On March 7, 1960, four were picked up in the Pacific Ocean Soviet soldiers a, who drifted on a landing barge without water or food for 49 days. The little boat was torn from its moorings by a typhoon and carried into the ocean. Four guys bravely fought against the elements, hunger, and thirst. They haven't lost human dignity and won. Here are the names of the heroes: Anatoly Kryuchkovsky, 21 years old, Philip Poplavsky, 20 years old, Ivan Fedotov, 20 years old, Askhat Ziganshin, 21 years old.
On January 17, 1960, a hurricane tore the Soviet barge T-36 from its moorings and carried it hundreds of miles from the coast. The situation was complicated by the fact that the guys were not sailors - they served in the engineering and construction troops, that is, in the “construction battalion”. And a cargo ship was sent to the barge to unload, which was supposed to approach the pier. But suddenly a hurricane hit, and Soviet soldiers found themselves in almost hopeless situation. The barge carried into the ocean had no fuel and no means of communication with the shore., there was a leak in the hold, and there was food: a loaf of bread, two cans of stew, a can of fat and a few spoons of cereal. There were also two buckets of potatoes, which were scattered throughout the engine room during the storm, causing them to become saturated with fuel oil. The tank also overturned drinking water, which was partially mixed with the sea. There was also a potbelly stove, matches and several packs of Belomor cigarettes on the ship. In addition, the seaworthiness of the barge was such that, due to safety precautions, even in calm weather it had no right to sail more than 300 meters from the shore.
The guys solved the fresh water problem this way: they took it from the engine cooling system, although rusty, but relatively usable. Rainwater was also collected. For food, they cooked a stew - a little stew, a couple of potatoes that smelled like fuel, a very small amount of cereal. On such a diet, it was necessary not only to survive ourselves, but also to fight for the survivability of the barge: chipping ice from the sides to prevent it from capsizing, pumping out the water that had collected in the hold.
When the food is completely gone, Sergeant Ziganshin remembered the story school teacher about sailors in distress and suffering from hunger. Those sailors cooked and ate leather things. The sergeant's belt was leather. They boiled it, crumbled it into noodles, then used a strap from a broken and non-functional walkie-talkie, then they began to eat boots, they tore off and ate the skin from an accordion that was on board...
Soon, auditory hallucinations were added to the pangs of hunger and thirst. Ivan Fedotov began to suffer from attacks of fear. His comrades supported him as best they could and calmed him down.
What's amazing is that and throughout the entire period of drifting, not a single quarrel or conflict occurred in the foursome. Even when there was practically no strength left, not a single one tried to take food or water from a comrade in order to survive himself. We just agreed: the last one who remains alive, before he dies, will leave on the barge a record of how the T-36 crew died...
On March 2, they first saw a ship passing in the distance, but it seems they themselves did not believe that it was not a mirage in front of them. March, 6 new ship appeared on the horizon, but the desperate signals for help that the soldiers gave were not noticed.
On March 7, 1960, an air group from the USS Kearsarge discovered the T-36 barge about a thousand miles northwest of Midway Island. The half-submerged barge, which should not be more than 300 meters from the shore, has traveled more than a thousand miles along Pacific Ocean, covering half the distance from the Kuril Islands to Hawaii.
In the first minutes, the Americans did not understand: what kind of miracle was in front of them and what kind of people were sailing on it?
But the sailors from the aircraft carrier experienced even greater bewilderment when Sergeant Ziganshin, delivered from the barge by helicopter, said: everything is fine with us, we need fuel and food, and we will sail home ourselves. In reality, of course, the soldiers could no longer swim anywhere. As doctors later said, the four had very little time to live: death from exhaustion could have occurred in the coming hours. And by that time the T-36 had only one boot and three matches left.
American doctors marveled not only at the resilience of the Soviet soldiers, but also at their amazing self-discipline: when the crew of the aircraft carrier began to offer them food, they ate just a little and stopped. If they had eaten more, they would have died immediately, as many died who survived a long famine.
On board the aircraft carrier, when it became clear that they had been saved, the soldiers finally gave up their strength - Ziganshin asked for a razor, but fainted near the washbasin. The sailors of the Kearsarge had to shave him and his comrades.
When the soldiers had slept off, they began to be tormented by a completely different kind of fear - there was a cold war, and they were helped not by anyone, but by a “probable enemy.” In addition, a Soviet barge fell into the hands of the Americans. The captain of the Kearsarge, by the way, could not understand why the soldiers were so zealously demanding that he load this rusty trough aboard the aircraft carrier? To reassure them, he informed them that another ship would tow the barge to the port. In fact, the Americans sank the T-36 - not out of a desire to harm the USSR, but because the half-submerged barge posed a threat to shipping.
When in the USSR they learned about the rescue of the four heroes, the head of state Nikita Khrushchev sent them a telegram of welcome.
The first press conference of the heroes took place on the aircraft carrier, where about fifty journalists were transported by helicopter. It had to be finished ahead of time: Askhat Ziganshin’s nose began to bleed.
Later, the guys gave a lot of press conferences, and almost everywhere they were asked the same question: how do the boots taste? “The skin is very bitter and has an unpleasant odor. Was there any sense of taste back then? I wanted only one thing: to deceive my stomach. But you can’t just eat the skin: it’s too tough. So we cut off a small piece and set it on fire. When the tarpaulin burned, it turned into something similar to charcoal and became soft. We spread this “delicacy” with grease to make it easier to swallow. Several of these “sandwiches” made up our daily diet,” Anatoly Kryuchkovsky later recalled.
By the time the aircraft carrier arrived in San Francisco, the heroes of the unique voyage, which lasted about 50 days, had already gotten a little stronger. America greeted them enthusiastically - the mayor of San Francisco presented them with the “golden key” to the city.
Experts admired: young Soviet guys did not lose in a critical situation human form, did not become brutal, did not enter into conflicts, did not descend into cannibalism, as happened to many of those who found themselves in similar circumstances.
A ordinary people The United States, looking at the photo, was surprised: are these enemies? The sweetest guys, a little shy, which only adds to their charm. In general, during their stay in the USA, four soldiers did more for the image of the USSR than all the diplomats.
Upon their return to the USSR, the heroes received a reception at top level- a rally was organized in their honor, the soldiers were personally received by Nikita Khrushchev and Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky. All four were awarded the Order of the Red Star, a film was made about their voyage, and several books were written. Philip Poplavsky, Anatoly Kryuchkovsky and Askhat Ziganshin, on the recommendation of the command, entered the Leningrad Naval Secondary Technical School, which they graduated in 1964. Ivan Fedotov, a guy from the banks of the Amur, returned home and worked as a riverman all his life. He passed away in 2000. Philip Poplavsky, who settled near Leningrad, after graduating from college, worked at large sea vessels, went on voyages abroad. He passed away in 2001. Anatoly Kryuchkovsky lives in Kyiv, worked for many years as deputy chief mechanic at the Kiev Leninskaya Kuznitsa plant. After graduating from college, Askhat Ziganshin entered the emergency rescue squad as a mechanic in the city of Lomonosov near Leningrad, got married, and raised two beautiful daughters. After retiring, he settled in St. Petersburg.
Liberation Manifesto
With poets it is always both more difficult and easier. On the one hand, it is very easy to determine when a particular work was written, since most poets indicate the date of writing. On the other hand, poetic thought is so florid and unpredictable that interpretations of what is written lead researchers into jungles that the poor author did not even suspect.
For Alexander Blok, one of these “problematic” poems was “Scythians,” which “turned” 95 years old in February 2013.
It is known that the poem was written the day after the end of the poem “The Twelve”. The day before, January 29, old style, the poet entered into notebook a phrase characterizing the problems of the future poem: “Asia and Europe”, as well as the formula that the Soviet delegation just came up with at negotiations with Germany in Brest: “The war is ending, peace has not been signed.”
Premonition of civil war
It is worth paying special attention to the fact that Alexander Blok was close to the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party. He was friends with one of the prominent Left Socialist Revolutionary writers, Ivanov-Razumnik, and was published in the newspaper of this party, “Znamya Truda,” where, in particular, “The Twelve,” “Intelligentsia and Revolution,” and “Scythians” were published. Blok was even arrested at the beginning of 1919, when the Bolsheviks carried out a real raid on their former allies, the Socialist Revolutionaries.
Blok shared the point of view of this party on the events taking place in the country, but in his poetic worldview both these views and the surrounding reality were refracted and transformed, finding a way out through amazing and sometimes contradictory poems. Blok's extraordinary intuition found the most accurate and important definitions, which politicians and revolutionaries so lacked.
Undoubtedly, the poem also shows Blok’s attachment to his mentor and philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, whose ideas he does not fully accept, but absorbs and transforms:
We are like obedient slaves,
Holding a shield between two hostile races,
Mongols and Europe!
It is here that Blok’s dependence on historical concepts Vladimir Solovyov with his predictions of a new Mongol invasion. But for Solovyov, this concept is linked together with the catastrophe of the Russian autocracy, with the “crushing double headed eagle"and the fall of the "third Rome". In “Scythians” we are talking about the fall of Europe, which dug its own grave with aggressive ambitions and the rattling of weapons:
You have been looking to the East for hundreds of years,
Hoarding and melting our pearls,
And you, mockingly, only counted the time,
When to point the guns in the mouth!
Now the time has come. Trouble beats with wings,
And every day the grievances multiply...
Undoubtedly, this also reflects the situation with the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk, which Blok recalled on the eve of writing “Scythians.” In the diary entry dated January 11, which already contains the basic outlines of the concept of the future “Scythians,” we are talking about the entire European bourgeoisie: “Poke, poke at the map, German trash, vile bourgeois. Artachya, England and France. We will fulfill our historical mission... If you destroy our revolution, then you are no longer Aryans. And we will open the gates to the East wide... We looked at you with the eyes of the Aryans while you had a face, and we will look at your face with a sidelong, sly, quick glance. We will throw ourselves together as Asians, and the East will pour on you. Your skins will be used for Chinese tambourines. The one who has disgraced himself is no longer an Aryan. Are we barbarians? Okay. We will show you what barbarians are. If you don’t at least use the “democratic world” to wash away the shame of your military patriotism, if you destroy our revolution, then you are no longer Aryans.”
The poem appeared in the Socialist Revolutionary newspaper Znamya Truda on February 20, 1918, during the days of the German offensive, to which the Soviet government could not yet oppose anything. The revolutionaries were more interested in the debate, whether to make peace or decide on “ revolutionary war", which, according to Lenin, looked like a complete gamble.
Blok perceived what was happening from a romantic point of view, in abstract categories abstracted from reality.
“No more ‘realpolitik’,” he writes in his diary on February 21. “All that’s left is to ‘fly’.” And this strange euphoria of flight at that moment captured all the leaders of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Apparently, this is why they published “Scythians” so quickly and enthusiastically, and perceived some of Blok’s lines as a utopian program for real action:
We are wide through the wilds and forests
Looks good in front of Europe
Let's make way! We'll come back to you
With your Asian face!
Go everyone, go to the Urals!
We are clearing the battlefield.
Steel machines where the integral breathes,
With the Mongolian wild horde!
“‘To rebel’ and ‘not to fight’ (left Socialist-Revolutionaries) is touching,” Blok notes in his diary to those who think that Blok “himself” is at one with them.
We must also remember that at this time there was a gap between Blok and the majority of the intelligentsia, who did not accept his article “The Intelligentsia and the Revolution,” not to mention the poem “The Twelve.”
"Behind Lately Blok wrote a number of poems in the Bolshevik spirit, reminiscent of soldiers' songs in provincial garrisons. The fact that Blok sympathizes with Bolshevism is his own business... but why write bad poetry? When they love a girl, they bring her gold (!!) and flowers as a gift, and no one brings potato peels” (Petrograd Echo newspaper).
Scythian brotherhood
But this applies to what has already been written, already spoken. The prerequisites for the appearance of the “Scythians” must be sought much earlier. At the beginning of the twentieth century, ten years before the revolution, poets experimenting with pro-Western aesthetic doctrines - symbolism, imagism - suddenly drew attention to the Asian features of Russia.
“Scythianism” was most likely perceived as a rejection of the old, exhausted culture. A way out was needed. Poets were among the first to sense this and were constantly looking for solutions to the problem. Skif in in this case a man of the ancient, pre-Russian world - a predecessor and symbol of the future Russia.
Both Alexander Herzen and Apollo Grigoriev called themselves Scythians. Bryusov, Balmont, Sologub, Khlebnikov, Prokofiev (“Scythian Suite”) wrote on the “Scythian” theme. Maximilian Voloshin said: “Wide is our wild field, deep is our Scythian steppe.” And Ivanov-Razumnik took for himself back in 1912 literary pseudonym"Skif". Nikolai Klyuev, for example, wrote about the “soul of a peasant’s paradise,” calling it “My Land, White India, full of Asian secrets and wonders.” The theme of Kitezh City, which occupied such an important place in his work, was related not only to Russia, but also to the East - Asia, to which he “undividedly attributed post-revolutionary Russia.”
Yesenin contrasts machine, urban Europe with “Russian” - Asian, elemental, “Scythian”: “our wolf, peasant, Russian, Scythian, Asian.” “In that call, the Kalmyk and the Tatar / Will sense their desired city,” wrote Yesenin, calling Scythianism “our populist movement.”
By the way, about the Scythians. Herodotus narrates that in ancient times they conquered all of Asia, reached Palestine, and threatened Egypt: “For twenty-eight years the Scythians ruled over Asia, and during this time they, filled with arrogance and contempt, devastated everything. Then the Medes invited most of them and, having gotten them drunk, killed them.” The drunkenness of the Scythians became legendary. (Perhaps genes had an effect here too?) The same Herodotus has a story about a Hellene who, “frequently communicating with the Scythians, learned from them to drink undiluted wine. And it made me go crazy.” From then on, whenever they wanted to drink stronger wine, they said: “Pour it the Scythian way.”
Andrei Bely wrote in “ Silver Dove”, that both Russians and Europeans have degenerated, and only the Mongols still remain the same. In his opinion, Russia was a Mongolian country, and all Russians had Mongolian blood.
And Valery Bryusov in his poem “Scythians” wrote this:
The Magi will accept me like a son.
I'll compose a song for them to try out.
But I will leave them to join the squad.
Hey you! listen, free wolves!
Obey the awaited cry!
The horses have their bangs flying,
We are flying to prey again.
In October 1917, the peasant poet Pyotr Oreshin spoke of the Russian Revolution as the triumph of Asia over Europe, spoke of the “sword of the East” and the approaching fall of Paris.
I was fascinated by the history of the Scythians back then most of Russian intelligentsia. The above-mentioned Socialist-Revolutionary and friend of Alexander Blok, Ivanov-Razumnik, around whom the “Scythian” writers grouped, spoke of himself as follows: “a man, a writer, a thinker, a socialist, an eternal Scythian.” Scythianism, as a property of revolution and revolutionary, became in that period a designation of boundless maximalism and intransigence of spirit. First of all, in the confrontation with the West, which for Ivanov-Razumnik was the embodiment of the “eternally Hellenic” or “eternally philistine” principle, the dominance of which always leads to the same thing: everything sublime dissolves in superficial and empty philistine morality.
Blok’s “Scythians” became the apogee of such a worldview, giving him new life and support:
Millions of you. We are darkness, and darkness, and darkness.
Try it and fight us!
Yes - we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians!
With slanted and greedy eyes!
In August 1917, two issues of the almanac “Scythians” were published. Later, in the early 1920s, a Russian publishing house of the same name operated in exile in Berlin.
“Scythianism” embodied the sentiments that were later translated into the famous call to the East, sounded in 1920 at the Congress of the Peoples of the East in Baku, where the holy war of the peoples of Asia against imperialist Europe was declared. At this congress there were repeated calls for “the first real holy war under the red banner."
Blok’s “Scythians” is an ideological unity. They stand close to the declaration that opened the first collection of the same name: “There is in this word, in its very sound, the whistle of an arrow, an intoxicated flight. There is no target against which he would be afraid to strain his bow! There is no prejudice that would dishonor the hand when it lays the bowstring; there is no God who would whisper doubts where the call of life is clear and resounding.” Scythian is a brave discoverer of new paths in life, with a thirst for integrity. He is an eternal rebel, devoid of historical prejudices. “Scythianism” is the eternal revolutionary spirit of an unreconciled and irreconcilable spirit. Justification for the revolution."
Nikolai Berdyaev once wrote: “The “Scythian” ideology was a form of obsession with the revolutionary element. A kind of pagan nationalism rooted in non-Christian or anti-Christian missionism.”
And in conclusion, it must be said that Blok himself did not like the “Scythians”. He saw in this poem a political manifesto, and not a product of genuine creative inspiration. It seemed to him, apparently, too declarative, too rational.
One way or another, Alexander Blok’s “Scythians” is still quoted and remembered. Moreover, it seems that this poem has not lost its relevance today, forcing us not only to admire Blok’s poetic genius, but also to look back to the East and West in order to realize who is our enemy and who is our friend, and where our own ambitions and indomitability can lead.
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Poem by Alexander Blok. This is not just a poem - it is Blok’s mystical insight into the Russian spirit, poured out in brilliant verse. In one of the last ones. “What courage, what determination - these are the Scythians” Napoleon at the sight of burning Moscow.
Millions of you. We are darkness, and darkness, and darkness.
Try it and fight us!
Yes, we are Scythians! Yes, we are Asians
With slanted and greedy eyes!
For you - centuries, for us - single hour.
We are like obedient slaves,
Holding a shield between two hostile races
Mongols and Europe!
Centuries, centuries your old forge forged
And drowned out the thunder of the avalanche,
And failure was a wild tale for you
Both Lisbon and Messina!
You have been looking to the East for hundreds of years,
Hoarding and melting our pearls,
And you, mockingly, only counted the time,
When to point the guns in the mouth!
Now the time has come. Trouble beats with wings,
And every day the grievances multiply,
And the day will come - there will be no trace
From your Paestums, perhaps!
ABOUT old world! Until you die
While you're languishing in sweet flour,
Stop, wise as Oedipus,
Before the Sphinx with an ancient riddle!
Russia - Sphinx! Rejoicing and mourning,
And dripping with black blood,
She looks, looks, looks at you
Both with hatred and with love!..
Yes, to love as our blood loves,
None of you have been in love for a long time!
Have you forgotten that there is love in the world,
Which both burns and destroys!
We love everything - and the heat of cold numbers,
And the gift of divine visions,
We understand everything - and the sharp Gallic meaning,
And the gloomy German genius...
We remember everything - the Parisian streets are hell,
And the Venetian coolness,
The distant aroma of lemon groves,
And Cologne is a smoky mass...
We love flesh - both its taste and color,
And the stuffy, mortal smell of flesh...
Are we guilty if your skeleton crunches?
In our heavy, tender paws?
We are used to grabbing by the reins
Zealous playing horses,
Breaking horses' heavy rumps
And pacify the obstinate slaves...
Come to us! From the horrors of war
Come into peaceful embraces!
Before it's too late - the old sword is in its sheath,
Comrades! We will become brothers!
And if not, we have nothing to lose,
And treachery is available to us!
Centuries, centuries - you will be cursed
Sick late offspring!
We are wide through the wilds and forests
Looks good in front of Europe
Let's make way! We'll come back to you
With your Asian face!
Go everyone, go to the Urals!
We are clearing the battlefield
Steel machines where the integral breathes,
With the Mongolian wild horde!
But we ourselves are no longer your shield,
From now on we will not enter into battle ourselves,
We'll see how the mortal battle rages on,
With your narrow eyes.
We will not move when the ferocious Hun
He will rummage through the pockets of corpses,
Burn the cities and drive the herd to the church,
And fry the meat of the white brothers!..
IN last time- come to your senses, old world!
To the fraternal feast of labor and peace,
For the last time at the bright fraternal feast
The barbaric lyre is calling!
Reader about the Poet
Historical and philological study
Not everyone understands Blok's poetry. Even many of those who understand (or think that they understand) the poetry of Nekrasov or, for example, Tvardovsky, Slutsky, Yevtushenko do not understand it. But you can love without understanding.
In Sergei Gerasimov’s film “By the Lake,” the young heroine of Natalya Belokhvostikova reads Blok’s “Scythians” without cuts to “simple working people” - and they, without delving into secret meanings, somehow managed to feel them in my gut.
Millions of spectators who were forced to listen to this long monologue, if they did not show ardent interest in Blok, at least did not protest. When the film was released, “Scythians” suddenly began to be in unprecedented demand in libraries.
I dare to say that the majority of the audience perceived the poem “Scythians” as music, that is, a stream of sounds - exciting, disturbing to the point of chills, making one feel the existence of other worlds... No, music must also be understood, but here it is rather a magical hum, rhythmic noise, shamanic ritual.
“The failure of both Lisbon and Messina...”
“Your Paestums, perhaps...”
Just like Chukovsky in “Aibolit”: “We live in Zanzibar, the Kalahari and the Sahara, on Mount Fernando Po”... Do you want to say that a three-year-old child understands the meaning of these toponyms? But he listens with bated breath!
Why do “Scythians”, and not “The Nightingale Garden” - a work that is much simpler lexically, not containing sophisticated historical and ethnographic excursions - find such a response in the hearts of readers? Because this “hum”, although incomprehensible, is pleasant. Consciousness snatches meaningful units of text from vague, almost like in a foreign language, phrases - and makes simple conclusions: “Europe does not understand us, but we understand Europe; Europe needs our protection, but we do not need Europe. This means that we are higher and better than Europe!”
Of course, such theses can only be presented in the form high poetry! In prosaic form they sound stupid, boastful, and vulgar.
Who are these “we” on whose behalf does he speak? lyrical hero Blok?
A strange question: the very title of the poem, it would seem, leaves no room for doubt: “Scythians,” what more do you need? That is, it is clear that we will be talking about Russia, but it acts under such a transparent pseudonym.
The title is “Scythians”, and the epigraph is about pan-Mongolism. Where are the Scythians and where are the Mongols?
Brief historical background: the Scythians are Iranian-speaking nomads who inhabited the territory of what is now Ukraine and Northern Black Sea region, Southern Russia, Kazakhstan and Siberia. Even before the beginning of our era, the name “Scythians” lost its ethnic character and later began to be applied to various peoples and tribal unions, including the future Medieval Rus'.
In the Tale of Bygone Years there is a rather vague mention that “the so-called Bulgarians came from the Scythians, that is, from the Khazars.” Elsewhere it is said that Oleg went on a campaign against the Greeks, taking with him many Varangians, and Slavs, and Chuds,
and Krivichi, and Meri, and Drevlyans, and Croats, and Dulebs, and several other tribes, and the Greeks called them all Great Scythia. (For the Greeks, they were all barbarians, they all looked the same, just as for some of our compatriots the whole West looked alike.)
So, Ossetians, Russians, and other Slavic, Turkic-speaking and Finno-Ugric peoples can consider themselves heirs of the Scythians.
What about the Mongols? The first mention of them dates back to the 10th century AD. e., and they had their own state only in the 12th century, when Kievan Rus was already thriving. From the contact of the Mongols with the ancient Russians in XIII-XIV centuries there were difficult memories. Kalmyks, one of the Mongolian tribes, moved to the Lower Volga region from Central Asia, i.e. they became part of Russia only in late XVI- early XVII centuries.
In short, if a Russian, not without pride, can call himself descendants of the Scythians, then he never asked to be a relative of the Mongols.
"Millions- you. Us- darkness, and darkness, and darkness."
Individualistic Europe, where everyone pretends to be themselves unique personality, it has long been contrasted specifically with Asia, the yellow race, “this innumerable and indistinguishable anthill.” Eastern Europe has always been not as densely populated as the Western one, “darkness-darkness” is more suitable for assessing the Chinese and other Mongoloids.
"Yes, Scythians- We! Yes, Asians- we, // With slanted and greedy eyes! And towards the end of the poem - again about “our” narrow eyes.
But what about Asians, when Indo-Europeans, Aryans?! And where did the slanted, i.e., typical for Mongoloids, eyes come from?! The ancient Greeks, including Herodotus, have descriptions of the appearance of the Scythians - not a word about narrow eyes!
Another weird thing:
"For you- centuries, for us- one hour. //We, like obedient slaves, //Kept a shield between two hostile races, //Mongols and Europe!”
Traditionally, there is a contrast between the dynamic, bustling, quickly changing its appearance of Europe - the ancient, frozen, unchanging, motionless East, “where time seems to have stopped its rapid run.”
But the Scythians - they were always considered a young, fresh people? And they are attributed Chinese, that is, again, Mongoloid characteristics?
Complete confusion...
“Between two hostile races” - does this mean that “we”, the Scythians, are still not Mongols, although not Europeans? And thanks for that!
Let us remember: the lyrical “we” is not the West and not the East, but something between them. “We” are Asians - but not quite, and not at all, like the Mongols. (Nina Berberova was clearly mistaken in believing that Blok considered the Russians to be the same Asians and therefore it didn’t matter whether the poems were written on behalf of the Mongols or the Russians.)
The confusion continues:
“You have been looking to the East for hundreds of years, // Mining and melting our pearls.” Our pearls in the East means that “we”, no matter what, is included in geographical concept"East"?
It remains to be assumed that this uncertainty, duality, flickering is not an accident. This is what the poet intended. We find confirmation in the lines: “We will turn to you // With our Asian face!” The emphasis is on the definition of “Asian,” that is, not “we will turn into a face that is Asian,” but “we will turn out of our two faces into an Asian face, and there is also a handsome European face.”
The lyrical hero, with his dual Eurasian essence, at the moment persistently, even persistently, highlights his Asian hypostasis, because the European one is present a priori and its existence does not need proof.
Let's try to understand the national meaning of the epigraph from Vladimir Solovyov. It can be understood in the sense that for Solovyov, pan-Mongolism is a good force, something approved. But is it? Here's the original poem in full:
“Pan-Mongolism. Even though the name is wild,
But it pleases my ears,
As if by a premonition of great
God's destiny is full.
When in corrupt Byzantium
The Divine Altar has cooled down
And they denied the Messiah
The people and the prince, the priest and the Tsar,
Then rose from the East
People unknown and alien,
And under the heavy blow of Rock
The second Rome fell to the dust.
The fate of ancient Byzantium
We don't want to learn
And the flatterers of Russia keep saying:
You are the third Rome, you are the third Rome!
Well, instruments of God's punishment
The stock hasn't been depleted yet...
Preparing new strikes
A swarm of awakened tribes.
From the waters of Malaya to Altai
Chiefs from the Eastern Isles
At the walls of rebel China
They gathered tens of their regiments.
Like locusts, innumerable,
And insatiable, like her,
Protected by unearthly power,
The tribes are going to the North.
Oh Rus', forget your past glory-
The Double-Headed Eagle is crushed,
And for the yellow children's fun
Scraps of your banners have been given.
Will humble himself in trembling and fear,
Who could forget the covenant of love,
And the third Rome lies in the dust,
And there won’t be a fourth.”
The meaning, one might say, is directly opposite to Blok’s. “Pan-Mongolism caresses the ear” - Solovyov’s work here is not a masochistic intoxication with the power of that beginning that will destroy everything that is most sacred and dear to you. There is rather reverence for the grandeur of God’s plan, bitter satisfaction from the awareness of the Supreme Justice.
Soloviev warns his people, who listen to flatterers and fall into pride: the Third Rome will suffer the fate of the Second Rome if it is not understood that greatness, unique spirituality, a special historical path, etc., impose additional moral obligations, and do not free them from them.
In Solovyov’s “East”, “Mongoloids” are a blind instrument of God’s wrath. For the Bloc, they are “our” possible ally against Europe, a means of intimidating it (at least, exerting pressure).
Soloviev threatens his own with Mongols, Blok threatens strangers.
On the formal side, “Scythians” is a speech addressed to the intended enemy. So to speak, a word before the battle. “To the Slanderers of Russia” immediately comes to mind (the critic Evgeniy Lundberg drew attention to this similarity before us): Pushkin also constructs the poem as a warning to enemies against attacking Russia. It will be worse for you, they say!
“Slanderers of Russia,” we recall, was born as a response to the evil Russophobic campaign launched by the then European liberals, who threatened military intervention in response to the forced actions of Emperor Nicholas to restore order in Poland, where illegal armed groups were openly operating.
The poem “Scythians” was completed on January 30, 1918, in a situation that was also very alarming. Peace negotiations in Brest turn into a terrible humiliation for Soviet Russia. Accepting German conditions means, in the opinion of many Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, signing to the whole world that the October Revolution was carried out in the interests of Germany. If you don’t accept it while maintaining your honor and dignity, then there will be a German invasion.
So, the true goal of the brilliant Russian poets is to convince their enemies to refrain from war with Russia? But: when the minister public education Count Uvarov translated “Slanderers of Russia” into French and asked the author for permission to publish - Pushkin refused him. Why would that be if he really wanted to reach out to Europe? Perhaps he was disgusted by the low-quality translation, in which poetic invective was reduced to abuse. Perhaps Pushkin wanted this poem to remain a subject “for internal use.”
If “Scythians” really had foreigners as its addressee, the poems should have been immediately translated into basic European languages, printed in the form of leaflets and scattered from airplanes over the trenches. As far as we know, no such attempts were made in the winter of 1918. Other texts were used for anti-war propaganda.
So, both poems can hardly be considered as a call for peace. Both poetic speeches are aimed not at reassuring the enemy and instilling fear in him, but at encouraging their own. Not “we are not afraid of YOU,” but “we are not afraid of THEM.”
It's something like a boxer saying before a fight: “I'm the best, and he's a piece of crap and a weakling!” I’ll tear him apart like Tuzik’s hot water bottle,” he’s not saying to another boxer, but he’s turning on himself and his fans. It’s like Gogol’s Cossacks and Poles tease each other on the eve of a battle to relieve their own stress.
“An inspiring Word to our comrades before the battle about the inevitability of our victory,” this is how the genre of “Scythians” could be clarified.
The elements of this genre are provocation, that is, as if inciting the enemy to attack, insulting and belittling the enemy, boasting, unfolding a picture of the terrible future that awaits the enemy after inevitable defeat.
Pushkin goads his enemies: “You are formidable in words - try it in deeds,” “So send us, Vitya, // Your embittered sons...”. Blok also encourages: “Come on, hit it! What, weak O?»:
“Try and fight us!”
“Go everyone, go to the Urals!”
According to Pushkin, the warriors of the West will find their final refuge in the fields of Russia. According to Blok, the West will be punished by the curse of descendants, and while the Scythians will calmly watch the mortal battle from the sidelines, “The ferocious Hun // Will rummage through the pockets of corpses, // Burn the cities, and drive the herd to the church, // And fry the meat of the white brothers!..”.
(It is implied that corpses, cities, churches are all European.)
Europe is insulted primarily for its ingratitude. We redeemed her freedom, honor and peace with our blood - she hates us for it. We held a shield, shielding Europe from the Mongols, and the Europeans in response robbed the Scythians, hoarded and melted their pearls and even “Scoffing, they only counted the time // When to point the guns!”
For Pushkin, national boasting is connected with the glorious past, the inexhaustibility of demographic resources and the immensity of the territory: “Or is it new for us to argue with Europe? Or is the Russian unaccustomed to victories? Or are we few?.. From Perm to Taurida, from the cold Finnish rocks to fiery Colchis...”
Blok also has these motives ( "Millions- you. Us- darkness, and darkness, and darkness", for example), but others predominate. The Scythians are immeasurably superior to the West as bearers of unique spirituality and piercing intelligence.
Yes, we are wild Asians,” the Scythian speaker accepts the challenge, “but at the same time, our young and fresh culture stands much higher than your rotting civilization. Here, would you like: Lisbon and Messina, integral, Paestum, Oedipus... - how many Europeans can boast of such lexical wealth? This is how we are: we just pretend to be wild, but in reality we understand everything, the sharp Gallic meaning, the gloomy German genius, and even more...
(For the sake of decency, one should ask the Gauls and Germans themselves for confirmation whether their keen sense and gloomy genius were fully mastered by the Scythians, but... we are dealing with a different genre, for which evidence and justification are contraindicated. Declarations must be unfounded by definition.)
According to the laws of the “word to comrades” genre, compliments of one’s own are complemented by mockery of strangers, national pride is asserted through discrediting enemies. “We” are the embodiment of almost all national perfections, “they” are a collection of vices and shortcomings, which is clearly seen from the following correlative characteristics:
We, Scythians: true culture, universality, limitless capacity for love, all-human receptivity and responsiveness, spirituality, inexhaustible potential, universality, future, eternal, vitality.
They, Europe, are the old world: ostentatious culture, narrowness, lovelessness, selfishness, mechanicalness, exhaustion, vanity and frailty, deadness.
And most importantly: the Scythians are a revolution, Europe is inert, conservative beginning. The primordial national Russian is at the same time world-revolutionary, bringing spiritual transformation to all humanity; “Russia” does not by chance rhyme with “messiah”.
The same idea was expressed by many other Russian contemporary poets:
Valery Bryusov: “Ahead of everyone, country leader, // You raised a torch above the darkness, // Illuminating the way for the people... We are to be with you, we are to glorify // Your greatness for centuries.”
Marietta Shaginyan: “The fading sun of the West is ready to rise in the East.”
Sergei Yesenin put it best in a letter from Germany: “Even though we are Asians, even if we smell bad, we scratch our butt cheeks without embarrassment, and everyone can see our ischial cheeks, but we don’t stink as cadaverously as they stink inside. (Let me remind you that this is talking about the country of Thomas Mann, Gerhard Hauptmann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Richard Strauss, Max Reinhardt, Albert Einstein! - A.H.) There can be no revolution here. Everything has come to a standstill. Only the invasion of barbarians like us will save and rebuild them. We need a campaign against Europe” (I quote from the wonderful book by Mikhail Agursky “The Ideology of National Bolshevism”).
Blok emphasized the ambivalence of the attitude of the “Scythians” to Europe: “with hatred and love,” while Yesenin, as a “classical” populist, does not allow any duality. Messianism, also known as Blok's revolutionary nationalism, is defensive in nature - Yesenin, in the spirit of Trotsky-Tukhachevsky, dreams of a campaign against Europe - for the sake of its own salvation. Indeed, some highly poetic thoughts in prose sound surprisingly vulgar boasting.
Critic D. Mirsky, characterizing Blok’s patriotism, noted that the poet’s image of Russia is very mystifying and ambiguous. The same can be said about other ethno-geographical images: Scythians, Mongols, Europe - this is all very conditional, each word should be put in quotation marks. Europe, in any case, is a purely abstract “West”, and not a real continent divided by fronts. This “West” comes into existence only because it is hostile to the “Scythians.”
The ferocious Huns should also be put in quotation marks. According to Wikipedia, this Turkic-speaking nomadic tribe appeared on the world stage in the 2nd century AD. e. from the steppes of Altai and the Urals and then created its own state, stretching from the Volga to the Rhine. The Hunnic union of tribes included all sorts of people - Slavs, Goths, Scythians, Sarmatians, Germans. Roman emperors hired Huns to protect them from other Germans. The French called the Germans Huns war propaganda- they say, they are as wild and cruel as the barbarians of antiquity, and their leader Attila (mid-5th century) was portrayed as a fierce monster.
Blok's Huns, rummaging through the pockets of corpses and frying the meat of their white brothers, are the same fairy-tale characters as Blok's Scythians and Blok's Mongols.
“We, like obedient slaves, //Hold a shield between two hostile races, //Mongols and Europe!”
An obedient slave is not capable of heroism or self-sacrifice. Why do the Scythians humiliate themselves so unconvincingly?
We indignantly reject two assumptions: that the great poet may have inaccurate, random words and that the poet used “slaves” only to rhyme with “Europe.” The Russian language is amazingly rich, and without the slightest difficulty one could find a lot of other rhymes. Well, at least: “Without getting out of the trenches, // We held a shield between two hostile races, // Mongols and Europe...”
Does not mean anything! When it was Rus', Russia defended Golden Horde from the European invasion? It is easier to give examples when the Tatars helped Russia against Poland and Lithuania, that is, the West, although they sometimes helped the West against Russia.
In Russian historical memory It was established as an indisputable fact that Russia saved Europe from the Mongols. This opinion is consecrated by the names of Pushkin and Blok. Meanwhile, the most cursory acquaintance with history is enough to make sure that the vast Russian spaces have not swallowed up Mongol invasion. The Tatars, who had not studied Russian patriotic authors, calmly crossed western borders Rus' and left her in the rear. Moreover, Batu’s army was divided, which does not at all indicate his serious weakening after the defeat of the Russian principalities.
Catholic Europe was saved not so much by the sacrifices and martyrdom of the Russians, but by a miracle (or, if you prefer, an accident: he died in time great khan Golden Horde) or its own (more precisely, Polish-Hungarian) heroism, its own sacrifices.
Alexander Blok twice speaks of Russia as Europe’s shield from the East, but his threat to remove the protection and open the way for the Mongols was unlikely to be taken seriously by “beautiful Europe,” because the West simply did not know that it owed its prosperity and protection from the Mongols to Russia. And this is the result of the battle for the Scythians “steel machines, where the integral breathes, with the Mongolian wild horde” obviously predetermined - and not in favor of the integral. For Western civilization, which knew how to deftly control steel machines, the upcoming clash with a wild horde did not inspire horror.
To truly intimidate Europe, it was necessary to convince it of real possibility that the Mongolian savage horde will learn to take integrals and handle machines. But Blok could not even dream of such an option in his worst nightmare.
On January 11, 1918, shortly before the creation of “Scythians,” addressing the enemies of the Russian revolution, he made the following diary entry: “...we will open wide the gates to the East; we will throw ourselves together as Asians, and the East will pour on you. Your skins will be used for Chinese tambourines... We- barbarians? Okay. We will show you what barbarians are.”
Blok certainly believed that in the person of the Asian savages, the unfortunate defeated Russia had natural, reliable and powerful allies at hand. He believed that the “Scythians” had leverage over the “Mongols.” But what grounds were there for such confidence?
Napoleon also said: “China is sleeping, woe if it wakes up!” The weakness of a pampered, decadent Europe in the face of a supposed Sino-Japanese invasion was a topic that was discussed quite lively at the turn of the century, especially in connection with the Yihetuan uprising and Russo-Japanese War, found an echo in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”:
“To summarize our system of curbing goyim governments in Europe, we will show one of them our strength by assassination attempts, that is, terror, and to all of them, if we allow them to rebel against us, we will respond with American, or Chinese, or Japanese cannons” (Protocol 7).
The bloc decided to remind beautiful Europe of its former fears, which had receded before the horrors of the world war. It is unlikely that the poet expected that Lenin would draw specific recommendations from his poem: according to one contemporary, Lenin did not understand Blok even at the level of “what it was about.”
It never occurred to the great poet to consider, for example, the following questions on a practical level:
Are there really countless Asian armies?
Is China, ruined and torn to pieces by opposing generals, able to provide assistance to Soviet Russia?
Are the Asians really looking forward to being called to fight against European steel machines - for the sake of other people’s “Scythian” interests? In particular, the then president of the generals, Feng Guozhang, who replaced the emperor of the generals, Yuan Shikai, is he inclined to broad cooperation with Soviet Russia?
And where is the guarantee that the ferocious Huns will limit their ferocity to the Romano-Germanic race, while the Scythians will be honored and loved purely and tenderly, in any case, will be under their control?
From where, from the top of which mountain, will the Scythians indifferently watch the fight of tigers if the territory of their country becomes an arena for the clash of alien forces? Will the Scythians still have at least a piece of their own land, or will the Germans and Mongols divide everything among themselves?
Such questions may arise, but the poetic imagination is not obliged to answer them.
As for Europe, it was not afraid of the Scythians, nor was it afraid of the Mongols - it did not heed Blok’s poetic prophecies. During that time period Mongolia, Korea, China, Indochina as military-political force could not be taken into account, and Japan did not show the slightest desire to rush to the rescue of the “Scythians.”
"Come into peaceful embraces"- Who is the poetic representative of the Scythians addressing? To Kaiser's Germany? And what answer do the Scythians hope for? “Yeah, right now! Right now, after more than three years of mutual murder, we will forget everything, the comrades will become brothers and sit side by side at a bright feast of work and peace!”
Just like in one of David's psalms:
“What a pleasure to live in brotherhood and work!
It’s like incense running down your beard.”
But it would be a mistake to exaggerate the extent of Blok’s simple and beautiful-hearted dreaminess. The proposal to immediately conclude a “democratic peace without annexations and indemnities” - was it made by the Soviet government in a feverish delirium, in a hashish intoxication? The Bolsheviks were not daydreaming, but (almost) seriously assumed that Lloyd George and Clemenceau, the German and Austrian Kaisers would say to their people: “Sorry, guys, there was a mistake, all the innumerable sacrifices you made were not only useless, but also meaningless. Let's admit that the game ended in a draw."
The point is not only that the governments were not ready to say this, but also that the people were not ready to listen to this.
Invitation to enemies "go to the Urals" and promise “We will open wide through the wilds and forests!” they look like just figures poetic speech, that is, completely irresponsible fantasies, not at all intended to practical implementation. But if you remember Trotsky’s thesis, approved by the ruling party, “no peace, no war, we sign no treaty, we disband the army”... What did this mean if not an invitation - come and take us with your bare hands.
Another thing is that Trotsky, unlike Blok, assumed (or rather, hoped) that the Reichswehr generals would not dare to move their troops, and the German proletarians in soldiers' greatcoats would refuse to go against their revolutionary class brothers. Blok, as can be judged from his diaries and letters, considered the battle of the Germans with the wild hordes of the East not only possible, but also desirable.
So, Blok’s fantasies are not completely groundless; events that were quite real in their extraordinary nature were refracted in his poetic consciousness in a unique way.
“Today, on an unprecedented day, the great heresy is being realized by the reality of socialism...”
The very atmosphere of those days was fantastic. Yes, the year one thousand nine hundred and eighteen was great and terrible. The boundaries between utopia, dream, desperate bluff, crazy adventure, poetic hyperbole - and a far-sighted strategy, a political plan calculating to the point of cynicism, were blurred.
The Soviet government, itself barely holding on, plotted to fan the flames of world revolution. The East occupied a prominent place in these plans. A few years later, Herbert Wells would talk with irony about the Muslim natives with whom the Bolsheviks pinned their hopes of crushing the old world. Winston Churchill, either with sympathy or with gloating, will note that in Soviet Russia “everything extraordinary and contrasting is drowned by a wide Asian flood.”
Attempts to draw into the “revolutionary orbit” and “lead liberation struggle peoples" the Bolsheviks began to undertake almost immediately after they seized power. But Islamic East(Türkiye, Persia, Afghanistan) aroused more interest in them than the Confucian-Buddhist East. In any case, the idea of inciting the Chinese against Europe would probably have seemed too eccentric to Lenin and Trotsky: they, real politicians, knew well how deeply China was mired in its own disasters to connect geopolitical plans with it.
But Blok was a poet, not a real politician.
Politics rejects the poet's daring ideas as nonsense and absurdity. But the poet brilliantly solves problems before which politics powerlessly retreats.
"Scythians" is a highly patriotic work. This is both a statement of the outstanding role of Russia in the new history of mankind, and a call to protect the world's first people's state. The pathos of the poem is in the idea of peace, which is expressed especially excitedly and passionately because it was written under the impression of rumors about the expected attack of the Germans, who took advantage of Trotsky’s betrayal in Brest.”
An invitation to Western foreigners to go to the Urals and a willingness to let the wild Mongol horde into Russia is, of course, the height of patriotism!
Alexander Blok was, of course, a Russian patriot, but not in the same sense as Alexander Prokhanov.
Korney Chukovsky considered Blok an “extreme nationalist”, “who, not embarrassed by anything, wants to see holiness even in abomination, if this abomination is native...” (I quote again from the mentioned book by M. Agursky).
At other times, for other Russian nationalists, what is native is always sacred and cannot be an abomination - by definition.
“Blood is love” has long been considered a very good rhyme. The main thing is that in this rhyme the Russian language perfectly combines military-patriotic rhetoric with erotic one.
Alexander Blok very successfully uses this bold and fresh consonance twice in the adjacent stanzas of “Scythians”:
"Russia- Sphinx! Rejoicing and mourning,
And dripping with black blood,
She looks, looks, looks at you
Both with hatred and with love!..
Yes, to love as our blood loves,
None of you have been in love for a long time!
Have you forgotten that there is love in the world,
Which both burns and destroys!”
“Scythians” is filled not only with blood and warlike statements, but also with love. The Beast's love for the Beauty.
The beautiful Europe (it is not for nothing that she is called beautiful) is capricious, treacherous, does not know how to love at all, and on occasion she can instruct like music, that is, a strong flow of sounds; poem:emnbsp;lip; No, not horns, but gun muzzles.
The monster is a generalized Scythian, whose external ugliness (narrow-eyedness), as is commonly believed, is more than compensated for internal virtues. His feelings for Beauty are contradictory and ambiguous, there is something to hate her for, but love still outweighs. And how can one not love Europe and everything connected with it: the heat of cold numbers and the gift of divine visions, the sharp Gallic sense and the gloomy German genius... Paris, Venice, Cologne...
(True, that historical moment Paris and Cologne were mortal enemies, sharp sense and gloomy genius came together once again for a bloody battle, but Skif looks at Europe from such cosmic heights that he does not notice such details or neglects them.)
The Beast's interest is obvious. According to the classic fairy tale, one of the versions of which is familiar to us from Aksakov’s “The Scarlet Flower,” if the Beauty falls in love with the Beast, he will immediately turn into a handsome prince. But what reason does Beauty have to reciprocate the Beast’s feelings?
Trying to clarify the genre of the poem, above we called it “Inspirational word before the battle.” But with the same success one can characterize “Scythians” as a passionate and eloquent love confession of the Beast to the Beauty. A stream of words aimed at inducing Beauty to love. A variety of methods are used. There are gentle coos and generous promises: “Come to us! From the horrors of war // Come into the arms of peace! // Until it's not too late- old sword in sheath, // Comrades! We will become- brothers!”, “To the fraternal feast of labor and peace, // For the last time to the bright fraternal feast // The barbaric lyre calls!”. There is outright blackmail here...
One subtlety: Skif entrusted a European to speak about his feelings for Europe, who cajoles the picky lady in a language that is understandable and familiar to her (speaking on behalf of the client “I”, “We”, instead of “he”, “they” is a common lawyer technique , giving special liveliness and expressiveness to speeches). Skif himself would not have connected two such beautiful words. When he is inadvertently given the floor, he expresses himself very clearly:
“We are accustomed to grabbing by the bridle // Zealous playing horses, // Breaking horses’ heavy rumps // And pacifying obstinate slaves...”
"Pacify the Slaves"- this is our way! In another situation, Skif would not have wasted time winning the Beauty’s favor!
Poor Europe... According to Skif (or the lawyer representing his interests), Beauty has only two options:
1) Respond to the feeling of the Beast, see him as a handsome prince, merge with him in a tender embrace - and at the same time, with a high degree of probability, die from manifestations of carnal passion, and the Beast abdicates all responsibility in advance ("We love the flesh- and its taste, and color, // And the stuffy, mortal smell of flesh... // Are we to blame if your skeleton crunches // In our heavy, tender paws?”);
2) Do not answer the call of the Beast, do not come into peaceful embraces - with guaranteed dire consequences: The Beast will refuse to protect Beauty, and she will become easy prey for the ferocious Hun.
But Beauty did not believe the Beast, considering all his threats to be just a bluff.
History sometimes creates amazing things! Less than a hundred years have passed, and look how everything has changed: the proud descendants of the Scythians discovered with bitterness and surprise that the Confucian ethics of China differs little from the despicable Protestant ethics of the West - the same unspiritual rationality and naked pragmatism, the same methodical perseverance, workaholism, sobriety - in short, boredom, philistinism. And the same Russophobia in the West and in the East.
Now "millions"- us, and "darkness, and darkness, and darkness"- them, narrow-eyed, and for them this one moment is what centuries are for us. And the Mongoloids are pushing both Western Europeans and the “Scythians” not only in the production of steel machines with a breathing integral inside, but also in such fiefdoms of unique spirituality as classical ballet and classical music.
Today's Scythians are afraid eastern neighbors more Western ones. They are afraid that the ex "wild Mongol horde" calmly, imperceptibly, without fighting, he will take into his hands everything that the Scythians have in bad possession - and what do they have in good hands now?
Blok's plot suddenly became relevant again. Those old Scythians honestly and openly wanted to play Mongolian map against Europe. The current “Scythians” are trying to play Chinese map before the insidious West (“but now we will give Siberia with all its depths not to you, but to them!”), and China is offered to be friends against the West. The Chinese become irritated by this skillful tactic from time to time, and they stop hiding their cold contempt for the Scythian treachery.
We are the best, we are the chosen ones, our possibilities are inexhaustible, we have a special destiny and a special purpose, standing between the West and the East, we surpass both! - how long ago did the “Scythians” pronounce this with proud calm and complete faith?
And today... Alas, there is no great poet in Russia who would encourage and inspire his compatriots in times of difficult trials. Or at least described what was happening in words, albeit not very clear, but exciting, moving, touching the soul...
However, poetry is not obliged to answer questions that politicians helplessly throw up their hands in the face of.
This article will present an analysis of Blok's poem "Scythians", as well as his summary. It is noteworthy that this last piece poet. He wrote nothing more until 1921 (the year of his death).
History of creation
Blok wrote his poem in record time. “Scythians” (it is better to start the analysis with the history of creation) appeared in just two days - January 29 and 30. The year 1918 was marked by a significant creative upswing for the poet. At the beginning of the year he created “The Twelve”, then the article “Intellectuals and Revolution”, and at the end - the poem we are considering.
The reason that prompted Blok to write the work was purely political. According to the poet's diary entries, he closely followed the peace negotiations held in Brest-Litovsk Soviet power with the Germans. Their unexpected breakdown caused a storm of emotions and indignation in the writer: “... vile bourgeois, German trash... We looked at you with Aryan eyes while you had a face. And we will look at your face with our sly, quick glance; we will throw ourselves together as Asians, and the East will pour on you... Are we barbarians? Okay." This short passage contains the key to understanding the meaning of the poem.
It is also necessary to mention that in 1917 a revolution occurred and the Bolsheviks came to power.
Blok ("Scythians") gives a special place to Russia in his work. An analysis of the poem suggests that he imagined his homeland as a certain boundary that separated the West and the East, at the same time defending the former from the attacks of the latter and performing the functions of an ambassador and establishing relations. That is why Russia deserves to be treated with respect and honor, but enmity with it can lead to disaster.
In his work, Blok addresses a huge number of interlocutors: “Millions of you.” That is, to the entire European world, he called on it to think about the role and value of Russia.
Main part and denouement
Analysis of the poem “Scythians” by Alexander Blok makes it possible to evaluate the work as a warning to the enemies of our country. The poet asks you to listen to yourself and come to your senses, he threatens - Russia will find something to answer the aggressor. However, the conflict can end horribly: “...for centuries you will be cursed by your sick later offspring.”
Blok is confident that Russia is capable of living in peace with all European countries: “We will become brothers.” And if a world conflict arises, the renewed homeland will simply not take part in it, since it has other interests.
The poem ends with a patriotic call: “... come to your senses, old world.” The poet calls on Europe for reconciliation and unification, otherwise disaster cannot be avoided. The anti-war intonations are heard most clearly in the verse.
Blok, “Scythians”: analysis
The work can be called a revolutionary-patriotic ode. It consists of 12 quatrains, that is, 76 lines written in iambic heterometers. Literary scholars put this poem on a par with such great works as “To the Slanderers of Russia” (Pushkin) and “The Last Housewarming” (Lermontov).
The work is a direct reflection historical situation Russia of those years. It was a very scary and tense time - a new state, born in the fire of the October Revolution, was just beginning to take shape. There is no doubt that all this was reflected in Blok’s poem.
Theme and idea
The peace-loving Blok remains true to himself. “Scythians” (analysis confirms this) call for harmony and peace. In almost every stanza, the poet says that after all the horrors suffered, it’s time to sit down at the negotiating table and join forces.
Russia has already suffered enough over the previous few years, and now it has no desire to get involved in new war with the Old World. In addition, the young country has its own plans for the future, and there is no need for it to interfere in other people’s squabbles, which is why it will watch everything from the side with “slanted eyes.”
An analysis of Blok’s poem “Scythians” suggests that anti-war themes come to the fore. The poet identifies Russia with the Scythians and, despite calls for peace, makes it clear that she has enough strength to repel any enemy who dares to set foot on her lands: “... we have nothing to lose, and treachery is available to us.” The writer has his own opinion regarding identity in Russia; he assigns it one of the most fateful roles for the world.
For many centuries, our homeland, according to the poet, served as a “shield” separating Asia and Europe and preventing their direct clashes. On the one hand, Europe was hungry for wealth Asian countries, their secrets and mysteries. On the other hand, the Mongol horde could break into the lands of the Old World and capture them. Only thanks to Russia, which took the blow, not a single side was harmed. Our homeland appears as a peacemaker in this situation. Blok emphasizes the high sacred meaning of Russia’s existence.
The poem is imbued with patriotism. Despite the fact that the poet calls for peace, he does not diminish the strength of his country. On the contrary, he emphasizes that if necessary, Russia will be able to respond. But why resurrect the horrors of war, which are already fresh in memory. Thin world, from Blok’s point of view, is better than a good battle.
The middle of the poem is noteworthy. Here the author paints his homeland in a new way - it appears to the reader as a “wise Sphinx”, who, despite the fact that he himself bleeds “black blood”, is ready to help or give advice if necessary. The work ends with a direct humanistic appeal, filled with peace and patriotism.
“Scythians” (Block): analysis by stanzas
Let's look at a few quatrains:
- In the first, the poet addresses European countries. He calls the Russian people Scythians, hinting at attitudes towards Russia as a barbarian country.
- In the second just we're talking about about how our homeland served as a shield for many centuries.
- In the third, the poet looks back at Europe's prosperous and carefree past.
- In the fifth, the theme of conquest appears - the greedy gaze with which the Old World looked at the East is described.
- The seventh quatrain describes modernity: “trouble” is approaching, with every day “multiple resentments.” But this will not lead to anything good.
- In the eighth, the image of Russia the Sphinx appears for the first time, looking around “with both hatred and love.”
From the poem it becomes clear how much Alexander Blok worried about the fate of his country and the whole world. “Scythians” (analysis presented in this article) are a kind of cry from the soul. It is painful for the poet to look at the horror that surrounds him. But he understands that if nothing changes, it will be much worse.
Contemporary assessment
An analysis of Blok’s poem “Scythians” showed how topical this work was for its time. However, the reaction to him from his contemporaries was ambiguous. Many did not like the challenge sounded in the poem, the sharp patriotic and civic pathos.
The writer himself spoke very coldly about “Scythians”; he did not like how they came out. Blok even called them “boring.”
