirra!

This combination seems to me a little too brave and premature. Mr. Igor Severyanin has to wait a little longer with his "chrismation," and indeed wait: such awards are not accepted in advance. Mirra Lokhvitskaya, whether she was great or small, she was, first of all, completely original and sincerely, ardently bold. Although her life was short, she managed to say a few of her own words and with them contributed several of her thoughts to the treasury of Russian literature. Then, for a whole decade now, they have been used by various gentlemen-poets, from whom the first and, to his credit, the most outspoken is Mr. Igor Severyanin. This is the categorical difference between Mirra Lokhvitskaya and Mr. Igor Severyanin, a talented imitator who does not yet have his own words. On 126-131 pages of poetry, he never managed to express thoughts, create an image, bring to life a form that former poets would not have known and would not have resorted to them with much more skill and luck. Therefore, when Mr. Igor Severyanin associates himself with "Mirra", it gives the impression of the same unsuccessful claim, as if ... well, at least Podolinsky, perhaps, said:

Me and Pushkin.

Or the dearest man, the deceased Liodor Ivanovich Palmin:

Me and Heine.

Of course, in changed proportions, because Mirra Lokhvitskaya is not Pushkin or Heine ... But she is still their breed, and the breed of Mr. Igor Severyanin has not yet been completely determined. Mirra Lokhvitskaya is already a demonic phenomenon, and Mr. Igor Severyanin is still a philistine phenomenon. And to a very large extent. I am talking, of course, about a poetic breed, because Mr. Igor Severyanin tells us his noble pedigree with courtesy ... precisely a true layman in a cap, with a red band:

Is it known to those who, instead of backgammon,

Causes me garny smoke of a log,

What's in the veins of the northern bard

Is Karamzin's blood flowing?

And my lot is not bitter at all! ..

I believe, my valiant grandfather,

That I am a historian in poetry,

And you are a poet in history!

Alas! The demon of imitation possessing Mr. Igor Severyanin has deprived him of originality even in his pedigree. For who does not know that in Holy Rus' for half a century there has been (or, if Mr. Igor Severyanin prefers, lie) ink another famous writer, who, one might say, buzzed his father’s ears with this same boast that he is “the grandson of Karamzin"... And this writer is Prince Vladimir Petrovich Meshchersky!.. Tanto nomini nullum par elogi-um. Y-yes ... It’s good for grandchildren to brag, but what a grandfather!

Continuing my review of the imitative fate gravitating over Mr. Igor, I find in Zlatolir his, so to speak, civil confession:

I glorify enthusiastically Christ and Antichrist,

The dove and the hawk, the Reichstag and the Bastille,

Kokotka and hermit, impulsiveness and sleep...

The coverage of poetic competence is undeniably wide, but again, it has not broken past records. Fifty-four years ago, Rus' became acquainted with the great poet, who bore the modest name of Yakov Kham, who

He responded to everything - neither weakly nor sharply, -

Garibaldi sang; so Yakov Kham poured out his inspirations in the Austrian language (Romanian, even border), and N. A. Dobrolyubov translated them for the Russians.]

Warned in the "direction" by Yakov Kham, in ethical preaching Mr. Igor Severyanin is to discover America after "Sanin" and at least ten thousand "Russian Nietzscheans", including among the latter also Mr. Anatoly Kamensky, whose record Mr. Igor The northerner is trying in vain to beat in his "Catastrophe" ... The sandpiper is far from Peter's day! That for which the poet needed a railway wreck with a stop at 18 o'clock, the heroes of Kamensky processed in five minutes, while the train was running!

Mr. Igor Severyanin is no stranger to the woeful consciousness of the ridicule of fate pursuing him, and he struggles with his evil demon on all, so to speak, platforms of poetic creativity. Having no original ideas, he tries to take revenge, at least on the original form, twirling it this way and that. By these useful technical exercises, he really developed a skill in himself, which, if it were not a question of a poet, could be defined as acrobatic. So, on page 45 of "Zlatolira" he unleashes a wonderful trick on the reader in the form of a rare rich selection of monotonous male rhyme:

Lived and was in the village of "Gulyaynoy" clerk-fool,

Throat - just the first grade, head - marriage.

Once overate with pies - yes to the barracks,

In all likelihood, it is precisely the desperation to show originality in creativity in the Russian language that explains the appeal of Mr. Igor Severyanin to some Romanian dialect, which, apparently, is more familiar to him:

Your soul, eola,

Ajurite rose flower.

You are a gondola, Mignol,

And I am your gondolier.

What this means, - as already said, I do not presume to judge. But it sounds no worse than Esperanto. Maybe this is what it is? The poems of Mr. Igor Severyanin, written in an unknown language, are divided into rondels, poesies, dissons, intuitions, heroes, virelays, coquettes, minionets, habaners, cocktails, etc. Having familiarized myself with these new poetic categories with curiosity, however, I could not to find differences in them with the most ordinary elegies, epistles, ballads and other kinds and types of poetry, to which the good old man Stoyunin taught us. Is it just that in most "poes" the meter is very lame, and the rhymes are out of hand. I speak, of course, again only about the rhymes belonging to the Russian language. Somehow: "Vrubel" and "waste"; he, "Vrubel", and "ruble"; "saw" and "death"; "Aragva" and "brazenly"; "reviled" and "powerlessness"; "close" and "odalisque"; "to confess" and "Nadson"; "shoes" and "serfs"; "toasts" and "stars"; "fir" and "exit"; "cone" and "sauce"...

In Romanian pronunciation, all this may be consonant, but it is somewhat alien to the Russian ear. If these are not so much rhymes as insults to the ear by action, born by the poet not as a result of a linguistic misunderstanding, but by preliminary intent, all in the same pursuit of a record of originality, then Mr. Igor Severyanin must be warned that he was too late here. Not only "button" and "Mother of God", "bear" and "uncle", but even "arc" and "bell" have long been rhymed. And the inventors of these rhymes were so modest that they did not even demand production for being a genius and kings, but preferred to end their lives in obscurity and oblivion ...

Igor Severyanin is probably master of Romanian rhymes. I suppose because very often - it would be more correct to say: constantly - the poet, finding it difficult to find a Russian rhyme for a Russian word, boldly replaces it with a Romanian rhyme, and always with complete success. For example:

Shouts: madam, don't die,

Cupid bring me into a rage ...

How? - interrupts the reader. - Do you want to assure me that Mr. Igor Severyanin is not even original here?

Alas! Yes! And not only did this accursed Knyazhnin (Sheshkovsky rightly spotted him!) warned Mr. Igor Severyanin. He also had the audacity to put a couplet with Russian-French rhymes into the mouth of ... a disguised lackey who drags along behind a provincial woman, playing the role of a man of the world!

Approaching from the darkness of centuries to more civilized times, we meet Myatlev with Madame Kurdyukova's Sensations. And in 1859, the reactionary newspaper Severnaya pchela even published an entire article in a language similar to Romanian:

Morning tomb sensation

The physiognomy of antecedent generation is naive and piteous. The expression of her passive-expectative tendencies is apathy. By the magical energy of magazine writers, everything has now been reshaped and evoked. The arena of intellectual reaction is open. Reform with absolute principles, progress towards an efficient civilization, harmony in theoretical and practical combinations, in regulatory and speculative operations - these are the attributes of a most productive era with solid ideas. Etc., etc.

Previously, by a number of poets and prose writers, the Russian public had learned to see in the poet, first of all, a pea jester, whom they begin to look at only from the moment when he “soaks his knee”, whom they begin to listen to, only then he, like a gong, will hit nothing like bullshit...

On such a skate, dozens of gentlemen from the category that Mr. Igor Severyanin energetically calls "insolent mediocrity" went to "fame". And this departure became so habitual, and the public was so spoiled by the humiliation of poets who turned into jesters, that when, finally, a poet appeared not from "mediocrity", but with a glimpse of talent, then he, alas! - in order to be noticed and "taste the laurel", one must go through the clownish experience. Show me, dear man, first of all, how you tumble, and then, they say, we'll see ... And since Mr. Igor Severyanin is a gifted and inventive person, it is quite natural that he, zealous in showing how deft he is tumble in every way , and even rashly and overplayed, over-insolent all the "insolent mediocrity", which he himself rightly despises and laughs angrily at ... Hence all his "prishchin" antics and cries of Ferdinand VIII, so condescending that he does not even demand " signs of allegiance." Mr. Igor Severyanin has achieved his goals ... Attention is drawn to him, and even very much drawn. Therefore, he no longer needs the mask of vulgarity that pleases the age ... And the society would like to see, and it would be time for Mr. Igor Severyanin to show:

What's under the mask?

So far, there can only be guesses about this, but they are varied and ambiguous. We have not yet heard the original words from under the mask of Mr. Igor Severyanin, but we know that he chooses borrowed words well, and knows how to pronounce beautifully: with feeling, with temperament, even with fire. We enjoyed hearing him reciting from Lermontov, Fofanov, Lokhvitskaya, Balmont. Like Neschastlivtsev in Les, he often "talks and thinks like Schiller." Of course, a person who speaks and thinks, even if only from a notebook, but like Schiller, is preferable to a person who speaks and thinks, albeit completely independently, but like a clerk. However, one cannot hide the deplorable truth that not all Schillerian sounds are heard from under the mask of Mr. Igor Severyanin, but very often someone suddenly hiccups or burps, just like a drunken clerk:

You swelled up as a child! you are a spring bud!

I will soon have a golden-haired daughter.

Why are you afraid to know motherhood?

Spit on all the condemnations as vile swine!

Here's Schiller! Rather, is it not Captain Lebyadkin, the same one who invited in "Demons":

Retrogradka il George Zandka,

Anyway, now rejoice:

You are with a dowry, governess,

Spit on everything and celebrate!

Masks are dangerous. They stick to their faces, and when the time comes to take them off, it hurts some, while for others they leave a bad mark on their faces. "Zlatolira" in this sense is a very deplorable indicator. In the "Thunderboiling Cup" "Schiller" breakthroughs are frequent and calls. "Zlatolira" - almost a continuous somersault for the amusement of "rejoicing, idly chatting." And, what is sadder of all, Mr. Igor Severyanin, in the midst of the cold philistine debauchery, in the world of which he sings and which he sings, apparently feels at home, and very well ... The company, let's say, is large and warm .. As they used to say in the old days, “with sound”, but now it seems to have been replaced by the definition “prasolovsky” ... But then why be offended that in our country for a quarter of a century it has been “centered” (probably, it is in the center of public attention ) Nadson, does Mr. Igor Severyanin feel "out of the way"? Could it be otherwise?

Nadson is a poet of small stature, and it is not true that he "centers" a quarter of a century. He was never a conductor, nor the first violin of a Russian poetic orchestra, he never acquired the meaning of "ruler of thought." But he is a poet whom society loved and respected, loves and respects, someday, maybe he will stop loving, but he will never stop respecting ... Because, no matter how you turn him, he is all a "knight of the spirit" .. He entered the world as a pure, bright, self-sacrificing philanthropist, may he serve the world, collecting in his cup the blood and tears of a gloomy age. Nadson's greatness was not created by his "talent", rather poorly armed with images, sounds and the power of form. No. This extraordinary beauty of the lightly suffering knight of the spirit was reflected in each of his poems, and with such brightness and integrity that the young man, not at all generously endowed with inspiration, developed not only into a poet, but into a deep and original poet. In a poet who knew how to speak "forgotten words" to society in his own way, unheard of; into a poet who, with his spiritual grace, justified and redeemed our dark era and, without being and having no pretensions to be great, played a great role in a long and wide cultural Russian period ... Nadson is a wonderful, organic phenomenon of the new Russian education, as if a focal point , who gathered in himself the best rays of her inner beauty, and with this passive combination - powerful and unforgettable ... Well ... and ... can you imagine Nadson saying to his beloved woman:

Are you swollen as a child?

Can you imagine Nadson signing the same sympathy for the Reichstag and the Bastille, for the hawk and the dove?...

Can you imagine Nadson, for whom the railway wreck is only an excuse "among the most charming valleys to play pantomin love"?

Here's what's there and what's not. And the society, after all, is a demanding bribe-taker. His attitude to the poet is always built on do ut des. There is nothing easier than to receive from him that glory, which is more correctly called notoriety. Even though he was completely spoiled by the knees of candidates for the favorites of the public, the example of Mr. Igor Severyanin is a fairly clear indication of how little labor and material are required for such achievements. But, alas! - not only to "center", but even simply to have any significance in the culture of one's era with such an arsenal is impossible. For there is a time for work, and an hour for fun, and at serious moments of their lives, society is merciless towards those who, while the hour of fun lasts, imagined that this is the very thing ... At these times, society examines its favorite: discover your spiritual capital, how can you serve me if you are my son, my member? And poor Nadson had enough of this capital for the dark days of society, indeed, for a quarter of a century, even up to our time. And the rich of his successors in the lyre, among whom, of course, there were many more significant than Nadson in the proportion of talents, without exception - bankrupt, bankrupt and bankrupt ...

Some of the rigorists, perhaps, will find that I am talking about Mr. Igor Severyanin more and, in the end, more seriously than this motley ephemeris of a poetic day deserves ... You never know, they say, we have seen them too much, today - " determinants of epochs, "tomorrow -" three-week daredevils "... To count, - the number is not enough ... That's it, it would be a pity if Mr. Igor Severyanin turned out to be the same fragile everyday life as everyone else "promising" in the post-revolutionary period of Russian poetry, which, without hesitation, I will call spilled ... Works of celebrities, put forward by him, I read in great numbers. And definitely not a single one touched me to the core to the point of needing to talk about it in detail and "heart to heart" ... Well, it arose; well, he pulled out such a spillikin, which other scribblers had not pulled out before you; well, became famous; well, and new spillikins - you pull, you pull, you can’t pull it out; Well, the other spitpiper overdid you; well, you tumbled off a half-inch pedestal, and they forgot about you, and the one who went overboard shone in order to three weeks later, in the same order, clunk into Oblivion, where you are already floundering ... Well, both of you are dear there, in all honesty... To G. Igor Severyanin, with all the ugliness of the mask in which he jokes, I, in all honesty, would not have sent such parting words... a spark as if of a real talent. In the stifling and stale atmosphere in which this spark is now smoldering, it will choke and choke with hymns to the glory of bourgeois debauchery and die out, stifled by the fumes of that very snickering arch-philistinism, on whose vulgar life the creative delights of the poet are now concentrated. But if the spark manages to break out of its cocktail-cocotte extinguisher, it seems to me that it is very, very capable of breaking out into a joyful fire, which we have not seen ... yes, perhaps, that we have not seen it since the year of "Burning Buildings" K. D Balmont...

I read you: you are gentle and simple,

And you are a vulgar wimp according to signs.

For your sonnet I will whip you with a sonnet:

After all, you are a talent, not an empty dunce!

It's enough to sing claret to you sucks,

At the same time, distorting the native language.

Do you want to be not a fathom, but a poet?

Be cleansed of suffering by beauty!

French like a commie for a rendezvous

You can’t wait for a wreath on the head:

The pity of feigned foolishness drama

And it's time for a kid to be an adult ...

What a pity that you, the children, were not beaten by your mother

For the pranks of a careless pen!

Alexander Amfiteatrov