Alexander Blok

The Russian poet Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok (1880-1921) was a leading figure in the Russian symbolist movement. His strongly rhythmic poetry is characterized by metaphysical imagery, dramatic use of legend, and responsiveness to history and to social life.

Aleksandr Blok was born in St. Petersburg on Nov. 28, 1880. His father was a professor of law, and his mother a writer and translator; Blok thus grew up in an upper-class intellectual milieu. Summers were spent at Shakhmatovo, the Bloks' country home near Moscow. There the famous chemist D. I. Mendeleev was a neighbor, and in 1903 Blok married Mendeleev's daughter.

Blok had begun to write as a boy. In 1903 some of his poems were published in D. S. Merezhkovski's magazine, the New Way. Blok's first book, the strongly symbolistic Verses about the Beautiful Lady, appeared in 1904. Although most critics ignored the volume, it was greeted enthusiastically by Valery Bryusov, Andrei Bely, and the "older generation" of Russian symbolists, and Blok's poetry and reviews soon appeared regularly in their magazines.

Bryusov, the editor of the Balance and a leading symbolist theorist and poet, strongly influenced Blok in the years 1903 and 1904. Under Bryusov's guidance Blok turned to themes of city life and began to use fresh rhythmic patterns and images that expressed the mysterious power of sensual love. Among his notable poems of this period are "The Swamp Demon," "The Unknown Lady," "The Night Violet," "The Snow Mask," "The Factory," and "From the Newspapers." The last two indicate Blok's growing social awareness.

By 1906, when he graduated from the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University, Blok was a recognized poet. That year Vsevolod Meyerhold directed and starred in Blok's one-act verse play, The Puppet Show. Though admired in literary circles, the play was never a popular success. Blok wrote several other plays, including the fulllength The Rose and the Cross (1913), which was based on medieval French romances. Although rehearsed by Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theater, this play was not presented.

In 1907-1908 Blok was a reviewer for the magazine Golden Fleece. His articles combined evaluations of contemporary literature with a longing for the Russian past and for a vital connection between the intelligentsia and the people. In "Russia" and "On Kulikovo Field" (both 1908), he searched for a way to bring national history to bear on the present.

Despite his feelings of personal failure, from 1909 to 1916 Blok wrote poetry of high artistic achievement. "The Terrible World," "In the Restaurant," "Night Hours," and "Dances of Death" are particularly indicative of his spiritual turmoil. Blok and his wife had a stormy marital relationship, but during a temporary reconciliation they traveled in Italy in 1909. This trip inspired Blok's exquisite cycle Italian Poems (1909).

During World War I Blok served as a clerk with a forward engineers' company. He greeted the 1917 Revolution sympathetically. Indeed, his poem The Twelve (1918), a combined lyric and narrative about 12 Red Guardsmen on city patrol, synthesizes Christian values and reformist principles. It brought Blok even wider popularity and enduring fame. The revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky remarked that although Blok was not "one of us," The Twelve was "the most significant work of our time." In his long, unfinished, autobiographical poem Retribution, Blok summarized social change at the turn of the century.

Under the Soviet government Blok was a member of the directorate of the state theaters and chairman of the Petrograd section of the Poets' Union. Hard times, political bitterness, and his own confused life made him old at 40. In one of his last published works, The Decline of Humanism (1921), he lamented the dissipation of European style and the loss of heroes who could persuade men to act rationally in true self-interest. Blok died in Petrograd on Aug. 7, 1921.

Further Reading

Many studies of Blok in Russian have recently appeared, as well as a new edition of his complete works. Studies in English are Cecil Kisch, Alexander Blok, Prophet of Revolution: A Study of His Life and Work (1960); Franklin D. Reeve, Alexander Blok: Between Image and Idea (1962); and Robin Kemball, Alexander Blok: A Study in Rhythm and Metre (1965). See also Renato Poggioli, The Poets of Russia, 1890-1930 (1960).

Additional Sources

Berberova, Nina Nikolaevna, Aleksandr Blok: a life, New York: George Braziller, 1996.

Chukovskaeei, Korneaei, Alexander Blok as man and poet, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1982.

Forsyth, James, Listening to the wind: an introduction to Alexander Blok, Oxford Eng.: W. A. Meeuws, 1977.

Mochulskiaei, K. (Konstantin), Aleksandr Blok, Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1983.

Orlov, Vladimir Nikolaevich, Hamayun, the life of Alexander Blok, Moscow: Progress, 1980.

Pyman, Avril, The life of Aleksandr Blok, Oxford Eng.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1979-1980.

For more information on Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok, visit Britannica.com.

(1880 - 1921), poet, playwright, essayist.

Alexander Blok, one of Russia's greatest poets and a key figure in the Symbolist movement, was born in St. Petersburg in 1880, into an aristocratic family of German and Russian descent. His father was a professor of law at the University of Warsaw and a talented musician; his mother, a poet and translator. Blok's parents separated shortly after his birth; he spent his childhood with his maternal grandfather, botanist Andrei Beketov, until his mother obtained legal divorce in 1889, remarried, and brought Blok with her into her new apartment. Blok wrote verse from his early childhood on, but his serious poetry began around age eighteen. He studied law without success at the University of Petersburg, transferred to the Historical-Philosophical Division, and received his degree in 1906.

As a young writer, Blok made the acquaintance of Symbolist poets, including Vladimir Soloviev and Andrei Bely. His first poetry collection Stikhi o prekrasnoy dame (Verses on a beautiful lady) was published in 1904. Inspired by a mystical experience and his relationship with Lyubov Mendeleyeva, daughter of the famous chemist, whom he married in 1903, the poems, resonant with Romantic influence, depict a woman both earthly and divine, praised and summoned by the poet. Despite the sublime character of these poems, there are early signs of rupture and disturbance; the supplicatory tone itself borders on despair.

Blok followed his first collection with the lyric drama Balaganchik (The fair show booth), staged in 1906, and his second poetry collection, Nechayannaya radost (Inadvertent joy, 1907). These propelled him to fame. From there he continued to write prolifically, developing a distinctly tumultuous and sonorous style and influencing his contemporaries profoundly. His unfinished verse epic Vozmezdie (Retribution, 1910 - 1921), occasioned by the death of his father, chronicles his family history as an allegory of Russia's eventual spiritual resurrection; the cycle Na pole Kulikovom (On the field of kulikovo, 1908), celebrates Russia's victory in 1380 over the Mongol Tatars. Yet, despite the spiritual optimism of both works, their lyrical heights coincide with expressions of despair.

Blok supported the 1917 Revolution, perceiving it as a spiritual event, a step toward a transformed Christian world. Yet his twelve-part poem Dvenadtsat (The twelve, 1918) suggests deep ambivalence. Among the most complex and controversial of Blok's works, it mixes voices and idioms (slogans, war cries, laments, wry remarks) without resolving the discord. The shifts of rhythm and diction, the mimicry of sounds, and the punctuation of the verse with diverse exclamations overwhelm the Christian motif.

Blok's disillusionment with the Soviet bureaucracy and censorship is suggested in his fierce and eloquent essay "On the Poet's Calling" (1921), at one level a short treatise on Alexander Pushkin, at another level, a discussion of the conflict between the poet ("son of harmony") and the "mob" (chern). The poet's calling, according to Blok, is to create form (cosmos) out of raw sound (chaos); this goal is opposed by the mob - the officials and bureaucrats, those committed to everyday vanities.

Blok died in 1921 from a mysterious (possibly venereal) disease, in a state of malnutrition, despair, heavy drinking, and mental illness. His work continued to be published in the Soviet Union after his death, with a marked discrepancy between official and unofficial interpretations.

Bibliography

Berberova, Nina. (1996). Aleksandr Blok: A Life, tr. Robyn Marsack. New York: George Braziller.

Blok, Alexander. (1974). Selected Poems [of] Alexander Blok, tr. John Stallworthy and Peter France. Hammondsworth, UK: Penguin.

Chukovsky, Kornei. (1982). Alexander Blok as Man and Poet, tr. and ed. Diana Burgin and Katherine O'Connor. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis.

—DIANA SENECHAL

Blok, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (əlyĭksän'dər əlyĭksän'drəvĭch blôk) , 1880–1921, Russian poet, considered the greatest of the Russian symbolists. As the leading disciple of Vladimir Soloviev, he voiced both mysticism and idealistic passion in an early cycle of love poems, Verses about the Lady Beautiful (1904). In 1905 he lost his ethereal vision and turned to themes of despair, degradation, and the attraction of evil. The Unknown Woman (1906) is his best-known poem of this period. Later he found hope in the idealization of Russia, welcoming the Revolution of 1917 in his epic poem The Twelve (1918, tr. 1920). This work celebrates the passion, violence, and exhilaration of the revolution, with which Blok later became disenchanted. The Scythians (1920) is directed against the Western forces fighting the Bolsheviks.

Bibliography

See his selected poems, ed. by A. Pyman (1972); his account of his journey to Italy, ed. by L. E. Vogel (1973); studies by F. D. Reeve (1962) and R. Kemball (1965).

Quotes:

"Hell and damnation, life is such fun with a ragged greatcoat and a Jerry gun!"

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