And the old world is like a rootless dog.

Blok wrote his mysterious poem in 1918, immediately after a series of revolutionary events in Russia. She was awarded this epithet because she demonstrates author's attitude to a change of power, but it is not known which one. Some argue that “The Twelve” is an ode dedicated to change, while others believe that the work is condemnatory and is a kind of requiem for the country. It’s up to you to decide who is right, but we will only tell you everything about the book that will help you understand the poet and his plan.

Blok once walked around revolutionary Petrograd, and, as he himself put it, “listened to the music of the revolution.” He wanted to translate this feeling into words, inspired by the atmosphere of rebellion and triumph of the new government. The history of the creation of the poem “12” went at the same pace as the history of Russia, but until the very moment of writing, the author did not have an unambiguous attitude towards change. It did not work out in the process of working on the book, which he composed quickly, being under a fresh impression. When asked: “Is this a satire on the revolution or a glory to it?” - he couldn’t answer, because he didn’t know. The creator has not yet decided what he thinks about this. He described an impression, not a reasoning, an intuitive impulse, and not a sober analysis of the situation. It may also be that the poet did not want to destroy the intrigue created by the work and did not explain what was hidden behind the symbolic images.

The creation process is known to have taken only a few days, and the final revision lasted about a month. The poet felt a phenomenal creative upsurge, feeling that something brilliant, unexpected, and fundamentally new had flown out from under his pen. The poem “The Twelve” was published in the newspaper of the left Socialist Revolutionaries “Znamya Truda”, and two months later it was published in book format. According to Blok, for several months after writing the final poems he physically picked up the noise “from the collapse of the old world.” It was this, coupled with the sound of broken glass, the roar of gun shots and the crackling of street fires, that made up the music of the revolution, which absorbed and shocked the author. Later, he would become disillusioned with the new government, go into exile, but write that he did not repent of his creation and did not renounce it, because then the joy of change was an element, and not a political game (he wrote about this in the collection “Later Articles”).

Meaning of the name

The poem is named “12” in honor of the detachment that carried out revolutionary trials in the alleys of Petrograd. Judging by the memoirs of John Reed and other journalists who witnessed the coup, the detachments of Red Army soldiers patrolling the streets really consisted of a dozen people. In Blok’s drafts it is clear that he connected the name not only with the realities of the capital engulfed in flames, but also with Nekrasov’s poem about Ataman Kudeyar and his twelve robbers. The poet was inspired by the continuity of generations of freedom fighters: the heroes of Nekrasov’s work also administered justice as best they could, but their impulse was just. For too long these workers were in a slave position to those on whom they were now taking revenge.

Of course there is also symbolic meaning titles. The poem is called that because Blok put religious allusions into it. It was the twelve apostles who surrounded Christ. Time passed, and then in Russia, the third Rome, Jesus reappeared “in a white crown of roses” surrounded by a dozen disciples. Thus, the author draws a parallel between two events in history, connecting them with a single holy meaning for humanity. He, like many then, thought that a world revolution would begin from our country, which would destroy old world slaves and masters and establish the kingdom of God on earth.

The block depersonalized its heroes and made them into a monolith consisting of 12 people. Each of them separately means nothing, but together they are the force of the revolutionary element, a symbolic unification masses, who rose in one ranks in the name of freedom. Thus, the poet shows the unity of the impulse that gripped the country and guesses the future of Soviet ideology, where the collectivization of the spirit became the basis.

Composition

The poem “12” consists of twelve chapters, each of which draws a separate fragment of the mosaic, where we guess the features of a disfigured winter Petrograd, burning with blood, banners and conflagrations.

• Exposition embodied in the first chapter, where the author immerses the reader in the atmosphere of that time, so that the subsequent murder would not surprise anyone. Curses and reproaches are heard all around the new regime, all the inhabitants of the old, destroyed world are perplexed and predict death for Russia at the hands of the Bolsheviks. A patrol of Red Army soldiers immediately appears, intimidating everything in its path.
• The beginning occurs in the second chapter, where the heroes remember Vanka (former friend, traitor) and Katka (the girl of one of the twelve, who also betrayed him). They condemn the actions of the couple, mentioning their unworthy relationship. Now their power gives them every right to take revenge on their offenders.
• What happens next action development. The reader learns the history of these people, their difficult and bitter lot. Now their thirst for revenge is justified.
• Climax occurs in the sixth chapter, where the squad stumbles upon Vanka and Katka and opens fire to kill. Katka dies, Vanka escapes.
• Denouement lasts for all subsequent chapters. The reader sees internal conflict Katka's former boyfriend and his choice to serve the revolution.
• Epilogue can be considered the twelfth chapter, where it turns out that Jesus Christ is leading the murderers.

What is the poem about?

1. First chapter. It's freezing outside, passers-by barely trudge along the frozen roads, slipping and falling. On a rope that stretches from one building to another, there is a poster with the revolutionary slogan: “All power to the Constituent Assembly!” The old woman wonders why so much material was wasted - it would be useful for making children's clothes. He grumbles and complains that “the Bolsheviks will drive him into a coffin.” A long-haired man scolds someone as “traitors”, says that “Russia perished”, it is quite possible that the author meant the writer. For such speeches, the narrator immediately calls him a bourgeois - a representative of the privileged class, an oppressor of honest people. A lady in karakul, in a conversation with another, complains that they “cryed, cried”, slipped and falls. The wind carries the words of the prostitutes: at their meeting they decided “ten for the time, twenty-five for the night... And don’t take less from anyone!..” A tramp walks along a deserted street. The chapter ends with the poet revealing the essence of what is happening in the poem “12”: “Anger, sad anger Seething in the chest... Black anger, holy anger... Comrade! Keep your eyes open!”
2. Second chapter. Twelve people are having a noisy conversation about how Vanka and Katka are sitting in a tavern, calling Vanka a “bourgeois.” They remember that before “he was ours, but he became a soldier.” All these people - with a cigar in their teeth, a crushed cap, an ace of diamonds on their back (prison tattoo) - are dysfunctional, depressed by the burden of living in poverty, and therefore they are angry. They challenge the old “fat-assed” Rus' - the village, where the peasants still cling to their rickety huts and do not risk going against the authorities. They hate such flabby and submissive Rus'.
3. Third chapter. Here we talk about the bitter soldier's fate of twelve fighters. All of them served on the bleak front of the First World War. They blame the bourgeoisie who sent them to fight for their troubles. Now, to spite them, they are fueling the world fire of revolution.
4. Chapter four. Twelve heroes continue to patrol the streets. And then a carriage rushes by, where Vanka and Katka are sitting. Vanka in a soldier’s overcoat, “twirling his black mustache.”
5. Fifth chapter. This is Vanka’s monologue, which reminds her friend of her status as a kept woman. Under Katya's chest, the scar from stab wound, she used to “walk around in lace underwear,” “fornicate with officers,” and was even involved in the murder of one of them. The soldiers see her as a traitor. She always turned her nose up at the poor, sold her love to the nobility, and now it was her turn to pay for her easy life.
6. Chapter six. Twelve Red Guards attack the couple and shoot because Vanka was walking with a “stranger girl.” Vanka runs for his life, Katka falls dead in the snow.
7. Seventh chapter. Twelve move on, not attaching any importance to what happened. Only Petrukha, who killed Katka (his ex-girlfriend), became gloomy and sad. His comrades console him, but he remembers: “I loved this girl.” The others admonish him, demand that he “keep control over himself,” and remind him that “now is not the time to babysit you.” Petrukha makes a strong-willed effort and “he throws up his head, he’s cheerful again.”
8. The eighth chapter is a song full of sadness and melancholy about how Petrukha and others like him will take revenge “for the sweetheart” of the bourgeoisie. They blame them for destroying the girls with their lust, killing their dignity, leaving only a corrupt body.
9. Ninth chapter. There are no more policemen, no noise can be heard, and the bourgeoisie at the crossroads “has his nose hidden in his collar,” and nearby “a lousy dog ​​is huddling with its coarse fur, its tail between its legs.” The author compares these images, because now the former master of life has become homeless and useless to anyone. His time has passed, he, like the dog, is living out his last days.
10. Chapter ten. A snowstorm begins, and you can't see anything. Petrukha remembers God on this occasion, but his comrades laughed at him: “What did the Golden Iconostasis save you from?” They remind him that Petrukha is now a murderer and he shouldn’t remember God.
11. The eleventh chapter is devoted to the characteristics of the detachment, which embodies the features of the entire proletariat: “And they walk without the name of the saint, All twelve - into the distance. We’re ready for anything, we don’t regret anything.”
12. Twelve walk through the blizzard, noticing someone, threaten with violence, start shooting: “And only the echo responds in the houses.” Their detachment is led by Christ: “So they walk with a sovereign step - Behind is a hungry dog, Ahead - with a bloody flag, And unknown behind the blizzard, And unharmed by a bullet, With a gentle tread above the blizzard, A scattering of snow pearls, In a white corolla of roses - Ahead - Jesus Christ " This is how the poet divides reality into past, present and future. The past is a hungry dog, that same insatiable bourgeois who was led into a dead end by greed. The present is turmoil and lynching of aggressive insurgent works. The future is a just and merciful world, which is marked by revolution.

The main characters and their characteristics

There are not many heroes in the work that can be talked about, but all of them, of course, are symbolic images. Blok embodied much more in them than characters. The characters depict eras, classes, elements, and not real characters.

1. Twelve- a detachment of Red Army soldiers who patrol the streets. This main character poems. All its components are former soldiers, representatives of the poorest families, where parents, like children, disappeared from morning to evening in factories as cheap labor. Blok demonstratively depersonalizes them in order to give their totality a symbolic subtext. They are not people, but a revolutionary force, an element that has engulfed all of Russia. This is rage bursting from the chests of the people at those who for centuries have trampled them into poverty and ignorance. They are so poor and blind that they are completely devoid of individuality and are accustomed to keeping in line. First, collective life in the corners (parts of the room fenced off with rags), then the same uniform for everyone mechanical work at the factory, then a soldier’s uniform and endless, routine barracks life, and now “a torn coat”, “a cigarette in the teeth”, “a wrinkled cap”, “black belts”. Nobody considered them to be individuals, so they did not become one. Their marginal behavior is a mark like the ace of diamonds on their back. It was given to them from birth by those who used their slave position for their own enrichment. But now this mark has played against those who put it. “Golotba” rose up and rebelled against the oppressors, and their anger was similar to that heavenly judgment seat that descended on the sinful earth, which the apostles predicted.
2. Jesus Christ. The key to understanding this image is the phrase: “World fire in the blood, God bless!” For Blok, the destruction of a decrepit, rotten world is a beneficial act. At one time, Jesus was also a revolutionary, he also went against the old world, so he is the leader of the martyrs for the fate of humanity, fighters for the transition to a better life, fighters against the “Caesars” and their greedy retinue. People rose up to make things better, just as Christ came into the world to change it.
3. Petrukha- one of the Twelve, the one who lost Katka’s love and took revenge on her for it. Using his example, the author shows the transitional stage between a man of the past and a man of the future. The hero has not yet fully decided; there are still remnants of yesterday in him. He has not forgotten how to believe in God, is not used to killing, has not completely joined the team, so the detachment reproaches him for being soft. He also cannot drown out his tender feeling and is grieving the death of his beloved. However, Blok describes how easy it is to force someone from the common people to become a faceless mechanism of someone else’s system. As soon as his comrades ridicule or scold him, he immediately adapts to them, because in this unity he gains the strength that made the revolution.
4. Vanka- a former friend of the Red Army soldiers, who went over to the side of the tsar’s minions. This is the image of a modern Judas Bloc, who sold his friends, becoming a gendarme and a servant of the hated government. He, like the greedy traitor from the Gospel, escaped punishment for sin by cowardly running away and leaving Katya to be torn to pieces by the crowd. The author again reproduces this historical injustice, drawing parallels between his text and biblical traditions. Judas again escapes his retribution, but not for long, because Christ himself condescended to administer his judgment.
5. Katka- former girlfriend of one of the twelve - Petrukha. While the groom risked himself at the front, she became a kept woman of wealthy gentlemen, and in hard times she did not disdain even a simple gendarme. The poem speaks disparagingly about her: “she walked around in lace underwear,” “fornicated with officers,” “Mignon ate chocolate.” This description is very similar to thieves’ songs like “Gopstop” (“you wore squirrel fur coats, crocodile skin, laid everything for the colonels...”). The image of Katka is the archetypal embodiment of the harlot, at whom Jesus suggested throwing stones only to those who are not sinners. He saved the girl with his intervention, but in the poem “The Twelve” no one rescued the victim. This is due to a peculiar logic: there is no place for it in the new realities. Women corrupted and destroyed by lustful rich people remain in the old time, in the new, when everyone is equal, this will no longer happen. The death of a girl means not only new stage in the development of society, but also the purification of her soul and body. With her blood she washed away the shame, and since Christ is here, she certainly has a chance to be reborn to a renewed and blameless life.
6. Bourgeois- a man wrapped in the collar of his own coat and predicting the death of Russia. This is an image of the old time, which collapsed under the onslaught of the new. We see that the rich man is weak because he is lonely and abandoned, because his ill-gotten wealth was lost in the “robbery of the loot.” Now he can only complain about fate, the people have turned against him and yesterday’s way of life, when he was at the forefront.
7. The image of a bourgeois is associated with way stray dog , they are now soul mates. The owner of life was next to the old one a mangy dog, both of them are relics of the past. They have nowhere to go, their refuge has been destroyed. They can only drag out their few days in desolation and joyless barking. The dog whines and howls as vainly as the long-haired man reviles the new government. Here Blok ironically plays on the proverb “the dog barks, the caravan moves on.” The revolution can no longer be stopped by verbal research.
8. Old woman- the heroine from the first chapter, who laments the waste of fabric on banners. She is a symbol of the commercialism and limitations of the old era. New people do not mind rags for an idea; spirit is more important to them, not matter. The ladies are also ridiculed, who also only chirp, feel sorry for themselves, but do nothing.

Subject

The subject matter of the work is very diverse and atypical for the author. Blok is an idealist. After the events of 1917, a turning point came in his work. Real life turns out to be more cruel and rude than his ideal performances about her. Due to a painful collision with reality, he began to work in a new way, the works already expressed the anguish in his receptive consciousness, and not the abstract ideals of his youth.

• Theme of revolution. The revolution in the poet's understanding is a destructive element (images of wind, blizzard). Representatives of the old world rush about and do not know peace, finding themselves superfluous in the new world. A typical comparison is between a “bourgeois” and a bald stray dog. The storm deprived these people of shelter, name, position, they scattered like snow flakes. The anarchic nature of the actions of the twelve and their ideology emphasizes spontaneity, unbridled and uncontrollable energy social movement October revolution.
• Anti-clerical orientation(refrain “Eh, eh, without a cross!”). Christianity in the poem is part of a degenerate culture that is subject to destruction. The heroes ridicule the traditions and dogmas of the old faith, outraged by the commandments. But in the finale, twelve people walk “without the name of a saint,” and Jesus Christ leads them. The contradiction has been explained in different ways. Firstly, Blok, according to many researchers, meant the Antichrist in order to show how people were mistaken, how they are moving away from the truth, mistaking infernal power for a mission (this is just one interpretation of the image of Christ). By denying faith, the people denied themselves. However, the author, no matter how he felt about it, could not turn a blind eye to the widespread and demonstrative atheism. Secondly, a version has already been voiced that Christ is perceived by the people separately from the hypocritical church, which supported the tsarist regime. His teachings were distorted and used against people. And now he has come into the world again to make it finally fair.
• Change of moral guidelines. The poem seriously discusses a meeting of prostitutes who decide to set uniform prices for servicing clients. Discussed, but not condemned. For Russian literature, this topic is generally taboo, and even more so its justification. However new era dictates its own rules, and the first of them is honesty. The shackles of censorship have been lifted, we can and should talk about what worries people.
• Theme of revenge. It is revealed in the actions of the detachment, which recalls old scores with Vanka and Katka. The reprisal was dictated by personal motives of jealousy and resentment. While the heroes treacherously adapted to the regime, the Red Army soldiers endured poverty and injustice. The time has come for the old world to pay these bills; the people rebelled and could not build a just state without righteous retribution.
• The theme of ignorance. It can be traced at the level of stylistics of the poem, which incorporates criminal songs, street slang and even particles of folklore.

Problems

The tragedy of Blok’s worldview in that period is a consequence of his insight. The poet becomes hateful and disgusted with the vulgar, soulless life of the crowd of ordinary people, who are always and everywhere in the majority. He sees salvation from it in the destructive elements that destroyed the peaceful sleep of “fat-assed” Rus' and set it in motion. That is why the issues in the poem “The Twelve” so dramatically reflected the social cataclysms of that time.

• Amoralism(the murder of Katka, the indifference of the twelve to the murder, the ubiquitous weapon and the threat of its use). The heroes are hostile to generally accepted traditional morality; they deliberately go against it. What does Blok mean by the murder of Katya? There are two interpretations: 1. Katka symbolizes the vice that the twelve, led by Christ, are eradicating in her person. 2. Katka’s death is a symbol of the first blood of an innocent victim, a gloomy prophecy of a bloody civil war where thousands of civilians will suffer.
• Death of the old world(lady in karakul, bourgeois, Vanka). All of these characters are being viciously persecuted and have now switched places with the formerly oppressed class. Grandma is a symbol of the old world, which has outlived its usefulness. At the same time, many critics believe that this image symbolizes common sense, which the revolutionaries do not recognize in their desire to throw slogans.
• The Problem of Nihilism and destruction moral principles. Gradually, Blok’s internal catastrophe finds theoretical justification in the philosophy of Nietzsche, which was carried away by many symbolists. The German thinker argued that civilization develops cyclically, just like culture. The dilapidated, degenerate system will be replaced by destruction and the complete negation of all previous values ​​and all old foundations. The barbarian hordes will destroy all the moral principles of the past era, created by it and imposed on people, but will thereby “clear the place” for the emergence new culture and a new civilization.
• Poverty and desolation of the country. Depleted by cataclysms, Rus' is empty, like a snow-covered street. There is destruction, cold and terrifying restlessness of the people all around. Change is symbolized by a blizzard, the descriptions of which already give you chills. But the blizzard is also a symbol of purity, a global process and the painful cleansing of the country from filth.

The meaning and idea of ​​the poem

The poem “12” is the deepest interpretation of reality. The work reflects real events which Blok witnessed (the harsh winter of 1918, fires in the streets, Red Guards who patrolled the streets, Speaking those times with characteristic jargon and abbreviations). The main idea of ​​the poem “The Twelve” is that the author expressed his views on history, the essence of civilization and culture in the language of symbols. The revolutionary message is that the poet embodied the impressions of an eyewitness to the revolution, which determined the history of Russia. But what these impressions are is more difficult to say. Their emotional coloring determines the ending, which can be interpreted in different ways. The analysis of the text depends on this interpretation. Read Blok’s own opinion under the heading “criticism.”

The meaning of the ending of the poem “12” is ambiguous; there are two main interpretations:

1. At the head of the procession is Jesus Christ, as the first revolutionary who went against tradition. Like Christianity, the new era requires sacrifice, so the Twelve took on the mission of the inquisitors or Prince Vladimir, who baptized Rus' with blood and sword. The world cannot be changed without violence, as the history of the introduction of religion shows, for example. Therefore, the new apostles (of which there were also 12, this is another proof: a reference to the Bible) take on the cross to change the world for the better.
2. At the head of the procession is the Antichrist, as the last harbinger of the apocalypse, who leads people to spiritual and physical destruction. Revolution is the collapse of the world, it leads to a fratricidal war and complete decline in a prosperous country. Twelve is a symbol of the destructive power of revolution, which destroys everything in its path. A man in a crowd loses face, becomes a blind weapon like a rifle, which is used the mighty of the world this in order to place his elite on a pedestal.

The final

The Red Army soldiers quenched their sadness in an act of vengeance, Petrukha cast aside doubts and stopped grieving. The twelve move on, and their procession knows no time: “And the blizzard casts dust in their eyes all day and night long...”. An attached mangy dog ​​can barely keep up with them - a symbol of the old world already familiar to us. The Red Army soldiers try to scare him with bayonets so that he will get rid of their procession. This is also symbolic: new people are driving away the old world.

Suddenly the heroes notice a mysterious silhouette in the darkness. They open fire on the unknown vision, trying to figure out what it is. They do not know that He is not afraid of shots and blows. “So they walk with a sovereign step - behind is a hungry dog, in front with a bloody flag<…>Jesus Christ".

Criticism

The poem caused a huge resonance in society, forever depriving the poet of the understanding and support of many friends. The old regime intellectuals did not understand it, nor did the supporters of the new government. She convinced some that Blok was a traitor and a hypocrite, others that he did not understand the true spirit of the revolution and mixed it with dirt. In a word, he remained misunderstood even in emigration, when he clearly upset his relations with the Bolsheviks.

The illustrator of the poem “12,” Yuri Annenkov, was one of the first to speak about the work in some detail:

In 1917-18, Blok was undoubtedly captured by the spontaneous side of the revolution. “World fire” seemed to him a goal, not a stage. The world fire was not even a symbol of destruction for Blok: it was a “world orchestra people's soul" Street lynching seemed to him more justifiable than trial. “Hurricane, constant companion of revolutions.” And again, and always - Music. "Music" with capital letters. “Those who are filled with music will hear the sigh of the universal soul, if not today, then tomorrow,” said Blok back in 1909

The poet himself confirmed this guess. He denies accusations of conformism and sycophancy, speaking of an inspired impulse that found completion in the scandalous work. He was offended that even his colleagues and friends did not understand him. He writes about this in his memoirs already in exile.

In January 1918, I surrendered to the elements for the last time, no less blindly than in January nine hundred seventh or March nine hundred fourteen. That is why I do not renounce what was written then, because it was written in accordance with the elements, for example, during and after the end of “The Twelve”, for several days I felt physically, with my ears, a great noise around me - a continuous noise (probably the noise from the collapse of the old world) . Therefore, those who see political poems in the Twelve are either very blind to art, or are sitting up to their ears in political mud, or are possessed by great malice - be they enemies or friends of my poem

Of course, the poet was not sure that he did not repent of what he had written. From abroad, he followed what was happening in Russia and was depressed by its condition, which worsened day by day. The Red Terror, the civil war, the reaction that followed the revolution could not please him. In despair, he recalled his inspired impulse, but the music in his soul died down. That is why, before his death, he begs his wife to burn all copies of the poem “The Twelve.” So he renounced his famous and tragic hymn to the October Revolution.

He had reasons to be upset even during his lifetime. At one of the rallies against the Red Terror and political repression people chanted insults at him: “Traitor!” There were also his old friends, Anna Akhmatova, Olga Sudeikina, Arthur Lurie, who did not stand up for his honor. Further - more: the same Akhmatova, and with her the poet Sologub, demonstratively refuse to participate in the event where his poem is mentioned in the program. Gumilyov reacted even more radically, claiming that Blok, having written “12,” “crucified Christ a second time and shot the sovereign once again.” He especially criticized (a detailed essay was written) that the image of Christ was defamed by such proximity. The author responded calmly and mysteriously:

I don't like the ending of The Twelve either. I wish this ending had been different. When I finished, I myself was surprised: why Christ? But the more I looked, the more clearly I saw Christ. And then I wrote down to myself: unfortunately, Christ.

Warnings rained down on him from all sides. The friendlier Andrei Bely also addressed his friend with a message:

I read You with trepidation. “Scythians” (poems) are huge and epoch-making, like the Kulikovo Field”... In my opinion, you are too carelessly playing other notes. Remember - they will “never” “forgive” you... I don’t sympathize with some of your feuilletons in the “Banner of Labor”: but I am amazed at your courage and courage... Be wise: combine courage with caution.

These words turned out to be prophetic: the poetess Zinaida Gippius, in her address to Blok, exclaims that she will never forgive his betrayal. Bunin did not forgive either, giving a devastating review, outlining a detailed interpretation of not only the book, but also the actions of its author:

Blok went over to the Bolsheviks, became Lunacharsky’s personal secretary, after which he wrote the brochure “The Intelligentsia and the Revolution” and began to demand: “Listen, listen to the music of the revolution!” and composed “The Twelve,” writing in his diary for posterity a very pathetic fiction: as if he composed “The Twelve” as if in a trance, “all the time hearing some noises - the noises of the fall of the old world.”

Unflattering characterizations of the poem and even direct threats against Blok were also heard from politicians. The head of the White Army, Admiral Kolchak, promised to hang the author of “The Twelve” after the victory. But the Bolsheviks were in no hurry to praise the book. Commissioner for theater affairs forbade the poet’s wife to read the work aloud, arguing: “They praise what we, old socialists, fear most.” The government's reaction did not end there. In 1919, the creator was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy and released only at the personal request of the influential official Lunacharsky. Then the muse turned away from him, he no longer heard the music and stopped writing poetry.

Only a few understood and accepted the position of the creator, for example, Meyerhold, Academician S. F. Oldenburg, Remizov and Yesenin. In their opinion, Blok’s new work was not understood, since all readers were accustomed to the poet’s exceptionally serious work. This is how reviewer Viktor Shklovsky explained this idea:

Twelve” is an ironic thing. It is not even written in a ditty style, it is done in a “thieves’” style. The style of a street couplet like Savoyard's (creativity famous chansonnier that time)

The opinion of critics is confirmed by the fact that the author personally brought his wife to the concerts of the joker Savoyarov, who performed everything, be it a song or a poem, in the ragged style of a tramp. Using his example, he showed her how to read his work out loud.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

A poem in which Blok sought to convey the “music of the revolution.” Contrary to the revolutionary pathos and unexpectedly for the author, the text acquired a religious ending, which they immediately began to argue about - and are still arguing about.

comments: Lev Oborin

What is this book about?

A short poem in twelve chapters tells about a detachment of twelve Red Guards who patrol the streets of Petrograd plunged into chaos. The Twelve strive to maintain a clear revolutionary step, but the harmony of the procession is constantly disrupted by a meeting with frightened townspeople, a sudden and bloody denouement of the love drama, and, finally, the very elements of the blizzard, in which the Twelve meet the completely unexpected and amazing Thirteenth.

Alexander Blok. Around 1900

When was it written?

In January 1918. The poem was a response to two revolutions: Blok experienced a surge of inspiration and completed the rough work in just a few days, but then made minor changes for several more weeks.

How is it written?

“The Twelve” at first glance differs sharply from Blok’s other works: the plot of the poem is fragmentary, folklore motifs are involved, poetic meters are not traditionally associated with high poetry, vernacular and vulgarisms: “Well, Vanka, Son of a bitch, bourgeois, / My, try, kiss! A careful reading reveals not only the connection between “The Twelve” and all of Blok’s poetry, but also the amazing thoughtfulness of the compositional and prosodic Prosody is everything that has to do with the sound and rhythm of a verse: sound writing, metrics, intonation, pauses. ⁠ the structure of the poem, written, according to the author's myth, spontaneously.

What influenced her?

First of all, the October Revolution itself, which awakened Blok’s desire to write after a long period of silence and forced him to rethink all his poetry (but, as Blok emphasized, not to change it). The close-to-folk verse of “The Twelve” is indeed dictated by contemporary Blok folklore - traditional and urban. In "The Twelve" many cultural contexts revolutionary Russia - from political slogans to new jargon that spilled onto the streets. The most complex image of the poem - Christ appearing at the end - was influenced by many factors. Here is the personal story of Blok’s search for God, which was formed in communication with Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Andrei Bely, Ivanov-Razumnik, ⁠ and texts well known to Blok (for example, “The Life of Jesus” by Ernest Renan, where Christ was depicted as a revolutionary anarchist), and mystical, prophetic Possessing the power of prophecy, from the Greek prophētēs - prophet, soothsayer. ⁠ the idea of ​​a revolution renewing the world like the newest Testament.

Symbolist poets (from left to right): Georgy Chulkov, Konstantin Erberg, Alexander Blok and Fyodor Sologub. Around 1920

Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

The poem was published on March 3, 1918 in the left-wing Socialist Revolutionary newspaper “Znamya Truda” - had Blok lived until the 1930s, he would certainly have been remembered, but after the poet’s death “The Twelve” entered the center of the Soviet poetic canon, and the inconvenient place of the first publication was forgotten . First separate edition, illustrated by Yuri Annenkov, was published two months later by the Alkonost publishing house with a circulation of 300 copies. During Blok’s lifetime, the poem was published a total of 22 times in the original and 15 times in translations (in French, English, German, Polish, Italian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian languages). It is known that French translations Blok was disappointed, but he liked the Italian.

Cover of the first edition of The Twelve. Publishing house "Alkonost". St. Petersburg, 1918

How was she received?

The poem aroused sharp rejection among Blok’s colleagues, who refused to recognize Soviet power: Ivan Bunin left derogatory reviews about it, Zinaida Gippius broke off “public” relations with Blok; Anna Akhmatova, Fyodor Sologub and Vladimir Piast refused to participate in the evening at which Lyubov Blok read “The Twelve”. Later, Nikolai Gumilyov stated that with his poem Blok “crucified Christ a second time and once again shot the sovereign” (although the poem appeared in print before the execution of Nicholas II). Anti-Soviet critics gave similar assessments.

However, the ambivalence of the poem, especially its ending, confused such unconditional apologists of the October Revolution as Vladimir Mayakovsky, and communist leaders - right up to Lenin, and critics, and just readers; teacher Adrian Toporov, who read “The Twelve” several times to the peasant communes, stated that the poem remains an “insurmountable difficulty” for them.

Osip Mandelstam enthusiastically perceived the spontaneity and “folklore eternity” of the poem; Sergei Yesenin gave the highest assessment of the poem; One way or another, “The Twelve” was reflected in the texts of Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Velimir Khlebnikov. The poem immediately entered the research of innovative philologists: Tynyanov, Eikhenbaum, Zhirmunsky. Overall, “The Twelve” became the most discussed work of the poet during his lifetime: dozens of reviews were published in 1918 alone.

Yuri Annenkov. Illustration for "The Twelve". 1918

After “The Twelve,” Blok, as if stunned by his own poem, wrote only a few poems; the most notable of them are “Scythians” and “Pushkin’s House”, which in various ways echo Pushkin’s poetry. A companion piece to The Twelve is the 1918 essay “Catiline,” which “explores the psychology of the transformation of a troublemaker and criminal into a rebel and rebel" 1 Resin O. Prikhodko I. Comments. “Twelve” // Blok A.A. Complete collection of works and letters: in 20 volumes. T. 5. M.: IMLI RAS; Science, 1999. P. 340. ⁠ .

Disillusioned with the Bolshevik government, overburdened with work that fatally undermined his health, and not receiving permission to travel abroad for treatment, Blok died on August 7, 1921 from endocarditis - inflammation of the inner lining of the heart. Before his death, he asked that copies of The Twelve be destroyed; in the spring of 1921, he wrote to Korney Chukovsky that Russia gobbled him up “like a pig of its own.” Blok’s death, which almost coincided in time with the death of Gumilyov, became in the minds of his contemporaries a fatal stage, the end of an era - one that would later be called the Silver Age.

“The Twelve,” after Blok’s death, remained the main Russian revolutionary poem, whose power could not be killed by officialdom and school study. Its rhythmic and lexical diversity makes it a favorite piece for actors' recitation - but not always successful.

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What exactly is going on in The Twelve? Does the poem have a plot?

“The Twelve” may, at first, the most superficial glance, seem like a set of separate poems, maintained in different rhythms. This is exactly how, for example, one of the ill-wishers, Ivan Bunin, spoke about the poem: “The Twelve” is a set of rhymes, ditties, sometimes tragic, sometimes dancing.” However, the plot is easily traced in the poem. Twelve Red Guards patrol the snowy night streets of Petrograd, singing soldiers' and revolutionary songs. At the center of their conversations is the beloved of one of the Twelve, the Red Guard Petrukha, a girl named Katka, who is cheating on him with a former comrade, Vanka. The Red Guards meet the lovers, who are being driven by a cab driver in a sleigh, and open fire. Vanka manages to escape, Katka is accidentally shot by Petrukha. He is tormented by melancholy and repentance, but, ashamed of the reproaches of his comrades, he outwardly becomes cheerful and, in order to appease the melancholy, calls for robberies and pogroms. The twelve continue their march, but feel someone's presence nearby. Invisible to him, “unharmed by the bullet,” Jesus Christ walks ahead with a red flag.

Bolshevik military patrol on Nevsky Prospekt. October 1917

“The Twelve” is a response to the October Revolution?

Yes. In the revolution, Blok saw the potential of an event capable of changing the entire “European air,” the entire world, “fanning a global fire.” "When such plans hidden from time immemorial human soul, in the soul of the people, they break the fetters that bound them and rush into a stormy stream, breaking the dams, sprinkling extra pieces of the banks, this is called revolution,” he wrote in the article “Intellectuals and Revolution” - a manifesto important for understanding the “Twelve”. It is known that Blok’s position was received with hostility by many poets in his circle: few of the Symbolists, like Blok, were ready to cooperate with the new government. “I think that not only their right, but also their duty is to be tactless, “tactless”: to listen to that great music the future, the sounds of which fill the air, and not look for individual shrill and false notes in the majestic roar and ringing of the world orchestra,” writes Blok in the same article. This vision of the revolution contains more mysticism than politics. Blok shared it with a few - in particular, with the writer and critic Razumnik Ivanov-Razumnik Razumnik Vasilievich Ivanov-Razumnik ( real name— Ivanov; 1878-1946) - author of the voluminous “History of Russian social thought" The entire history of Russian culture, according to Ivanov-Razumnik, is a struggle between the intelligentsia and the philistinism; The mission of the revolution is to overturn the decrepit bourgeois world. In 1917, together with Andrei Bely, he edited the almanac “Scythians,” the ideas of which are close to Blok’s poem of the same name. In the 20s, he was constantly arrested and eventually sent into exile in Siberia as an “anti-Soviet element.” ⁠ , conversations with whom influenced “The Twelve.” Chaos, spontaneity, the enormity of the plan - this is what allows you to turn a blind eye to “false notes”; in “Intellectuals and Revolution,” Blok, in particular, justifies the very robberies from which the Twelve advise “locking the floors”:

“Why are they making holes in the ancient cathedral? “Because for a hundred years an obese priest has been here, hiccupping, taking bribes and selling vodka.”

Why do they shit in the noble estates dear to the heart? - Because they raped and flogged girls there: not from that master, but from a neighbor.

Why are hundred-year-old parks being torn down? “Because for a hundred years, under their spreading linden and maple trees, the gentlemen showed their power: they poked money in the nose of a beggar, and education in the face of a fool.”

Vladimir Mayakovsky recalled:

“I remember that in the first days of the revolution I walked past a thin, bent soldier’s figure warming himself by the fire laid out in front of the Winter. They called out to me. It was Blok. We reached the Children's entrance. I ask: “Do you like it?” “Okay,” said Blok, and then added: “They burned a library in my village.”

This “good” and this “the library was burned” were two sensations of the revolution, fantastically connected in his poem “The Twelve”. Some read this poem as a satire on the revolution, others - its glory.”

Yuri Annenkov. Illustration for "The Twelve". 1918

Indeed, The Twelve can easily be read as political apologetics, a justification for violence. But the ambivalence of the attitude towards what is happening, despite the call: “With all your body, with all your heart, with all your consciousness - listen to the Revolution,” does not disappear from “The Twelve”. In the book “The End of Tragedy,” the poet, translator and critic Anatoly Yakobson wrote that Blok “remained flesh and blood of the old civilization, which he himself called humane, putting a special, derogatory meaning into it. He remained, even taking up arms against the very concepts of “civilization” and “humanism”. “The poet’s imagination was inflamed by the coals of burning ideas, but humanity was rooted in his nature,” continues Jacobson. According to Jacobson, the poem “The Twelve” is an attempt to resolve the conflict: in it the personal collides with the mass, Petrukha’s love for Katka collides with the class feeling of Petrukha’s comrades, who rudely reason with him.

Author of the parody of "The Twelve", People's Commissar of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1875-1933) - Bolshevik, revolutionary, close ally of Lenin. In the 1900s he tried to combine Marxism with Christianity, and after the revolution he was appointed People's Commissar of Education. The most educated of the Bolshevik leaders, the author of many plays and translations, Lunacharsky was responsible for contacts with the creative intelligentsia and the creation of a new proletarian culture. He was a supporter of translating the Russian language into Latin. ⁠ , wrote that Blok was a “brilliant travel companion.” From the point of view of a Bolshevik, this is a correct assessment: as soon as it became clear to Blok that the mystical renewal of the world turned into the construction of a new bureaucracy, that the spirit was replaced by the letter, he, as a poet, was not on his way with the Bolsheviks. He, however, continued to collaborate with them as an editor, lecturer - and, against his will, as a bureaucrat.

Why is “The Twelve” so different from all of Blok’s poetry?

Blok is one of the most musical Russian poets, and it seems that “The Twelve” is sharply different from his other works: instead of exquisite debtors ⁠ Blok's first collections and minted iambics "Retribution" - polyrhythm, A combination of different poetic meters within one production. ⁠ ragged composition, ditty, poetic verse, rough jargon. Blok, who tried to listen to the music, the roar of time, realized that the current, world-changing music is like this; he was required to grasp it and write it down. In the article - a programmatic statement about the new poetics that replaced the old one with political changes, - Vladimir Mayakovsky writes about the need to “give all the rights of citizenship to a new language: a shout - instead of a chant, the roar of a drum - instead of a lullaby” - and gives examples specifically from “The Twelve”.

When such plans, hidden from time immemorial in the human soul, in the soul of the people, break the fetters that bound them and rush in a stormy stream, breaking dams, sprinkling extra pieces of the banks, this is called revolution

Alexander Blok

Despite all this, early researchers already noted that “The Twelve” is inextricably linked with Blok’s other works. The images of Christ and Katka cannot be fully understood without referring to early texts Blok, right up to “Poems about a Beautiful Lady”. In “The Twelve” there is at least one chapter, in rhythm and sound clearly reminiscent of the former Blok: “You can’t hear the noise of the city...”. The closeness of this chapter to romance looks like a parody against the background of the “usual” Blok. It can be assumed that Blok is parodying his own previous poetics - and, more broadly, romantic poetics in general: after all, the entire chapter is an allusion to Fyodor Glinka’s poem “The Prisoner’s Song.” The first two lines are an almost verbatim quote from Glinka: “You can’t hear the noise of the city, / There is silence in the Zanev towers! / And on the sentry’s bayonet / The midnight moon is burning!” (Glinka); “You can’t hear the noise of the city, / There’s silence above the Neva Tower, / And there’s no more policeman: / Take a walk, guys, without wine!” (Block). In Glinka's poem, the prisoner asks for mercy from the king; American translator and commentator on "The Twelve" Maria Carlson suggests that the 1826 poem is directly related to the Decembrist uprising. In Blok’s version, the uprising was a success, and no appeal to the tsar for mercy, of course, was possible.

“The Twelve” became an unexpected consequence of all of Blok’s poetry: its symbolism, its search for Eternal Femininity and worship of Music as such, its gradually manifested historicism. This consequence required the abandonment of Blok’s previous musicality and the cutting off of all the developed techniques for appealing to the experience of world culture, except for the most basic contexts. But if musicality is gone, then the music remains, the ear that perceives it remains. Along with the great poem “Scythians”, the poem “The Twelve” is Blok’s enormous and last effort: several poems written after it, such as “Zinaida Gippius”, “On the Kulikovo Field” and, finally, “To the Pushkin House”, with all their merits , were a return to the old prosody and the old temperament. Mayakovsky, in his obituary for Blok, expressed the general opinion of many contemporaries: in “The Twelve,” “Blok went crazy.”

Nikolay Kochergin. 1919

Dmitry Moor. We will not give up Petrograd. 1919

The number 12 is associated with the apostles, right?

This is an obvious parallel, reinforced by the appearance of Christ at the end of the poem. Blok’s Twelve are clearly not saints or sages, but the apostles of Christ were simple people. Two of the Twelve, whose names we know, have apostolic names: Andrei and Peter (according to the reduced style of time - Andryukha and Petrukha).

However, if Blok’s Christ cannot be the Antichrist, then the Twelve can be “anti-apostles.” Boris Gasparov, who analyzed the poem, noted its rhythmic and motivic (blizzard) similarity to Pushkin’s poem "Demons" 2 Gasparov B. M. A. Blok’s poem “The Twelve” and some problems of carnivalization in the art of the early 20th century // Slavica Hierosolymitana. 1977. V. I. P. 109-131. ⁠ . If the Twelve are the product of a blizzard, some kind of chaos that cannot be interpreted “positively,” then Christ comes not to lead them, but to drive out demonism from them - or even drive them out themselves as demons. This interpretation contradicts many of the explanations that Blok himself made for his poem, but this does not eliminate the possibility of such a reading - especially since other details lead to it. For example, the procession of the Twelve takes place “without a cross.” As Maria Carlson points out, three similar meanings merge here: a parody of the religious procession (at the front of the procession Christ carries a red flag instead of a cross - even M. Voloshin believed that this only means replacing one object of desecration of Christ with another), the absence of pectoral crosses on each of the Twelve and simply a rejection of Christian morality (“without a cross” here, therefore, is the same as the later “without the name of a saint”). The motive of demonization in “The Twelve” is analyzed in detail in the work of Dina Magomedova “Two interpretations of Pushkin’s myth of demonism.”

Listen to that great music of the future, the sounds of which fill the air, and not look for
individual shrill and false notes
in the majestic roar and ringing of the world orchestra

Alexander Blok

Another relevant biblical connotation for the number 12 is twelfth chapter of the Revelation of John the Theologian: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun; under her feet is the moon, and on her head is a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant, and screamed from the pain and pangs of birth.<…>And she gave birth to a male child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and His throne.” Way of the Cross and apocalyptic prophecy: these references argue for a “dark” interpretation of the poem.

In Blok’s notes from the period of work on “The Twelve” there is a quote: “There were twelve robbers.” This is a line from Nikolai Nekrasov’s poem “About Two Great Sinners,” included in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” In a truncated form, with a plot that was simplified to the point of primitiveness, Nekrasov’s text was sung like a romance by Fyodor Chaliapin: the great sinner Ataman Kudeyar here abandons a gang of robbers and goes to a monastery to serve God. The story of the twelve thieves, whose leader becomes a saint, could have influenced Blok in addition to gospel story about the apostles.

Red Guards guard Smolny. Petrograd, October 1917

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Why does Christ appear at the end of the poem?

The appearance of Christ at the end of “The Twelve” is the main mystery of the poem. This statement is so strong that it invites deafening, superficial, too straightforward interpretations: for example, that the Red Guards are really new Christian apostles, that Christ, with his presence, confirms the righteousness of their cause. D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, who quite rightly noted that Christ in Blok’s poetry is not the same as Christ for Christians, that it is a special “poetic symbol that exists on its own, with its own associations, very different from the Gospels and from church traditions “, believes that Christ shows the way to the red soldiers “against their will”; Blok himself called the Red Guard “grinder for the mill of the Christian Church.”

Of course, the assertions of Soviet critics that the image of Christ is “Blok’s great and indisputable failure, a sharp dissonance in his poem" 3 Shtut S. “The Twelve” by A. Blok // New World. 1959. No. 1. P. 240. ⁠ (as if dissonance were not part of the “music of the revolution” that Blok called for listening!). There are also attempts to prove that Christ in “The Twelve” is the Antichrist (if only because the real Christ does not have a “white crown of roses”, but a caustic crown of thorns without flowers). Despite all the seductiveness of such an interpretation, which imparts a fatal ambivalence to the entire poem, it should be noted that it is hardly plausible - just like Maximilian Voloshin’s interpretation, according to which the Red Guards are pursuing Christ, hunting him, or Maria Carlson’s idea that the Red Guards are burying Christ (since on his head he does not have a wreath, but a corolla - this is the name of the ribbon that is placed on the forehead of the deceased during burial). In his oral explanations to “The Twelve,” Blok said that the appearance of Christ was unexpected for him, even unpleasant, but inevitable. “Unfortunately, Christ,” noted Blok; in his diary entry, he emphasized that it is Christ who goes with the Twelve, although “Another must go” (that is, the Antichrist, or the devil). It is the Son of God who is a figure befitting the scale of events taking place in Russia. He finds himself where suffering occurs and the structure of the world changes. It’s as if he was woven from a blizzard (a blizzard, a blizzard is an image that is most important for all of Blok’s poetry, a symbol meaning chaos and, oddly enough, life). “I just stated a fact: if you look closely at the pillars of the snowstorm along this path, you will see “Jesus Christ” - so Blok seems to be explaining to himself in his diary the ending of the poem - as we have already said, unexpected, but the only true one. It is precisely this discovery that allows Blok, after completing “The Twelve,” to write in the same diary: “Today I am a genius.” The drafts of “The Twelve,” however, diverge from Blok’s later explanations and show that Christ appears quite early in the concept of the poem.

Holy Face from Lan. XIII century. Laon Cathedral, France

Irina Prikhodko’s article about the image of Christ in “The Twelve” talks about what Christ meant in Blok’s life: his search for God was combined with his fight against God, and the perception of Christianity was influenced not by dogmatic Orthodoxy, but by conversations with the Merezhkovskys, Andrei Bely and the writer Evgeny Ivanov - to the latter Blok confided his thoughts about the “torment of Christ” and ignorance and rejection of Christ. Particularly important for Blok was the self-abasement of Christ (washing the feet of the disciples, forgiving sinners - including the thief crucified with him); it can be assumed that the Christ of the “Twelve” is exactly like this. Note that the spelling “Jesus” is Old Believer, thus, Christ of the “Twelve” is not associated with canonical Orthodoxy.

Of course, the gospel operates in the Twelve. pretext: The source text that influenced the creation of the work or served as the background for its creation. ⁠ Thus, the most prominent of the Twelve - the Red Guard Petrukha, tormented by his conscience because of the murder of Katka - is the only one who remembers the Savior in the poem, for which he gets it from his comrades; one can identify him with the Apostle Peter. But what is more important is that in “The Twelve,” a poem that seems to break with all Blok’s poetic experience, the motives of this experience are constantly reflected: if Katka is a spontaneous, reduced, but still painful “reflection and echo of the ideal of the beautiful ladies" 4 Drunk M. F. Russia and the revolution in the poetry of A. Blok and A. Bely // Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely: Dialogue of poets about Russia and the revolution / Comp., intro. Art., comment. M. F. Drunk. M.: Higher School, 1990. P. 7. ⁠ , Eternal Femininity, Russia, then Christ is an echo of that “Son of Man” (identified not only with Christ, but also with the lyrical subject of Blok), who appears in the poem “You have departed, and I am in the desert...”: “You are dear Galilee / To me, the unresurrected Christ.” Please note: the twelfth chapter of the poem returns to regular meter and harmonious sound: the final lines are the most musical in the entire poem. According to Yuri Tynyanov, “the last stanza closes the ditty, intentionally areal forms with a high lyrical structure. It contains not only the highest point of the poem - it contains its entire emotional plan, and thus the work itself is, as it were, variations, fluctuations, deviations from the theme of the end.

The poet's imagination was inflamed by the coals of burning ideas, but humanity was rooted in his nature

Anatoly Yakobson

The combination of revolution and messianism, Christological motives can be found not only in Blok. It can be clearly seen in Mayakovsky’s early poems and dramas (primarily in, which was originally called “The Thirteenth Apostle”, and in “Man”). The answer to “The Twelve” was the poem “Christ is Risen” by Andrei Bely, Blok’s long-time friend, rival and interlocutor, which also explores the question: can Christ rise from the dead amid machine-gun fire, railway whistles, and cries about the International? Bely had encountered Christ in a revolutionary context before, for example, in the ecstatic, eschatological poem “To the Motherland” written before “The Twelve”: “Dry deserts of shame, / Seas of unflowing tears - / With a ray of a wordless gaze / The descended Christ will warm you”; The phantom Christ appearing in the city (in close proximity to the dog and Vanka in the cab!) is an image from the novel “Petersburg.” So, we have before us, if not a commonplace, then a logical motive determined by the quest of modernists. Why is it so striking in Blok? The answer is precisely by rejecting the old music, by associating Christ with the robber apostles, depicted without any embellishment. This is one of the contrasts of the poem - so striking that he convinced some mystically and at the same time pro-revolutionary-minded contemporaries of the supreme rightness of Blok or (as in the case of close friend Blok - criticism Razumnik Ivanov-Razumnik) Razumnik Vasilyevich Ivanov-Razumnik (real name - Ivanov; 1878-1946) - author of the voluminous “History of Russian Social Thought”. The entire history of Russian culture, according to Ivanov-Razumnik, is a struggle between the intelligentsia and the philistinism; The mission of the revolution is to overturn the decrepit bourgeois world. In 1917, together with Andrei Bely, he edited the almanac “Scythians,” the ideas of which are close to Blok’s poem of the same name. In the 20s he was constantly arrested and eventually exiled to Siberia. ⁠ confirmed their own thoughts.

Soviet criticism has always had difficulty interpreting the ending of the poem. There is evidence of his rejection by contemporary readers, who were quite revolutionary-minded, but far from symbolist issues: in the book of teacher Adrian Toporov, “Peasants about Writers,” reviews of peasants of the 1920s on “The Twelve” are collected: “He shouldn’t have ended with Christ,” “With There’s no need for him to meddle with God” and even “I understand that this verse is a mockery of the revolution. He did not exalt her, but humiliated her.”

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Why is the plot of a revolutionary poem centered around - love story?

The motif of a love triangle is not new for Blok: if we leave aside the fact that it was realized in the biography of the poet (Blok - Lyubov Blok - Andrei Bely), we can recall the characters of the commedia dell'arte - Columbine, Pierrot and Harlequin, acting in Blok's "Showcase" and several Blok poems. Thus, we have before us another thread connecting “The Twelve” with other works of Blok. But the love tragedy in “The Twelve” also has a more important role: it brings into the poem the main conflict - the private, individual with the collective, mass. Pity for the murdered Katka is a feeling that distinguishes Petrukha from the Twelve, dissonant with their revolutionary step (yearning for Katka, Petrukha walks too quickly). Returning to duty is not going as smoothly as it might seem at first glance. Anatoly Yakobson notes that the corresponding stanza: “And Petrukha slows down / Hasty steps... / He throws up his head, / He became cheerful again...” in general music“Twelve” is “like a kick in an orchestra”, “sounds false note”(that is, the very note that Blok in “Intellectuals and Revolution” urged not to look for in the sound of the world orchestra!). “Just at the moment when it is reported that the killer “became cheerful” under sensitive leadership his comrades, the poet seems to be attacked by tongue-tiedness,” writes Yakobson. Let us note that in the scene of the murder of Katka - the symbolic murder of the Eternal Femininity - Blok also resorts to “tongue-tied” means of expression: scant vocabulary, imperative verbal rhyme: “Stop, stop! Andryukha, help! / Petrukha, run behind!..”

Yuri Annenkov. Illustration for "The Twelve". 1918

“Vanka was ours, but he became a soldier.” What does it mean?

The main sign of the “bourgeois” Vanka, with whom Katka walks: he is a soldier. Why do the Red Guards hate him? How could a soldier become a bourgeois? The main Soviet blockade leader, Vladimir Orlov, suggested that Vanka “went... into Kerensky’s soldiers, perhaps... into the shock battalions that Kerensky formed.” Anatoly Yakobson objects: “It is well known that on the eve of October the people flocked from the Provisional Government to the Bolsheviks, and why on earth is Vanka declared to be a unique individual who did just the opposite? Why would Vanka, from among the Red Guards, rush into the doomed camp?”

Perhaps Orlov's point of view (which is shared by commentators on Blok's newest academic collected works) was influenced by the very Kerenks that Katka has in her stocking - money probably received from Vanka - although to have Kerenks one did not have to be a supporter of Kerensky. Jacobson believes that “soldier” is not a literal, but rather a common noun, given to a person who deserted from the front and leads a dashing, dissolute life; The “soldier” and “cadet” with whom Katka walks are social phenomena of the same order. Be that as it may, exactly external signs“soldiers” - carousing, ostentatious love affairs, black mustache and broad shoulders, a ride on a reckless driver with an “electric flashlight” - arouse anger in the Twelve.

Why is there a hungry dog ​​in “Twelve”?

Blok clearly explains that the dog is a symbol of the old world, now rejected: “The old world is like a mangy dog, / If you fail, I’ll beat you!” The Dog, who strays towards the Twelve at the end of the poem, shortly before this is the companion of the bourgeoisie, “who hid his nose in his collar”; Both the bourgeois and the old world are identified with this dog. It is appropriate to remember that the famous St. Petersburg cafe of poets, where Blok, who was not yet separated from many of his Symbolist friends, often spoke, was called “Stray Dog.”

Finally, the dog is one of the “demonic” images in folklore and literature: an unclean animal in the minds of Christians (especially Old Believers, who adhere to the spelling “Jesus Christ” chosen by Blok), a disguise for Mephistopheles in “Faust.” For a poem in which big role plays a contrast, the juxtaposition of the dog and Christ (all the more striking since they form a rhyming pair) - an appropriate finishing touch.

Kerenki - this is what people called the banknotes issued by the Provisional Government (in honor of its head, Alexander Kerensky). They were produced without a serial number and degrees of protection, so they were not particularly trusted

Red Guards around the fire during the October Revolution. Petrograd, October 1917

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What are the features of the composition and metrics of “The Twelve”?

The title “Twelve” describes not only the heroes of the poem, but also its structure - twelve chapters. The poem opens and ends with exposition. The first chapter is a prologue of different voices, into which the Twelve gradually enter; their movement is the leitmotif of the poem. This prologue resembles a theatrical one, but the extraneous voices of the episodic characters soon fall silent, and all the conversations that take place throughout the poem belong to the Red Guards themselves. At the same time, the boundary between the speech of one and the speech of another is sometimes drawn (as in the second chapter of the poem, where direct speech is framed as a dialogue), and sometimes not, and only by indirect signs can one understand what different people are saying; This creates a feeling of monolithic speech of the Twelve. However, neither Katka nor her lover Vanka utter a word in the poem. Christ, who is hiding from the Twelve, is also silent: only the author of “The Twelve” sees him - thus, in the last lines we go beyond the vision of the heroes, the subject of the poem shifts. Subject displacement - characteristic technique“The Twelve,” which often confuses readers: who, for example, says about the Twelve, “You need an ace of diamonds on your back”—the author or an unnamed outside observer?

They called out to me. It was Blok. We reached the Children's entrance. I ask: “Do you like it?” “Okay,” said Blok, and then added: “They burned my library in my village.”

Vladimir Mayakovsky

In internal composition"Twelve" important role contrasts play: color contrast the poem opens (“Black Evening. / White snow"); a little later, a third color will be added to the range, “psychologically” contrasting to the first two - red. It is worth noting that Blok operates basic colors for the Russian linguistic picture of the world: these three colors are the most frequent in the Russian language. Among other contrasts are the words addressed to the murdered Katka: “What, Katka, are you glad? - No gu-gu... / Lie, carrion, in the snow! - and her killer Petrukha’s declaration of love for her. In this hidden contrast there are two poles of attitude towards women; here they do not contradict each other, and this confirms the idea of ​​the same Katya as one of the avatars of the Eternal Femininity.

The change of rhythms and song genres in “The Twelve” no longer looks contrasting, but kaleidoscopic. The accented, somewhat chaotic verse of the first chapter, reminiscent of the rhythm of Andrei Bely in the second half of the 1910s, gives way to energetic dolnik Poetic size. The number of unstressed syllables between stressed syllables here is not constant, but fluctuates, creating a more refined and at the same time natural rhythmic pattern. “I stood there alone, without worry. / I looked at the mountains in the distance. / And there - on the steep road - / It was already swirling in red dust” (Alexander Blok, from “Poems about a Beautiful Lady”). ⁠ the second, followed by the tetrameter trochee of the third, fourth and fifth chapters - a meter common to the ditty and, for example, Pushkin’s “Demons”; in the sixth chapter a slightly loose iambic tetrameter appears with a double masculine rhyme(its most famous example in Russian poetry is Lermontov’s “Mtsyri”; the meter is thus associated with the rapid unfolding of the epic plot); then the tetrameter trochee returns, within one chapter moving from elegiac to dance tonality. The eighth chapter is an imitation of folk verse, a complex fusion of anapest with trochee. Then follows the ninth chapter - a semi-ironic return to romance, salon poetics, “hackneyed” iambic tetrameter with cross-female/male rhyme. From the tenth to the twelfth chapter, the trochee again dominates - from colloquial song to solemn; Perhaps “The Twelve” is the work in which the potential of the trochaic tetrameter (a meter often belittled as ditty or childish) is revealed most visibly in all of Russian poetry.

Illustration by Yuri Annenkov​​​​​ for the first edition of “The Twelve”

From the point of view of compositional tasks, such a complex alternation, on the one hand, emphasizes the leitmotif of the poem - the procession and conversations of the Twelve, on the other hand, it recalls chaos, the main element of the poem. A kind of

Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
The man is not standing on his feet.
Wind, wind -
All over God's world!

The wind curls
White snow.
There is ice under the snow.
Slippery, hard
Every walker
Slips - oh, poor thing!

From building to building
They will stretch the rope.
On the rope - poster:

The old woman is killing herself - crying,
He won't understand what it means
What is this poster for?
Such a huge flap?
How many foot wraps would there be for the guys,
And everyone is undressed, barefoot...

Old lady like a chicken
Somehow I rewound over a snowdrift.
- Oh, Mother Intercessor!
- Oh, the Bolsheviks will drive you into a coffin!

The wind is biting!
The frost isn't far behind!
And the bourgeois at the crossroads
He hid his nose in his collar.

Who is this? - Long hair
And he says in a low voice:
- Traitors!
- Russia is dead!
Must be a writer -
Vitia...

And there’s the long-haired one -
To the side and behind the snowdrift...
That today is not cheerful,
Comrade pop?

Do you remember how it used to be
He walked forward with his belly,
And the cross shone
Belly on the people?

There's a lady in karakul
Turned up to another:
- We cried and cried...
Slipped
And - bam - she stretched out!

Ay, ay!
Pull, lift!

The wind is cheerful.
Both angry and happy.

Twists the hems,
Passers-by are mowed down.
Tears, crumples and wears
Large poster:
“All power to the Constituent Assembly!”
And he delivers the words:

...And we had a meeting...
...In this building...
...Discussed -
Resolved:
For a while - ten, at night - twenty-five...
...And don’t take less from anyone...
…Let's go to sleep…

Late evening.
The street is empty.
One tramp
Slouching,
Let the wind whistle...

Hey, poor guy!
Come -
Let's kiss...

Of bread!
What's ahead?
Come in!

Black, black sky.

Anger, sad anger
It boils in my chest...
Black anger, holy anger...

Comrade! Look
Both!

The wind is blowing, the snow is fluttering.
Twelve people are walking.

Rifles black belts
All around - lights, lights, lights...

There is a cigarette in his teeth, he has taken a cap,
You need the Ace of Diamonds on your back!

Freedom, freedom,
Eh, eh, without a cross!

Tra-ta-ta!

It's cold, comrades, it's cold!

And Vanka and Katka are in the tavern...
- She has kerenki in her stocking!

Vanyushka himself is rich now...
- Vanka was ours, but he became a soldier!

Well, Vanka, son of a bitch, bourgeois,
My, try, kiss!

Freedom, freedom,
Eh, eh, without a cross!
Katka and Vanka are busy -
What, what are you doing?..

Tra-ta-ta!

All around - lights, lights, lights...
Shoulders - gun belts...

Revolutionary step up!
The restless enemy never sleeps!
Comrade, hold the rifle, don’t be afraid!
Let's fire a bullet into Holy Rus' -

To the condo,
In the hut,
In the fat ass!
Eh, eh, without a cross!

How did our guys go?
To serve in the Red Army -
To serve in the Red Army -
I'm going to lay down my head!

Oh, you, bitter grief,
Sweet life!
Torn coat
Austrian gun!

We are at the mercy of all bourgeoisie
Let's fan the world fire,
World fire in blood -
God bless!

The snow is spinning, the reckless driver is screaming,
Vanka and Katka are flying -
Electric flashlight
On the shafts...
Ah, ah, fall!

n in a soldier's overcoat
With a stupid face
Twists, twirls the black mustache,
Yes it twists
He's joking...

That's how Vanka is - he's broad-shouldered!
That's how Vanka is - he is talkative!
hugs Katya the Fool,
Speaks...

She threw her face back
Teeth sparkle like pearls...
Oh you, Katya, my Katya,
Thick-faced...

On your neck, Katya,
The scar did not heal from the knife.
Under your breasts, Katya,
That scratch is fresh!

Eh, eh, dance!
It hurts the legs are good!

She walked around in lace underwear -
Walk around, walk around!
Fornicated with the officers -
Get lost, get lost!

Eh, eh, get lost!
My heart skipped a beat!

Do you remember, Katya, the officer -
He did not escape the knife...
Al didn't remember, cholera?
Is your memory not fresh?

Eh, eh, refresh
Let me sleep with you!

She wore gray leggings,
Minion ate chocolate.
I went for a walk with the cadets -
Did you go with the soldier now?

Eh, eh, sin!
It will be easier for the soul!

...Again galloping towards us,
The reckless driver is flying, screaming, yelling...

Stop, stop! Andryukha, help!
Petrukha, run behind!..

Fuck-bang-tah-tah-tah-tah!
Snowy dust swirled towards the sky!..

The reckless driver - and with Vanka - ran away...
One more time! Cock the trigger!..

Fuck-gobble! You will know
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It’s like walking with a stranger’s girl!..

Run away, scoundrel! Alright, wait,
I'll deal with you tomorrow!

Where is Katka? - Dead, dead!
Shot in the head!

What, Katka, are you happy? - No gu-gu...
Lie, carrion, in the snow!

Revolutionary step up!
The restless enemy never sleeps!

And again there are twelve,
Behind his shoulders is a gun.
Only the poor killer
You can't see your face at all...

Faster and faster
He quickens his pace.
I wrapped a scarf around my neck -
It won't recover...

What, comrade, are you not happy?
- What, my friend, are you dumbfounded?
- What, Petrukha, he hung his nose,
Or did you feel sorry for Katka?

Oh, comrades, relatives,
I loved this girl...
The nights are black and intoxicating
Spent with this girl...

Because of the poor prowess
In her fiery eyes,
Because of a crimson mole
Near the right shoulder,
I lost it, stupid
I ruined it in the heat of the moment... ah!

Look, you bastard, he started a barrel organ,
What are you, Petka, a woman, or what?
- Truly the soul inside out
Did you think of turning it out? Please!
- Maintain your posture!
- Keep control over yourself!

Now is not the time
To babysit you!
The burden will be heavier
To us, dear comrade!

And Petrukha slows down
Hasty steps...

He throws his head up
He became cheerful again...

Eh, eh!
It's not a sin to have fun!

Lock the floors
There will be robberies today!

Unlock the cellars -
The bastard is on the loose these days!

Oh, woe is bitter!
Boredom is boring
Mortal!

It's time for me
I’ll carry it out, I’ll carry it out...

I'm already crowned
I'll scratch it, I'll scratch it...

I'm already seeds
I'll get it, I'll get it...

I'm already using a knife
I'll strip, strip!..

You fly, bourgeois, little crow!
I'll drink some blood
For the sweetheart,
Black-browed...

Rest, Lord, the soul of your servant...

You can’t hear the city noise,
There is silence above the Neva Tower,
And there is no more policeman -
Go for a walk, guys, without wine!

A bourgeois stands at a crossroads
And he hid his nose in his collar.
And next to him he cuddles with coarse fur
A mangy dog ​​with its tail between its legs.

The bourgeois stands there like a hungry dog,
It stands silent, like a question.
And the old world is like a rootless dog,
Stands behind him with his tail between his legs.

There was some kind of blizzard,
Oh, blizzard, oh, blizzard!
Can't see each other at all
In four steps!

The snow curled like a funnel,
The snow rose in columns...

Oh, what a blizzard, save me!
- Petka! Hey, don't lie!
What did I save you from?
Golden iconostasis?
You're unconscious, really.
Think, think sensibly -
Ali's hands are not covered in blood
Because of Katka's love?
- Take a revolutionary step!
The restless enemy is close!

Forward, forward, forward,
Working people!

...And they go without the name of the saint
All twelve - into the distance.
Ready for anything
No regrets...

Their rifles are steel
To an invisible enemy...
In the back streets,
Where one snowstorm gathers dust...
Yes, downy snowdrifts -
You can't drag your boot...

It hits my eyes
Red flag.

Is heard
Measured step.

Here he will wake up
Fierce enemy...

And the blizzard throws dust in their eyes
Days and nights
All the way!…

Go-go,
Working people!

...They walk into the distance with a mighty step...
-Who else is there? Come out!
This is the wind with a red flag
Played out ahead...

Ahead is a cold snowdrift.
- Whoever is in the snowdrift, come out!
Only a poor dog is hungry
Waddles behind...

Get off, you scoundrel.
I'll tickle you with a bayonet!
The old world is like a mangy dog,
If you fail, I'll beat you up!

... Bares his teeth - the wolf is hungry -
Tail tucked - not far behind -
A cold dog is a rootless dog...
- Hey, answer me, who's coming?

Who's waving the red flag there?
- Take a closer look, it’s so dark!
-Who is walking there at a quick pace?
Burying for everything at home?

Anyway, I'll get you
Better surrender to me alive!
- Hey, comrade, it will be bad,
Come out, let's start shooting!

Fuck-tah-tah! - And only echo
Responsible in homes...
Only a blizzard of long laughter
Covered in snow...

Fuck-fuck-fuck!
Fuck-fuck-fuck!
...So they go with a sovereign step -
Behind is a hungry dog.
Ahead - with a bloody flag,
And we are unknown behind the blizzard,
And unharmed by a bullet,
With a gentle tread above the storm,
Snow scattering of pearls,
In a white corolla of roses -
Ahead is Jesus Christ.

Analysis of the poem “The Twelve” by Blok

Many consider the poem “The Twelve” to be the main work in Blok’s work. It was written by the poet at the beginning of 1918 and reflects his view of the Russian revolution.

Poem 12 is an original poem. It is written in an innovative style. The language of the poem is as close as possible to the illiterate “soldier of the revolution.” A highly educated person is perplexed by some fragments of the poem. Extreme cynicism and frankness of the “twelve apostles of the revolution” - characteristic feature verse.

The plot is based on a tour of a Red Army patrol consisting of twelve people. People who represent the birth of a new world are cold-blooded criminals and murderers for whom nothing is sacred. They are driven by extreme hatred of everything that the old society symbolizes. Blok’s true attitude towards the created characters is still not completely clear. In memoirs and works Soviet writers the main characters were subjected to excessive idealization. The struggle to build communism was associated only with bright and fair ideas. For Blok’s characters, one of the main goals is to “shoot a bullet into Holy Rus'.”

The poem is oversaturated with bloodthirsty sadistic slogans and phrases: “world fire in blood”, “shot in the head”, “I’ll drink the blood” and many others. etc. The speech of the main characters is replete with rudeness and curses.

The patrol itself looks like a completely meaningless action. The Red Army soldiers do not have any specific goal. They, like vultures, want to find any excuse for robbery or murder.

With some unhealthy persistence, Blok constantly introduces into the text of his work Christian images. The number of “heroes” is equal to the number of apostles. “Black malice” is equated with “holy malice.” All the monstrous acts of the revolutionaries are accompanied by the wish “God bless!” Finally, the leader of a gang of murderers and thugs intoxicated with blood becomes main symbol Christianity - Jesus Christ. Blok himself claimed that he simply could not choose a more significant figure for this role.

The poem “The Twelve” leaves behind mixed feelings. Only an incorrigible fighter for a general revolution or a mentally unstable person can consider it a work glorifying the birth of a new world. It also does not fall under the category of “the harsh truth of life,” if only because “I slash, slash with a knife” somehow does not fit with “rest, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant.” There are opinions that Blok was simply mocking the new system, but he himself did not confirm this. It is known that the poet had a desire to burn his poem.

Alexander Blok is known throughout the world for his works. He wrote many wonderful works reflecting Russian reality, which remain relevant in our time.

Blok’s work is multifaceted and deep, which is why it is so interesting to the reader. Among the variety of works, one can highlight the incredibly deep in content, and unusual in composition and language poem “The Twelve”, which became business card poet, brought him fame and glory.

The history of the poem

Alexander Blok's poem was written by him about a year after the revolution took place in Russia in February, and about two months after the revolution took place in October. The approximate year of its creation is called 1918 and is attributed to January.

As the poet himself recalled, he came up with the poem completely by accident, out of a single spirit, when he was in difficult living conditions. At that time, the famous and previously prosperous city of Petrograd was in anticipation of a revolution: everything in it froze and the cold brought down all existence. People were afraid and were waiting for something. Among them was a poet who dreamed of warmth and for something to happen, and for clarity to finally come. At this time, as Blok himself claimed, he was in some kind of unconscious or semi-conscious ascent, which was more like a fever.

Alexander Alexandrovich wrote his poem in a few days and then realized that it was worth reworking it a little. Therefore, for another month he tries to correct and change something in her. Before giving the work a start in life, the poet himself assessed it more than once, and once wrote in his notebook like this:

"Today I am a genius."

It is difficult to understand the poem if you do not know that before this the poet was at the front, where he spent two whole years. But this was not the main thing, but the fact that devastation reigned in his city, German troops were advancing, severe cold came, and robbery began on the streets of the city. Blok was overcome by deprivation and anxiety.

According to the recollections of contemporaries, the lines in the text were not written in the order in which they were laid out as a result. There were many options written for each line, from which Alexander chose.

The plot of the poem "The Twelve"

The composition of the poem consists of 12 chapters. In the first chapter, as expected, there is a beginning, where the poet depicts the winter streets of Petrograd. The action takes place in cold winter 1917, when there is a revolution in the country. There are passers-by on the street, although there are not many of them. But their portraits are described in detail and deeply. For example, a priest, some old woman or a rich woman who is well dressed, wearing an astrakhan coat. And now on the streets of this frozen and snowy city there is a patrol detachment, in which there are twelve revolutionaries.

Alexander Blok introduces the narration and conversations of patrolmen discussing their comrade in arms, who was once in their ranks, and now has become friends with the prostitute Katka and spends all his time in taverns. And soon Vanka and Katka appear, who become victims of an attack by the Red Guards. One of the twelve soldiers shoots and with this random shot kills Katya. This is Petrukha, who still spends some time in sadness because of the murder of the girl. And his comrades reacted to his action with condemnation.

Symbols of the poem "The Twelve"

Everyone knows that Jesus Christ had twelve apostles, and it is no coincidence that the author takes exactly this number of Red Army soldiers. He seems to draw an invisible parallel between the apostles, who were given strength and authority over various evil spirits, the ability to drive them out, as well as heal and remove all infirmities, and the revolutionaries, who are called upon to cleanse society of unreliable bourgeoisie.

You can highlight the most striking symbols:

★ Image of Christ.
★ Twelve Red Army soldiers.
★ Fat-assed Rus'.
★ Dog.
★ Wind.

With the help of symbols, the poet shows a city that is becoming hostile, which is trying to resist future events: the wind tearing down huge posters, snow and ice all around, robberies and shootings in the streets. All these pictures are real, but here a strange image of Christ appears. Some critics decided that the poet created a caricature of the Bolsheviks who behaved like robbers. But if they are criminals and robbers, then what does the image of Christ have to do with it? The poet's Rus' is rough-hewn and fat-assed. And this is also a symbol of the changes that took place in the country, which led to the fact that “trag and needlessness” began to rule the country.

In its composition, Blok's poem is a set of ditties and rhymes, which are tragic in content, but among them there are also dance ones. By this, the poet shows the nationality of the poem, its simplicity and closeness to ordinary poor people. That's why it's so difficult to read.

Why did the author show the dog? The dog is a symbol of the old world, angry and hungry. Blok shows that the bourgeois world has collapsed and now stands, like a dog at a crossroads, at a crossroads, trying to understand where to go next.

As for Christ, the poet depicted him strangely: in his hands he holds a red flag, and on his head he has a small corolla, notable for the fact that it is made of white roses. This image can be interpreted in different ways, which is what Blok’s contemporaries did.

Analysis of Blok's poem "12"

Blok's poem is interesting because it combines reality, reality and the symbolic principle. Of course, the content of this work contains a story, which dictates both the rhythm and the genre. The composition of the poem is complex, but very important to understand the work.

Blok's poem is based on a love story. So, Petrukha loves Katka, but she went for a ride with Vanka and then Petrukha kills her. This murder seems completely accidental, since the cart was stopped by chance by the Red Guards in order to rob. And Petrukha fired a random shot just to scare him. But it turned out that he killed his former girlfriend. And this murder of Katka is murder old Russia. The author is trying to convey to the reader that she is no longer there, there is nothing left. After all, the elements sweep not only through the streets of the city, destroying it. This element rushes through the souls of people. And it's very scary. The main conflict of the poem is the struggle of the old world with the new, light with darkness, and good with evil. And this struggle is reflected in the lives of the heroes of the poem.

Revolutionary step up!
The restless enemy never sleeps!
Comrade, hold the rifle, don’t be afraid!
Let's fire a bullet into Holy Rus' -

Each detail in the poem has its own symbolism. An interesting image is the wind, which personifies revolution, cheerful and destructive. The author uses a ring composition so that the chapters are somehow related to each other. So, the first and twelfth chapters have a lot in common with each other. Real picture next to the symbols it draws a revolution, new world. But only certain signs of the old times make themselves felt: the old woman at the crossroads, the priest who is already a friend of the poet, and others.

The action of all chapters takes place on the streets of the city, and only in the last, in the twelfth chapter, this reality and space begins to expand. Blok's poem is musical, since each chapter has its own melody and, accordingly, rhythm. The plot begins with a ditty that is reckless and not entirely correct. But the author tries to include colloquial vocabulary in his poem, for example, this is the conversation of a simple soldier, an old woman or a passerby. Petersburg is represented by completely different heroes. The main author's technique is the antithesis: the evening is black, and the snow is white. These two colors - black and white - run through the entire poem. But at the end of the plot a red one appears, this is the banner that Christ carries.

The central chapters in the poem are the sixth and seventh. In the sixth chapter, Katka is killed. There are a lot of ellipses and appeals in this chapter. In the seventh chapter, the author places the repentance of Petrukha, who turns out to be a murderer. Murder at that time was a common case that no one investigated.

Another literary device used by the poet is changing the poetic rhythm. This is necessary for Alexander Blok to show what kind of disorder and chaos reigns in the city.

Critical reviews and assessments of Blok's poem

When was the poem presented? to a wide circle it caused real chaos not only in literary circles. Firstly, it was not understood by everyone, and secondly, opinions in its assessment were radically divided. And some art critics of the newly created state, for example, Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, said that it is impossible not to like such a work, but it is not worth reading it out loud.

Many fans and admirers of Blok, after the publication of the poem, simply broke all ties with him, calling him “Traitor.” Akhmatova refused to participate in literary evenings, if she found out that Blok would be present at them.

Finding himself misunderstood, Alexander Alexandrovich finds himself in isolation. Among those who remained faithful to the poet and supported him were the following friends: Yesenin, Remizov, Meyerhold, Oldenburg. Yes, the poem was surprising; no one thought that Alexander Blok was capable of writing such a work. It is known that Blok himself never read his poem aloud, although his wife did it with pleasure.

After all kinds of attacks, the poet began to creative crisis. And in 1919, Blok was completely suspected of an anti-Soviet conspiracy and arrested. The interrogations lasted only a day and a half, but Alexander was broken.

Despite his creative silence, thanks to the poem “The Twelve,” the poet’s popularity grew. Blok was read even by those who were not previously familiar with his work. The work was snapped up for quotes and used for posters, for example: “To the grief of all the bourgeoisie, we will fan the world fire.”

The poem went through a difficult path: it was understood in different ways, brought shame and admiration to the author, was gutted into quotes, and was repeatedly analyzed by critics, who each interpreted it in their own way. The work seemed to live a complex human life with admiration and persecution, with recognition and rejection. This is where it manifested itself real talent Russian poet Alexander Alexandrovich Blok.