Chelyabinsk lecture by Fedor Sologub. Prashkevich Gennady: The most famous poets of Russia Fedor Kuzmich Sologub

The mother was forced to return “as a mere servant” to the Agapov family, St. Petersburg nobles, for whom she had once served. The future writer spent his entire childhood and adolescence in the Agapov family. The future writer felt his poetic gift at the age of twelve, and the first completed poems that have come down to us date back to . The same year, Fyodor Teternikov entered the St. Petersburg Teachers' Institute. He studied and lived at the institute (the institution was on a boarding basis) for four years. After graduating from the institute in June 1882, he, taking his mother and sister, went to teach in the northern provinces - first in Krestsy, then in Velikiye Luki (in 1885) and Vytegra (in 1889) - spending a total of ten years in the province .

Service in the province (1882-1892)

In St. Petersburg (1893-1906)

During the First Russian Revolution of 1905-06. Sologub's political tales, published in revolutionary magazines, enjoyed great success. “Fairy tales” are a special genre for Fyodor Sologub. Brief, with a simple and witty plot, often beautiful prose poems, and sometimes repulsive with their stuffy reality, they were written for adults, although Sologub liberally used children's vocabulary and techniques of children's fairy tales. In 1905, Sologub collected part of the fairy tales published by that time in the “Book of Fairy Tales” (Grif publishing house), and the “political fairy tales” written at the same time were included in the book of the same name, published in the fall of 1906. In addition to newspaper articles and “fairy tales,” Sologub responded to the revolution with his fifth book of poems, “Motherland.” It was published in April 1906.

"Little Demon"

In the summer of 1902, the novel “The Little Demon” was completed. As stated in the preface, the novel took ten years to write (1892-1902). It was not easy to get the novel into print; for several years Sologub applied to the editors of various magazines - the manuscript was read and returned, the novel seemed “too risky and strange.” Only at the beginning of 1905 was it possible to publish the novel in the journal “Questions of Life”, but its publication was cut short at issue 11 due to the closure of the magazine, and “The Little Demon” went unnoticed by the general public and critics. Only when the novel was published as a separate edition, in March 1907, did the book not only receive fair recognition from readers and become the object of analysis by critics, but simply became one of the most popular books in Russia.

The novel depicts the soul of the sinister sadistic teacher Ardalyon Borisych Peredonov against the backdrop of the dull, meaningless life of a provincial town. “His feelings were dull, and his consciousness was a corrupting and killing apparatus,” Peredonov is described in the novel. - Everything that reached his consciousness was transformed into abomination and dirt. The defects in the objects caught his eye and made him happy. He had no favorite objects, just as he had no favorite people, and therefore nature could only act on his feelings in one direction, only oppress them.” Sadism, envy and extreme egoism drove Peredonov to complete delirium and loss of reality. Like Login, the hero of “Heavy Dreams,” Peredonov is afraid of life itself. His horror and darkness broke out and was embodied in the unrealistic “non-puncture”.

Address to the theater (1907-1912)

When the revolutionary events subsided, the works of Fyodor Sologub finally attracted the attention of a wide readership, primarily thanks to the publication of The Little Demon in March 1907. Sologub had by that time abandoned journalism and fairy tales, concentrating on drama and a new novel - “The Legend in the Making” (“Navy Chary”). In the fall of 1907, Sologub began preparing the seventh book of poems (these were translations from Verlaine), upon the release of which he planned to publish the eighth book of poems, “The Flame Circle,” which embodied all of Sologub’s mathematical symbolism.

“Born not for the first time and not the first time completing the circle of external transformations, I calmly and simply open my soul,” the poet writes in the introduction to “The Flame Circle.” “I open it, I want the intimate to become global.” Affirming the connection of all his searches and experiences, Sologub consistently identified nine sections of the book. The motifs of the book seem to have a triple nature, and their development proceeds in three directions: along the line of reflecting the reality of the historical situation, along philosophical and poetic lines. In “The Faces of Experience” the poet appears in different guises - from the Nuremberg executioner to a dog. From the poetic and mythical he moves to “earthly imprisonment,” where there are no prayers, no salvation from “black death.”

The first major critical analyzes of Sologub’s poetic work date back to the time of the appearance of “The Flame Circle.” Ivanov-Razumnik (“Fyodor Sologub”, 1908), Innokenty Annensky, Lev Shestov (“The Poetry and Prose of Fyodor Sologub”, 1909) thoughtfully approached his poetry. Bryusov, with his characteristic pedantry, discovers that “in 1 volume of Sologub’s works, with 177 poems, there are more than 100 different meters and stanza structures, an attitude that is unlikely to be found in any of the modern poets.” Andrei Bely came to the conclusion that of the modern poets, only Blok and Sologub are exceptionally rich in rhythms; in them he stated “genuine rhythmic breathing.” Many have noted that Sologub’s poetic world operates according to its own laws, everything in it is interconnected and symbolically logical. “Sologub is a whimsical poet and capricious, although not at all a pedant-erudite,” notes Annensky. “As a poet, he can only breathe in his own atmosphere, but his very poems crystallize themselves, he does not build them.” Some critics were confused by the consistent non-existence of images: first death, and then transformation, then again death or Satanism, and were irritated by the constant use of already stated symbols. Korney Chukovsky saw in this the symbolism of inviolability, mortal peace. “And isn’t it strange that [...] Sologub has his cherished images - the same ones that so recently excited us on his pages: Aldonsa, Dulcinea, the ruddy woman, Oile, “enchantment”, “legend in the making” - everything For some reason, these have now become everyday, ready-made, memorized words for him - so to speak, canned food of past inspirations.”

Subsequent dramatic works were dominated by plots from modern life. In general, Sologub's dramas were rarely shown in theaters, and for the most part they were unsuccessful productions. Sologub, as a theater theorist, shared Vyach’s ideas. Ivanov, V. E. Meyerhold and N. Evreinov (“to transport the viewer himself to the stage” was defined by Evreinov as the task of monodrama in the brochure “Introduction to Monodrama”). Sologub outlined his views on theater in an expanded form in the essay “Theater of One Will” (collection “Theater”, 1908) and the note “Hofmannsthal’s Evening” (1907).

In the early 1910s, Fyodor Sologub became interested in futurism. In 1912, Sologub, mainly through Chebotarevskaya, became close to a group of St. Petersburg ego-futurists (Ivan Ignatiev, Vasilisk Gnedov, etc.). Sologub's lyrics were consonant with the ideas of egofuturism, and Sologub and Chebotarevskaya took part with interest in the almanacs of the egofuturist publishing houses “The Enchanted Wanderer” by Viktor Khovin and “The Petersburg Herald” by Ignatiev. Through the latter, Sologub in October 1912 met the author of poems that greatly interested him - 25-year-old poet Igor Severyanin, and soon after that he gave him an evening in his salon.

"A Legend in the Making"

Sologub’s aesthetic quests, consistently substantiated in the essay “I. The Book of Perfect Self-Assertion" (1906), "Man to Man is the Devil" (1906) and "Demons of the Poets" (1907) finally formed the rich symbolism of the "legend in the making."

In the article “Demons of Poets” and the preface to translations of Paul Verlaine, Fyodor Sologub reveals two poles that define all poetry: “lyrical” and “ironic” (Sologub gives lyricism and irony its own meaning, used only in its context: lyricism takes a person away from hateful reality , the irony reconciles him with her). To illustrate his understanding of poetic creativity, Sologub takes Cervantes' Don Quixote and his ideal - Dulcinea of ​​Toboso (visible to everyone as the peasant woman Aldonsa). The writer will repeatedly turn to this dualistic symbol over the next few years in journalism and drama. Sologub saw the real, living embodiment of this dream of Don Quixote in the art of the American dancer Isadora Duncan.

Sologub expressed his ideas in fictionalized form in the trilogy novel “The Legend in the Making” (1905-1913). Initially, the cycle of novels he conceived was called “Navi Charms”, and the first part was called “The Legend in the Making” (1906), followed by “Drops of Blood”, “Queen Ortrud” and “Smoke and Ashes” (in two parts), - all they were published 1907-1913. Then Sologub abandoned such a decadent title in favor of “The Legend in the Making,” which was more consistent with the idea of ​​the novel. The final edition of “The Legend in the Making”, already as a trilogy, was placed in XVIII-XX volumes. Collected works of the Sirin publishing house (1914); a year earlier, the novel was published in Germany in German). The novel raised eyebrows among critics.

In the next novel by Fyodor Sologub, “Sweeter than Poison” (1912), on the contrary, there was no mysticism. It was a drama about the love of a bourgeois girl Shani and a young nobleman Eugene. “The Legend in the Making” turns into a half-farce, half-tragedy; Sologub shows the bitterest irony of the feat of life transformation. The novel was written after “The Legend in the Making,” although it was conceived much earlier.

Tour of Russia 1913-1917

Against the backdrop of increased public interest in new art and in the writings of the author of “The Legend in the Making” in particular, Fyodor Sologub conceived a series of trips around the country with poetry readings and lectures on new art that promoted the principles of symbolism. After thorough preparation and the premiere of the lecture “The Art of Our Days” on March 1, 1913 in St. Petersburg, the Sologubs went on tour together with Igor Severyanin. Their trip to Russian cities lasted for more than a month (from Vilna to Simferopol and Tiflis.

The main theses of the lecture “The Art of Our Days” were compiled by Chebotarevskaya, who diligently organized the credo of Sologubov’s aesthetics according to his articles. At the same time, the previous works of D. S. Merezhekovsky, N. Minsky, V. I. Ivanov, A. Bely, K. D. Balmont and V. Ya. Bryusov were taken into account. Sologub develops the idea of ​​the relationship between art and life. According to him, true art influences life, makes a person look at life with already experienced images, but it also encourages action. Without art, life becomes just everyday life, but with art, the transformation of life itself begins, that is, creativity. And if it is sincere, it will always be ethically justified - thus morality becomes dependent on aesthetics.

After the first performances, it turned out that Sologub’s lectures were not very well received, despite being sold out in many cities. Reviews of the speeches in the press were also ambiguous: some did not accept Sologub’s views at all, some wrote about them as a beautiful fiction, and everyone reproached the lecturer for his reluctance to somehow establish contact with the public. And the reading of poetry by Igor Severyanin, who completed Sologub’s lectures on the first tour, was generally considered by observers as a deliberate mockery of literature and listeners. “Sologub,” wrote Vladimir Gippius, “decided with his lecture to express a confession of symbolism... and made a stern and gloomy speech... The abyss between this sad man and youth, which hesitantly or indifferently applauded him, is deep.” Sologub, who carefully monitored all comments about himself in the press, was aware of such assessments of the lecture, but did not try to change anything in the nature of the speeches. The tours were resumed and continued until the spring of 1914, culminating in a series of lectures in Berlin and Paris.

The success of the lectures prompted Fyodor Sologub to expand his cultural activities, which resulted in the founding of his own magazine “Diaries of Writers” and the society “Art for All”. Sologub also took part in the Russian Society for the Study of Jewish Life, created jointly with Leonid Andreev and Maxim Gorky. Jewish question always interested the writer: back in his articles of 1905, Sologub called for the eradication of all official anti-Semitism, and in 1908, Sologub began the novel “Substituted” (not completed) - on the topic of the relationship between Jews and knights in medieval Germany. In the winter of 1915, Sologub, on behalf of the Society, went to a meeting with Grigory Rasputin in order to find out about his attitude towards Jews (why he turned from an anti-Semite into a supporter of Jewish full rights). One of the fruits of the “Society for the Study of Jewish Life” was the collection “Shield” (1915), in which Sologub’s articles on the Jewish question were published.

Years of revolution (1917-1921)

Last years (1921-1927)

In mid-1921, the Soviet government issued several decrees that marked the beginning of the era of the New Economic Policy, after which publishing and printing activities immediately revived and foreign relations were restored. At the same time, new books by Fyodor Sologub appeared: first in Germany and Estonia and then in Soviet Russia.

The first of these books by Sologub was the novel “The Snake Charmer,” published in the early summer of 1921 in Berlin. The novel was written intermittently from 1911 to 1918 and became the last in the writer’s work. Inheriting the realistic and even narrative of the previous novel, “Sweeter than Poison,” “The Snake Charmer” turned out to be strangely far from everything that Sologub had previously written. The plot of the novel boiled down to simple feudal relations between bar and workers, unfolding in the picturesque Volga expanses. The first post-revolutionary book of poems, “The Blue Sky,” was published in September 1921 in Estonia (where the Sologubs were trying to go at that time). In “Blue Sky” Sologub selected unpublished poems from 1916-21. The same publishing house published Sologub's last collection of stories, “Numbered Days.”

From the end of 1921, Sologub’s books began to be published in Soviet Russia: the poetry collections “Incense” (1921), “One Love” (1921), “Road Fire” (1922), “Cathedral Blaze” (1922), “The Magical Cup” were published "(1922), the novel "The Snake Charmer" (1921), a separate illustrated edition of the short story "The Queen of Kisses" (1921), translations (Honoré de Balzac, Paul Verlaine, Heinrich von Kleist). New books of poetry defined the same moods outlined in “The Blue Sky.” Along with the prevailing poems recent years, those that were written several decades ago were also included. The collection “The Magical Cup” especially stood out for its integrity.

Fyodor Sologub remained in the USSR and continued to work fruitfully, wrote a lot - but everything was “on the table”: he was not published. In order to continue active literary activity in such conditions, Sologub threw himself headlong into the work of the St. Petersburg Union of Writers (in January 1926, Sologub was elected chairman of the Union). Activities in the Writers' Union allowed Sologub to overcome loneliness, filling all his time, and expand his social circle: after all, by that time, almost all the former major writers and poets of pre-revolutionary Russia, to whose circle Sologub belonged, ended up abroad.

The last major social event in the life of Fyodor Sologub was the celebration of his anniversary - the fortieth anniversary of literary activity - celebrated on February 11, 1924. The honoring, organized by the writer’s friends, took place in the hall of the Alexandrinsky Theater. E. Zamyatin, M. Kuzmin, Andrei Bely, O. Mandelstam gave speeches on stage; among the organizers of the celebration are A. Akhmatova, Akim Volynsky, V. Rozhdestvensky. As one of the guests noted, everything went so great, “as if everyone had forgotten that they were living under Soviet rule.” This celebration paradoxically turned out to be the farewell of Russian literature to Fyodor Sologub: none of the congratulators at the time, as well as the poet himself, imagined that after the holiday not a single new book of his would be published. There was hope for translations, which Sologub was busy with in 1923-1924, but most of them did not see the light of day during Sologub’s lifetime.

In the mid-20s. Sologub returned to public speaking and reading poetry. As a rule, they took place in the form of “writers’ evenings”, where, along with Sologub, A. A. Akhmatova, E. Zamyatin, A. N. Tolstoy, M. Zoshchenko, V. Rozhdestvensky, K. Fedin, K. Vaginov and others performed. . New poems by Sologub could only be heard from the author’s lips on the St. Petersburg and Tsarskoe Selo stages (Sologub spent the summer months of 1924-1927 in Tsarskoe Selo), since they did not appear in print. At the same time, at the beginning of 1925 and in the spring of 1926, Sologub wrote about a dozen anti-Soviet fables; they were read only in a narrow circle. According to R.V. Ivanov-Razumnik, “until the end of his days, Sologub fiercely hated Soviet power, and never called the Bolsheviks anything other than “stupid-minded.” As an internal opposition to the regime (especially after the issue of emigration disappeared) there was a rejection of the new spelling and new style of chronology in creativity and personal correspondence. Having little hope for the publication of his books, Sologub nevertheless himself, shortly before his death, compiled two collections of poems from 1925-27. - “Atoll” and “Grumant”.

In May 1927, in the midst of work on the novel in verse “Grigory Kazarin,” Fyodor Sologub became seriously ill. He had been ill for a long time, and the disease had been more or less suppressed before, but now the complication turned out to be incurable. Since the summer, the writer almost never got out of bed. In the fall, the disease began to worsen. The poet died long and painfully. The poet's last poems were dated October 1, 1927.

Fyodor Kuzmich, despite his impoverished childhood and no less impoverished youth as a teacher (he taught mathematics), wanted to live well: drink “liangxing” (Chinese tea) in the mornings with Filippov’s kalach and even have a bathroom - a solid arrangement at that time. But fate marked him as a great poet, who, as you know, prepares more weeds than bouquets. To begin with, the Kharites gave him a “missing point” on his life’s path - a capricious, playful, sinister creature: he would pretend to be a beautiful dwarf, or a soft, smooth ball-orange, which in reality turned out to be a sticky, prickly hedgehog, or smooth road turned into a sharp stone to the delight of a bare foot, then an imperceptible, corrosive thorn tore the luxurious silk... in a word, the first gift of kharit could only please the original:

Nedotykomka gray

Everything twists and turns in front of me...

Tired with an insidious smile,

Tired of the unsteady squat...

"Misunder": rough objective uncertainty, state, event, terrible state of affairs, something reminiscent of the "demonic force" of archaic Greece:

The windows just turned white in the morning,

Dirty characters flashed into my eyes...

The tail, hooves, horns are dying on the chest of drawers,

The unsteady outline of the young devil is vague.

The poor guy dressed up latest fashion,

And the flower turns red in the frock coat at the side.

That's nothing yet. Upon leaving the bedroom, the lyrical hero is met by a company: a general and three pink singers. Three boxes of matches "The angry general is poking me right in the nose", and then the whole company gallops upward. It’s not easy in the garden either:

...waves his club at me

Behind the prickly tree there is a shaggy old man,

The dwarf, making faces, ran along the path,

Red-haired, red-nosed, all smelling of mint.

The hero, of course, chases the whole gang with an “Amenem”; they, groaning and squealing, answer in unison: “So be it, we’ll leave you until nightfall!”

But why blame the far-fetched “flaw”? It’s easy to explain the above with a hangover from delirium tremens, fever, God knows what else! Nobody argues: “inadequate” is an excellent word, reflecting awkwardness, stupidity, eternal discomfort, chronic trickery, etc.

This is all true. At first, the man and the poet were sharply intertwined. A very “drunk poet” responds to a very poor man, worn out with miserable worries:

This is how I need to live, crazy and vulgar,

While away the days in labor and the nights in the tavern,

It’s sad and fuzzy to greet the silent dawn,

And write poems about death and melancholy.

With rare exceptions, a person settles on the poet, like a double on the shoulders of the hero of “Elixirs of Satan” by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and drives him into his absurd human distance. They annoy each other - no symbiosis, not even a simple union. The poet annoys the person with maxims regarding the meaninglessness of practical existence, the person reproaches the poet... for lack of money. Sologub objects to his double in a light, somewhat Northern manner:

Flowers for the impudent, wine for the strong,

Slaves are obedient to those who dare

There are many abundant gifts in the world

To the one whose heart has turned to stone.

What is nice to people, what is pleasant to people,

What is the inspiration and what is the flight,

All the blessings of life to those who are rude

And he moves forward mercilessly.

Fyodor Sologub opens up to poetry the way his lungs open to fresh air, like a speaker to an appreciative audience. In Russian poetry it is difficult to find such an exceptional master. He seems to “speak in verse” like Pantagruel’s companions near the oracle of the “Divine Bottle”. It’s so natural and unhindered that only later, only ten pages later, we understand: after all, this is a difficult and painful art of poetry!

The gymnasium teacher Fyodor Kuzmich, who, of course, does not believe in any “flaw,” convinces the poet: for the sake of Chinese tea, Filippov’s kalach and a bath, it would not be bad to find a good, hard-working woman for the first time. This provokes the poet's ecstasy. Woman! He begins the poem in a very original way: “I’ve completely lost my mind…”:

I've gone completely crazy

This has become incomparable,

I eat almost nothing

And I smile like a blessed one,

And if they call you a fool,

I will raise my black eyebrows.

My dreams are blooming in paradise,

And here all the days are my humble ones.

Maybe I'll live like this

An unrecognized queen

Teasing the hundred-year-old rumor

Always a crazy tall tale.

Over the past three thousand years, progress has been evident. Homer believed in the reality of the gods more than the carpenter believed in the reality of his hammer. Sologub created a completely Russian image. Russia has always been good because disbelief was expressed openly, naively, rudely - here it was possible to pacify non-believers not only with “crazy fables”, but also with a call for mercy: she is an idiot, and she is an idiot, God forgive her. The only thing that has no end is God's mercy. In addition, “idiot-idiot” corresponds to “tsar-queen” in Russian magical nomenclature. This is higher than father and mother. Something like this: a witch can say “mother of birch leaves,” but will think to herself: “queen of leaves,” that is, the queen of leaves in general. In Rus', the queen is always in hiding, as is the king. The country lived, lives and will live under secret monarchical power; official rulers mean nothing. Fyodor Sologub obviously knew something about this:

And the queen walked towards me,

Just as evil as me

And with her the mad priestess,

Just as evil as me.

To understand these lines, a note is necessary: ​​in the polysemantic, often misunderstanding, magical language, the word “anger” can mean “invisibility,” and the word “madness” can mean “intuition” or, more accurately, “the Orphic mind of the heart.”

Crazy faces were blazing

The same longing as mine,

And the wickedest of enchantments' tales

I stood up like my truth.

In the same context: in magical language "not" and "without" are often lost negative value. “Shameless” is “deaf”, “fable” is a story told by a stranger. At the same time, the usual meaning does not disappear at all. In this regard, balladic poetism acquires complete uncertainty. Whether it is the experience of a poet, or the story of a wanderer, or both. The Russian hidden queen also rules over the mermaids. Hence the persuasiveness of the poem about the mermaid:

Clear and subtle

I see every hair;

A dead child.

Good poetry is characterized by the authenticity of unexpected details. To see a mermaid, you need to, with the help of a counselor (an honest mother, a witch, a merman), acquire a special quality of vision: for example, simultaneously see both a thick tangle of hair and each hair separately:

And I breathe the breath of growth,

An innocent fragrance

And the damp smell of the desert

Mermaid hair.

There is a very subtle point here: in the “mermaid’s hair” the smell of water is combined with the breeze of the hot desert. Why? Water, horror violent death, the torments of soul and body are intertwined in an unimaginable transformation. How did the poet know the story of the mermaid?

She moaned over the water

When her lover left her.

Her lover is young

He hung a stone around her neck.

This requires at least three things: a sacrifice of blood from a vein, throwing gemstone into the water and pronounce “diya” (special spell). Of course, other methods are also suitable here: either you need to hear the wanderer’s “tale”, or create a scene poetically with the help of active imagination, the fantastic modus operandi of the Neoplatonists. It’s curious: the author does not condemn the villain at all; firstly, he could have been confused by a demon, which is similar to evil fate, and secondly, it is unknown whether he is a person or some kind of teratomorphic agent of metamorphosis. And then, is it really so wonderful to be human, is it really so often that people look at us from ambiguous, outwardly human faces? Russia is a strange land. You sit tired on a rotten log, and it suddenly howls, cackles, and begins to tickle you - you hit the sleeping devil; If you stand on a strong, reliable stone, it will turn over, crumble, and throw sand in your eyes; you lie down in the hayloft - there are squeaks, screams, sobs from below, then a fatal bass: it’s no good, Matryona, to wake up an honest family! And then you walk through a sticky copse at night - well, the night is impassable, the surrounding bushes straighten out, they rush after you, rustling, as if they are gossiping. There is a stump towards us - an old man on the stump. Grandfather, what kind of evil is this? This, son, is nonsense, idiots, God forgive me! Be afraid of the Kurovidians, this is a cursed attack...

And you remember “Long-Suffering Russia” by Fyodor Sologub:

Mockery, rage and anger,

Sobs, moans and melancholy. -

Who did she bring out of the grave?

An unforgiving hand?

In Russia they do not make a difference between animate and inanimate things. The poet told N. Minsky the following episode: in the midday heat, he supposedly got tired and lay down somewhere on a slope; I feel the slope swaying and creaking, then he laughed and howled like a whooper; I tossed about, twitched, there was an impossible itch in my leg; I rubbed my eyes, rubbed them, and I saw an old woman nearby groaning and muttering: “He chose an inappropriate place, father. The rooster Basman lives here - he will scratch him with his spurs, and there he will peck him to death.” How not to remember "Long-Suffering Russia":

What is it - laughter or sobbing,

Or the wild howl of an animal,

Or the laughter of goblin, or the roar

Horned bulls behind the wall?

Likewise, they do not make much difference between the dead and the living, between a wall and someone leaning against a wall. Hence the obligatory sayings: “Oh, you little wall, don’t hurt the chicks, oh, you little little girl, don’t scatter the little walls.” The poet's grandmother, a serf peasant woman, was famous for being a witch - she conveyed to Fyodor Sologub a lot of useful information about the “Navy charms”: death always puts a boy with an evil eye at the mill; As soon as you fall asleep by a forest lake and drink some water in the morning, then the crazy (demon) will become your friend. She especially reminded me to cross my pillow many times before going to bed. If there is no protection, you will find the head of a strangled man on your pillow in the morning. So, wrap her in fresh flax and bury her under a willow bush: don’t be afraid, he will find his way home himself.

Over time, the feeling of undeadness and inhabited loneliness developed enormously. This, of course, did not concern the educated man in the street Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov, but his inconvenient companion - the poet. While Fyodor Kuzmich’s businesslike gaze was designing the color of the walls and the direction of the furniture, learned lines crept through the poet’s silence:

Don't touch in the dark

What is unknown -

Perhaps these are the ones

Who is comfortable at home?

But a man and a poet sometimes have joint activities. Of course, nothing serious, a swing, for example. They, however, once again prove that a person cannot fly on his own. The swing is a completely existential device, an illustration of the wisdom of Heraclitus: “The road going up and the road going down are the same road.” In primitive societies, a swing is an important magical utensil: a shaman can swing for days and, when entering a trance, swing with a motionless body. In the famous "Devil's Swing" by Fyodor Sologub, the problem is solved half-funny and half-seriously. If a shaman swings a swing for a minute or two, and then, in a trance, the swing itself stops after a day or two, then everything happens realistically:

The board creaks and bends,

It rubs against a heavy branch

Tight rope.

The game draws you in, captivates you, but rarely makes you forget about the strength of the branch and the friction of the rope. Flight - an indispensable condition escape from the inertia of life. Imagine the pleasure of walking back and forth the distance of the swing many times! But this is what our life comes down to. True, any improvement in boringness is dangerous. “Devil” in Sologub’s poem is not only the initiator of a “happy life”, but also an undoubted destroyer:

I know the devil won't quit

Swift board,

Until I get mowed down

A threatening wave of the hand.

The light dance rhythm only emphasizes the languid hopelessness. But “I know” applies only to Fedor Kuzmich. If he certainly suspects the devil, then he is sure of the properties of matter. In these “properties” is the fate of earthly life:

Until it frays.

Spinning, hemp,

Until it turns up

My land is coming to me.

Unlike Fyodor Kuzmich, the poet is not sure of anything. Neither in the rubbing of hemp, nor in the betrayal of a bitch, nor in the absolute deceit of the devil. The poet can never give categorical definitions, because he senses a lot of invisible and inaudible things behind things. "Over the top of the dark spruce the blue one laughs..." Who is this? Probably the "airman" is one of the evil demons of the air. Rest "squealing, circling in a crowd". Who are these others? “Evil spirits” is a name that is too general and religiously colored. We took information about magic, goetia, and “navi charms” from books, from folklore, and at best from extremely dubious practice. It is clear that we know nothing about death. But do we have reliable information about life?