Zabolotsky direction in literature. Nikolay Zabolotsky. Formation, repression and flowering of creativity

08.01.2022Heading: Finishing

V.A. Zaitsev

Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky (1903-1958) - an outstanding Russian poet, a man of difficult fate, who went through a difficult path of artistic search. His original and diverse work enriched Russian poetry, especially in the field of philosophical lyrics, and took a firm place in the poetic classics of the 20th century.

A penchant for writing poetry was discovered in the future poet as early as childhood and during his school years. But serious poetry studies took place at the beginning of the twenties, when Zabolotsky studied - first at Moscow University, and then at the Pedagogical Institute. A.I. Herzen in Petrograd. The “Autobiography” says about this period: “He wrote a lot, imitating either Mayakovsky, then Blok, then Yesenin. I couldn't find my own voice.

Throughout the 20s. the poet passes the way of intensive spiritual searches and artistic experiment. From youthful poems of 1921 (“Sisyphus Christmas”, “Heavenly Seville”, “Heart-Wasteland”), bearing traces of the influences of diverse poetic schools - from symbolism to futurism, he comes to gain creative originality. By the middle of the decade, one after another, his original poems were being created, which subsequently compiled the first book.

At this time, N. Zabolotsky, together with young Leningrad poets of the "left" orientation (D. Kharms, A. Vvedensky, I. Bekhterev and others), organized the "Association of Real Art" ("Oberiu"), Zabolotsky took part in drawing up the program and declaration group, undoubtedly putting its own meaning into its very name: "Oberiu" - "The union of the only realistic art, and "y" is an embellishment that we allowed ourselves." Having entered the association, Zabolotsky most of all strove to maintain independence, elevating the "creative freedom of members of the community" to the main principle.

In 1929, Zabolotsky's first book "Columns" was published, which included 22 poems from 1926-1928. It immediately attracted the attention of readers and critics, caused conflicting responses: on the one hand, serious positive reviews by N. Stepanov, M. Zenkevich and others, who noted the arrival of a new poet with their original vision of the world, on the other hand, rude, odd articles under characteristic titles: "System of cats", "System of girls", "Disintegration of consciousness".

What caused such a mixed reaction? In the poems of "Columns" a sharply individual and estranged perception of the contemporary reality was manifested by the author. The poet himself later wrote that the theme of his poems was deeply alien and hostile to him "the predatory life of all kinds of businessmen and entrepreneurs", "a satirical image of this life". A sharp anti-philistine orientation is felt in many poems of the book (“New Life”, “Ivanovs”, “Wedding”, “Bypass Canal”, “People's House”). In the depiction of the world of the philistines, there are features of absurdism, realistic concreteness is adjacent to hyperbolization and alogism of images.

The book was opened by the poem "Red Bavaria", in the title of which the characteristic realities of that time are recorded: that was the name of the famous beer bar on Nevsky. From the first lines, an extremely concrete, lively and plastic image of the situation of this institution arises:

In the wilderness of a bottle paradise, where palm trees have dried up for a long time, - playing under electricity, a window floated in a glass; it shone on the blades, then set down, became heavy; beer smoke curled over him ... But it is impossible to describe.

The author, to a certain extent, in accordance with the self-characterization given by him in the "Declaration" of the Oberiuts, appears here as "a poet of naked concrete figures, pushed close to the viewer's eyes." In the description of the pub and its regulars that unfolds further, internal tension, dynamics and increasing generalization are consistently growing. Together with the poet, we see how “in that bottle paradise / the sirens trembled on the edge / of the crooked stage”, how “doors are turning on chains, / people are falling down the stairs, / crackling cardboard shirts, / leading a round dance with a bottle”, how “men everyone was shouting too, / they were swinging on the tables, / they were swinging on the ceilings / bedlam with flowers in half ... "The feeling of meaninglessness and absurdity of what is happening is growing stronger, from everyday specifics there is a general phantasmagoria that spills out onto the streets of the city:" Eyes fell, for sure weights, / the glass was broken - the night came out ... "And instead of the" wilderness of the bottle paradise "there is already standing in front of the reader" ... outside the window - in the wilderness of time ... Nevsky in brilliance and longing ... "Generalized judgments of this kind are found and in other verses: “And everywhere crazy delirium ...” (“White Night”).

The very nature of metaphors and comparisons speaks of the sharp rejection of the petty-bourgeois world: “... the groom is unbearably nimble, / clings to the bride like a snake” (“New Life”), “a samovar in iron armor / makes noise like a house general” (“Ivanovs”), “Straight bald men / sit like a shot from a gun”, “a huge house, wagging its back, / flies into the space of being” (“Wedding”), “A lantern, bloodless, like a worm, / dangles like an arrow in the bushes” (“People's House ") and etc.

Speaking in 1936 in a discussion about formalism and forced to agree with the accusations of criticism against his experimental poems, Zabolotsky did not abandon what he had done at the beginning of his journey and emphasized: “The columns taught me to look closely at the outside world, aroused in me an interest in things , developed in me the ability to depict phenomena in a plastic way. I managed to find some secret of plastic images in them.”

The secrets of plastic representation were comprehended by the poet not for the sake of a purely artistic experiment, but in line with the development of life content, as well as the experience of literature and other related arts. In this regard, the bright miniature "Movement" (December 1927) is interesting, built on a clear contrast between the static-painterly first and dynamic second stanzas:

The driver sits as if on a throne, armor is made of cotton wool, and the beard, as on an icon, lies, jingling with coins.

And the poor horse waves its arms, then stretches out like a burbot, then again eight legs sparkle in its shiny belly.

The transformation of the horse into a fantastic animal with arms and twice the number of legs gives an impetus to the reader's imagination, in whose imagination the seemingly monumental and motionless picture comes to life. The fact that Zabolotsky was consistently looking for the most expressive artistic solutions in the depiction of movement is evidenced by the poem “Feast” written soon after (January 1928), where we find a dynamic sketch: “And the horse flows through the air, / conjures the body in a long circle / and cuts with sharp feet / shafts a flat prison.

The book "Columns" became a significant milestone not only in the work of Zabolotsky, but also in the poetry of that time, influencing the artistic searches of many poets. The sharpness of social and moral problems, the combination of plastic representation, odic pathos and grotesque satirical style gave the book its originality and determined the range of the author's artistic possibilities.

Much has been written about her. Researchers rightly connect Zabolotsky's artistic searches and the poetic world of "Stolbtsy" with the experience of Derzhavin and Khlebnikov, the painting of M. Chagall and P. Filonov, and finally, with the "carnival" element of F. Rabelais. The poet's work in his first book relied on this powerful cultural layer.

However, Zabolotsky was not limited to the theme of life and life of the city. In the poems “The Face of a Horse”, “In Our Dwellings” (1926), “Walk”, “The Signs of the Zodiac Faded” (1929) and others, which were not included in the first book, the theme of nature is born and receives an artistic and philosophical interpretation, which becomes the most important in poet's work in the next decade. Animals and natural phenomena are spiritualized in them:

The horse's face is more beautiful and smarter.
He hears the sound of leaves and stones.
Attentive! He knows the cry of an animal
And in the dilapidated grove the rumble of a nightingale.
And the horse stands like a knight on the clock,
The wind plays in light hair,
Eyes burn like two huge worlds
And the mane spreads like royal purple.

The poet sees all natural phenomena alive, bearing human features: “The river is a nondescript girl / Lurking among the grasses ...”; “Each little flower / Waves with a small hand”; finally, “And all nature laughs, / Dying every moment” (“Walk”).

It is in these works that the origins of natural philosophical themes in the lyrics and poems of Zabolotsky of the 30-50s, his reflections on the relationship between man and nature, the tragic contradictions of being, life and death, the problem of immortality.

The formation of philosophical and artistic views and concepts of Zabolotsky was influenced by the works and ideas of V. Vernadsky, N. Fedorov, especially K. Tsiolkovsky, with whom he was in active correspondence at that time. The thoughts of the scientist about the place of mankind in the Universe, of course, acutely worried the poet. In addition, his longstanding passion for the work of Goethe and Khlebnikov clearly affected his worldview. As Zabolotsky himself said: “At that time I was fond of Khlebnikov, and his lines:

I see freedom of horses And equality of cows... -

deeply affected me. The utopian idea of liberating animals appealed to me.”

In the poems "The Triumph of Agriculture" (1929-1930), "The Crazy Wolf" (1931) and "Trees" (1933), the poet followed the path of intense socio-philosophical and artistic searches, in particular, he was inspired by the idea of \u200b\u200b"liberating" animals, due to deep belief in the existence of reason in nature, in all living beings.

Projected on the conditions of collectivization unfolding in the country, embodied in the author's reflections and philosophical conversations of the characters in his disputed poems, this belief caused misunderstanding and sharp critical attacks. The poems were subjected to cruel scrutiny in the articles “Under the guise of foolishness”, “Foolish poetry and the poetry of millions”, etc.

Unfair assessments and the stubborn tone of criticism had a negative impact on the poet's work. He almost stopped writing and at one time was mainly engaged in translation activities. However, the desire to penetrate the secrets of life, the artistic and philosophical understanding of the world in its contradictions, thoughts about man and nature continued to excite him, making up the content of many works, including the completed in the 40s. the poem "Lodeinikov", fragments of which were written in 1932-1934. The hero, who wears autobiographical traits, is tormented by the contrast between the wise harmony of the life of nature and its sinister, bestial cruelty:

Lodeynikov listened. Over the garden there was a vague rustle of a thousand deaths. Nature, which turned into hell, did its business without fuss. The beetle ate grass, the beetle was pecked by a bird, the ferret drank the brain from a bird's head, and the terribly twisted faces of nocturnal creatures looked out from the grass. Nature's age-old winepress united death and being into a single club. But thought was powerless to unite its two mysteries.

("Lodeinikov in the garden", 1934)

Tragic notes are clearly heard in the understanding of natural and human existence: “Our waters shine on the abysses of torment, / forests rise on the abysses of grief!” (By the way, in the 1947 edition, these lines were altered and smoothed out almost to complete neutrality: “So this is what the noise is about in the darkness of the water, / About what the forests whisper, sighing!” And the poet’s son N.N. Zabolotsky is certainly right, commenting on these poems in the early 1930s: “The poet’s perception of the social situation in the country was also indirectly reflected in the description of the “eternal winepress” of nature”).

In the lyrics of Zabolotsky in the mid-30s. more than once social motives arise (the poems "Farewell", "North", "Gori Symphony", published then in the central press). But still the main focus of his poetry is philosophical. In the poem “Thinking about death yesterday...” (1936), overcoming the “unbearable anguish of separation” from nature, the poet hears the singing of evening grasses, “and the speech of water, and the dead cry of stone.” In this lively sound, he catches and distinguishes the voices of his favorite poets (Pushkin, Khlebnikov) and completely dissolves himself in the world around him: “... and I myself was not a child of nature, / but her thought! But her unsteady mind!

The poems “Thinking about death yesterday...”, “Immortality” (later called “Metamorphoses”) testify to the poet’s close attention to the eternal questions of life, which acutely worried the classics of Russian poetry: Pushkin, Tyutchev, Baratynsky. In them he tries to solve the problem of personal immortality:

How everything changes! What used to be a bird -
Now lies a written page;
Thought was once a mere flower;
The poem walked like a slow bull;
And what was me, then, perhaps,
Again grows and the world of plants multiplies.
("Metamorphoses")

In The Second Book (1937), the poetry of thought triumphed. Significant changes have taken place in Zabolotsky's poetics, although the secret of "plastic images" he found back in "Columns" was here clearly and very expressively embodied, for example, in such impressive paintings of the poem "North":

Where are the people with icy beards,
Putting a conical three-piece on his head,
They sit in sledges and long poles
They let out an icy spirit from their mouths;
Where are the horses, like mammoths in shafts,
They run rumbling; where the smoke is on the roofs,
Like a statue frightening the eye...

Despite the seemingly favorable external circumstances of Zabolotsky's life and work (the release of the book, the high appreciation of his translation of "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" by S. Rustaveli, the beginning of work on poetic transcriptions of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" and other creative plans), trouble lay in wait for him. In March 1938, he was illegally arrested by the NKVD, and after the most severe interrogation, which lasted four days, and detention in a prison psychiatric hospital, he received a five-year term of corrective labor.

From the end of 1938 to the beginning of 1946, Zabolotsky stayed in the camps of the Far East, Altai Territory, Kazakhstan, worked in the most difficult conditions at logging, blasting, railway construction, and only thanks to a happy coincidence he was able to get a job as a draftsman in a design bureau, which saved him life.

It was a decade of enforced silence. From 1937 to 1946, Zabolotsky wrote only two poems that develop the theme of the relationship between man and nature ("Forest Lake" and "Nightingale"). In the last year of the Great Patriotic War and the first post-war period, he resumed work on a literary translation of The Tale of Igor's Campaign, which played an important role in his return to his own poetic work.

The post-war lyrics of Zabolotsky are marked by the expansion of the thematic and genre range, the deepening and development of socio-psychological, moral, humanistic and aesthetic motives. Already in the first verses of 1946: "Morning", "Blind", "Thunderstorm", "Beethoven" and others - the opened horizons of a new life seemed to open up and at the same time the experience of severe trials affected.

The poem “In this birch grove” (1946), all permeated with the rays of the morning sun, carries a charge of high tragedy, unrelenting pain of personal and national disasters and losses. The tragic humanism of these lines, their suffering harmony and universal sound are paid for by the torments that the poet himself experienced from arbitrariness and lawlessness:

In this birch grove,
Far from suffering and troubles,
Where pink fluctuates
unblinking morning light
Where a transparent avalanche
Leaves are pouring from high branches, -
Sing to me, oriole, a desert song,
The song of my life.

These poems are about the life and fate of a person who endured everything, but not a broken and unbelieving person, about the dangerous, approaching, perhaps, the last line of the paths of mankind, about the tragic complexity of time passing through the human heart and soul. They contain the bitter life experience of the poet himself, an echo of the past war and a warning about the possible death of all life on the planet, devastated by an atomic whirlwind, global catastrophes ("... Atoms shudder, / Throwing houses like a white whirlwind ... You fly over cliffs, / You fly over the ruins of death... And a deadly cloud stretches / Above your head”).

Before us stands a visionary, comprehensively meaningful universal catastrophe and the defenselessness of everything living on earth in front of formidable, chaotic, forces beyond the control of man. And yet these lines carry light, purification, catharsis, leaving a ray of hope in the human heart: "Beyond the great rivers / The sun will rise ... And then in my torn heart / Your voice will sing."

In the post-war years, Zabolotsky wrote such wonderful poems as “Blind”, “I am not looking for harmony in nature”, “Remembrance”, “Farewell to friends”. The latter is dedicated to the memory of A. Vvedensky, D. Kharms, N. Oleinikov and other comrades in the Oberiu group, who became in the 30s. victims of Stalin's repressions. Zabolotsky's poems are marked by impressive poetic concreteness, plasticity and picturesqueness of the image, and at the same time by a deep social and philosophical understanding of the problems of life and being, nature and art.

Signs of humanism that are not characteristic of the official doctrine - pity, mercy, compassion - are clearly visible in one of the first post-war poems by Zabolotsky "The Blind One". Against the backdrop of the “dazzling day” rising to the sky, the lilacs blooming wildly in the spring gardens, the poet’s attention is riveted to the old man “with his face upturned to the sky”, whose whole life is “like a big habitual wound” and who, alas, will never open “half-dead eyes ". A deeply personal perception of someone else's misfortune is inseparable from philosophical reflection, giving rise to the lines:

And I'm afraid to think
That somewhere at the edge of nature
I'm just as blind
With a face upturned to the sky.
Only in the darkness of the soul
I watch spring waters,
I'm talking to them
Only in my bitter heart.

Sincere sympathy for people walking "through thousands of troubles", the desire to share their grief and anxieties brought to life a whole gallery of poems ("Passerby", "Loser", "In the Cinema", "Ugly Girl", "Old Actress", "Where- then in a field near Magadan”, “Death of a doctor”, etc.). Their heroes are very different, but with all the variety of human characters and the author's attitude towards them, two motives prevail here, absorbing the author's concept of humanism: "Infinitely human patience / If love does not go out in the heart" and "Human strength / There is no limit ... »

In the work of Zabolotsky of the 50s, along with the lyrics of nature and philosophical reflections, the genres of a poetic story and a portrait built on the plot are intensively developed - from those written back in 1953-1954. poems "Loser", "In the Cinema" to those created in the last year of his life - "General's Cottage", "Iron Old Woman".

In a kind of poetic portrait "Ugly Girl" (1955), Zabolotsky poses a philosophical and aesthetic problem - about the essence of beauty. Drawing the image of an “ugly girl”, a “poor ugly girl”, in whose heart lives “another's joy just like her own”, the author, with all the logic of poetic thought, leads the reader to the conclusion that “what is beauty”:

And even if her features are not good And she has nothing to seduce the imagination, - The infantile grace of the soul Already shows through in any of her movements.

And if so, what is beauty And why do people deify it?

Is she a vessel in which there is emptiness, Or a fire flickering in a vessel?

The beauty and charm of this poem, which reveals the “pure flame” that burns in the depths of the soul of an “ugly girl”, is that Zabolotsky was able to show and poetically affirm the true spiritual beauty of a person - something that was a constant subject of his thoughts throughout the 50s gg. (“Portrait”, “Poet”, “On the beauty of human faces”, “Old actress”, etc.).

The social, moral, and aesthetic motives intensively developed in Zabolotsky's later work did not supplant his most important philosophical theme of man and nature. It is important to emphasize that now the poet has taken a clear position in relation to everything connected with the invasion of nature, its transformation, etc.: “Man and nature are a unity, and only a complete fool can speak seriously about some kind of subjugation of nature and dualist. How can I, a man, conquer nature if I myself am nothing but her mind, her thought? In our everyday life, this expression "the conquest of nature" exists only as a working term inherited from the language of savages. That is why in his work of the second half of the 50s. the unity of man and nature is revealed with special depth. This idea runs through the entire figurative structure of Zabolotsky's poems.

Thus, the poem “Gombori Forest” (1957), written on the basis of impressions from a trip to Georgia, is distinguished by its vivid picturesqueness and musicality of images. Here are “cinnabar with ocher on the leaves”, and “maple in illumination and beech in the glow”, and bushes similar to “harps and trumpets”, etc. The very poetic fabric, epithets and comparisons are marked by increased expressiveness, a riot of colors and associations from the sphere of art (“There are bloody veins in the cornelian grove / The bush was bulging ...”; “... the oak raged like Rembrandt in the Hermitage, / And the maple, like Murillo, soared on wings”), and at the same time, this plastic and pictorial depiction is inseparable from the artist’s intent thought, imbued with a lyrical sense of belonging to nature:

I became the nervous system of plants,
I became the reflection of stone rocks,
And the experience of my autumn observations
I wished to give back to humanity.

Admiration for the luxurious southern landscapes did not cancel the long-standing and persistent passions of the poet, who wrote about himself: “I was brought up by harsh nature ...” Back in 1947, in the poem “I touched the leaves of eucalyptus”, inspired by Georgian impressions, he not accidentally connects his sympathies, pain and sadness with other visions much more dear to the heart:

But in the furious splendor of nature
I dreamed of Moscow groves,
Where the blue sky is paler
Plants are more modest and simpler.

In the late poems of the poet, the autumn landscapes of the homeland are often seen by him in expressive-romantic tones, realized in images marked by plasticity, dynamism, sharp psychologism: leaves moving” (“Autumn landscapes”). But, perhaps, he manages to convey the “charm of the Russian landscape” with special force, breaking through the dense veil of everyday life and seeing and depicting this “realm of fog and darkness” in a new way, in fact, full of special beauty and secret charm.

The poem "September" (1957) is an example of the animation of a landscape. Comparisons, epithets, personifications - all components of the poetic structure serve to solve this artistic problem. The dialectics of the development of the image-experience is interesting (correlation between the motives of bad weather and the sun, withering and flourishing, the transition of associations from the sphere of nature to the human world and vice versa). A ray of sun breaking through the rain clouds illuminated the hazel bush and evoked a whole stream of associations and thoughts in the poet:

It means that the distance is not forever curtained by Clouds and, therefore, not in vain,
Like a girl, having flared up, the hazel shone at the end of September.
Now, painter, grab brush after brush, and on the canvas
Golden as fire and garnet Draw this girl to me.
Draw, like a tree, an unsteady young princess in a crown
With a restlessly sliding smile On a tear-stained young face.

Subtle spiritualization of the landscape, calm, thoughtful intonation, agitation and together restraint of tone, colorfulness and softness of the picture create the charm of these poems.

Noticing the details with pinpoint accuracy, capturing the moments of the life of nature, the poet recreates her lively and whole image in its constant, fluid variability. In this sense, the poem "Evening on the Oka" is characteristic:

And the clearer the details of the Objects around become,
All the more immense are the distances of river meadows, backwaters and bends.
The whole world is on fire, transparent and spiritual, Now it is truly good,
And you, rejoicing, recognize many wonders In his living features.

Zabolotsky was able to subtly convey the spirituality of the natural world, to reveal the harmony of man with it. In his late lyrics, he moved towards a new and original synthesis of philosophical reflection and plastic image, poetic scale and microanalysis, comprehending and artistically capturing the connection between modernity, history, and “eternal” themes. Among them, the theme of love occupies a special place in his later work.

In 1956-1957. the poet creates a lyrical cycle "Last Love", consisting of 10 poems. They unfold a dramatic story of the relationship of already elderly people, whose feelings have passed difficult tests.

Deeply personal love experiences are invariably projected in these verses onto the life of the surrounding nature. In the closest merging with it, the poet sees what is happening in his own heart. And therefore, already in the first poem, the “thistle bouquet” carries the reflections of the universe: “These stars with sharp ends, / These sprays of the northern dawn / ... This is also an image of the universe ...” (emphasis added. - V.Z.) . And at the same time, this is the most concrete, plastic and spiritualized image of the departing feeling, the inevitable parting with the beloved woman: “... Where are the bunches of flowers, blood-headed, / Straight into my heart are embedded”; “And a wedge-shaped thorn stretched / In my chest, and for the last time / The sad and beautiful shines on me / The look of her inextinguishable eyes.”

And in other poems of the cycle, along with a direct, immediate expression of love (“Confession”, “You swore - to the grave ...”), it also arises and is reflected - in the landscape paintings themselves, the living details of the surrounding nature, in which the poet sees "a whole world of jubilation and grief" ("Sea walk"). One of the most impressive and expressive poems in this regard is The Juniper Bush (1957):

I saw a juniper bush in a dream
I heard a metallic crunch in the distance,
I heard a ringing of amethyst berries,
And in a dream, in silence, I liked him.
I smelled a slight smell of resin through my sleep.
Bending these low trunks,
I noticed in the darkness of tree branches
Slightly living likeness of your smile.

These poems surprisingly combine the ultimate realistic concreteness of visible, audible, perceived by all senses signs and details of an ordinary, seemingly natural phenomenon and a special fragility, variability, impressionism of visions, impressions, memories. And the juniper bush itself, which the poet dreamed of in a dream, becomes a capacious and multidimensional image-personification, which has absorbed the old joy and today's pain of outgoing love, the elusive image of the beloved woman:

juniper bush, juniper bush,
The cooling babble of changeable lips,
Light babble, barely reeking of pitch,
Pierced me with a deadly needle!

In the final poems of the cycle (“Meeting”, “Old Age”), the dramatic life conflict is resolved, and the painful experiences are replaced by a feeling of enlightenment and peace. The “life-giving light of suffering” and the “distant weak light” of happiness flickering with rare lightning flashes are inextinguishable in memory, but, most importantly, all the hardest is behind: “And only their souls, like candles, / Stream the last warmth.”

The late period of Zabolotsky's work is marked by intense creative searches. In 1958, turning to historical themes, he created a kind of poem-cycle "Rubruk in Mongolia", based on a real fact undertaken by a French monk in the 13th century. travel through the expanses of what was then Russia, the Volga steppes and Siberia to the land of the Mongols. In the realistic pictures of life and everyday life of the Asian Middle Ages, recreated by the power of the poet's creative imagination, in the very poetics of the work, a peculiar meeting of modernity and the distant historical past takes place. When creating the poem, the poet’s son notes, “Zabolotsky was guided not only by Rubruk’s carefully studied notes, but also by his own memories of movements and life in the Far East, in the Altai Territory, and Kazakhstan. The ability of the poet to simultaneously feel himself in different time periods is the most amazing thing in the poetic cycle about Rubruk.

In the last year of his life, Zabolotsky wrote many lyrical poems, including "Green Ray", "Swallow", "Grows near Moscow", "At sunset", "Do not let your soul be lazy ...". He translates an extensive (about 5,000 lines) cycle of Serbian epic tales and negotiates with a publishing house to translate the German folk epic The Nibelungenlied. He also plans to work on a large philosophical and historical trilogy ... But these creative ideas were no longer destined to come true.

With all the diversity of Zabolotsky's work, the unity and integrity of his artistic world should be emphasized. Artistic and philosophical understanding of the contradictions of life, deep reflections on man and nature in their interaction and unity, a kind of poetic embodiment of modernity, history, "eternal" themes form the basis of this integrity.

Zabolotsky's work is basically deeply realistic. But this does not deprive him of his constant desire for artistic synthesis, for combining the means of realism and romance, the complex associative, conditionally fantastic, expressive and metaphorical style, which openly manifested itself in the early period and was preserved in the depths of later poems and poems.

Highlighting in the classical heritage of Zabolotsky “first of all, realism in the broadest sense of the word”, A. Makedonov emphasized: “This realism includes a wealth of forms and methods of lifelikeness, up to what Pushkin called “the Flemish school of motley rubbish”, and a wealth of forms grotesque, hyperbolic, fabulous, conditional, symbolic reproduction of reality, and the main thing in all these forms is the desire for the deepest and most generalizing, multi-valued penetration into it, in its entirety, the diversity of spiritual and sensual forms of being. This largely determines the originality of Zabolotsky's poetics and style.

In the program article “Thought-Image-Music” (1957), summarizing the experience of his creative life, emphasizing that “the heart of poetry is in its content”, that “the poet works with all his being”, Zabolotsky formulates the key concepts of his integral poetic system in this way : "Thought - Image - Music - this is the ideal triplicity to which the poet strives." This desired harmony is embodied in many of his poems.

In the work of Zabolotsky, there is undoubtedly an update and development of the traditions of Russian poetic classics, and especially the philosophical lyrics of the 18th-19th centuries. (Derzhavin, Baratynsky, Tyutchev). On the other hand, from the very beginning of his creative activity, Zabolotsky actively mastered the experience of the poets of the 20th century. (Khlebnikov, Mandelstam, Pasternak and others).

Regarding the passion for painting and music, which was clearly reflected not only in the very poetic fabric of his works, but also in the direct mention in them of the names of a number of artists and musicians (“Beethoven”, “Portrait”, “Bolero”, etc.), the poet’s son wrote in the memoirs “On the Father and Our Life”: “Father always treated painting with great interest. His penchant for such artists as Filonov, Brueghel, Rousseau, Chagall is well known. In the same memoirs, Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, Schubert, Wagner, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich are named among Zabolotsky's favorite composers.

Zabolotsky proved to be an excellent master of poetic translation. His verse adaptations of The Tale of Igor's Campaign and The Knight in the Panther's Skin by S. Rustaveli, translations from Georgian classical and modern poetry, from Ukrainian, Hungarian, German, Italian poets became exemplary.

Life and career of N.A. Zabolotsky in his own way reflected the tragic fate of Russian literature and Russian writers in the 20th century. Having organically absorbed huge layers of domestic and world culture, Zabolotsky inherited and developed the achievements of Russian poetry, in particular and especially philosophical lyrics - from classicism and realism to modernism. He combined in his work the best traditions of literature and art of the past with the most daring innovation characteristic of our century, rightfully taking his place among his classic poets.

L-ra: Russian literature. - 1997. - No. 2. - S. 38-46.

Keywords: Nikolai Zabolotsky, criticism of the work of Nikolai Zabolotsky, criticism of the poetry of Nikolai Zabolotsky, analysis of the work of Nikolai Zabolotsky, download criticism, download analysis, free download, Russian literature of the 20th century

Zabolotsky Nikolai Alekseevich (1903 - 1958) - Soviet poet, translator. He wrote a lot for children, carried out translations of foreign authors.

Nikolai Zabolotsky was born near Kazan on April 24 (May 7), 1903. The boy's father was an agronomist, his mother was a teacher. Impressions from childhood spent in a rural atmosphere were clearly reflected in the poems that Zabolotsky began to write from the first grades of school.

In the Urzhum school, the boy was actively engaged in history, painting, chemical experiments, got acquainted with the work of A. Blok. After entering Moscow at the historical-philological and medical departments, Nikolai moved to Petrograd and graduated from the Faculty of Language and Literature at the Institute. Herzen.

After graduating from high school, the poet serves in the army near Leningrad for two years, is one of the journalists of the local wall newspaper. Impressions from barracks life, encounter with various characters and situations become the starting point in finding your own literary style.

Earlier creativity

After military service, Zabolotsky starts working in the children's book department of the State Publishing House under the leadership of S. Marshak. Then to the children's magazines "Hedgehog", "Chizh". The poet writes a lot for children, adapts the translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais for the perception of young readers.

His first collection of poems was published in 1929 under the title "Columns" and caused a whole scandal in the literary community. In the poems of the collection, a mockery of everyday life and philistinism was clearly visible. Prepared readers also noticed subtle parodies of the poetic styles of Balmont, Pasternak, images of Zoshchenko and Dostoevsky.

The next collection is published in 1937 and is called "Second Book".

Arrest and exile

On charges of anti-Soviet propaganda, which was fabricated from reviews of critics and denunciations that had little to do with the true themes of the poet's work, in 1938 the poet was arrested. Attempts to hang on him the organization of a conspiratorial association and sentence him to death did not yield results, despite the torture, the poet did not agree to sign false accusations. The events of this period are told by the poet in the "History of my imprisonment" (memoirs were published in 1981 abroad, in 1988 in the USSR).

Zabolotsky spent 5 years in camps in the Far East, then two years (1944-46) in Karaganda. There, the poetic translation of The Tale of Igor's Campaign was completed.

The 40s became a turning point not only in the life, but also in the work of the poet. From the avant-garde works of the early period, full of sarcasm, irony, various allusions, he moves on to classical poetry with simple and understandable images and situations.

Moscow period

In 1946, with the permission of the authorities, Zabolotsky returned to the capital and the status of a member of the Writers' Union was returned to him. The third collection of "Poems" is published in 1948.

After the creative upsurge of the first years of liberation, a period of calm sets in. Zabolotsky almost never writes, fearing ideological persecution and a repetition of the arrest story. On top of this, in 1955, the poet had his first heart attack, which significantly undermined his health. The reason for it K. Chukovsky, a close friend of Zabolotsky, called the temporary departure of the poet's wife Catherine to another man.

By this time, many translations of the works of Georgian poets Rustaveli, Chavchavadze, Pshavela A. Tsereteli and others, which helped the poet to keep himself and his family afloat, date back.

A new creative upsurge begins after the debunking of the cult of Stalin and the beginning of the thaw in 1956. This stage in the history of the country is reflected in the poems "Somewhere in a field near Magadan", "Kazbek". Three years before his death in 1958, Zabolotsky created most of the works included in the last period of creativity.

In 1957, the last collection of poetry, the Last Love cycle, was published. These are the poet's lyrical poems, including the famous poem "Kissed, bewitched."

On October 14, 1958, Nikolai Zabolotsky suffered a second heart attack, which became fatal. The poet was buried in Moscow.

Poet

Nikolai Zabolotsky was born on May 7, 1903, eight kilometers from Kazan, on a farm in the Kazan Provincial Zemstvo.

Zabolotsky's father was a peasant who, in his youth, had the opportunity to study as an agronomist, and the mother of the future poet was a teacher who came with her husband to the village from the city. In the third grade of a rural school, Nikolai Zabolotsky began to publish his own handwritten journal and placed his own poems there. From 1913 to 1920 he studied at a real school in the village of Sernur, near the small provincial town of Urzhum in the Vyatka province, was fond of history, chemistry and drawing. In the early poems of the poet, the memories and experiences of a boy from the village, the impressions of student life and the influence of pre-revolutionary poetry were mixed - at that time Zabolotsky singled out for himself the work of Blok and Akhmatova.

In 1920, after graduating from a real school in Urzhum, Zabolotsky left for Moscow and simultaneously entered the philological and medical faculties of Moscow University. He chose medical school, but he studied for only a semester, and, unable to withstand student poverty, returned to his parents in Urzhum. During his studies in Moscow, Zabolotsky regularly visited the literary cafe "Domino", where Mayakovsky and Yesenin often performed.

From Urzhum, Zabolotsky moved to Petrograd, where he began studying at the Department of Language and Literature of the Herzen Pedagogical Institute, which he graduated in 1925, having behind his soul, by his own admission, "a voluminous notebook of bad poems." And in 1926 he was called up for military service, which he took place in Leningrad. In the regiment, he joined the editorial board of the wall newspaper, in 1927 he successfully passed the exams for the rank of platoon commander, and was soon transferred to the reserve. Despite the short duration of military service, this life period played the role of a creative catalyst in Zabolotsky's fate - it was in 1926-27 that he wrote his first notable poetic works.

Zabolotsky was fond of painting by Filonov, Chagall and Brueghel. The ability to see the world through the eyes of an artist remained with the poet for life and influenced the originality of the poetic manner. Later, he recognized the kinship of his work in the 1920s with the primitivism of Henri Rousseau.

In 1927, together with Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky and Igor Bakhterev, Zabolotsky founded the OBERIU literary group, which continued the traditions of Russian futurism. In the same year, he took part in the first public performance of the Oberiuts "Three Left Hours" and began to publish. “Zabolotsky was a ruddy blond of medium height, inclined to be overweight,” recalled Nikolai Chukovsky, “with a round face, glasses, with soft plump lips. He had a cool northern Russian dialect all his life, but was especially noticeable in his youth. "were sedate, even important. Subsequently, I even once told him that he had an innate talent for importance - a talent necessary in life and saving a person from many unnecessary humiliations. I myself was completely deprived of this talent, I always envied people who possessed, and perhaps that is why I noticed him so early in Zabolotsky. It was strange to see such a sedate person with important slow intonations of his bass voice in the shameless circle of Oberiuts - Kharms, Vvedensky, Oleinikov. You should have known him better than I knew him then, to understand that this importance is cardboard, sham, covering a whole volcano of mischievous humor, almost not reflected on his face and only sometimes lighting up the glass of his glasses with a special brilliance com".

Aiming to revive the world in poetry "in all the purity of its specific courageous forms", to cleanse it of the mire of "experiences" and "emotions", Nikolai Zabolotsky coincided in his aspirations with the Futurists, Acmeists, Imagists and Constructivists, however, unlike them, showed an intellectual and analytical orientation. Oberiuts, in his opinion, should not only "organize things with meaning", but also develop a new attitude and a new way of knowing. Zabolotsky read with interest the works of Engels, Grigory Skovoroda, the works of Kliment Timiryazev on plants, Yuri Filipchenko on the evolutionary idea in biology, Vernadsky on bio- and noospheres, embracing all living and intelligent on the planet and extolling both as great transformative forces, Einstein's theory of relativity, N.F. Fedorov's "Philosophy of the Common Cause", who argued that: "With the knowledge of matter and its forces, the past generations restored, able to already recreate their body from elementary elements, will inhabit the worlds and destroy discord" ...

By the publication of the first collection of poems "Columns" Zabolotsky developed his own natural-philosophical concept. It was based on the idea of the universe as a single system that unites living and non-living forms of matter, which are in eternal interaction and mutual transformation. The development of this complex organism of nature proceeds from primitive chaos to the harmonic orderliness of all its elements, and the main role in this is played by the consciousness inherent in nature, which, in the words of the same Timiryazev, “smolders dully in lower beings and only flares up like a bright spark in the human mind.” Therefore, it is Man who is called upon to take care of the transformation of nature, but in his activity he must see in nature not only a student, but also a teacher, for this imperfect and suffering "eternal wine press" contains the beautiful world of the future and those wise laws by which man should be guided.

The driver sits as if on a throne,
armor made of cotton
and a beard, as on an icon,
flies, ringing coins.
And the poor horse is waving his arms,
then it will stretch out like a burbot,
then again eight legs sparkle
in his shiny belly...

Having amazed everyone, Zabolotsky's poems simultaneously caused an outburst of indignation. A struggle was unfolding against formalism, the principles of socialist realism were established, which required a special look at what Zabolotsky did not attract. “And since the Stolbtsy were not banal,” Chukovsky wrote, “Zabolotsky had been working in an atmosphere of persecution for all the years until his arrest. However, from time to time he managed to publish because he had a strong patron - Nikolai Semenovich Tikhonov. In the thirties, Tikhonov was one of the most influential people in the Leningrad literary circle, and the constant help he provided to Zabolotsky is his merit. It was with the help of Tikhonov that in 1933 Zabolotsky published the poem "The Triumph of Agriculture" in the Zvezda magazine, which caused a powerful and even more vicious wave of criticism.

Zabolotsky himself did not outwardly feel discomfort. “Art is like a monastery, where people are loved in an abstract way,” he wrote to his wife’s sister E.V. Klykova. “Well, people treat monks the same way. And despite this, monks remain monks, that is, righteous. Simeon the Stylite stands on his pillar, and people walk around and console themselves with the sight of him - the poor, tormented by life. Art is not life. The world is special. It has its own laws, and we should not scold him for not helping us cook soup".

Nikolai Zabolotsky married a graduate of the St. Petersburg Pedagogical Institute Ekaterina Vasilievna Klykova in 1930. In this marriage, he had two children. With his wife and children, he lived in Leningrad in a "writer's superstructure" on the Griboyedov Canal.

“She was, frankly, one of the best women I have met in my life,” Yevgeny Schwartz wrote about Ekaterina Vasilyevna, Zabolotsky’s wife, “I met her at the end of the twenties, when Zabolotsky was sullenly and at the same time, as it were, solemnly, but in any case solidly told us that he was married. They lived on Petrogradskaya, I think I forgot the street on Bolshaya Zelenina. The room was rented from the owner of the apartment - then this institute had not yet emerged. And the furniture was the owner. And I especially liked the hanging a mahogany locker with a glass door. A second, similar one hung in the corridor. A slightly different design. Zabolotsky received us solidly, but together and cheerfully, and Katerina Vasilievna smiled at us, did not interfere in conversations. She reminded me of a Bestuzhev student student. Dark dress. Thin, dark eyes, and very simple, and very modest, she made such a favorable impression that on the whole long way home neither Kharms nor Oleinikov (very sharp-tongued) said a word about her and. So we got used to the fact that Zabolotsky is married. Once, already in the thirties, we were sitting in the so-called "cultural pub" on the corner of the Griboyedov Canal, opposite the Book House. And Nikolai Alekseevich asked solemnly and solidly, in our opinion, why does a person get children? I don't remember what I answered him. Nikolai Makarovich (Oleynikov) remained silent mysteriously. After listening to my answer, Nikolai Alekseevich shook his head meaningfully and replied, "That's not the point. It's that it's not started by us, and it won't end with us." And when we left the pub and Zabolotsky got on the tram, Nikolai Makarovich asked me what I think - why did Nikolai Alekseevich ask a question about children? I could not guess. And Nikolai Makarovich explained to me that they would have a child, that's why he started this conversation. And, as always, Nikolai Makarovich turned out to be right. After the allotted time, a son was born to Zabolotsky. Nikolai Alekseevich declared resolutely that he would call him Foma, but then relented and gave the child the name Nikita.

At the beginning of 1932, Nikolai got acquainted with the works of Tsiolkovsky, which made an indelible impression on him. Tsiolkovsky defended the idea of a variety of life forms in the Universe, was the first theorist and propagandist of human space exploration. In a letter to the scientist, Zabolotsky wrote: "... Your thoughts about the future of the Earth, humanity, animals and plants deeply concern me, and they are very close to me. In my unpublished poems and poems, I resolved them as best I could."

In 1933, Zabolotsky wrote the poem "The Triumph of Agriculture", after which the censorship recognized Zabolotsky as "an apologist for an alien ideology" and "an advocate of formalism." In the same year, a book of his poems was to be published, but its publication was stopped, and in order to earn money for a living, Zabolotsky began working in children's literature - he collaborated with the magazines "Chizh" and "Hedgehog", wrote poetry and prose for children.

In his work, Nikolai Zabolotsky created multi-dimensional poems - they were especially noticeable sharp grotesque and satire on the theme of petty-bourgeois life and everyday life. In his early lyrics, parody becomes a poetic tool. In the poem "Disciplina Clericalis", written in 1926, a parody of Balmont's tautological eloquence was found, ending with Zoshchenko's intonations; in the poem "On the Stairs" in 1928, through the kitchen, already Zoshchenko's world, "Waltz" by Vladimir Benediktov showed through; The "Ivanovs" in 1928 revealed their parody-literary meaning, evoking the key images of Dostoevsky with his Sonechka Marmeladova and her old man; and lines from the poem "Wandering Musicians" referred readers to Pasternak. Through all of Zabolotsky's poems, the path of intense implantation of consciousness into the mysterious world of being ran. On this path, the poet-philosopher underwent a significant evolution, during which three dialectical stages can be distinguished - from 1926 to 1933, from 1932 to 1945, and from 1946 to 1958.

In 1937, the second collection of Zabolotsky's poems was published under the title "Second Book", consisting of 17 poems, and on March 19, 1938, Zabolotsky was arrested and convicted on a fabricated case for anti-Soviet propaganda. Critical articles and a slanderous review "review" appeared as accusatory material in his case, tendentiously distorting the essence and ideological orientation of his work. He was saved from the death penalty by the fact that, despite the most difficult physical tests during interrogations, he did not admit the charges of creating a counter-revolutionary organization. By the decision of the Special Meeting of the NKVD, he was sentenced to five years in prison and labor camp. Zabolotsky served his term of imprisonment from February 1939 until May 1943 in the Vostlag system of the NKVD in the Komsomolsk-on-Amur region, then in the Altailag system in the Kulunda steppes, and since March 1944 he and his family lived in Karaganda, after being released from under guard.

A partial idea of his camp life is given by Zabolotsky's own selection of "One Hundred Letters 1938-1944", which contained excerpts from his letters to his wife and children. Zabolotsky’s lines from the memoirs “The History of My Imprisonment”: “The first days they didn’t beat me, trying to decompose mentally and physically. They didn’t give me food. They didn’t let me sleep. Behind the wall, in the next room, from time to time someone's frantic screams were heard. My legs began to swell, and on the third day I had to tear off my shoes, because I could not bear the pain in my feet. in order to answer reasonably and to prevent any injustice against those people about whom I was asked ... ". His memoirs, The Story of My Imprisonment, were published abroad in English in 1981, and in Russia only in 1988.

Under such conditions, Zabolotsky accomplished a creative feat - he completed the arrangement of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", which he began in 1937, and became the best among the experiments of many Russian poets. This helped him, with the help of Fadeev, achieve his release, and in 1946 Zabolotsky returned to Moscow.

During his imprisonment, Zabolotsky wrote to his friend Stepanov, having taken up the translation of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" in exile: "Is it possible, in fits and starts at night, after a tedious day's work, to do this big deal? Isn't it a sin to spend only the last remnants of your strength on this translation , to which one could devote a whole life, and subordinate all one's interests. And I don't even have a table where I could lay out my papers, and I don't even have a light bulb that could burn all night ... ".

"Somewhere in a field near Magadan,
in the midst of danger and trouble,
in the fumes of frozen fog
they followed the sledges...

From the soldiers, from their tinned throats,
from bandits of a gang of thieves
here they saved only a little
Yes, outfits in the city for flour ...

So they walked in their pea coats -
two unfortunate Russian old men,
remembering native houses
and longing for them from afar...

Life above them in images of nature
moved in turn.
Only stars, symbols of freedom,
don't look at people...

Wonderful mystery of the universe
walked in the theater of the northern lights,
but her fire is penetrating
no longer reach people...

A blizzard whistled around the people,
sweeping up frozen stumps.
And on them, without looking at each other,
freezing, the old people sat down ...

There were horses. The work is over
mortals are done.
Embraced them sweet slumber,
to a distant land, sobbing, led ...

Their guards will not overtake them anymore,
the camp convoy will not overtake,
only one constellation of Magadan
sparkle, standing over your head ... "

Enchanted, bewitched
Once married to the wind in the field,
All of you, as if chained,
You are my precious woman!

Not happy, not sad
As if descended from the dark sky,
You and my wedding song
And you are my crazy star ...

I will bow down on your knees
I will embrace them with fierce force,
And tears and poems
I'll burn you, kind, sweet...

Open my midnight face
Let me enter these heavy eyes,
In these black eastern eyebrows,
In these hands are your half-naked.

What will not come true - will be forgotten,
What is not remembered will not be fulfilled.
So why are you crying, beautiful,
Or am I just wondering...

In 1946, Zabolotsky was reinstated in the Writers' Union and received permission to live in the capital. The suffering of seven long camp and exile years was over, but his family had nowhere to live. At first, at a risk to himself, he was sheltered by old friends N. Stepanov and I. Andronikov. “N.A. had to sleep on the dining table, as it was cold on the floor,” Stepanov recalled. “Yes, and we ourselves slept on some boxes. N.A. pedantically folded his clothes for the night, and early in the morning just as clean, washed and pink as ever..." Later, the writer Ilyenkov kindly provided the Zabolotsky with his dacha in Peredelkino. Nikolai Chukovsky recalled: "A birch grove of inexplicable charm, full of birds, approached the very dacha of Ilyenkov." Zabolotsky wrote twice about this birch grove in 1946:

Open the show, whistler!
Tilt your pink head back
Breaking the glow of the strings
In the very throat of a birch grove.
("Give me, starling, a corner").

The last poem became a song in the movie "We'll Live Until Monday".

There Zabolotsky diligently cultivated a garden. "You can only rely on potatoes," he answered those who were interested in his literary earnings.

“In general, at that time there lived in him a passionate desire for comfort, peace, peace, happiness,” recalled Nikolai Chukovsky. “He did not know whether his trials were already over, and did not allow himself to believe in it. happiness grew in him rapidly, irresistibly. He lived on the second floor, in the smallest room in the dacha, almost a closet, where there was nothing but a table, a bed and a chair. Cleanliness and tidiness reigned in this room - the bed was made in a girlish way, books and papers laid out on the table with extraordinary care. The window overlooked the young foliage of birches. A birch grove of inexplicable charm, full of birds, approached the very dacha of Ilyenkov. Nikolai Alekseevich endlessly admired this grove, smiled when he looked at it. "

And further: “He really was a firm and clear person, but at the same time a person who was exhausted under the weight of adversity and worries. that they would send him - with his wife and two children. They did not publish his poems, he earned only random translations, which were few and which were poorly paid. Almost every day he went on business to the city - two kilometers on foot to the station, then These trips were exhausting for him - after all, he was already in his fifth decade.

In the last decade of his life, Zabolotsky actively translated the works of foreign poets and poets of the peoples of the USSR. Particularly significant is Zabolotsky's contribution to introducing the Russian reader to the richness of Georgian poetry, which had an undeniable influence on the translator's original poems.

Many years of friendship and commonality of creative positions connected Zabolotsky with the Georgian poet Simon Chikovani and the Ukrainian poet Mykola Bazhan, with whom, almost simultaneously, using the same interlinear, he translated Shota Rustaveli: Bazhan - into Ukrainian, Zabolotsky - into Russian.

At the initiative of the pianist M.V. Yudina, a great connoisseur of Russian and foreign literature (it was to her, the first, that Boris Pasternak read the initial chapters of Doctor Zhivago), Zabolotsky translated a number of works by German poets Johann Meyerhofer, Friedrich Rückert, Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Friedrich Schiller .

Chukovsky wrote about Zabolotsky's translation of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" that it "is more accurate than all the most accurate interlineators, since it conveys the most important thing: the poetic originality of the original, its charm, its charm."

Zabolotsky himself wrote in a letter to Stepanov: “Now that I have entered the spirit of the monument, I am filled with the greatest reverence, surprise and gratitude to fate for bringing this miracle to us from the depths of centuries. In the desert of centuries, where there is no stone on stone left after wars, fires and fierce extermination, this lonely, unlike anything, cathedral of our ancient glory stands. It's scary, eerie to approach it. One involuntarily wants to find in it familiar proportions, the golden sections of our familiar world monuments. Wasted labor! There are no such sections in it, everything in it is full of a special gentle wildness, another, not by our measure, the artist measured it. and will stand forever, as long as Russian culture is alive.

Zabolotsky did not communicate with young poets. Having departed once and for all from the experiments of the Stolbtsy, over the years he accepted only classical models in poetry.

From 1948 to 1958, Zabolotsky lived on the Khoroshevsky highway. His house was on the heritage register but was demolished in 2001.

Over the last three years of his life, Zabolotsky created about half of all the poems of the Moscow period. In 1957, the last collection of Nikolai Zabolotsky, published during the life of the author, was published. It included 64 poems and the best translations.

In 1955, Zabolotsky had his first heart attack. Chukovsky said: “His wife, Katerina Vasilievna, was ready for any hardships for him, for any feat. At least that was her reputation in our circle, and for many, many years she confirmed this reputation with all her actions. during the first years of their life together, he was not only poor, but simply a beggar, and she, with two tiny children, had to sip a lot of deprivation. after two or three years of a relatively prosperous life, everything collapsed - he was arrested. Katerina Vasilievna's situation became desperate, catastrophic. The wife of the arrested "enemy of the people", she was deprived of all rights, even the right to mercy. She was soon expelled from Leningrad, given the opportunity to live only in the most remote province. And she chose the city of Urzhum, Kirov region - because this town was the birthplace of her husband. She lived there in terrible poverty, raising children, until Finally, in 1944, the news did not come that Nikolai Alekseevich was released from the camp and received permission to live in Karaganda. She immediately, taking the children, moved to Karaganda to her husband. Together with him, she roamed around in Karaganda, then, after him, she moved near Moscow, to Peredelkino, in order to roam here no less. Their painful life began to return to normal only at the very end of the forties, when they received a two-room apartment in Moscow on Khoroshevskoye Highway and he began to earn money by translating poetry. During these years, I closely observed their family life. I would say that there was even something excessive in Katerina Vasilievna's devotion and obedience. Nikolai Alekseevich always remained the absolute master and master of his house. All issues related to the life of the family, except for the smallest ones, were resolved by him alone. He had an inborn propensity for household cares, especially developed due to the extreme need he experienced. At one time in the camp he did not even have trousers, and the most difficult hour of his life was when they, the prisoners, were driven through some city and he walked along the city street in nothing but his underpants. That is why he made sure that he had everything he needed in the house with such attention. He single-handedly managed the money and bought blankets, sheets, clothes, and furniture himself. Katerina Vasilievna never protested and probably did not even give advice. When they asked her about something that had been brought up in her household, she answered in a low voice, lowering her eyes, “So Kolenka wishes” or “So said Nikolai Alekseevich.” She never argued with him, did not reproach him - even when he drank too much, which sometimes happened to him. It was not easy to argue with him; I, who constantly argued with him, knew this from my own experience. He reached everything with his mind and held fast to everything he reached. And she did not argue ... And suddenly she left him for another. It is impossible to convey his surprise, resentment and grief. These three states of mind did not hit him all at once, but in turn, in that order. At first he was only surprised - to the point of stupefaction - and did not even believe the evidence. He was dumbfounded that he knew her so little, having lived with her for three decades in such closeness. He did not believe, because she suddenly jumped out of her own image, the reality of which he never doubted. He knew all the things she could do, and suddenly, at forty-nine, she did something completely unforeseen by him. He would have been less surprised if she had swallowed the bus or spit fire like a dragon. But when the evidence became undeniable, surprise gave way to resentment. However, resentment is too weak a word. He was betrayed, insulted and humiliated. And he was a proud and arrogant man. The misfortunes that he had endured until then - poverty, imprisonment, did not hurt his pride, because they were a manifestation of forces that were completely foreign to him. But the fact that the wife, with whom he had lived for thirty years, could prefer another to him, humiliated him, and he could not bear the humiliation. He needed to immediately prove to everyone and to himself that he was not humiliated, that he could not be unhappy because his wife left him, that there were many women who would be glad to love him. You need to get married. Immediately. And so that everyone knows about it. He called one woman, a lonely woman whom he knew little and superficially, and over the phone invited her to marry him. She immediately agreed. To start a married life, he decided to go with her to Maleevka to the House of Creativity. Many writers lived in Maleevka, and therefore it was impossible to invent a better means for everyone to know about his new marriage. While submitting an application to the Literary Fund with a request to give him two vouchers, he suddenly forgot the name of his new wife and wrote it incorrectly. I don't want to say that there was no infatuation connected with this new marriage of his. From that time, one of his poems dedicated to his new wife, full of delight and passion, has been preserved: “Kissed, bewitched, once married with the wind in the field, you are all chained, my precious woman. .. "But this poem remained the only one, he didn’t write anything else to his new wife. Their life together did not work out from the very beginning. A month and a half later, they returned from Maleevka to Moscow and settled in Nikolai Alekseevich’s apartment. During this period of their joint "I visited them only once in my life. Nikolai Alekseevich called me and asked me very much to come. I realized that he felt the need to somehow connect his new wife with his former acquaintances, and in the evening he came. Everything was in the apartment as under Ekaterina Vasilievna, not a single the thing did not budge, it only became sloppier. The stamp of desolation lay on this house. The new mistress seemed to me dejected and confused. Yes, she did not feel like a hostess at all - when it came time to set the table, it turned out that she did not know where there are forks and spoons. Nikolai Alekseevich was also tense, nervous, unnatural all evening. Apparently, this whole demonstration of his new life was extremely difficult for him. I sat through the necessary time with him. name and hastened to leave. A few days later, his new girlfriend left him for her old room, and they never met again. Both surprise and resentment - everything has passed, only grief remains. He loved no one but Katerina Vasilievna, and he could not love anyone else. Left alone, in anguish and misfortune, he did not complain to anyone. He continued to work on translations just as hard and systematically. He yearned for Katerina Vasilievna and from the very beginning was painfully worried about her. He thought about her constantly. Time passed, he continued to live alone - with an adult son and an almost adult daughter - he worked very hard, seemed calm. He survived the departure of Katerina Vasilievna. But he could not survive her return. Around the first of September, Gidash and Agnes Kuhn moved from Tarusa to the city. Agnes came to us and told us that Zabolotsky had decided to stay in Tarusa for the whole of September; he translates the Serbian epic with enthusiasm, is healthy, cheerful and wants to return to the city as late as possible. After this message, I did not expect to hear anything about Zabolotsky before October, and suddenly, a week later, I found out that Zabolotsky was in the city, at his apartment, and Katerina Vasilievna returned to him. It is difficult to say how he would have acted further if he had been able to control himself. We do not know this and will never know, because his heart could not stand it and he had a heart attack. After a heart attack, he lived another month and a half. His condition was grave, but did not seem hopeless. Apparently, he was the only one who knew that he would soon die. All his efforts after a heart attack - and he did not allow his soul to be lazy! - he directed to put his affairs in final order. With his characteristic accuracy, he compiled a complete list of his poems, which he considered worthy of publication. He wrote a will in which he forbade the printing of poems that were not included in this list. This will was signed on October 8, 1958, a few days before his death. He needed to lie down, and he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Before reaching the bathroom, he fell and died ... ".

A few days earlier, Zabolotsky wrote in his diary: "Literature should serve the people, that's true, but the writer must come to this idea himself, and, moreover, each in his own way, overcoming his own mistakes and errors by experience."

Shortly before his death, Nikolai Alekseevich wrote a literary will, in which he indicated exactly what should be included in his final collection, the structure and title of the book. In a single volume, he combined the bold, grotesque poems of the 1920s and the classically clear, harmonious works of the later period, thereby recognizing the integrity of his path. The final set of poems and poems was to be concluded with the author's note: "This manuscript includes the complete collection of my poems and poems, established by me in 1958. All other poems ever written and printed by me, I consider either accidental or unsuccessful. Include they are not needed in my book. The texts of this manuscript have been checked, corrected and finally established; previously published versions of many verses should be replaced by the texts given here. "

Don't let your soul be lazy!
So as not to crush water in a mortar,
The soul must work
And day and night, and day and night!

These lines were written by a terminally ill man.

Nikolai Zabolotsky passed away on October 14, 1958 and was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

In our time, Zabolotsky's poetry continues to be widely published, it has been translated into many foreign languages, it is comprehensively and seriously studied by literary critics, dissertations and monographs are written about it. The poet achieved the goal that he had been striving for throughout his life - he created a book that worthily continued the great tradition of Russian philosophical lyrics, and this book came to the reader.

About Nikolai Zabolotsky, a television program was filmed from the cycle "Islands".

In 2001, a documentary film from the cycle "More than Love" was shot about Nikolai Zabolotsky and Ekaterina Klykova.

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Text prepared by Andrey Goncharov

Used materials:

Materials of the site "Wikipedia"
Site materials www.art.thelib.ru
Site materials www.aphorisme.ru
Site materials www.elao.ru
Site materials www.tonnel.ru

Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky (1903-1958) - Russian poet and translator, creator of the "rebus verse". It was he who was the author of the poetic translation of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign". The writer was born on April 24 (May 7), 1903 in Kizicheskaya Sloboda not far from Kazan. He spent his childhood in the village of Sernur in the Vyatka province.

Childhood and first poems

Kolya grew up in the family of a teacher and an agronomist. From a young age he began to write poetry. When Nikolai moved to the third grade of school, he created his own magazine. In it, the student wrote down his poems. In 1913, Zabolotsky became a student at a real school in Urzhum. During his studies, he discovered the work of Alexander Blok. The writer was fond of history and drawing, he also showed interest in chemistry.

In 1920, the young man entered the medical and philological faculties of Moscow University at the same time, but studied there for no more than a year. The literary life of the capital captivated Nicholas. He attended performances by Mayakovsky and Yesenin, went to meetings of Imagists and Futurists.

In 1921, Zabolotsky left the university, he moved to Leningrad. There, the young man manages to enter the Herzen Pedagogical Institute. He received his diploma in 1925. For five years of study, Kolya regularly attended classes in a literary circle, but could not decide on his own style. He imitated Blok and Yesenin, trying to find his niche in creativity.

Association of poets

While studying at the institute, the poet joined a group of young writers. They called themselves "wrapped" ("Combining Real Art"). None of the members of the circle was popular among readers, their works rarely got into print. Despite this, writers regularly performed before the public, reading their poems. It was in their company that Nikolai was able to find his unique style.

In the 1920s, Zabolotsky distinguished himself in the field of children's literature. His poems were published in the magazines "Chizh" and "Hedgehog". Also during this period, books in verse and prose were published, among them "Snake's Milk" and "Rubber Heads". In 1929, the collection "Columns" was published. In 1937, the poet's "Second Book" was published. After that, he was illegally repressed in the Far East. There Nikolai worked as a builder. Later he ended up in Karaganda and the Altai Territory. Only in 1946 did the writer manage to return to Moscow.

From 1930 to 1940, such works as “I am not looking for harmony in nature”, “Forest Lake” and “Metamorphoses” were published. At the same time, the poet worked on translations of Georgian classics, even visited their homeland. In the 1950s, the broad masses learned about Zabolotsky's work. He became popular thanks to the poems "Opposition of Mars", "Ugly Girl" and "Old Actress".

Second heart attack

The poet spent the last years of his life in Tarusa on the Oka. He was seriously ill, suffered a heart attack. Against the background of illness, Nikolai began to write lyrical works, at the same time the poem "Rubruk in Mongolia" was published. In 1957 Zabolotsky visited Italy. The following year, he died due to a second heart attack. The death of the writer dates back to October 14, 1958.

The poet has always been distinguished by a scrupulous attitude to his own work. He believed that it was necessary to write a whole book at once, without exchanging for individual poems. Nikolai Alekseevich independently compiled collections, a few days before his death he wrote a literary testament. In it, Zabolotsky described in detail what works should be included in his last book. He focused on the structure and name of the assembly. All the works that were not included in this album, the writer considered unsuccessful.

“In general, Zabolotsky is an underestimated figure. This is a brilliant poet... When you re-read this, you understand how to work further,” the poet Joseph Brodsky said back in the 80s in an interview with the writer Solomon Volkov. The same underestimated Nikolai Zabolotsky has remained to this day. The first monument with public money was opened in Tarusa half a century after the death of the poet.

“A repressed talent, physically ousted from the literary platform during his lifetime, after death, he created a new direction in poetry - literary critics call it the “Bronze Age” of Russian poetry ... The concept of the “Bronze Age” of Russian poetry is well-established, but it belongs to my late friend, Leningrad poet Oleg Okhapkin. So for the first time in 1975 he formulated it in his poem of the same name ... Zabolotsky was the first poet of the "Bronze Age", - said the ideological inspirer of the opening of the monument, philanthropist, publicist Alexander Shchipkov.

The Tarusa sculptor Oleksandr Kazachok worked on the bust for three months. He drew inspiration from the work of Zabolotsky himself and from the memories of those close to him. He strove to understand the character, in order not only to document facial features, but also to reflect the state of mind in the image. A half-smile froze on the lips of the poet.

“He was such a person inside, not outside, outside he was gloomy, but inside he was a pretty clear person. The singer of our Russian poetry, who loves Russia, loves the people, loves its nature,” sculptor Alexander Kazachok shared his impression.

People's love for Zabolotsky manifested itself in the desire of the Tarusians to rename the city cinema and concert hall in honor of the poet, and in the summer festival “Roosters and Geese in the City of Tarusa”, beloved by the children, named after a line from the poem “The Town” by Nikolai Zabolotsky.

Who should cry today
In the city of Tarusa?
There is someone in Tarusa to cry -
Marusa girl.

Optotiles Maruse
Roosters and geese.
How many go to Tarusa
Lord Jesus!

The monument to Nikolai Zabolotsky found a place at the intersection of Lunacharsky and Karl Liebknecht streets - next to the house where the poet spent the summers of 1957 and 1958 - the last in his life. The old provincial town on the Oka was destined to become the poetic homeland of Zabolotsky.

The poet settled here on the advice of the Hungarian poet Antal Gidash, who lived in the Soviet Union at that time. In Tarusa, he happened to rest with his wife Agnes. Mindful of Zabolotsky's brilliant translation into Russian of his poem "The Danube Moans", Gidash wanted to get to know the poet better, to continue the communication that began in 1946 in the house of creativity of Soviet writers in Dubulty on the Riga seaside.

Dacha found personally. Having opted for a house with two cozy rooms overlooking the terrace courtyard and a well-groomed garden. Nikolai Zabolotsky came here with his daughter Natasha. The poet immediately fell in love with Tarusa, recalling the city of his youth Urzhum: over the gardens and roofs of the houses a river was visible, roosters, chickens and geese were pushing in front of the house. Speaking in his own lines, here he lived "the charm of the past years."

Nikolai Zabolotsky with his wife and daughter

House of Nikolai Zabolotsky in Tarusa

Nikolai Alekseevich completely went into writing. Two seasons in Tarusa became perhaps his most intense creative period. The poet wrote more than 30 poems. I read some of them in Rome that same year during a trip with a group of Soviet poets.

In the evenings, Zabolotsky met with the Gidash, talked with artists strolling along the banks of the Oka. He was an excellent connoisseur of painting, he drew well himself.

In a letter to the poet Alexei Krutetsky on August 15, 1957, Zabolotsky himself said: “... I have been living for the second month on the Oka, in the old provincial town of Tarusa, which once even had princes of its own and was burned by the Mongols. Now it is a backwater, beautiful hills and groves, a magnificent Oka. Polenov once lived here, artists are drawn here in droves.

Tarusa is a rare phenomenon for Russian culture. Since the 19th century, it has become a mecca for writers, musicians and artists. The names of Konstantin Paustovsky, Vasily Polenov and Vasily Vatagin, Svyatoslav Richter, the Tsvetaev family are associated with it.

Here the writer Konstantin Paustovsky presented Zabolotsky with his recently published Tale of Life, signing: “To dear Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky - as a sign of deep admiration for the classical power, wisdom and transparency of his poems. You are just a sorcerer!” And in a letter to Veniamin Kaverin, Paustovsky wrote: “Zabolotsky lived here in the summer. A wonderful, amazing person. The other day I came, read my new poems - very bitter, completely Pushkin-like in brilliance, power of poetic tension and depth.

The next summer, Zabolotsky returned to Tarusa. The poet David Samoilov, who visited him, recalled: “He lived in a small house with a high terrace. For some reason, now it seems to me that the house was colorfully painted. It was separated from the street by a high fence with boarded gates. From the terrace, over the fence, the Oka was visible. We sat and drank Teliani, his favorite wine. He was not allowed to drink, and he was also not allowed to smoke.

Zabolotsky fell in love with Tarusa so much that he began to dream of buying a dacha here and living on it all year round. I even noticed a new log house on a quiet green street overlooking a ravine overgrown with forest.

The plan was not destined to come true: soon his heart disease worsened, and on the morning of October 14, 1958, the poet died. Later, in the archives of Zabolotsky, a plan of the house was found, which he so hoped to acquire in Tarusa.

"The Glass Bead Game" with Igor Volgin. Nikolay Zabolotsky. Lyrics

"Copper pipes. Nikolay Zabolotsky»