Aleksandr Blok

Russian poet

• Born: November 28, 1880
• Birthplace: St. Petersburg, Russian Empire (now in Russia)
• Died: August 7, 1921
• Place of death: Petrograd, Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics (now St. Petersburg, Russia)

Blok, one of Russia’s greatest poets, was called the last Romantic poet, and his work in literature and drama reflected the profound changes that his country and its people experienced during the era of World War I and the Russian Revolution.

Early Life

Aleksandr Blok (blawk) was born into a family of the gentry. His father, Aleksandr L. Blok, was a jurist, a professor of law at Warsaw University, and a talented musician. His mother, the former Aleksandra A. Beketova, was a writer. Blok’s parents divorced soon after he was born, and he spent much of his childhood in the family of his maternal grandfather, Andrei Beketov, a botanist and rector of the University of St. Petersburg, in St. Petersburg and at his estate, Shakhmatovo, near Moscow. Blok rarely saw his father. In 1889, Blok’s mother married an officer, F. F. Kublitsky-Piottukh, and the family moved back to St. Petersburg. After graduation from the gymnasium, Blok entered the law school at the University of St. Petersburg, but in 1901 he transferred to the historical philology faculty. He was graduated in 1906. Blok had an early interest in drama and in becoming an actor, but by the age of eighteen he had begun to write poetry seriously and was almost immediately successful.

In 1903, Blok married Lyubova D. Mendeleyeva, the daughter of the famous chemist Dimitry Mendeleyev. She inspired much of his early poetry, but their marriage was always a turbulent one. In his later years, for example, Blok developed strong relationships with actor Natalia Volokhova and singer Lyubov Delmas, who together inspired much of his work at the time.

Life’s Work

Blok’s first published poetry appeared in the literary journal Novyi put’ (new path) in 1903, and his first volume of poetry, Stikhi o prekrasnoy dame (verses on a beautiful lady), appeared in 1904. These early works reflected the influence of the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, his nephew and Blok’s cousin Sergei Solovyov, Andrei Bely, and other Symbolists, and they were well received by them. Blok already showed some innovation by giving new meaning to old symbols. It was his second book of poems, Nechayannaya radost (inadvertent joy), in 1907 and his lyrical drama Balaganchik (The Puppet Show , 1963) in 1906 that first gained for Blok real fame.

At this time his poetry was profoundly lyrical and deeply interwoven with mysticism and religious decadence. Blok can thereby also be linked to the tradition of poet Afanasy Fet. Consequently, some literary critics have called him the “last Romantic poet” for his work during this early period, but it is a label that might also be applied to his entire career.

Nechayannaya radost and another volume, Zemlya v snegu (1908; land in snow), however, also heralded a change coming about in Blok’s worldview, brought on in part by the so-called Revolution of 1905 in Russia and its eventual failure. His classical mystical symbolism was beginning to collapse, and the breakdown of rhyme in these works anticipated Futurism.

Symbolism had its origins in France and had ramifications in several national literatures. It flourished in Russia in the first decade of the twentieth century, contributing significantly to what is known as the “silver age” of Russian poetry (as opposed to the “golden age,” presided over by Alexander Pushkin in the nineteenth century). Symbolism exhibited a resurgence of idealism and aestheticism and represented a neo-Romantic reaction against positivism and realism. Most Russian Symbolists were liberal supporters of reform and revolution. In the post-1917 era, the Futurists (who also drew inspiration from their counterparts in Italy) rejected the mysticism of the Symbolists but readily accepted their technical innovations.

In 1909, Blok traveled to Italy, and he also made a rare visit to Warsaw on the occasion of his father’s death. Italy and Warsaw both gave impulse to his writing as his fame grew. His later work came more and more to reflect the influence of the post-Romantic poet Apollon Grigoryev. World War I came, and Blok was drafted in 1916. He used his reputation to secure a desk job near Pskov, which he held until March of 1917.

Blok was a member of the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and in 1917 welcomed the February Revolution. In May, 1917, he took on the job of editing the testimony of former czarist government ministers to the Extraordinary Investigative Commission to the Provisional Government. He also initially welcomed the October Revolution and tried to cooperate with the Bolsheviks after they came to power. As a Left Socialist Revolutionary (Left SR), he was briefly arrested in 1919 as part of the aftermath of the so-called Conspiracy of the Left SRs against the new revolutionary Soviet government. Nevertheless, in 1920 he was elected chair of the officially sponsored new All-Russian Union of Poets.

Blok’s two most famous and controversial works were of this later period: the poems Skify (“The Scythians”) and Dvenadtsat (The Twelve , 1920), both of which appeared in the crucial year of 1918. In “The Scythians,” “Scythian” comes to symbolize both the restless duality of Russian existence between East and West and the artist as eternal nomad. With “The Scythians,” Blok also reopened the nineteenth century debate between Slavophiles and Westernizers on Russia’s heritage and future. In his own way, Blok came down firmly on the side of the more mystical Slavophiles. The Twelve vividly and insightfully tells the story of a platoon of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. Some Soviet critics have contended that in addition to being the last gasp of Blok’s poetic genius, these poems mark his final reconciliation with Bolshevism. In fact, however, during the last two years of his life, Blok was deeply disillusioned with the Bolsheviks and pessimistic about Russia’s future. He also was not well enough, physically or mentally, to continue to protest. Blok died on August 7, 1921, in Petrograd.

Significance

In addition to being an important dramatist, essayist, and critic, Blok was the most important Russian Symbolist poet. He was the lord of the silver age of Russian literature, and he epitomized the Symbolist movement in Russia better than any other member. In the process, he drew on, reflected, and drew together much of Russia’s rich poetic heritage. A profound mystical Russian nationalist, Blok too was deeply moved by the events of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War, and he was intimately involved in them.

Blok’s language, themes, and images affected later Russian poetic schools, including some of those to which he was opposed, such as Futurism. He also had a direct influence on some of the most important poets of the Soviet period, such as Vladimir Mayakovsky and Anna Akhmatova. Blok can justly be considered one of Russia’s greatest poets.

Bibliography

Chukovsky, Kornei. Alexander Blok as Man and Poet. Translated and edited by Diana Burgin and Katherine O’Connor. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1982. A very good Soviet monograph, equally divided between biography and critical analysis of Blok’s work. Best known as a scholar of children’s literature, Chukovsky was a friend of Blok, and his account is enriched by personal reminiscence.

Hackel, Sergei. The Poet and the Revolution: Aleksandr Blok’s “The Twelve.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. This book-length study of Blok’s most celebrated poem explores his ambivalent responses to the revolution. Includes a bibliography.

Mochulsky, Konstantin. Aleksandr Blok. Translated by Doris V. Johnson. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1983. First published in 1948, this lengthy critical biography is still worth consulting.

Pyman, Avril. The Life of Aleksandr Blok. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979-1980. On its completion, this two-volume critical biography was hailed as the definitive study of Blok’s life and works. Pyman’s narrative combines a novelistic richness of detail with a mastery of the literary and historical background. Illustrated, with extensive notes, a selected bibliography, and an unusually ample index.

Wachtel, Andrew. Plays of Expectations: Intertextual Relations in Russian Twentieth-Century Drama. Seattle: Herbert J. Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, University of Washington, 2006. Includes an analysis of Blok’s play The Unknown Woman.