The beginning of the 20th century, also called the Silver Age, became the heyday of Russian literature. New directions and trends appeared, authors were not afraid to experiment and discover new genres and topics. One of these poets was Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev. He belonged to the new peasant poetic movement.
Biography
Born on October 10, 1884 in the village of Koshtugi, Vytegorsky district ( Vologda Region) Nikolay Klyuev. The writer's biography begins in the family of a simple police officer, Alexei Timofeevich. But most of all Klyuev loved his mother, Praskovya Fedorovna, who was an excellent storyteller. She also taught her son, thanks to her Nikolai knew how to read, write and learned the basics of folk songs.
In 1895 he graduated from the parochial school in Vytegra. Then he went to Petrozavodsk, where he studied at a paramedic school. After graduation, Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev, together with his fellow countrymen who were involved in selling fur and fish to the capital, left for St. Petersburg to earn money.
In the capital, he begins to write poetry as part of the new direction peasant poetry. In his works, the poetic muse complains about the torment and suffering of the farmers and curses their enslavers. Klyuev’s first poems were published in the 1904 collection “New Poets.” However, Klyuev soon returns to his small homeland.
Impressed by the revolutionary events that had begun, the poet joined the active movement in 1905. political activity. Begins to distribute proclamations. For this, Klyuev was arrested in 1906.
Klyuev and Blok
A significant event for the poet was his acquaintance with Alexander Blok. Correspondence between writers began in 1907. At first, Nikolai Klyuev is rather timid in his messages to the recognized poet, but gradually he becomes convinced that Blok himself is interested in their conversations. Gradually, Klyuev begins to talk about the spirit of protest that is brewing among the people, about social injustice. But writers don’t only talk about politics. Nikolai Alekseevich notes the power of the poetic spirit that is contained in the common people, but due to everyday reasons it cannot be fully revealed.
Blok was greatly impressed by Klyuev’s letters. He repeatedly quotes them in messages to friends and in his articles. Thanks to Blok’s assistance, Klyuv’s poems are published in Novaya Zemlya, Golden Fleece and many other literary magazines. Capital writers pay attention to the works of a poet from the hinterland. Klyuev manages to meet many of them. Among them is Valery Bryusov.
Creative success
In 1911, Nikolai Klyuev published his first collection, “Pines Chime.” The preface to the publication is written by Bryusov. The book was received with approval and interest in poetic and literary circles. Such poets as Nikolai Gumilyov, etc. spoke positively about it. The public was struck in Klyuev’s works by their unusualness, the lack of a pronounced individuality, the orderliness of tropes, images, and rhythms.
Klyuev glorifies nature, the rural way of life, and the people. At the same time, he believes that the godless culture that dominated the 19th century is dying, and it is being replaced by something new, living and popular.
Gumilyov, in his review of the collection, predicts the future of Klyuev poetry - he says that this is only the beginning of a new movement in literature. And he turns out to be right. Klyuev becomes one of the first representatives of new peasant poetry.
Klyuev and Yesenin
Nikolay Klyuev for a long time one defended the right of peasant poetry to life. But in 1915 he receives a letter from a young poet from Ryazan province. Yesenin’s letter inspires Klyuev. Despite the fact that they know each other in absentia, other writers who write within the framework of peasant themes unite around these two poets.
There really were a lot of similarities in the poetry of Klyuev and Yesenin, which is why they quickly found mutual language and united. The year 1915 marked the peak of their creative success. They attended literary evenings together and read their poems.
However, the union did not last long. Yesenin's gift was much broader than the new peasant poetry, and in 1917 the friendship of the two poets came to an end.
Attitude to proletarian poetry
Nikolai Klyuev, whose poems were sung by the simple Russian people, however, did not consider himself among the proletarian poets. The revolution found the writer in his native place. Klyuev received her arrival with unprecedented enthusiasm. But he imagined it as the onset of “paradise for a man.”
In 1918, Nikolai Klyuev joined the Bolshevik Party. He is engaged in propaganda work, reading poetry about the revolution. However, at the same time, he remains a religious person, which goes against the new order. It becomes clear that he is promoting a completely different revolution. And in 1920, Klyuev was expelled from the party. His poems are no longer published. He began to irritate the new government with his religiosity and disagreement with proletarian poets, calling their works propaganda fakes.
A difficult time began for the poet. He was poor, subject to persecution, and could not find work. Despite this, he continued to openly oppose Soviet power.
The poet's struggle ended on February 2, 1934, when he was arrested for “composing and distributing counter-revolutionary works.” He was sentenced to exile in the Narym region. And in October 1937, Klyuev was shot on a fabricated case.
Klyuev, Nikolai Alekseevich- Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev. KLYUEV Nikolai Alekseevich (1887 1937), Russian poet. The poetry of peasant patriarchy, the desire to discover in hut Rus' an ancient spiritual culture opposed to the West, a mystical romantic interpretation of Russian... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
Poet. Born into a peasant family; He began his literary activity in 1912. K. is one of the most prominent representatives of the kulak style in Russian literature, which took shape before the 1914 war on the basis of the forced separation ... ... Large biographical encyclopedia
Klyuev, Nikolai Alekseevich Russian poet Klyuev, Nikolai Alekseevich lieutenant general, commander of the XIII Army Corps in Samsonov’s army ... Wikipedia
- (1887, Olonets province, ‒ August 1937, Siberian Railway), Russian Soviet poet. Born into a peasant family. Received home education. The first collections - “Sosen Chime” (1912, with a foreword by V. Bryusov), “Brotherly Songs” ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- (1887 1937) Russian poet. The poetry of peasant patriarchy opposing the industrial West, the desire to discover an ancient spiritual culture in hut Rus', a mystical romantic interpretation of Russian national character, people... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Klyuev, Nikolai Alekseevich- Klyuev Nikolai Alekseevich (1884–1937; repressed), prophet of peasant poetry, walked around St. Petersburg salons in boots and a blouse, decorated his room like an Olonets hut; on behalf of the inscrutable people he threatened A. Blok; wrote poems... Russian poets Silver Age
- (1887 1937), Russian poet. The poetry of peasant patriarchy opposing the industrial West, the desire to discover ancient spiritual culture in “hut Rus'”, a mystical romantic interpretation of the Russian national character,... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
KLYUEV Nikolay Alekseevich- (18841937), Russian Soviet poet. Book poems “Pine Chime” (preface by V. Bryusov), “Brotherly Songs” (both 1912), “Worldly Thoughts” (1916), “Pesnoslov” (book 12), “Copper Whale” (both 1919 ), “Hut Songs” (1920), “Lenin”... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary
Klyuev, Nikolai Alekseevich: Klyuev, Nikolai Alekseevich (general) Klyuev, Nikolai Alekseevich ... Wikipedia
Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Klyuev. Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev Date of birth May 5, 1859 (1859 05 05) Place of birth St. Petersburg, Russian empire Date of death... Wikipedia
Books
- Red Roar, Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev. Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev (1884-1937) - Russian poet, representative of the “new peasant” movement of the early 20th century, whose work is characterized by appeals to the theme of rural Russia." Red…
- Ecological and analytical monitoring of the persistence of organic pollutants, Nikolay Alekseevich Klyuev, Valery Nikolaevich Maistrenko. IN textbook summarized data on the organization and conduct of environmental analytical monitoring of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) - polychlorinated dioxins, dibenzofurans,...
Biography
Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev (1884−1937) was born in the Olonets province in a village on the Vytegra River; his mother taught him “literacy, songwriting and all verbal wisdom.” He studied in Vytegra at a parochial school, then at a city school, but did not finish paramedic school due to illness.
He began publishing in 1904, and in 1905 his poems appeared in the Moscow collective collections “Surf” and “Wave”. At the beginning of 1906, he was arrested for “inciting” peasants and “agitating illegal ideas.” He spent six months in Vytegorsk and then Petrozavodsk prisons. Klyuev’s rebellious ideas had a religious (close to sectarian) basis: the revolution seemed to him the advent of the Kingdom of God, and this theme was the leitmotif of his early work.
After his release, he continued his illegal activities, became close to the revolutionary populist intelligentsia (including meeting the sister of the poet A. Dobrolyubov, Maria Dobrolyubova, the “Madonna of the Socialist Revolutionaries,” and the poet L. D. Semenov). New acquaintances brought him to the pages of the capital’s magazine “Trudovoy Put”, which was soon banned for its anti-government orientation.
In the fall of 1907, Klyuev was called up to military service, but, following his religious convictions, refused to take up arms; under arrest, he is brought to St. Petersburg and placed in a hospital, where doctors find him unfit for military service, and he leaves for the village. At this time, he began a correspondence with A. Blok (the problem of relations between the intelligentsia and the people - from different poles - occupied both of them, and this communication was mutually important and significant).
Blok contributed to the appearance of Klyuev’s poems in the magazine “Golden Fleece”; later Klyuev began to collaborate with other publications - “Sovremennik”, “Niva”, “Testaments”, etc. Especially often in 1910−12. Klyuev is published in the magazine “Novaya Zemlya”, where they are trying to impose on him the role of an exponent of the “new national consciousness”, a preacher and prophet, almost a messiah.
In the fall of 1911, Klyuev’s first collection of poems, “Pine Chime,” was published in Moscow, to which almost all influential critics responded, unanimously regarding the book as an event in literary life. At this time, Klyuev became known in literary (and even bohemian) circles, participated in meetings of the “Workshop of Poets” and in Acmeist publications, visited the literary and artistic cafe “Stray Dog”; There is an atmosphere of heightened curiosity and intense interest around his name, and a variety of people are looking to get to know him.
After the release of two collections - “Brotherly Songs”, 1912 (religious poems inspired by the authentic “brotherly songs” of the Khlysts), and “Forest Were” (stylizations of folk songs), Klyuev returned to the Olonets province. His poems continue to appear in the capital's magazines and newspapers, and he visits the capital on visits.
In 1915, Klyuev met Yesenin, and a close relationship arose between them: for a year and a half they appeared together both in the press and at readings, Klyuev became the spiritual mentor of the young poet, and supported him in every possible way. A circle of “new peasant” writers gathers around them, but attempts to organizationally consolidate the commonwealth do not lead to the creation of a durable and strong association (the Kras and Strada societies lasted only a few months).
In 1916, Klyuev’s collection “Worldly Thoughts” was published, the themes of which were influenced by military events. Klyuev greeted the revolution enthusiastically (this was reflected in numerous poems of 1917−1918), regarding everything that was happening primarily as a religious and mystical event that should lead to the spiritual renewal of Russia.
In 1919, the books “The Copper Whale”, the two-volume “Pesneslov” (selections from previous years and new poems) and in 1922 his best lifetime collection, “Lion’s Bread”, were published.
The lyrics of those years reflect the complex experiences of the poet - the painful belief that all suffering will be redeemed by the onset of “brotherhood”, “peasant paradise”, longing for dying Rus', crying for a disappearing, murdered village.
In 1928, Klyuev’s last collection, “The Hut in the Field,” was published, composed of poems that had already been published; everything that he wrote in the 30s did not appear in print.
In 1934, Klyuev was arrested in Moscow and deported to Tomsk; in June 1937 he was arrested for the second time, imprisoned in Tomsk prison and executed.
Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev (1884−1937) was born in the Olonets province, in a village located on the Vytegra River. The poet studied at a parochial school, then entered a city school, then a paramedic school, from which he never received a diploma due to illness. He began his literary career in 1904, and since 1905, his poems have been published in the Moscow collections “Volna” and “Surf”. For anti-political views and “incitement” of peasants, he was arrested and spent six months in prisons in Vytegorsk, and then in Petrozavodsk.
Klyuev’s early work is permeated with a religious idea; revolution, in his understanding, is the coming to earth of the Kingdom of God, without which the life of citizens will not be full and correct.
In 1907, Nikolai Alekseevich was called up for military service, but being a deeply religious man, he categorically refused to take up arms. Arrested again, and this time in the St. Petersburg hospital, where he was declared unfit for service and sent home to the village. Klyuev is in active correspondence with Alexander Blok, who will subsequently contribute to the appearance of Klyuev’s works in Sovremennik, Niva, Testaments, etc.
After the release of the first collection of poems, “Pine Chime,” it was immediately followed by the reaction of authoritative critics who consider it important event in the development of literature, not only domestic, but also world. This was a real peak in the popularity of the poet Klyuev, many wanted to meet him personally and communicate.
After meeting Yesenin in 1915, Klyuev became a mentor to the inexperienced poet. A year and a half of working together at readings and speaking to the press served as a good impetus for the author. Yesenin becomes Nikolai Alekseevich’s protégé, and Klyuev helps him in all his creative impulses. Such societies as “Krasa” and “Strada” were created, but they were not destined to exist for more than a couple of months.
Due to his religious views, Klyuev perceives the 1917 revolution with joy as a mystical event that was supposed to spiritually change Russia.
In 1922, his best brainchild, the collection “Lion's Bread,” was published. In the works of that time one can read the longing for dying village, dying Russia.
1934 Klyuev was arrested in Moscow and sent to Tomsk. After constant torture and imprisonment, Nikolai Alekseevich was shot in June 1937.
KLYUEV Nikolai Alekseevich - poet. My father is a police officer who received the position of clerk at a state-owned wine shop in the village. Zhelvachevo, Mokachevo volost, Vytegorsky district, where the family moved in the 1890s. The mother is from an Old Believer family, a zealous keeper of the traditions of “ancient piety.” According to the recollections of village old-timers, “in the Klyuevs’ house there were many old printed and handwritten books, icons of the old Donikon script hung in the upper rooms, and lamps burned in front of them. This house was often visited by wanderers, God's people"(A. Gruntov). From his mother, the future poet (if you believe his “autobiographies” written in the hagiographic genre) also receives a kind of home education: “My mother taught me to read and write from the Book of Hours (...). I didn’t know the letters yet, I didn’t know how to read, but I look at the Book of Hours and sing the prayers that I knew from memory, and leaf through the Book of Hours as if I were reading. And the deceased mother will come and praise me: “Here, he says, my good child is growing up, he will be like John Chrysostom” (“The Loon’s Fate” // Sever. - 1992. - No. 6), To the mother, according to the poet, not only the origins of the religious and moral foundations of his personality go back, but also his poetic gift. She was, as he wrote immediately after her death in 1913 to V. Bryusov and V. Mirolyubov, a “song-woman” and a “heroist,” i.e. a kind of spontaneous poetess. Later, this talent of hers, not without a polemical aim, was even elevated to an ideal: “Thousands of poems, whether mine or those of the poets I know in Russia, are not worth one singer of my bright mother” (“Loon Fate”). Klyuev studied at the parish school (1893-1895), then at the Vytegorsk city school (1896-1897); in 1898 he entered the Petrozavodsk paramedic school, from which, after studying for a year, he left. According to the “autobiography,” at the age of 16, at the insistence of his mother, he went to Solovki to “save himself” and put on “nine-pound chains” there, then went from there to wander through the hermitages and shelters of secret mystical sects in Russia. In one of the schismatic communities of the Samara region, he becomes “King David”, i.e. composer of “songs” for the needs of the local Khlyst “ship”. This is the beginning of Klyuev’s poetic path in the semi-mythical version of his autobiography. The historically reliable beginning is the poems published in the little-known St. Petersburg almanac “New Poets” (1904) and then in two Moscow collections. “Waves” and “Surf” (1905), published by the “people’s” circle of P.A. Travin, of which Klyuev was a member.
Having taken part in the revolution of 1905 as an agitator from the Peasant Union and paid for it with a six-month prison sentence, Klyuev set out on the path of intense spiritual search and creative self-determination, paving the way for himself to great poetry. He chose A. Blok to guide him to its heights. Klyuev entered into correspondence with Blok in 1907, which continued for a long time. Klyuev adheres to two goals: firstly, to associate himself, “a dark and poor person, whom any symbolist would stand aside on the street” (from a letter to Blok on November 5, 1910), to the elite of the priests of modern art; and secondly, to enlighten these priests themselves, cut off from the national element of life and true culture, with the spirit of goodness and beauty emanating from the hidden people's Russia, the messenger of which he recognizes himself. Blok also takes him for such, including fragments of Klyuev’s letters in his articles, and calling his personal meeting with him in October 1911 a “big event” in his “autumn life” (Diary - 1911 - October 17). In a letter to one of his correspondents, Blok even admits: “My sister, Christ is among us. This is Nikolai Klyuev” (Alexander Blok in the memoirs of his contemporaries. - M., 1980. - T.1. - P.338). Klyuev firmly entered the circle of the capital’s literary elite and already in 1908 he was published in the luxuriously published Symbolist magazine “Golden Fleece”. At the end of 1911 (with the indication - 1912), the first book of his poems, “The Chime of Pines,” was published. V. Bryusov’s preface said that “Klyuev’s poetry is alive with an inner fire,” flashing “suddenly before the reader with an unexpected and dazzling light,” that Klyuev “has lines that amaze.” In the poems of the book there is a palpable echo of the recent revolution. In the exalted appearance of the heroine of a unique lyrical novel (Klyuev’s only one with a female addressee), one could discern the sacrificial features of a revolutionary and at the same time a nun.
In 1912, Klyuev’s second book of poems, “Brotherly Songs,” was published, compiled, according to the author, from texts he composed when he was a young “King David.” The publication of this book accompanies Klyuev’s rapprochement with the “Golgotha Christians” (a revolutionary-minded part of the clergy who called for personal, like Christ, responsibility for the evil of the world and published their own magazines “ New life", then "New Wine"). The “Calvary Christians” relied on Klyuev as their prophet. However, not living up to their hopes, Klyuev departs from the religious-prophetic path, he chooses the path of a poet. In 1913 he published new book poems "Forest Were". It presents “pagan”, folk Rus', having fun, riotous, yearning, speaking to itself in an almost natural (in fact, skillfully stylized) voice of folk songs (“Polubovnaya”, “Kabatskaya”, “Ostrozhnaya”). Considering this turn of Klyuev from the religious dominant of his first books, V. Khodasevich ironized about the failed claims of the “mystics” from “New Life” to Klyuev as a prophet of “new religious revelation”; he emphasized that the content of “Forest Tales” is “eroticism, quite strong, expressed in sonorous and bright verses” (Alcyone. - M., 1914. - Book 1. - P. 211).
By this time, Klyuev was already recognized on the domestic Olympus. N. Gumilyov in literary reviews defines the main pathos of his poetry as “the pathos of the finder,” as “the Slavic feeling of the bright equality of all people and the Byzantine consciousness of golden hierarchy when thinking about God,” calls the poet himself “the herald new strength, folk culture,” and his poems are “impeccable” (Letters about Russian poetry. - M., 1990. - P. 136, 137, 149). In Klyuev’s poetry, Acmeists are impressed by the verbal weightiness, multicoloredness and full-soundingness of the patriarchal peasant world depicted in it. O. Mandelstam in his “Letter on Russian Poetry” (1922) will call this world “the majestic Olonets, where Russian life and Russian peasant speech rest in Hellenic importance and simplicity” (Word and Culture. - M., 1987. - P. 175) . Acmeists readily count Klyuev among their guild group: “A sigh of relief came from his books. Symbolism reacted to it sluggishly. Acmeism joyfully welcomed him” (Gorodetsky S. Some trends in modern Russian poetry // Apollo. - 1913. - Book 1. - P. 47). During his visits from Vytegra to St. Petersburg in 1911-1913. Klyuev attends meetings of Acmeists. His poems are published in the anthology “Apollo” and “Hyperboreas”.
Since 1913, Klyuev became the center of attraction for “poets from the people”, who soon formed the core of the new peasant poetry - A. Shiryaevets, S. Klychkov, S. Yesenin. In the latter, immediately upon meeting him for the first time, he saw “the most beautiful of the sons of the baptized kingdom” and perceived him as a kind of messiah of deep Russian poetry, in relation to whom he was ready to define himself only as a forerunner.
In 1916, Klyuev’s fourth book of poems, “Worldly Thoughts,” was published; in the mid-10s. The cycle “Hut Songs”, dedicated to the death of his mother, was created, Klyuev’s peak achievement in this period.
Landscape played a special role in Klyuev’s poetry. Perfectly developed by the poetry of the 19th century. the realistic landscape image is inspired by his unusually vivid vision of Holy Rus', which he calls “bottomless Russia”, “Rublev’s Russia”, Russia “birch bark paradise”. In painting, a similar insight into the spiritual, religious-secret image of Russia to its natural hypostasis was made by the “singer of the religious North” M. Nesterov.
The poet usually begins a realistic reconstruction of nature and then harmoniously switches it to the plane of its mystical perception - through the worldview and spiritual vision of a Christian and Orthodox culture. In this case, nature begins to acquire a certain thrill of mysterious otherness; in its perception there is an element of churchliness: “The ice on the river swelled, thawed, / Became piebald, rusty-gold... / Candles lit up in the bushes / And the incense smoke turned blue” (“Swelling” , the ice on the river has thawed...", 1912). The aesthetic perception of nature is combined in Klyuev’s landscape lyrics with a feeling of divine grace. “Deep religious feeling and no less deep feeling of nature” is not accidental; by definition, Klyuev met at the turn of the 20-30s. Ettore Lo Gatto, are the fundamental principles of his personality (My meetings with Russia. - M., 1992. - P.86).
At the same time, the poet subtly brings together both poetic “mothers” (nature and Orthodox spirituality, the temple) at the points of their greatest, for example, color, correspondences: the first spring leaves-candles, the whiteness of birch trunks - the pallor of the faces of the monastery youths and nuns, the gilding of the iconostasis - the yellowness of autumn forests, cinnabar on the icon is the dawn, the blue color on it is heavenly blue, human life is a candle burning in front of the icon, but together with km also “before the face of the forests.”
Klyuev initially accepted the revolution of 1917 enthusiastically, mistakenly assuming in it a force capable of promoting the historical embodiment of that Rus', which was outlined in Klyuev’s poetry as a “birch bark paradise”, “the peasant kingdom”. Along with A. Bely, A. Remizov, E. Zamyatin, M. Prishvin, S. Yesenin and others, he is included in the literature. the “Scythians” group, whose members adhered to the idea of peasant socialism, understood in the spirit of Christian utopia (R.V. Ivanov-Razumnik and others). Klyuev generously advances the revolution with fiery lines of poetry glorifying Lenin as a kind of abbot of peasant-schismatic Russia (cycle of poems “Lenin”, 1918) and “homespun Soviet authorities.” In 1918, his book of poems “The Copper Whale” was published, mainly representing the face of the revolutionary Klyuev muse. When soon the poet’s hopes that “the stormy Lenin will love / Klyuev’s colorful verse” (“Motherland, I am a sinner, a sinner...”, 1919) are not justified, he loses all interest in the leader of the world proletariat. Klyuev contrasts his ideals with Lenin’s: “We believe in many-read brothers, / And Lenin in iron and a red mind” (“We believe in many-read brothers...”, 1919).
In 1919, Klyuev’s two-volume “Pesnoslov” was published, which included both new works and, in a revised and expanded form, poems from previous books. The dominant thought of the “Songbook” is akin to the Christian idea that “the world lies nearby” and that only through its spiritual “transformation” can all-human liberation from existing suffering and imperfection, peace and prosperity be achieved. But if at first such a “transforming force” for Klyuev was entirely the teaching of Christ, now the natural and agricultural world comes to the fore (without displacing Christ, however) - as a kind of universal cosmos of human existence, as the “flesh” and “spirit” of the national life. The world of darkness and evil is represented here largely by infernal images - from completely harmless “baked imps” to the very “lord” of hell, the seven-horned “Son of the Abyss” as the embodiment of both social evil and moral torment of the soul. But still, the most extreme evil that threatens the “birch bark paradise”, the “hut” Rus', appears here technical progress and urbanization of all life, bringing " organic man"spiritual and physical impoverishment, and nature - death. In a letter to A. Shiryaevets (November, 1913), Klyuev conjured: “Oh, mother of the desert! Spiritual paradise, mental paradise! How hateful and black the entire so-called Civilized World seems, and what would it give, no matter what cross, no matter what Golgotha it would bear - so that America would not approach the gray-feathered dawn, the chapel in the forest, the hare in the haystack, the fairy-tale hut...” (Works – T.1. – P.190). In the verses “He called the silence wilderness...” (mid-10s), the forces of evil that bring death to the “birch bark paradise” are personified in a rather specific, albeit faceless, image of a certain “jacket man”-city dweller, “the son of iron and stone boredom”: “I breathed a cigarette into the pine incense / And burned a forget-me-not with spit...” One of the few who opens K. in the poetry of the 20th century. the theme of environmental danger: “In Svetloyar the plant spews out / Blast furnace belching - slag” (“Rus-Kitezh”, 1918); later he will note that “the swell of the Aral Sea in the dead mud...” and “the blue Volga is growing shallow...” (“Devastation”, 1933 or 1934).
In the center art world“Pesnoslova” is a peasant hut deepened and expanded to the limits of a certain “hut space”, in which everything is poeticized: “Find out now: on the roof there is a ridge / There is a silent sign that our path is far” (“There is bitter sandy loam, deaf black soil... .", 1916). But the cosmic purpose of the hut is, according to Klyuev, only the unraveled part of its incomprehensible fate, its many secrets: “The hut is the sanctuary of the earth / With baked mystery and paradise...” (“To the poet Sergei Yesenin,” 1916-1917); “...a forest hut / Looks like centuries, dark as fate...” (“The day shies away from baking darkness...”, 1912 or 1913); the misfortune awaiting her: “There is in the hut, in the cricket funeral service / The Wailing Wall, the Sacrificial Resentment” (“Nila Sorsky voice...”, 1918).
In 1922, a new collection was published. Klyuev’s poems “Lion’s Bread”, reflecting the turning point in his worldview from the illusions of 1917-1918. to the tragic motives of poetry of the 20s. Polemics with urban poets (Mayakovsky and Proletkultists) alternate with gloomy pictures of the death of Russia and their own (“For me Proletkult will not cry...”, 1919; “They are burying me, burying me...”, 1921). In the same 1922, the poem “Mother Saturday”, dedicated to the mysticism of the creation of peasant bread, was published as a separate edition. The author himself explained the essence of the poem at the same time: “The Nativity of bread - its slaughter, burial and resurrection from the dead, cherished as beauty among the Russian people, is told in my “Blue Saturday.” (...) The man-plowman, a little lower than the angels, will redeem the world with rye blood. (...) “Mother Saturday” is a hut ecclesiastes, the Gospel of bread, where the Face of the Son of Man is among the animals...” (“Blue Saturday”, 1923. - RO IRLI).
In September 1922, an article by L. Trotsky about Klyuev appeared in Pravda (No. 224) (one of several under common name“Non-October Literature”), in which the author, having paid tribute to the “large” individuality of the poet, “pessimistically” generalized: “The spiritual isolation and aesthetic originality of the village (...) is clearly in decline. Klyuev seems to be at a disadvantage” (Literature and Revolution. – M., 1991. – P.62). In the same year, in a review of Klyuev’s poem “The Fourth Rome” (1922), N. Pavlovich (pseudonym Mikhail Pavlov) wrote: “We should be grateful to Klyuev for his songs about this dark forest element - we need to know the enemy and look him straight in the face "(Book and revolution. - 1922. - No. 4). With the special purpose of exposing the mysticism of Klyuev’s “arable ideology”, V. Knyazev’s book “Rye Apostles (Klyuev and Klyuevshchina)” was published in 1924. Already aware of the work on it in advance, Klyuev in a letter to Yesenin on January 28, 1922 writes about it: “... by breaking with us, the Soviet government is breaking with the most tender, with the deepest among the people” (Questions of Literature. - 1988. – No. 2).
In the mid-20s. Klyuev makes some attempt to adapt his muse to the “new songs” (“Bogatyrka”, 1925; “Leningrad”, 1925 or 1926), but in parallel with them, “new songs” are also created, in which the motif of Russia’s “departure” from alien modernity sounds : “The page hides along the river / A swan’s departure cry. / Rus' flies away, flies away (“I will not write from the heart...”, 1925) and curses on the “iron”: “The iron cattle were gored/Kolyada, soul-warmer, sled” (“Our Russian truth has perished...” 1928). The idea of the death of Russia is developed with special epic force in the poems “The Village” (1927), “Solovki” (1926-1928), “Pogorelshchina” (1928), “Song of the Great Mother” (1931), which are the tragic epic of the end Russia and the swan song of its last rhapsode. Adjacent to them are the poems “Lament for Sergei Yesenin” (1926) and “Zaozerye” (1927). In “Pogorelshchina,” calling himself “the hymn writer Nikolai,” the poet takes upon himself the mission of testifying to distant descendants about the unique beauty of the “miraculous Russia” burned by the “human rabble.” Responding on January 20, 1932 to the proposal of the board of the Writers' Union to subject “self-criticism to his latest works, K. speaks out; “If Mediterranean harps live for centuries, if the songs of poor, snow-covered Norway are carried throughout the world on the wings of polar gulls, then would it be fair to take the birch bark Sirin of Scythia, whose only fault is his many-colored witchcraft pipes, as a finca? I accept both the gun and the machine gun if they serve the art of Sirin” (Rereading again. - L., 1989. - P.216.
Only “Lament for Sergei Yesenin”, “Village” and “Zaozerye” were published during the poet’s lifetime; all other poems would appear in print in his homeland only more than fifty years later.
In 1928, Klyuev’s last collection of poems, “The Hut and the Field,” was published, entirely compiled from previously published materials. However, the next five years are the period of the most intense and even “desperate” creativity. In addition to the tragic epic of “flying away” Russia, a significant layer of lyricism is being created, united by the name of Anatoly Yar-Kravchenko, the hero of his last lyrical novel (“I remember you and don’t remember...”, 1929; “To my friend Anatoly Yar”, “From dying songs” , “A Tale of Sorrow” - 1933), as well as a large cycle of poems “What the gray cedars rustle about,” marked by the drama of personal life (loneliness) and the conflictual confrontation of modernity.
Invariably emphasizing his spiritual (and even genetic) kinship with the “fiery name” of the indomitable archpriest Avvakum, Klyuev by no means intends to yield in the unequal struggle of his positions. In “Pogorelshchina”, under the guise of the historically long-standing, legendary enemies of Rus', the Polovtsians and Saracens, the appearance of the current destroyers of its spirituality and beauty is depicted. He not only fiercely defends his own “birch bark Sirin”, but also in a passionate invective “To the Slanderers of Art” (1932) he takes under protection from the pogromists of Russian poetry the most persecuted by them S. Klychkov, S. Yesenin, A. Akhmatova, P. Vasiliev. At the end of 1933 or the beginning of 1934, Klyuev created the “Devastation” cycle, openly directed against the atrocities of the existing regime, from the pages of which emerges a stunning picture of popular suffering: hunger, mass deaths of dispossessed Ukrainians taken to the Vologda region, digging of the infamous canal: “That is the White Sea death -canal, / His Akimushka dug, / From Vetluga Prov and Aunt Thekla, / Great Russia got wet / Under the red downpour to the bones / And hid her tears from people, / From the eyes of strangers in the deaf swamps.” In all these works, filled with pain and anger for everything that is happening in Russia, the poet’s voice sounds firmly and fearlessly. And only in his dreams (K. told them to his loved ones, they were preserved in their notes) - prophetic premonitions of his own death. Many lines from “Devastation” turned out to be prophetic, in particular about the future Russia (unfortunately, about the present Russia): “She has black news, a horse from Karabakh...”
On February 2, 1934, Klyuev (at this time he lived in Moscow) was arrested for anti-Soviet agitation. During interrogations, he does not hide his decisive rejection of “the policies of the Communist Party and the Soviet government aimed at the socialist reorganization of the country,” which he views “as state violence over a people bleeding with blood and fiery pain.” The October Revolution, he says, “plunged the country into the abyss of suffering and disaster and made it the most miserable in the world.” “I believe that the policy of industrialization is destroying the basis and beauty of Russian folk life, and this destruction is accompanied by the suffering and death of millions of Russian people...” (Ogonyok. - 1989. - No. 43). Exiled at first to the village. Kolpashevo (Western Siberia), Klyuev was soon transferred to Tomsk, where, from the spring of 1937, contact with him was lost, giving way to versions and legends about his end. And only in 1989, from the materials of the Tomsk NKVD that became available, the true picture of his death became clear: on July 5, 1937, he, already completing his term of exile, was arrested for the second time as an active member of the “monarcho-cadet” rebel organization “close to the leadership.” Union for the Salvation of Russia" (which never existed); sentenced to death " social protection", he was shot on one of three days - October 23-25, 1937.
The last of Klyuev’s famous works is the poem “There are two countries: one is the Hospital...”. Sent with A. Yar-Kravchenko’s last letter (March 25, 1937), it testifies to the fact that, despite all the suffering and disasters, the poet’s creative powers did not leave him.
Works: Works: In 2 volumes - Munich, 1969; Poems and poems. – L., 1977; Forefathers // Literary Review. – 1987. – No. 8; Letters to S. Klychkov and V. Gorbacheva // New World. – 1988. – No. 8; Songbook. – Petrozavodsk, 1990; Poems and poems. – M., 1991; Song of the Great Mother // Banner. – 1991. – No. 11; Dreams // New Journal (Leningrad). – 1991. – No. 4; Loon fate. From letters of 1919 // North. – 1992. – No. 6; Letters to A. Yar-Kravchenko // North. – 1993. – No. 10; Letters to N.F. Khristoforova-Sadomova // North. – 1994. – No. 9.
Lit.: Filippov B. Nikolay Klyuev; Materials for the biography // Klyuev N. Op. – Munich, 1969. – T.1; Gruntov A. Materials for the biography of N.A. Klyueva // Russian literature. – 1973. – No. 1; Azadovsky K. Nikolai Klyuev: The Path of the Poet. – L., 1990; Bazanov V.G. From the native shore: About the poetry of Nikolai Klyuev. – L., 1990; Subbotin S. Kostin K. Return of the Pesnoslov // Klyuev N. Pesnoslov. – Petrozavodsk, 1990; Kravchenko B. Through my life // Our heritage. – 1991. – No. 1; Kiseleva L. Christianity of the Russian village in the poetry of Nikolai Klyuev // Orthodoxy and culture. – Kyiv, 1993. – No. 1; Mikhailov A. History and fate in the mirror of dreams (based on the dreams of Nikolai Klyuev) // Measure. – 1994. – No. 2; Meksh E. The Image of the Great Mother: Religious and mythological traditions in the epic works of Nikolai Klyuev. – Daugavpils, 1995; Pichurin L. The last days of Nikolai Klyuev. – Tomsk, 1995; Mikhailov A. “Cranes caught in a blizzard...” (N. Klyuev and S. Yesenin) // North. – 1995. – No. 11-12; Nikolay Klyuev. Research and materials. – M., 1997.
Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev (1884 - 1937) is a Russian poet who comes from a folk background. His work was not like the work of other poets from the plow. It is filled with symbolism and religious imagery.
Childhood and youth
The future poet was born on October 10, 1884 in the Olonets province. His father was a police officer. The mother of the future poet provided big influence for its development.
A storyteller and a weeper, she taught the boy to love song and see the beauty around him. The woman was literate and passed on her knowledge to her son.
The parents were convinced of the need for education for their child. Therefore, Nikolai graduated from the parochial school and the city school. His father also sent him to paramedic school, but due to his illness, Klyuev was unable to complete training there.
In 1904, the young poet’s poems were published for the first time. The public received them favorably. The poems were melodic and full of symbols, which aroused curiosity and a desire to solve the riddle. In addition, Klyuev did not hide his religiosity and made full use of biblical themes in his work. Everything was leading to the fact that the poet’s first collection was soon to appear, but events turned out differently.
First revolution
Nikolai Klyuev became interested in the ideas of revolution. He began to actively agitate the peasants and promote new views among them. He was arrested several times and soon released.
It is interesting that Klyuev’s religious beliefs coexisted perfectly with the revolution in his perception. In it he saw the struggle for the coming of the Kingdom of God. He tirelessly reported this in his works.
In 1907, the poet ended up behind bars due to his refusal to do military service. However, this time he didn’t have to stay there for long. The young man was declared unfit for health reasons and sent to the village. Being far from St. Petersburg and the main events, the poet began to actively correspond with familiar poets and writers. Among them was Alexander Blok, who had a huge influence on Klyuev.
Hoaxes
Nikolai Klyuev always seemed like a mysterious person among his acquaintances. This was largely facilitated by the fact that no one knew anything about the poet’s life. Klyuev himself actively used this and talked about it most interesting stories that happened to him. In particular, according to him, he traveled a lot, traveled the length and breadth of Russia.
The poet's devout religiosity shrouded him in a mystical aura. He often mentioned his origins from the Old Believers. This was true, but Klyuev’s parents and grandfathers had long since moved away from the old religion. The poet allegedly served as a novice in distant monasteries, including Solovki, and was acquainted with Rasputin and Tolstoy himself.
Creation
Blok became more than just a friend of Klyuev. It was thanks to him that the poet’s poems began to be published in literary magazines.
In 1911, the collection “Pines Chime” was published. Critics unanimously declared the emergence of a new genius poet. This attracted increased attention to Klyuev. He became a welcome guest in many literary associations.
The following collections, “Brotherly Songs” and “Forest Were,” cemented the poet’s fame.
In 1915, Klyuev met Yesenin. The latter saw his teacher in him and subsequently repeatedly stated this. Both liked each other. They even organized joint performances several times. But their relationship was uneven, with frequent quarrels and disagreements.
Life after the revolution
The events of 1917 delighted Klyuev. He believed that his dream of the spiritual renewal of Russia was finally coming true.
However, he was severely disappointed. The new collections “The Copper Whale” and “Lion’s Bread” reflect Klyuev’s confusion, his attempts to see suffering in what is happening in the name of redemption. He understands that his beloved land is in the hands of the wrong people, that it is destroyed and trampled, the village is dying, like all of Rus'.
Gradually, Klyuev began to brand the new order. His poems were practically never published, but this did not stop them from being distributed illegally.
Death
In 1937, the poet was arrested. He was found guilty of participating in the rebel organization “Union for the Salvation of Russia.” Despite the fact that in reality such an association never existed, Klyuev was sentenced to death.