Russian Poets and the October Revolution: Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Mikhail Kuzmin and Others

Oleksandr Sylaiev,Iryna Razumenko,Viktoriia Vorozhbit-Horbatiuk,Inna Prokopchuk,Oleksandr Tararak

doi:10.34069/ai/2020.27.03.48

Oleksandr Sylaiev, Iryna Razumenko + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.34069/ai/2020.27.03.48

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Abstract

The article considers the question of the ideological and creative evolution of famous Russian poets at a turning point in the history of the twentieth century - during the years of the active formation of a totalitarian state system and its aesthetic socialist-realist doctrine. Revolutionary maximalism, the idea of a complete renewal of all being, came not only from Marxism and the Bolsheviks, but was also prepared by literature, long before the revolution, it had already “artistically matured” in the poetry of Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Osip Mandelstam, Vladimir Mayakovsky and many others. There is every reason to assert that the sources of Soviet literature as a cultural phenomenon were not only party leaders, not only so called proletarian culture and commissaries, but also honest artists who were ready to see in the cruelty of the revolution the right path to the cardinal renewal of life that their soul, which was full of angry denial of the world. The authors of the article argue that, having survived “belated insight”, Russian poetry in the person of Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Andrey Bely, Mickhail Kuzmin and others began a dramatic struggle for humanistic ideals and creative freedom.

Highlights

One of the first literary scholars in the postSoviet space who set the task to trace “the through movement of strong, organic, artistic thought, developing according to internal laws, and not adapting to external circumstances” in the history of Russian literature of the beginning of the 20th century, was V
Pertzovsky noted the dual nature of the revolutionary anti-humanistic artistic idea, emphasizing that “the origins of Soviet literature as a cultural phenomenon were not party bosses, not Proletcult with Narkompros (People's Commissariat for Education), but honest artists who fully felt the despotism of the revolution, but those who are ready to see in this cruelty the right path to the absolute renewal of life that their soul really hungered for, overwhelmed with angry worlddenial” (Pertsovsky, 1992)
Analyzing today the literary situation of the turning 20s of the 20th century, we ascertain the dominant presence of writers and poets in it, whose position was characterized by an initially loyal, romantically idealized perception of the socialist revolution or as a truly popular revolution of the Russian lower classes (Sergey Yesenin, Nikolai Klyuev and other representatives of the so-called “new peasant” poets), or as an universal revolutionary whirlwind designed to bring to life and spiritualize the “decrepit” global civilization

Summary

Introduction

One of the first literary scholars in the postSoviet space who set the task to trace “the through movement of strong, organic, artistic thought, developing according to internal laws, and not adapting to external circumstances” in the history of Russian literature of the beginning of the 20th century, was V. He came to the extremely important conclusion that revolutionary maximalism, the idea of a “complete and absolute renewal of all being” came from Marxism and the Bolsheviks, but was prepared by literature, long before the revolution had already “artistically matured” in the poetry of Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Osip Mandelstam, Maximilian Voloshin, Vladimir Mayakovsky and many others. He defined this idea and this line in Russian literature as anti-humanistic and anti-Christian (“demonic”), through which these poets “entered” the revolution. Pertzovsky noted the dual nature of the revolutionary anti-humanistic artistic idea, emphasizing that “the origins of Soviet literature as a cultural phenomenon were not party bosses, not Proletcult (working-class culture) with Narkompros (People's Commissariat for Education), but honest artists who fully felt the despotism of the revolution, but those who are ready to see in this cruelty the right path to the absolute renewal of life that their soul really hungered for, overwhelmed with angry worlddenial” (Pertsovsky, 1992)

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