A Violin Symbolic in B. Poplavsky’s Poetry

Abstract

The article is devoted to the research of violin symbolic in Boris Poplav-
 sky’s poetry. We consider connections of this image with musical philosophy of
 the poet of Russian Montparnasse, with the poetry of his predecessors (O. Man-
 delstam, A. Blok) and with constant literary cultural connotations, associated
 with the image of the violin.
 Symbolic of this musical instrument is multifaceted and difficult in Pop-
 lavsky’s literary work. This is due to the poet’s spiritual search. It has ambivalent
 meanings that is clear in his book of verses «Flags», when a violin appears as a
 carrier of magic and beauty dead in cold and horrible world, which doesn’t un-
 derstand beauty of the real art and rejects it («Dark Madonna»), and as «False
 Fiddlestick», which has dissonance music, connected with the theme of Death and
 eschatological motives («Rose of Death»).
 The violin also appears in poems dedicated to the poet’s important theme
 of art, music and the crowd, where it is associated with the theme of aggression
 and crime. The stringed instrument has become a predator causing pain and suf-
 fering in the world around it, which does not include music. Another development
 in the plot showing the struggle between art and reality is the disappearance of
 disastrous musical instruments that should create one magical sound. Their mis-
 sion is heroic, they must give the world the miracle of music, but the tragedy is
 that this reality cannot accept this magic