<1916>

Notes

The poem was critically acclaimed. One of the first to draw attention to him was D. N. Semenovsky, who noted the author’s “subtle observation” and cited the second stanza of the poem as evidence (the newspaper “Working Land”, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 1918, July 20, No. 110). K. V. Mochulsky saw in the poem an example of Yesenin's use of metaphors: “The favorite - and perhaps the only - technique that Yesenin operates is a metaphor. He specialized in it. He has a huge verbal imagination and loves effects, unexpected juxtapositions and tricks. Here he is inexhaustible, often witty, always bold. The mythology of the primitive people should reflect its way of life, this "apperception" is mentioned both in the textbooks of psychology and in the textbooks of aesthetics. The cattle breeder perceives the universe through his herd. Yesenin did this systematically. Citing numerous examples from this (“curly month lamb”) and other poems (“Dove”, “It was not in vain that the winds blew ...”, “Clouds from the colt ...”, “Hooligan”, “Autumn”, etc.) , the critic concluded: “The sharpness of this, I would say, zoological transformation of the world, becomes dull very soon. You are surprised at the ingenuity, but when you find out that the wind is also “red”, only not a foal, but a colt, this already ceases to please ”(the Zveno newspaper, Paris, 1923, September 3, No. 31).

I saw a vivid example of color painting in a poem by R.B. Gul:

"The second gift of the peasant poet - word painting.

There are poets and prose writers who perceive the sound side of the word to the detriment of its second essence - “color”. The most definite here is Andrei Bely. Yesenin is almost the opposite. “Color” has been brought to an extraordinary, eye-catching brightness. He makes flowers. His colors are amazing. But there is no disharmony in this. Painting in friendship with organic songwriting.

Yesenin's poetic standard is blue-blue with gold. This is Yesenin's favorite color. The color of the Russian sky, rural melancholy from the surrounding immensity. Without this color, he has almost no poem. And in these colors I would publish all his books.

“Blue Russia”, “blue aspen”, “blue evening”, “blue doors of the day”, “blueness of invisible bushes”, “blue valleys”, “blue clang”, “blue sucks eyes”, “blue cloth of heaven”, “ blue gat", "unshakable blue", "blue thick", "blue evening", "plain blue", "blue in the eyes", "blue haze", "blue bay", "blue swan".

Everything is filled with blue. And he is always decorated with gold stars, dawns, sunsets, golden aspens, ”the critic wrote and further quoted this poem(Nak., 1923, October 21, No. 466).

Critics of the vulgar-sociological and proletarian persuasion interpreted the poem as "the view of the owner", "household fist", etc. Obviously having such judgments in mind, A.P. Selivanovsky in the article “Moscow Tavern and Soviet Russia” wrote about the pre-revolutionary poems of the poet: “True, he saw in the world not only blue bells. Even then, other motives cut through the silence of the village fields. Through the "black strand of woods", through the steppe, shaking green "bird-cherry smoke" above the canopy, he felt the age-old oppression that bound the village, the weight of the shackles of tsarism that entangled her hand and foot. After quoting the last two stanzas of the poem, he concluded: “The peasant boys ran away from these shackles into the forest, onto the high road, they went off as robbers. Not without reason, many of the old Russian revolutionary writers considered the robber a national Russian type” (Zaboy magazine, Artemovsk, 1925, No. 7, April, p. 15).

January 1918. This time especially attracts researchers of the work of Alexander Blok, because it was then that the poem "The Twelve" was created, which the greatest poet late XIX century welcomed the advance new era. In January 1918, Blok experienced the highest upsurge of revolutionary mood. "Twelve", "Scythians", article "Intelligentsia and Revolution" - brightest to that certificate.

The last pages of the second book of "The Life of Arseniev" are devoted to the time of young Arseniev's maturation. Surprising vigilance, a subtle sense of smell, perfect hearing reveal to the young man ever new beauties of nature, ever new combinations between its components, ever new and beautiful forms of its maturation, spring blossoming.

Why only a month when I lived in Tashkent for at least three years? Yes, because that month was special for me. Forty-three years later, a difficult task arose to remember the distant days when people, against their will, left their native places: there was a war! With great reluctance, I moved to Tashkent from Moscow, Anna Akhmatova - from besieged Leningrad. It just so happened: both she and I are native Petersburgers, and we met many thousands of kilometers from hometown. And it happened not at all in the first months after arrival.

"Behind the dark strand of copses..." Sergei Yesenin

Behind the dark strand of copses,
In unshakable blue
Curly lamb - month
Walking in the blue grass.
In a quiet lake with sedge
His horns butt, -
And it seems from a distant path -
Water shakes the banks.
And the steppe under the green canopy
Census bird cherry smoke
And beyond the valleys on the slopes
Weaves a frying pan over him.
O side of the feather grass forest,
You are close to my heart,
But even in yours lurks thicker
Salt sadness.
And you, like me, in a sad need,
Forgetting who is your friend and enemy,
You miss the pink sky
And dove clouds.
But to you from the blue expanse
Darkness seems timid
And the shackles of your Siberia
And the hump of the Ural Range.

Analysis of Yesenin's poem "Behind the dark strand of woods ..."

From the first years of his life in Moscow, Sergei Yesenin gained fame as a rural poet. Metropolitan connoisseurs of literature treated him with prejudice, believing that Yesenin's work was completely devoid of relevance. Nevertheless, very soon the poet had his admirers, who could discern among simple and unpretentious phrases the image of that Russia that is dear to them, close and understandable.

The capital made a contradictory impression on Yesenin. On the one hand, they admired high-rise buildings and very quickly got used to Moscow restaurants. But the constant fuss and alienation of people frightened the poet. Therefore, mentally, he preferred to return to his native village every time and devoted all his poems to the ancient Ryazan region, which he had loved so much since childhood. During this period (1914), the poem “Behind the dark strand of woods ...” was also written, which became another bright touch to the portrait of Russian nature - original, vibrant and surprisingly beautiful.

Yesenin's work is characterized by imagery and the desire to endow inanimate objects with the features of living people. That is why the poet associates the month with a curly lamb that “walks in the blue grass”, and “the water shakes the banks” due to the fact that it heavenly body as if butting horns with river sedge. Thus, the unpretentious landscape of Yesenin fills with special magic and charm, giving meaning to every little thing. His landscapes are light, like "bird cherry smoke" that descends over the Russian steppe, green and fragrant in spring.

Forests and meadows are the poet's best friends; Yesenin trusts them with all his innermost thoughts and desires. However, the author also knows how to listen, distinguishing in the rustle of leaves the exquisite melody of the approaching summer.. The amazing metaphor inherent in many of Yesenin's poems gives rise to very memorable images. So, the poet with equal success calls a grove not only a cluster of birches at the edge of the field, but also thickets of feather grass - steppe grass, which dries up by the middle of summer, turning into a prickly and impenetrable wall. But now, while the feather grass is still gaining juice, the poet sincerely admires the "forest", confessing: "You are close to the heart with evenness." Nevertheless, even in this green carpet, the author sees flaws in the form of islands of salt marshes, which cast dreary thoughts on him.

The author resorts to a fairly common technique, getting used to the image of the heroes of his story. However, the situation is unusual in that Yesenin tells about the Russian steppe and tries on its external surroundings. If the green feather grass was an animated object and could speak, then it would certainly be able to tell about what it feels like being under the hot spring sun all day. His thoughts are voiced by the author himself, arguing that the feather grass yearns for a pink sky and “pigeon clouds”. At the same time, Yesenin draws a parallel between himself and the hero of the poem, arguing that he is currently experiencing similar feelings, being "in a sad need." He strives for sky-high heights, but he realizes that what he dreams of is unattainable for him.

Instead of heavenly heights, the feather grass gets "the shackles of your Siberia and the hump of the Ural Range." The poet receives the same, for whom the homeland is associated not only with the beauty of the surrounding nature, but also with slave peasant labor. Attempts to escape from childhood memories in this case do not give a result, since Yesenin still remains the dream of his people. From childhood, he cherishes the dream of the sublime, but is forced to be content with the earthly, becoming like a steppe feather grass, whose life is devoid of ups and downs.

wild field

1

Blue expanses, fogs,
Feathers, and wormwood, and weeds ...
The expanse of the earth and the heavenly mold!
Spilled, unfolded at will
Pripontian Wild Field,
Dark Cimmerian steppe.

All covered with graves -
Without names, without end, without number...
All hoof and spears blown up,
With the bone of a seed, watered with blood,
Yes, the people's tight overgrowth.

Only the wind of the Trans-Caspian eels
It stirs up the waters of the steppe seashores,
Splashing, roaring - sprawling and abyss
Along ravines, ridges, izlogs,
Along unmeasured Scythian roads
Between mounds and stone women.
Whirlwind swirls of weeds,
And buzzes, and rings, and sings ...
These fields are the bottom of the ocean,
From the great slack waters.

Kindled their midday fire,
Indevela river blue…
Yes, the yellow-faced trash crawled
Asian bottomless deserts.
The Pechenegs followed the Khazars,
Horses neighed, tents were full of fire,
Carts creaked before dawn,
Fires lit up at night,
Trails swelled with convoys
Overloaded steppes,
On the battlements of Europe
Floods came crashing down suddenly
Crooked, slanting people,
And the eagles at the Ravenna Gate
Disappeared in whirlpools
Riders and horses.

There were many of them - fierce, good,
But they disappeared, "disappeared like obras",
In the dark strife of uluses and khanates,
And the tornadoes that grew and collided,
Dispersed, dispersed, lost
Among the steppe hopeless spaces.

For a long time Russia was torn to shreds
And strife, and Tatars.
But in the forests along the river patterns
Moscow tied up in a knot.
The Kremlin, covered with fabulous glory,
He stood up in brocade vestments and robes,
White stone and gold-domed
Over a scourge of smoke-filled huts.
Reflected in the azure ribbon,
Developed in ant-meadows,
Aristotle Fioaventi
A temple was built on the Moskva River.
And Moscow Johns
To Tatar villages and countries
Put on a heavy span
And the fifth stepped on the steppe ...
From the Kremlin's tight splendors
It became difficult to breathe in Moscow.
Golytbu from crowding and from captivity
Drawn to the Wild Field
Under the high steppe sky:
With an ax, yes with a scythe, yes with a plowshare
They went north - to the Urals,
They fled to the Volga, beyond the Don.
Their expansion was wide and incoherent:
They burned, chopped, took yasak.
Razin ruled the sail to Persia,
And Ermak conquered Siberia.
From the White Sea to the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov
Rise to the call of the daring
Thieves' circles of the lower reaches
Yes, the ends of veche cities.
Only Nicholas the Pleasant, Yegoriy -
Wolf shepherd - the builder of the earth -
They know there were deserts and coasts,
Where the Cossack bones lay down.

Rus! meet the fateful years:
The abysses open again
passions that you have not overcome,
And the ancient flame of strife
Licks the robes of your Virgins
On the fences of the Pechersk churches.

Everything that happened will happen again...
And the expanse will be clouded again,
And two will remain in the desert -
In the sky - God, on earth - a hero.
Eh, do not drink to the bottom of our will,
Do not tie us into a single chain.
Wide is our Wild Field,
Our Scythian steppe is deep.