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 peculiar 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 continues 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. Klychkova, S. Yesenina. 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 Soviet power, 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.
, THE USSR
Nikolay Alekseevich Klyuev(October 10 (22), Koshtugi village, Olonets province - between October 23 and 25, Tomsk) - Russian poet, representative of the so-called new peasant trend in Russian poetry of the 20th century.
Biography
Father, Alexey Timofeevich Klyuev (1842-1918) - a police officer, a sitter in a wine shop. Mother, Praskovya Dmitrievna (1851-1913), was a storyteller and weeper. Klyuev studied at the city schools of Vytegra and Petrozavodsk. Among his ancestors were Old Believers, although his parents and he himself (contrary to many of his stories) did not profess the Old Believers.
In Klyuev’s autobiographical notes “The Loon’s Fate” it is mentioned that in his youth he traveled a lot around Russia. Specific stories cannot be confirmed by sources, and such numerous autobiographical myths are part of his literary image.
Klyuev tells how he served as a novice in the monasteries on Solovki; how he was “King David... of white doves - Christ”, but ran away when they wanted to emasculate him; how in the Caucasus I met the handsome Ali, who, according to Klyuev, “loved me the way Kadra-night teaches, which is worth more than a thousand months. This is a secretive eastern teaching about marriage with an angel, which in Russian white Christianity is denoted by the words: finding Adam...”, then Ali committed suicide out of hopeless love for him; how he talked with Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana; how he met Rasputin; how he was in prison three times; how did you become famous poet, and “literary meetings, evenings, artistic feasts, the chambers of the Moscow nobility for two winters in a row ground me with the motley millstones of fashion, curiosity and well-fed boredom.”
Literary fame
Klyuev's poems first appeared in print in 1904. At the turn of the 1900s and 1910s, Klyuev appeared in literature, and did not continue the standard tradition for “poets of the people” of descriptive minor poetry in the spirit of I.Z. Surikov, but boldly used the techniques of symbolism, imbuing his poems with religious imagery and dialect vocabulary . The first collection - “Pine Chime” - was published in 1911. Klyuev’s work was received with great interest by Russian modernists; Alexander Blok (in correspondence with him in 1907; had a great personal and creative influence on Klyuev), Valery Bryusov and Nikolai Gumilyov spoke about him as a “harbinger of folk culture.”
Nikolai Klyuev had a complex relationship (at times friendly, at times tense) with Sergei Yesenin, who considered him his teacher. In 1915-1916, Klyuev and Yesenin often performed poetry together in public, and later their paths (personal and poetic) converged and diverged several times.
Klyuev's religiosity
As A.I. Mikhailov points out, Alexander Blok repeatedly mentions Klyuev in his poems, notebooks and letters and perceives him as a symbol of a mysterious folk faith. In one of his letters, Blok even stated: “Christ is among us,” and S. M. Gorodetsky attributed these words to Nikolai Klyuev.
In his 1922 entry, Klyuev says:
...for me Christ is the eternal inexhaustible milk force, a member that dissects the worlds in the vagina, and in our world is cut through by a hole - the material sun, with golden seed continuously fertilizing the cow and the woman, the fir and the bee, the airy world and the fiery underworld.
The seed of Christ is the food of the faithful. This is what it says: “Take, eat...” and “Whoever eats my flesh will not die...”
It was not revealed to our theologians that by flesh Christ meant not the body, but the seed, which is also called flesh among the people.
This is what should emerge in human consciousness, especially in our times, in the age of the shocked heart, and become a new law of morality...
Klyuev after the revolution
Klyuev’s poems at the turn of the 1910s and 1920s reflect a “peasant” and “religious” acceptance of revolutionary events; he sent his poems to Lenin (although a few years earlier, together with Yesenin, he spoke to the Empress), became close to the left-wing Socialist Revolutionary literary group “Scythians” " The Berlin publishing house "Scythians" published three collections of Klyuev's poems in 1920-1922.
After several years of hungry wanderings, around 1922 Klyuev reappeared in Petrograd and Moscow, his new books were sharply criticized and withdrawn from circulation.
Since 1923, Klyuev lived in Leningrad (in the early 1930s he moved to Moscow). Klyuev’s catastrophic situation, including his financial one, did not improve after the publication of his collection of poems about Lenin (1924).
Soon Nikolai Klyuev, like many new peasant poets, distanced himself from Soviet reality, which was destroying the traditional peasant world; in turn, Soviet criticism criticized him as an “ideologist of the kulaks.” After Yesenin’s death, he wrote “The Lament for Yesenin” (1926), which was soon withdrawn from free sale [ ] . In 1928, the last collection “Izba and Field” was published.
In 1929, Klyuev met the young artist Anatoly Kravchenko, to whom his love poems and letters of this time were addressed (there are 42 letters from Klyuev). The predominance of the celebration of male beauty over female beauty in Klyuev's poetry of all periods was studied in detail by philologist A. I. Mikhailov.
At this peak of human feeling, like clouds touching the double Ararat, the heavenly swirls above the earthly, earthly. And this law is inevitable. Only now, on my days of the cross, does it, more than ever, become clearly perceptible to me. That's why it's harmful and wrong to tell you that you live in me just like gender and that with sex, love goes away and friendships are destroyed. Irresistible proof that the angelic side of your being has always obscured the floor is my poetry, spilled at your feet. Look at them - is there a lot of floor there? Are all the feelings of these extraordinary and never repeated runes connected with you, as with a snowdrop, a seagull or a ray that has become a young man?
Arrests, exile and execution
On February 2, 1934, Klyuev was arrested on charges of “composing and distributing counter-revolutionary literary works” (Article 58, Part 10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR). The investigation into the case was led by N. Kh. Shivarov. On March 5, after the trial of the Special Meeting, he was deported to the Narym region, to Kolpashevo. In the fall of the same year, at the request of the artist N. A. Obukhova, S. A. Klychkov and, possibly, Gorky, he was transferred to Tomsk.
On June 5, 1937, in Tomsk, Klyuev was arrested again and on October 13 of the same year, at a meeting of the troika of the NKVD administration Novosibirsk region sentenced to death in the case of the never-existing “cadet-monarchist rebel organization “Union for the Salvation of Russia”.” At the end of October he was shot. As stated in the certificate of posthumous rehabilitation of Klyuev, he was shot in Tomsk on October 23-25, 1937. The blurred date of the execution may be explained by the fact that from 01:00 on October 23 to 08:00 on October 25 there was no light in Tomsk due to repairs at the local thermal power plant. In such cases, NKVD officers, who carried out sentences over two nights (October 23 and 24) using a bat lantern, could issue documents retroactively for the entire party only after electric light appeared in the city (October 25) . Probably, the place of execution and the mass grave where the poet rested was one of the vacant lots in the ravine (the so-called Scary Ditch) between Kashtachnaya Gora and the transit prison (now pre-trial detention center-1 on Pushkin Street, 48) (See. Kashtak).
The investigator in the Klyuev case was the detective of the 3rd department of the Tomsk city department of the NKVD, junior lieutenant of state security Georgy Ivanovich Gorbenko).
Posthumous rehabilitation
Nikolai Klyuev was rehabilitated in 1957, but the first posthumous book in the USSR was published only in 1977.
The rare great literary talent of Klyuev, who is often placed above Yesenin, grew out of folk peasant creativity and the centuries-old religiosity of the Russian people. Life, nourished by the primordial strength of the peasantry and seeking poetic expression, was combined with him at first with an instinctive, and later with a politically conscious rejection of urban civilization and Bolshevik technocracy. At the same time, the form of his poems developed from proximity to folk ones - through the influence of symbolism - to more conscious independent structures.<…>Poems in the spirit of folk laments are interspersed with verses in tune with biblical psalms, the style is very often ornamental. The richness of the images reveals the fullness of the inner, sometimes visionary, view of the world.
Residence addresses
Petrograd - Leningrad
- 1915-1923 - apartment of K. A. Rasshchepina in an apartment building - Fontanka River embankment, 149, apt. 9;
- 1923-1932 - courtyard outbuilding - Herzen Street, 45, apt. 7.
Tomsk
There are two preserved houses in Tomsk - lane. Krasnogo Pozharnik, 12 and Mariinsky Lane, 38 (now 40), in which different time there lived a poet.
The poet's last refuge is 13 on the street. Achinskaya. The poet himself described his home (after his release from arrest on July 5, 1936) as follows:
They brought me and carried me out of the cart and into my kennel. I'm lying... lying. […] Outside the slanting window of my little room is a gray Siberian downpour with a whistling wind. It’s already autumn here, it’s cold, there’s mud up to the collars, the guys are roaring behind the plank fence, the red-haired woman is cursing them, and the terrible common tub under the washstand reeks of a sickening stench...
The house was subsequently demolished. A memorial plaque installed on the house in 1999 was transferred to the literary museum of the Shishkov House (Shishkova St., 10), where copies of documents on the Klyuev case, lifetime publications, and articles from periodicals about his life and work are kept. October 21, 2016 on a building built on the site of a house on the street. Achinskaya, 13, a memorial plaque of the “Last Address” project was installed in memory of the repressed poet.
Bibliography
Lifetime publications
- Brotherly songs. (Songs of Calvary Christians). - M.: To new land, 1912. 16 p.
- Brotherly songs. (Book two) / Intro. Art. V. Sventsitsky. - M.: Novaya Zemlya, 1912. XIV, 61 p.
- There were forest ones. - M.: 1912.
- There were forest ones. (Poems. Book 3). - M.: 1913. 76 p.
- Pines chime. / Preface V. Bryusova. - M.: 1912. 79 p.; 2nd ed. - M.: Publishing house. Nekrasova, 1913. 72 p.
- Worldly thoughts. - Pg.: ed. Averyanova, 1916. 71 p.
- Songbook. Book 1-2. - Pg.: 1919.
- Copper whale. (Poetry). - Pg.: Ed. Petrosovet, 1919. 116 pp.; reprint reprint: M.: Stolitsa, 1990.
- Unfading color: Songbook. - Vytegra: 1920. 63 p.
- Hut songs. - Berlin: Scythians, 1920. 30 p.
- Song of the Sun Bearer. Earth and iron. - Berlin: Scythians, 1920. 20 p.
- Lion bread. - M.: 1922. 102 p.
- Mother Saturday. (Poem). - Pg: Polar Star, 1922. 36 p.
- Fourth Rome. - Pg.: Epoch, 1922. 23 p.
- Lenin. Poetry. - M.-Pg.: 1924. 49 p. (3 editions)
- Klyuev N. A., Medvedev P. N. Sergei Yesenin. (Poems about him and an essay on his work). - L.: Priboy, 1927. 85 p. (includes Klyuev’s poem “Lament for Sergei Yesenin”).
- Hut and field. Selected Poems. - L.: Priboy, 1928. 107 p.
Major posthumous publications
- Klyuev N. A. Poems and poems / Compiled, text preparation and notes by L. K. Shvetsova. Entry Art. V. G. Bazanova. - L.: Soviet writer, 1977. - 560 p. 2nd ed.: Leningrad: Soviet Writer, 1982.
- Klyuev N. A. Heart of the Unicorn: Poems and Poems / Preface. N. N. Skatova, intro. Art. A. I. Mikhailova; comp., preparation of text and notes by V. P. Garnin. - St. Petersburg. : Publishing house RKhGI, 1999. - 1072 p. - ISBN 5-88812-079-0.
- Klyuev N. A. Verbal tree: Prose / Intro. Art. A. I. Mikhailova; comp., preparation of text and notes by V. P. Garnin. - St. Petersburg. : Rostock, 2003. - 688 p. - ISBN 5-94668-012-9.
- Nikolay Klyuev. Letters to Alexander Blok: 1907-1915 / Publ., input. Art. and comm. K. M. Azadovsky. - M.: Progress-Pleiada, 2003. - 368 p.
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 within the framework of the new peasant poetry movement. 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
Nikolai Klyuev for a long time alone 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.
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 for 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 longing for a dying village, a dying Russia.
1934 Klyuev was arrested in Moscow and sent to Tomsk. After constant torture and imprisonment, Nikolai Alekseevich was shot in June 1937.
Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev. "Old Believer"
Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev is an ambiguous personality. To many he is known only as a poet, contemporary and good friend of Yesenin. Some consider him a simple village man, who came from the people, and wrote about the people and the village. Some consider his poems beautiful, others find them incomprehensible. Today not much is known about what he was like in life: he seems to be in the shadow of his friend Yesenin, on whose work, as many admit, he had a significant influence.
Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev was born on October 10, 1884 in the village of Koshtuge, Koshtug volost, Olonets province on the Vytegra River.
The love of art, according to researchers of the poet’s work, was instilled in him by his mother, who came from a peasant Old Believer family. The population of the village in which Klyuev was born was a kind of sect that strictly observed religious customs. The boy spent his entire childhood in this sect, and there is no doubt that this is what influenced his worldview.
Mother, Praskovya Dmitrievna, was born in Zaonezhye into a family of Old Believers. She taught Nikolai everything she knew. It was she who instilled in Nikolai a love of folk art - he greatly appreciated Russian folk legends, songs, spiritual poems, and fairy tales. Later Nikolai Klyuev recalled: “I owe my literacy, songwriting and all verbal wisdom to my late mother, whose memory I honor tearfully, even to death.” Poems dedicated to mother literary critics recognized as the pinnacle of N. Klyuev’s creativity.
Nikolai Klyuev always spoke warmly about his mother and took her death very hard: “And I had wonderful dreams. When my mother died, on the day of her funeral I came from the graveyard, exhausted from tears. They stripped me and threw me on the floor, near the stove, on a straw bed. And I slept for two days, and on the third day I woke up, around 2 pm, screaming as if I had been born again. In my dreams, my mother appeared to me and showed me the whole path that a person goes from the moment of death to the eternal world. But I can’t tell you about what I saw, I won’t be able to, I just carry it in my heart. Something vaguely similar to what was experienced in these dreams appears in my “Pallet Psalm”, in some of its lines.”
In his letters, autobiographical notes, and stories, N. Klyuev always emphasized that there were many talented, remarkable, artistic people in his family. He said that all the talents in people of his kind were inherent in them by nature itself.
Later, in 1893, Nikolai studied at the parish school in Vytegra, after which he entered the city school, and then the Petrozavodsk paramedic school, which he did not graduate due to illness.
This is how the events of his childhood are described in official biographies. However, in reality, Klyuev’s parents belonged to the Khlysty sect. The fact that the boy was in this sect from birth and took part in religious rituals could not but leave its mark.
However, today few people know what kind of sect this is and why it is scary for adults, not to mention children. Encyclopedias provide rather scant information about this sect, for example, the following: “Khlysty (Christ Believers), a sect of spiritual Christians. Originated in Russia at the end. 17 – beginning 18th centuries They consider possible direct communication with the “Holy Spirit”, the incarnation of God in righteous sectarians – “Christs”, “Virgin Mothers”. In celebration they bring themselves to religious ecstasy. There are small communities of Khlysty in the Tambov, Samara and Orenburg regions, in the North. Caucasus and Ukraine". However, from time to time information leaks into the press about how zeal actually takes place, what constitutes “religious ecstasy” and what happens afterwards. Eyewitnesses say that zeal often ends in “dumping sin.” In addition, the Khlysty sect is often associated with the eunuchs sect.
And they are tied for good reason. It is known that Klyuev himself left the sect after they tried to castrate him against his will. This happened not in childhood, but in adolescence. However, after some time, he again restored ties with the sectarians, which he continued to maintain throughout his life.
So, Nikolai Klyuev went on a journey, during which he visited a number of Old Believer monasteries. His friends subsequently claimed that he visited India, Iran and China, where his horizons expanded significantly. Moreover, he was interested not only in the culture and way of life of these peoples. There were people who, quite seriously, but carefully, in a low voice, asserted that he studied magic in the East. More more people claimed that Klyuev mastered hypnosis and repeatedly demonstrated his abilities. In general, the poet was quite a versatile person - he sang well, knew how to play several musical instruments, had excellent acting talent. However, all this manifested itself only in personal communication. At first glance, Klyuev was an ordinary person, even had a rather repulsive appearance, dressed very simply, like a man who had come to the fair from a neighboring village: in a simple shirt, belted at the waist, and trousers, which he tucked into his boots. So he walked around the capital, despite the fact that all his friends, even former villagers, had long dressed in fashionable suits and wore ties.
At the beginning of 1900, fifteen-year-old Nikolai began writing poetry. And in 1904 he published his works for the first time. The St. Petersburg almanac “New Poets” published Klyuev’s poems “Rainbow Dreams Did Not Come True...”, “The Wide Immense Field...” and others. Since 1905, Klyuev began to be published in the Moscow collections “Surf” and “Waves”. In his early poems, Klyuev most often wrote about popular anger and grief: “People’s grief”, “Where are you, seething impulses”.
Where are you, ebullient impulses,
Feelings have limitless space,
Speeches of curse are burning,
Angry and violent reproach?
Where are you, innocent, pure,
Brave fighters,
The homelands of the stars are radiant,
Doli folk singers?
Homeland drenched in blood,
Waiting for you like a bright day,
Covered in pitch darkness,
Waiting - can’t wait for the fire!
This fire is cleansing
All-bearing people.
This poem clearly shows that the poet was not alien to the revolutionary trends of that time. Indeed, he took an active part in underground activities. In this regard, at the beginning of 1906, Nikolai Klyuev was arrested, accusing him of “inciting” peasants and “agitating illegal ideas.” The poet at this time communicated with various revolutionary organizations, which was noticed by the Moscow Gendarmerie Directorate.
From that moment on, the prison period in his life began - Nikolai spent six months in prison in Vytegor, and then he was transferred to Petrozavodsk.
Some time after this, false rumors began to circulate about the death of Nikolai Klyuev from a heart attack at Taiga station. They said that at the same time his suitcase with manuscripts disappeared.
In the early work of N. Klyuev, one can also see his rebellious ideas related directly to religion. The revolution seemed to him the advent of the Kingdom of God.
In his poems, Nikolai Klyuev tried to defend the “dense” centuries-old foundations. He saw the danger in the attack on Russia by the “iron” urban culture. All this led to a complete rejection of social progress.
After some time, Nikolai Klyuev was released, but even after that he did not give up his illegal activities. He began to communicate with the revolutionary populist intelligentsia. At this time, the poet became very friendly with Maria Dobrolyubova, who was the sister of the poet A. Dobrolyubov. M. Dobrolyubova was also called the “Madonna of the Socialist Revolutionaries.”
Acquaintance with the poet L. D. Semenov was just as dangerous. Thanks to this friendship, Nikolai Klyuev began publishing in the Moscow magazine Trudovoy Put, but after a while it was closed, accusing him of being anti-government.
In the fall of 1907, Nikolai Klyuev was drafted into the army. This was unbearable for the poet’s vulnerable heart, and he tried to refuse service for religious reasons.
The refusal was not taken into account, N. Klyuev was arrested and brought to St. Petersburg. There the poet was placed for examination in a hospital, where he was declared unfit for military service. Delighted by this outcome of the case, Nikolai Klyuev left for the village.
In 1907, N. Klyuev began to correspond with A. Blok. This correspondence was important for both one and the other poet.
Subsequently, 37 letters from Klyuev to Blok were found, the main topic of which was a discussion of the problem of relations between the people and the intelligentsia.
Blok quoted lines from these letters in his articles, calling them “a document of enormous importance - about modern Russia“Folk, of course.” “The words of his letter seem like golden words to me,” said A. Blok.
Thanks to Blok’s support, N. Klyuev’s works were published in the magazines “Golden Fleece”, “Novaya Zemlya”, etc. After some time, N. Klyuev began to collaborate with other magazines: “Testaments”, “Sovremennik”, “Niva”, etc. In the magazine “New Land” they even tried to present Nikolai Klyuev in the image of a kind of prophet and preacher, an exponent of the “new national consciousness”, who considers the enlightenment of the people his mission.
In 1911, a collection of poems by Nikolai Klyuev, “The Chime of Pines,” with a preface by V. Bryusov, was first published in Moscow. Very quickly this collection became popular among regulars of various literary circles. Almost all influential critics in Moscow unanimously recognized the collection as the brightest event in the literary life of these years.
After the publication of the collection of poems, N. Klyuev became a fairly prominent figure in both literary and bohemian circles. He took part in meetings of the “Workshop of Poets” and in meetings of Acmeists. At this time, the poet could often be found in the literary and artistic cafe “Stray Dog”.
Nikolai Klyuev became almost the central figure in the literary life of that time. He was very popular, many famous and influential people wanted to meet him. People were also interested in his work. Fans of N. Klyuev’s work were not only Blok and Bryusov, but also Gorodetsky, Mandelstam, Gumilyov, Akhmatova and others.
The poet himself did not stop writing. During that period, two collections of his poems were published. The first collection, “Brotherly Songs,” included religious poems, and the second, called “Forest Were,” was more of a collection of folk songs.
In 1915, N. Klyuev met Sergei Yesenin, and a society formed around them, which included poets with a new peasant direction in their work (P. Oreshin, S. Klychkov, A. Shiryaevets, etc.). Since 1915, Nikolai Klyuev and Sergei Yesenin spoke together in the press and at readings. After some time, N. Klyuev became the spiritual mentor and teacher of S. Yesenin.
Klyuev’s friendship with Yesenin was so strong that for two years they lived together in the same apartment, which Klyuev had acquired by this time. There were rumors that the two poets were connected not only by friendship. N. Klyuev dedicated many of his poems to his close friend. Subsequently, using all his connections, he even saved S. Yesenin from mobilization into the active army.
In 1916, Nikolai Klyuev released his new collection “Worldly Thoughts”, the main theme of which was military events.
N. Klyuev greatly supported the October Revolution that took place in 1917, considering it necessary for Russian society and the only way out for the peasantry. During these years, N. Klyuev experienced an unprecedented creative surge, and wrote a large number of poems.
In 1919, Nikolai Klyuev released the collection “Copper Whale”, in which he collected various revolutionary poems: “Red Song”, “From basements, from dark corners...”.
In 1922, N. Klyuev’s best, according to critics, lifetime collection, “Lion’s Bread,” was published.
All the works written by Klyuev in those years reflect his inner experiences and torment. Nikolai Klyuev believed that all past suffering should be redeemed and passed along with the formation of “brotherhood”, a “peasant paradise”. Throughout Nikolai Klyuev’s work of that time, one can see his longing and lament for the dying Rus'.
In 1922, an article by L. Trotsky was published in which he criticized Nikolai Klyuev. Calling Klyuev a “kulak poet,” he branded him with this nickname for a whole decade. This article put Nikolai in a difficult position. The need that he experienced at this time undermined the poet's faith in himself. N. Klyuev turned to the Union of Poets for help, he wrote to M. Gorky: “... Poverty, wandering around other people’s dinners destroys me as an artist.”
All this time, N. Klyuev continues to write poetry. After the death of S. Yesenin, Klyuev wrote the poem “Lament for Sergei Yesenin” in memory of him.
Remember, little devil, Yesenin
Kutya made from coals and bath soaps!
And in my kneader it foams drunkenly
Dough for weddings and scarlet games.
And I have a new hut -
Polati with a valance, unquenchable goddess,
I scolded an ardent word from the back of the store
To you, my little owl, my beloved bird!
Nikolai Klyuev was very worried about Yesenin’s death. Z. N. Dydykin recalled how he and his father met N. Klyuev and about the poet’s feelings about his deceased friend: “My father met Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev at an exhibition at the Union of Artists in 1925, where his first work was presented - a bust Sergei Yesenin.
The bust was created under the impression of the tragic events that occurred at the Angleterre Hotel. The work was expressed with great emotionality and expressiveness, so my father, although not yet a member of the Union of Artists, was able to participate in the exhibition. Klyuev, examining the exhibition and stopping at the bust of the poet, exclaimed: “Oh, Serezhenka!” Nikolai Vasilyevich stood nearby, and Klyuev’s companion said: “And here is the author.” This is how this acquaintance took place.”
In 1931, Nikolai Klyuev decided to settle in Moscow, but even there his works were banned - any poem was rejected by all editors.
As a result of this, N. Klyuev often went hungry during these years, but nevertheless did not give up his writing. Z. N. Dydykin recalled the poet during these years: « Klyuev often visited our house. We lived on Rimsky-Korsakov Avenue, in an attic, where a high iron staircase led. He went to his mother more often, because he was hungry, and his mother, a very kind and hospitable person, always fed him. Sometimes, not finding anyone at home, he sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and waited for someone to come.
I remember one Easter: sitting at the table, holding an Easter egg in his hand, wearing an untucked shirt, embroidered on the collar and sleeves with a cross, in brown and crimson tones. His smooth, youthful face was striking; he himself was strong, short, and plump. There was one memorable photograph in the house of this Easter day, taken in our apartment at the Easter table in the circle of our relatives. He sits sideways, in his hands is an Easter egg.
He loved to tell his dreams, he told them very colorfully, fantasizing uncontrollably. A shirt with a belt is hanging, the belt comes to life and turns into a snake, wraps itself around the table leg and stands like a cobra. I screamed all night after that. There is a very “oak” in the conversation. Over his shirt he wore a dark-colored undershirt, a black hat, boots, and a scarf wrapped around his neck. He gave Nikolai Vasilyevich a book of his poems with an autograph. Where the book is now is unknown.
My father and I visited him. The apartment was not far from the House of Composers, in the courtyard to the left. About two rooms. The abundance of bookshelves, like library ones, was striking. I sat with candles and had a telephone. There were many icons with lamps hanging, and there was one very large candle on the table.”
During these years, Nikolai Klyuev showed sympathy for the seventeen-year-old graphic artist A. N. Yar-Kravchenko, to whom he dedicated a large number of his poems.
In mid-1934, Nikolai Klyuev was transferred to Tomsk. The poet was very worried about this excommunication from literature. During these years, he directed all his efforts to restore his name and the opportunity to publish his works. Nikolai Klyuev wrote: “I don’t feel sorry for myself as a public figure, but I feel sorry for my bee songs, sweet, sunny and golden. They really sting my heart.”
On June 5, 1937, Nikolai Klyuev was arrested in Tomsk and accused of “counter-revolutionary rebel activity.”
In October 1937, in the same place, in Tomsk, the poet was sentenced to death.
Later it turned out that the Siberian NKVD had fabricated a case about the “Union for the Salvation of Russia”, which was preparing an uprising directed against Soviet power. The role of one of the leaders of this union was attributed to Nikolai Klyuev.
There were rumors that the real reason for the arrest of Nikolai Klyuev was different. N. Klyuev was arrested following a denunciation, and he was accused of treason, but in fact - for homosexuality. Allegedly, during these years N. Klyuev turned his attention to the poet P. Vasiliev, who was a relative of a party functionary. An influential relative did not like this sympathy, and he immediately took action.
Nikolai Klyuev was shot in 1937.
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