Zabolotsky Nikolai Alekseevich (04/24/05/07/1903, Kazan, - 10/14/1958, Moscow) - poet, translator. Born on a farm near Kazan in the family of an agronomist, a religious man, but who revered science, standing, according to the poet, "between the peasantry and the then intelligentsia." In 1910, the family moved to the village of Sernur (Urzhum district, Vyatka province), where Z. spent his childhood. From 1913 to 1920, Z. studied at the Urzhum real school. Already in childhood, having re-read an extensive collection of Russian classics in his father's library, having composed his first poem at the age of 7, Z. forever chose for himself the “profession” of a poet. In the Urzhum period, Z. created many comic and serious poems and the poem "Urzhumiada" ( most of texts lost), sometimes imitated Blok, Mayakovsky and Yesenin. In 1920, he simultaneously entered the Faculty of History and Philology of the First Moscow University and the Medical Faculty of the Second, but a year later he went to Petrograd and entered the Faculty of Russian Language and Literature of the Pedagogical Institute. Herzen (graduated in 1925). During the years of study at the Pedagogical Institute, the novice poet was singled out and supported by Prof. V.A. Desnitsky. After graduating from the institute, Z., at his debut in the Union of Poets, met the “plane trees” D. Kharms and A. Vvedensky. Kharms, according to I. Bakhterev, was “shocked” by Z.'s poems, a strong friendship began. After serving in the army (1926 - early 1927), Z., “chinari” and Bakhterev organized OBERIU (once in the 50s, the poet deciphered the name of the group as “an association of the only realistic art”). Z. aspired to become a “theorist” of the Oberiuts: when organizing a group, he put forward the requirement of the “otherness” of the poetics of each of its members as a unifying principle, wrote two most important sections for the OBERIU manifesto (on poetry and “public face”). In this manifesto, Z. rightly characterizes himself as a "poet of naked concrete figures." In 1927 Z.'s poetry was widely recognized by visitors to Oberiut events and readers of the city press. In 1928 - several stories by Z. for children in “Hedgehog” (some were published as separate brochures). In 1929, the first book of the poet was published - the famous "Columns". According to the author (letter to M. Kasyanov dated September 12, 1932), the book “sold out in a few days both in Leningrad and in Moscow” and “caused a decent scandal in literature”, and Z. himself “was ranked among the wicked” . The popularity of Z. - and often misunderstanding - was recorded by the literary reviews of contemporaries (see A. Arkhangelsky's parody with the characteristic name “Lubok”: “Captain Lebyadkin comes out - / A very classic poet ...”). "Columns" caused a sharply negative attitude of official criticism ("On the Literary Post", 1929, No. 15; "Print and Revolution", 1930, No. 4; "Building", 1930, No. 1). In February of the same year, work began on the landmark poem “The Triumph of Agriculture”.

A quarrel with Vvedensky in 1931 led to the gradual isolation of Z., his cooling to the idea of ​​group actions. This year, Z. corresponded with K.E. Tsilokovsky, highly revered by him, studied the brochures sent to the scientist. The poem "Mad Wolf" was created. In 1932, Z. prepared for publication the collection Poems 1926-1932, and at the end of the year he was again called up for military training. In 1933, the Zvezda magazine (No. 2-3) published the poem “The signs of the Zodiac are fading ...” and the poem “The Triumph of Agriculture”, which caused new wave“political” criticism (see, for example, Argo’s parody “Mind for reason”: “The Star is sleeping, / And even more: / Sleeping / Editorial / “Stars”). The accusatory tone was set by the critic E. Usievich (“Lit. Critic”, 1933, No. 4), who claimed that Z. “developed an ideology hostile to the proletariat,” who considered the poem “a parody, a cynical mockery ... of materialism.” The article was called "Under the guise of foolishness." The definition has been found. The influential V. Ermilov and S. Rosenthal called the poetry of Z. in the city of Pravda “foolish” (Nos., respectively, dated 21.7.1933 and 30.8.1933); A. Tarasenkov in the magazine "Krasnaya Nov" (1933, No. 9) placed the article "Praise to Zabolotsky" (named by analogy with "Praise of Stupidity"). The consequences are as follows: the book was not published in 1933, and Z., due to the prevailing circumstances, finally departed from the Oberiuts in poetry (although by 1933 there was a triptych from the completely Oberiut poems “Trees”, “Birds” and “Clouds”, the last of lost), without ceasing friendship and communication. For the same reason, Z., without losing the power of artistic talent, by the mid-30s gradually comes to the “correct” theme of his works: the feelings caused by the death of S. M. Kirov, a native of Urzhum, were reflected in verse. "Farewell" (1934); a visit to the homeland of I.V. Stalin led to the creation of the Gori Symphony (1936); verse is dedicated to the conquerors of the North. "North" (1936) and "Sedov" (1937). In each case, Z.'s plot is replaced by a quasi-realistic description of nature. In those same years, Z. created the screenplay “Baron Munchausen”, occasionally publishes poems for children (see the very successful “Mr. Cook Barla-Barla” in the magazine “Chizh”, 1935, No. 1, p. 25), creates for children “processing” of masterpieces of world literature (“Gargantua and Pantagruel”, etc.). In 1935 - acquaintance with T. Tabidze and G. Leonidze, the awakening of interest in Georgian culture. The first translations from Georgian appear (Vazha Pshavela, S. Chikovani), which will later be awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1958) and which contemporaries (N. Tikhonov, S. Chikovani) will call a “poetic feat”. “Artistic feat” (N. Stepanov, V. Kaverin) will be called perhaps the best transcription of “The Tale of Igor's Campaign” into the language of modern poetry, on which the poet began to work in 1938. In 1937, the “Second Book” was published, reflecting the evolution of the themes and poetics of Z.

On March 19, 1938, Z. was arrested, sentenced to five years in a camp, and exiled to Far East. Working as a digger, road worker, draftsman, Z. did not stop writing poetry. Numerous humorous poems and the poem "The Siege of Kozelsk", two parts of which were written in 1944, have not been preserved. On August 18, 1944, Z. was released, but worked as a civilian in the camp system. In 1945 he was transferred to Karaganda, where by the middle of the year he completed the transcription of The Tale of Igor's Campaign. In January 1946, Z. arrived in Moscow. Has begun new stage life and creativity. In “October” (No. 10-11), Z. publishes the final version of the “Words ...” arrangement, which takes into account individual remarks by D.S. Likhachev - there were no reviews from critics. In 1947, in the magazine “New World” (No. 1), the verse “Road Makers” was published with the subtitle “Poem” - a month later “Lit.gazeta” severely criticized Z. Only the third book of poems “Poems” published in 1948 ”(M., “Sov. Writer”) and new translations from Georgian brought Z. long-awaited official recognition. The book presented a new, “classical” style of Z. and confirmed the author's desire for a deep understanding of the most important philosophical problems. In April 1951, Z. read a report at a meeting of the commission on “The Word ...”, which was published only in 1969. (“Questions of Literature”, No. 1) under the title “On the Question of the Rhythmic Structure of the Tale of Igor's Campaign”. In the same 1951, Z. conceived the compilation of the "Code of Russian epics" (like "Kalevala"), but the plan was not realized. The circle of translated authors is expanding, in the 50s. Z. translates Rustaveli (“The Knight in tiger skin”, 1953-1957), Serbian epic songs, works of European poets of the 19th-20th centuries: J. Aran, F. Rückert, F. Schiller, I.V. Goethe, U. Saba and others, and gains a reputation as a master of translation . In “Notes of a Translator” (j. “Young Guard”, 1956, No. 3), which became a set of rules for translators of the next generations, Z. notes: “The success of a translation depends on how well the translator combined the measure of accuracy with the measure of naturalness.”

Z.'s health was undermined during the camp years. In 1954, the poet suffered a heart attack, but stubbornly continued his daily work. In 1957 he prepared and published the last book - "Poems" (M., Gosizdat). In the autumn of the same year, the poet visited Italy, and two last summer spent in Tarusa. Feeling the approach of death, Z. compiled a set of his works for the future collected works, destroying the texts of comic poems and poems. At the end of his life he worked on the historical poem Rubruk in Mongolia. The last of the poems written - "Do not let your soul be lazy ...", which became Z.'s poetic testament. The poet died in the fall of 1958 as a result of a second heart attack. He was buried in Moscow, at the Novo-Devichy cemetery.

Already the first independent poems of Z. in 1926 are characterized by those features that will determine his entire further creative path, his special place in the history of Russian poetry: the theme of a phantasmagoric city and landscape descriptiveness (“White Night”, “Red Bavaria”) - the theme of beauty surpassing man and the mind of wildlife and philosophic (“The face of a horse”, “In our dwellings ...”), the odic tradition - and the traditions of ballads and elegies, a fusion of meditative lyrics and social satire, almost a parodic cliché of syntactic patterns with iambic tetrameter - and attraction to free verse. The principles of depicting reality bring Z.'s poems of the Oberiut period closer to the canvases of the Flemish painters. In Brueghelian grotesque Z. presents to readers “pictures of life” (1927 - “On the market”; 1928 - “Game of snowballs”, “Bakery”, “Fish shop”, etc.). The completeness with which the space is subordinated to the task of creating a verbal and artistic canvas is unique (“The city was a donkey, a four-walled house. / On two wheels made of stones / He rode in a dense horizon ...” - a verse. “In our dwellings .. .”), and time (“The baby grows stronger and matures / And suddenly, walking across the table, / Sits right into the Komsomol ...” - “New Life”, 1927). Contemporaries were especially struck by the vivid comparisons and unexpected metaphors of Z. (“Straight bald husbands / They sit like a shot from a gun ...” - “The Wedding”, 1928). According to T. Lipavskaya, Z. argued that the metaphor, as long as it is alive (ie, has not become an end in itself), is always illogical. The alogism of “Columns” is justified by the purpose satirical image“combined” (for example, in the poem “Ivanovs”, 1928), and the latter is due to the emerging natural-philosophical concept of Z., according to which animals, birds, trees, even inanimate nature are endowed with reason and beauty (and sometimes even surpass humans). Therefore, in the artistic world of Z., there is a reassessment of traditional images by means of poetics: “cows with a pale smile on their lips” or “chicken, blue from washing” are humanized; .

During the years of Oberiutism, Z.’s work was characterized by an ironic beginning (“Bathers”, 1928; “Preservation of Health”, 1929), a romantic tone (“Poprishchin”,<1928>). Often in poetry, the poet depicts the life circle of communication: in the burlesque “Test of the Will” (1931), the characters are reflections of E. Schwartz and Z. himself; in “Lodeinikov” (1932-1947) N. Oleinikov became the prototype of the hero, and the landscape was built with the help of artistic details and means characteristic of Oleinikov’s poems; in “Time” (1933) the Oberiuts and the topics of their conversations are presented. The pantheistic mythology of V. Khlebnikov and the utopian philosophy of Tsiolkovsky were reflected in the poems "The Triumph of Agriculture" (1929-1930), "The Mad Wolf", "Trees" and poems of the 1930s. (“School of beetles”, “Autumn”, etc.). Z. affirms the original fullness of nature with meaning (“Yesterday, thinking about death ...”, 1936), and therefore sees the task of poetry to extract this meaning from the surrounding world (“Warning”, 1932; “Everything that was in the soul ... ”, 1936). The cycle of life in nature, the multiplicity of life forms are shown in the program verse. "Metamorphoses" (1937): "Thought was once a simple flower; / The poem walked like a slow bull...". Z.'s poetics in the mid-1930s finally evolves towards classical realism, which is especially noticeable in the exquisite landscape lyrics (“ night garden”, 1936; "Forest Lake", 1938).

The “classical” (definition by N. Stepanov) period of Z.’s work covers 1946-1958. and is characterized by a frequent appeal to the theme and style of the best creators of Russian meditative and philosophical lyrics - Pushkin, Baratynsky and especially Tyutchev, many of whose poems Z. learned by heart. The influence of Tyutchev in Z.'s poetry of this period will manifest itself clearly and often (“Rain”, 1953; “Thunderstorm is Coming”, 1957; and others).

The viscous style, solemn metaphor, return to the theme of high creativity marked the first post-camp poems of 1946 (“Thunderstorm”, “Beethoven”). Life-affirming pathos and odic intonation distinguish the poems of 1947, inspired by camp impressions (“Ural”, “City in the Steppe”, “Road Makers”, etc.) and a visit to Georgia (“Khramges”, “Saguramo”, etc.). In post-war poetry, the main motives of the previous period of creativity are developed. In them, Z. interprets art as a means of transforming living environment(“We, people, are the masters of this world, / His wise men and his teachers...” - “Read, trees, Hesiod's verses...”, 1946), periodically returns to the theme of immortality in the form of metamorphoses (“I will not die , my friend. / With the breath of flowers / I will find myself in this world ... ”- “Testament”, 1947; “Is it just me? I am only a brief moment / Of alien existences ... ” sadness...”, 1957), repeatedly confirms his pantheistic perception of rational and spiritualized nature (“Everything would lie and think / I would think / Boundless fields and oak forests ...” - “I was brought up by harsh nature ...”, 1953; “ The whole world is on fire, transparent and spiritual...” - “Evening on the Oka”, 1957). Meanwhile, Z.'s poetics underwent changes throughout the "classical" period. The development of the poet's contradictory attitude towards formal mastery is recorded in verse. "Reading poetry" (1948). However, at the beginning of this period, Z.'s lyrics were overwhelmed with unexpected epithets and metaphors, which either delighted readers (“The Crazy Lilac Moans ...” - “Blind”, 1946), then shocked them (“An animal full of dreams ...” - “ Swan in the Zoo”, 1948). “Farewell to Friends” (1952), dedicated to the fallen Oberiuts, turned out to be a farewell to the former complicated manner of narration. Only in some verses of the 1956-1957 cycle. “ last love” (“The Juniper Bush”, etc.), the poet will return to the habitually refined metaphor. In the 1950s Z. sought to simplify the style with the aim of direct expression of sharp poetic thought. In the lyrics of these years, motifs of the greatness of art (“Portrait”, 1953; “The Old Actress”, 1956) and the inner beauty of a person (“Ugly Girl”, “On the Beauty of Human Faces”, 1955) stand out. The poems of the last year of Z.'s life (“The Iron Old Woman”, “After Work”) look like everyday sketches and are didactic in nature, emphasizing the author's movement towards stylistic simplicity. The evolution of Z.'s artistic views is reflected more fully in verse. “General's Dacha”, the rhythm, plot and composition of which go back to the traditions of the “urban romance”, and these views get the most distinct expression in the verse “Gorodok”, a kind of masterpiece of artistic minimalism.

Z.'s work had a significant impact on the development of Russian literature. The poet's poems have been translated into many European languages.

Bibliography

Tarusian pages. Kaluga, 1961

A. Makedonov. Nikolay Zabolotsky. L., Sov. writer, 1968

Yu.M.Lotman. N. Zabolotsky. Passerby. - in the book: Y. Lotman. Analysis of the poetic text. L., Enlightenment, 1972

Memories of Zabolotsky. M., Sov. writer, 1977

N.N. Zabolotsky. N.A. Zabolotsky after the creation of the “Columns”. - “Theatre”, 1991, No. 11, pp. 153-160.

Zabolotsky Nikolai Alekseevich
Born: April 24 (May 7), 1903.
Died: October 14, 1958 (aged 55).

Biography

Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky (Zabolotsky) (April 24, 1903, Kizicheskaya Sloboda, Kaimar Volost, Kazan District, Kazan Province - October 14, 1958, Moscow) - Russian Soviet poet, translator.

Born not far from Kazan - on a farm of the Kazan provincial zemstvo, located in close proximity to the Kizicheskaya Sloboda, where his father Alexei Agafonovich Zabolotsky (1864-1929) - an agronomist - worked as a manager, and his mother Lidia Andreevna (nee Dyakonova) (1882 (?) - 1926) - a rural teacher. Baptized on April 25 (May 8), 1903 in the Varvara Church in Kazan. He spent his childhood in the Kizicheskaya settlement near Kazan and in the village of Sernur, Urzhum district, Vyatka province (now the Republic of Mari El). In the third grade of a rural school, Nikolai "published" his handwritten journal and placed his own poems there. From 1913 to 1920 he lived in Urzhum, where he studied at a real school, was fond of history, chemistry, and drawing.

In the early poems of the poet, the memories and experiences of a boy from the village, organically connected with peasant labor and native nature, impressions of student life and colorful book influences, were mixed. including the dominant pre-revolutionary poetry - symbolism, acmeism: at that time Zabolotsky singled out the work of Blok for himself.

In 1920, after graduating from a real school in Urzhum, he came to Moscow and entered the medical and historical-philological faculties of the university. Very soon, however, he ended up in Petrograd, where he studied at the Department of Language and Literature of the Herzen Pedagogical Institute, which he graduated in 1925, having, by his own definition, "a voluminous notebook of bad poems." The following year, he was called up for military service.

He served in Leningrad, on the Vyborg side, and already in 1927 he retired to the reserve. Despite the short-term and almost optional military service, the collision with the “turned inside out” world of the barracks played the role of a kind of creative catalyst in Zabolotsky’s fate: it was in 1926-1927 that he wrote the first real poetic works, found his own voice, unlike anyone else, at the same time he participated in the creation of the OBERIU literary group. At the end of his service, he got a place in the children's book department of the Leningrad OGIZ, which was led by S. Marshak.

Zabolotsky was fond of painting Filonova , Chagall , Brueghel. The ability to see the world through the eyes of an artist remained with the poet for life.

After leaving the army, the poet found himself in the situation of the last years of the NEP, the satirical image of which became the theme of the poems of the early period, which made up his first poetic book - "Columns". In 1929, she was published in Leningrad and immediately caused a literary scandal and mocking reviews in the press. Rated as a "hostile sortie", she, however, did not cause direct "organizational conclusions" - orders in relation to the author, and he (with the help of Nikolai Tikhonov) managed to establish special relations with the Zvezda magazine, where about ten poems were published that replenished Stolbtsy during second (unpublished) edition of the collection.

Zabolotsky managed to create surprisingly multidimensional poems - and their first dimension, which is immediately noticeable, is a sharp grotesque and satire on the topic of petty-bourgeois life and everyday life, dissolving a personality in itself. Another facet of the "Columns", their aesthetic perception, requires some special readiness of the reader, because for those who know, Zabolotsky wove another artistic and intellectual fabric, a parody. In his early lyrics the very function of parody changes, its satirical and polemical components disappear, and it loses its role as a weapon of intra-literary struggle.

In "Disciplina Clericalis" (1926) there is a parody of Balmont's tautological grandiosity, culminating in Zoshchenko's intonations; in the poem "On the Stairs" (1928), through the kitchen, already Zoshchenko's world, "Waltz" by Vladimir Benediktov suddenly appears; The Ivanovs (1928) reveals its parody-literary meaning, evoking (hereinafter in the text) the key images of Dostoevsky with his Sonechka Marmeladova and her old man; lines from the poem "The Traveling Musicians" (1928) refer to Pasternak etc.

The basis of Zabolotsky's philosophical searches

From the poem "The signs of the zodiac fade" begins the mystery of birth main topic, the "nerve" of Zabolotsky's creative searches - the Tragedy of Reason sounds for the first time. The "nerve" of these searches in the future will force its owner to devote much more lines to philosophical lyrics. Through all his poems, the path of the most intense implantation of individual consciousness into the mysterious world of being, which is immeasurably wider and richer than the rational constructions created by people, runs. On this path, the poet-philosopher undergoes a significant evolution, during which 3 dialectical stages can be distinguished: 1926-1933; 1932-1945 and 1946-1958

Zabolotsky read a lot and with enthusiasm: not only after the publication of Stolbtsy, but also before, he read the works of Engels, Grigory Skovoroda, the works of Kliment Timiryazev on plants, Yuri Filipchenko on the evolutionary idea in biology, Vernadsky on bio- and noospheres, covering all living things and the intelligent on the planet and extolling both as great transformative powers; read Einstein's theory of relativity, which gained wide popularity in the 1920s; "Philosophy of the Common Cause" by Nikolai Fedorov.

By the publication of The Columns, their author already had his own concept of natural philosophy. It was based on the idea of ​​the universe as a single system that unites living and non-living forms of matter, which are in eternal interaction and mutual transformation. The development of this complex organism of nature occurs from primitive chaos to the harmonic orderliness of all its elements, and the main role here is played by the consciousness inherent in nature, which, in the words of the same Timiryazev, “smolders dully in lower beings and only flares up like a bright spark in the human mind.” Therefore, it is Man who is called to take care of the transformation of nature, but in his activity he must see in nature not only a student, but also a teacher, for this imperfect and suffering "eternal winepress" contains the beautiful world of the future and those wise laws by which man should be guided.

In 1931, Zabolotsky got acquainted with the works of Tsiolkovsky, which made an indelible impression on him. Tsiolkovsky defended the idea of ​​a variety of life forms in the Universe, was the first theorist and propagandist of human space exploration. In a letter to him, Zabolotsky wrote: “... Your thoughts about the future of the Earth, humanity, animals and plants deeply concern me, and they are very close to me. In my unpublished poems and poems, I did my best to resolve them.

Further creative path

Collection "Poems. 1926-1932", already typed in the printing house, was not signed for printing. The publication of the new poem "The Triumph of Agriculture", written to some extent under the influence of "Ladomir" by Velimir Khlebnikov (1933), caused a new wave of persecution of Zabolotsky. Threatening political accusations in critical articles convinced the poet more and more that he would not be allowed to establish himself in poetry with his own, original direction. This gave rise to his disappointment and creative decline in the second half of 1933, 1934, 1935. This is where the life principle of the poet came in handy: “We must work and fight for ourselves. How many failures are yet to come, how many disappointments and doubts! But if at such moments a person hesitates, his song is sung. Faith and perseverance. Labor and honesty…” And Nikolay Alekseevich continued to work. Livelihood was provided by work in children's literature - in the 30s he collaborated with the magazines "Hedgehog" and "Chizh", which were supervised by Samuil Marshak, wrote poetry and prose for children (including retold for children "Gargantua and Pantagruel" by Francois Rabelais (1936))

Gradually, the position of Zabolotsky in the literary circles of Leningrad was strengthened. Many poems from this period received favorable reviews, and in 1937 his book was published, including seventeen poems ("Second Book"). On Zabolotsky's desktop lay the begun poetic transcription of the Old Russian poem "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" and his own poem "The Siege of Kozelsk", poems and translations from Georgian. But the ensuing prosperity was deceptive.

In custody

On March 19, 1938, Zabolotsky was arrested and then convicted in the case of anti-Soviet propaganda. As accusatory material in his case, malicious critical articles and a slanderous review "review" appeared, which tendentiously distorted the essence and ideological orientation of his work. From death penalty he was saved by the fact that, despite being tortured [source not specified for 115 days] during interrogations, he did not admit the charges of creating a counter-revolutionary organization, which supposedly included Nikolai Tikhonov, Boris Kornilov and others. At the request of the NKVD, critic Nikolai Lesyuchevsky wrote a review of Zabolotsky's poetry, where he pointed out that ""creativity" Zabolotsky is an active counter-revolutionary struggle against the Soviet system, against the Soviet people, against socialism.

“The first days they didn’t beat me, trying to decompose mentally and physically. I was not given food. They were not allowed to sleep. The investigators succeeded each other, but I sat motionless in a chair in front of the investigator's table - day after day. Behind the wall, in the next office, from time to time someone's frantic screams were heard. My legs began to swell, and on the third day I had to tear off my shoes, as I could not bear the pain in my feet. Consciousness began to become clouded, and I strained with all my might in order to answer reasonably and prevent any injustice against those people about whom I was asked ... "These are Zabolotsky's lines from the memoirs" The History of My Confinement "(published abroad in English in 1981, in the last years of Soviet power were also published in the USSR, in 1988).

He served his term from February 1939 to May 1943 in the Vostoklag system in the Komsomolsk-on-Amur region; then in the Altaylaga system in the Kulunda steppes; Partial view of it camp life gives a selection prepared by him "One Hundred Letters 1938-1944" - excerpts from letters to his wife and children.

Since March 1944, after being released from the camp, he lived in Karaganda. There he completed the arrangement of The Tale of Igor's Campaign (begun in 1937), which became the best among the experiments of many Russian poets. This helped in 1946 to obtain permission to live in Moscow. He rented a house in the writer's village of Peredelkino from V.P. Ilyenkov.

In 1946, N. A. Zabolotsky was reinstated in the Writers' Union. A new, Moscow period of his work began. Despite the blows of fate, he managed to return to unfulfilled plans.

Moscow period

The period of return to poetry was not only joyful, but also difficult. In the poems “Blind” and “Thunderstorm” written then, the theme of creativity and inspiration sounds. Most of the poems from 1946-1948 have been praised by today's literary historians. It was during this period that "In this birch grove" was written. Outwardly built on a simple and expressive contrast of a picture of a peaceful birch grove, singing orioles-life and universal death, it carries sadness, an echo of the experience, a hint of personal fate and a tragic foreboding of common troubles. In 1948, the poet's third collection of poems was published.

In 1949-1952, the years of extreme tightening of ideological oppression, the creative upsurge that manifested itself in the first years after the return was replaced by a creative decline and an almost complete switch to literary translations. Fearing that his words would again be used against him, Zabolotsky restrained himself and did not write. The situation changed only after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, with the beginning of the Khrushchev thaw, which marked the weakening of ideological censorship in literature and art.

He responded to new trends in the life of the country with the poems “Somewhere in a field near Magadan”, “Opposition of Mars”, “Kazbek”. Over the last three years of his life, Zabolotsky created about half of all the works of the Moscow period. Some of them have appeared in print. In 1957, the fourth, most complete of his lifetime collection of poems was published.

The cycle of lyrical poems "Last Love" was published in 1957, "the only one in Zabolotsky's work, one of the most poignant and painful in Russian poetry." It is in this collection that the poem “Confession” is placed, dedicated to N. A. Roskina, later revised by the St. Petersburg bard Alexander Lobanovsky (Enchanted bewitched / Once married with the wind in the field / All of you are chained / You are my precious woman ...).

Family of N. A. Zabolotsky

In 1930, Zabolotsky married Ekaterina Vasilievna Klykova (1906-1997). E. V. Klykova experienced a short-term romance (1955-1958) with the writer Vasily Grossman, left Zabolotsky, but then returned.

Son - Nikita Nikolaevich Zabolotsky (1932-2014), candidate biological sciences, author of biographical and memoir works about his father, compiler of several collections of his works. Daughter - Natalia Nikolaevna Zabolotskaya (born 1937), since 1962 the wife of the virologist Nikolai Veniaminovich Kaverin (1933-2014), academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, son of the writer Veniamin Kaverin.

Death

Although before his death the poet managed to receive both wide readership and material wealth, this could not compensate for the weakness of his health, undermined by prison and camp. According to N. Chukovsky, who knew Zabolotsky closely, the final, fatal role was played by family problems (the departure of his wife, her return). In 1955, Zabolotsky had his first heart attack, in 1958 - the second, and on October 14, 1958 he died.

The poet was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Bibliography

Columns / Region M. Kirnarsky. - L .: Publishing house of writers in Leningrad, 1929. - 72 p. - 1,200 copies.
Mysterious city. - M.-L.: GIZ, 1931 (under the pseudonym Y. Miller)
Second book: Poems / Per. and the title of S. M. Pozharsky. - L .: Goslitizdat, 1937. - 48 p., 5,300 copies.
Poems / Ed. A. Tarasenkov; thin V. Reznikov. - M.: Sov. writer, 1948. - 92 p. - 7,000 copies.
Poems. - M.: Goslitizdat, 1957. - 200 p., 25,000 copies.
Poems. - M.: Goslitizdat, 1959. - 200 p., 10,000 copies. - (B-ka of Soviet poetry).
Favorites. - M.: Sov. writer, 1960. - 240 p., 10,000 copies.
Poems / Edited by Gleb Struve and B. A. Filippov. Introductory articles by Alexis Rannita, Boris Filippov and Emmanuel Rice. Washington, D.C.; New York: Inter-Language Literary Associates, 1965.
Poems and poems. - M.; L.: Soviet writer, 1965. - 504 p., 25,000 copies. (B-ka poet. Large series).
Poems. - M.: Fiction, 1967
Favorites. - M.: Children's literature, 1970
Snake apple. - L .: Children's literature, 1972
Selected works: In 2 volumes - M .: Khudozh. literature, 1972.
Favorites. - Kemerovo, 1974
Favorites. - Ufa, 1975
Poems and poems. - M.: Sovremennik, 1981
Poems. - Gorky, 1983
Collected works: In 3 volumes - M., Khudozh. literature, 1983-1984., 50,000 copies.
Poems. - M.: Soviet Russia, 1985
Poems and poems. - M.: Pravda, 1985
Poems and poems. - Yoshkar-Ola, 1985
Poems. Poems. - Perm, 1986
Poems and poems. - Sverdlovsk, 1986
Laboratory of Spring: Poems (1926-1937) / Engravings by Yu. Kosmynin. - M.: Young Guard, 1987. - 175 p. - 100,000 copies. (In younger years).
How mice fought with a cat / Fig. S. F. Bobylev. - Stavropol: Stavropol Prince. publishing house, 1988. - 12 p.
Cranes / Art. V. Yurlov. - M.: Sov. Russia, 1989. - 16 p.
Poems. Poems. - Tula, 1989
Columns and poems: Poems / Design by B. Tremetsky. - M.: Arts. literature, 1989. - 352 p., 1,000,000 copies. - (Classics and contemporaries: Poetic library).
Columns: Poems. Poems. - L.: Lenizdat, 1990. - 366 p., 50,000 copies.
Selected writings. Poems, poems, prose and letters of the poet / Comp., enter. article, note. N. N. Zabolotsky. - M.: Arts. literature, 1991. - 431 p. - 100,000 copies. (B-ka classics).
History of my imprisonment. - M.: Pravda, 1991. - 47 p., 90,000 copies. - (B-ka "Spark"; No. 18).
How mice fought with a cat: Poems / Hood. N. Shevarev. - M.: Malysh, 1992. - 12 p.
Columns. - St. Petersburg, North-West, 1993
Fire flickering in a vessel…: Poems and poems. Letters and articles. Biography. Memoirs of contemporaries. Analysis of creativity. - M. Pedagogy-Press, 1995. - 944 p.
Columns and poems. - M.: Russian book, 1996
Signs of the Zodiac fade: Poems. Poems. Prose. - M.: Eksmo-Press, 1998. - 480 p. - (Home Library of Poetry).
Poetic translations: In 3 volumes - M .: Terra-Book Club, 2004. - V. 1: Georgian classical poetry. - 448 p.; Vol. 2: Georgian Classical Poetry. - 464 pages; T. 3: Slavic epic. Georgian folk poetry. Georgian poetry of the XX century. European poetry. Eastern poetry. - 384 p. - (Masters of translation).
Poems. - M.: Progress-Pleyada, 2004. - 355 p.
Do not let the soul be lazy: Poems and poems. - M.: Eksmo, 2007. - 384 p. - (Golden Poetry Series).
Lyrics. - M.: AST, 2008. - 428 p.
Poems about love. - M. Eksmo, 2008. - 192 p. - (Poems about love).
I was brought up by harsh nature. - M.: Eksmo, 2008. - 558 p.
Poems and poems. - M.: De Agostini, 2014. - (Masterpieces of world literature in miniature).

Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky

Zabolotsky Nikolai Alekseevich (1903-1958) - Russian lyric poet of a philosophical warehouse, reflecting on the place of man in the universe. Author of the collections "Columns" (1929), "The Triumph of Agriculture" (1933), arrangements of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" (1947), memoirs "The History of My Imprisonment" (1981), etc. To explain the principle of bipolarity in ethnogenesis, [Lev] Gumilyov cites an excerpt from Zabolotsky's poem "Ladeynikov", in which, according to the scientist, the position of world denial is expressed. “Ladeinikov listened. // Above the garden // There was a vague rustle of a thousand deaths. // Nature, turned into hell,// Performed its affairs without fuss: // The beetle ate the grass, the bird pecked at the beetle, // The ferret drank the brain from the bird's head, // And the faces twisted with fear // Night creatures looked from the grass. // So here it is, the harmony of nature! // So here they are, night voices! // On the abyss of torment, our waters shine, // On the abyss of grief, forests rise! // Nature's age-old winepress // United death and being // Into one ball, but the thought was powerless// To unite its two sacraments!" In these lines, according to the scientist, as in the focus of a telescope lens, the views of the Gnostics are connected, Manichean, Albigensians, Karmatians, Mahayanists - all those who considered matter evil, and the world - a field for suffering.

Quoted from: Lev Gumilyov. Encyclopedia. / Ch. ed. E.B. Sadykov, comp. T.K. Shanbai, - M., 2013, p. 259.

Zabolotsky Nikolai Alekseevich (1903 - 1958), poet, translator. Born on April 24 (May 7 NS) in Kazan in the family of an agronomist. Childhood years were spent in the village of Sernur in the Vyatka province, not far from the city of Urzhum. After graduating from a real school in Urzhum in 1920, he went to Moscow to continue his education.

He enters Moscow University at once to two faculties - philological and medical. The literary and theatrical life of Moscow captured Zabolotsky: performances Mayakovsky, Yesenin, futurists, imagists. Having started writing poetry while still at school, he is now carried away by imitation of that Blok, then Yesenin .

In 1921 he moved to Leningrad and entered the Herzen Pedagogical Institute, joined the classes of a literary circle, but still "did not find his own voice." In 1925 he graduated from the institute.

During these years, he became close to a group of young poets who called themselves "Oberiuts" ("Unification of Real Art"). They were rarely and little printed, but they often performed with readings of their poems. Participation in this group helped the poet find his way.

At the same time, Zabolotsky actively collaborated in children's literature, in the children's magazines "Hedgehog" and "Chizh". His children's books in verse and prose "Snake's Milk", "Rubber Heads", etc. are published. In 1929, a collection of poems "Columns" was published, in 1937 - "Second Book".

In 1938 he was illegally repressed, worked as a builder in the Far East, in the Altai Territory and Karaganda. In 1946 he returned to Moscow. In the 1930s and 40s he wrote: "Metamorphoses", "Forest Lake", "Morning", "I am not looking for harmony in nature", etc. For the last decade he has worked a lot on translations of Georgian classical poets and contemporaries, visits Georgia.

In the 1950s, such poems by Zabolotsky as "The Ugly Girl", "The Old Actress", "The Opposition of Mars", etc., made his name known to the general reader. He spends the last two years of his life in Tarusa on the Oka. He was seriously ill, suffered a heart attack. Many have been written here. lyric poems, poem "Rubruk in Mongolia". In 1957 he visited Italy.

AUTUMN MORNING

The speeches of lovers are cut off,
The last starling flies away.
Falling off the maples all day long
Purple heart silhouettes.

What have you, autumn, done to us!
The earth freezes in red gold.
The flame of sorrow whistles underfoot
Stirring heaps of leaves.

Used materials of the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.

Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky (1903 - 1958) belongs to the first generation of Russian writers who entered the creative period of life after the revolution. What strikes in his biography is the amazing devotion to poetry, the hard work on improving poetic skills, the purposeful development of his own concept of the universe and the courageous overcoming of the barriers that fate erected on his life and creative path. From a young age, he was very exacting about his works and their selection, believing that it was necessary to write not individual poems, but a whole book. Throughout his life, he compiled ideal vaults several times, over time replenishing them with new poems, previously written - edited and in some cases replaced with other options. A few days before his death, Nikolai Alekseevich wrote a literary will, in which he indicated exactly what should be included in his final collection, the structure and title of the book. In a single volume, he combined bold, grotesque poems of the 20s and classically clear, harmonious works of a later period, thereby recognizing the integrity of his path. The final set of poems and poems should have been concluded with the author's note:

"This manuscript includes the complete collection of my poems and poems, established by me in 1958. All other poems ever written and printed by me, I consider either accidental or unsuccessful. It is not necessary to include them in my book. Texts of this manuscript checked, corrected, and finally established; previously published versions of many verses should be replaced by the texts given here.

N. A. Zabolotsky grew up in the family of a zemstvo agronomist who served on agricultural farms near Kazan, then in the village of Sernur (now the regional center of the Mari ASSR). In the first years after the revolution, the agronomist was in charge of a state farm in the district town of Urzhum, where the future poet received his secondary education. From childhood, Zabolotsky brought unforgettable impressions of the Vyatka nature and the activities of his father, a love of books and an early conscious vocation to devote his life to poetry. In 1920, he left his parental home and went first to Moscow, and the next year to Petrograd, where he entered the Department of Language and Literature of the A. I. Herzen Pedagogical Institute. Hunger, unsettled life and sometimes painful search for his own poetic voice accompanied Zabolotsky's student years. He enthusiastically read Blok , Mandelstam , Akhmatov , Gumilyov , Yesenin , but soon realized that his path did not coincide with the path of these poets. Russians were closer to his search 18th century poets , classics XIX , from contemporaries - Velimir Khlebnikov .

The period of apprenticeship and imitation ended in 1926, when Zabolotsky managed to find an original poetic method and determine the scope of its application. The main theme of his poems of 1926-1928 is sketches of city life, which absorbed all the contrasts and contradictions of that time. To a recent rural dweller, the city seemed either alien and ominous, or attractive with a special bizarre picturesqueness. “I know that I am entangled in this city, although I am fighting against it,” he wrote to his future wife E.V. Klykova in 1928. Reflecting on his attitude to the city, back in the 1920s, Zabolotsky tried to connect social problems with ideas about the interconnections and interdependence of man and nature. In the poems of 1926 "Horse's Face",

"In our dwellings" one can clearly see the natural-philosophical roots of the creativity of those years. The prerequisite for the satirical depiction of the vulgarity and spiritual limitations of the layman ("Evening Bar", "New Life", "Ivanovs", "Wedding" ...) was the belief in the perniciousness of the departure of the inhabitants of the city from their natural existence in harmony with nature and from their duty to in relation to her.

Two circumstances contributed to the establishment of the creative position and the peculiar poetic manner of Zabolotsky - his participation in the literary community, called the Association of Real Art (among the Oberiuts - D. Kharms , A. Vvedensky, K. Vaginov, etc.) and a passion for painting by Filonov, Chagall, Brueghel ... Later, he recognized the kinship of his work of the 20s with the primitivism of Henri Rousseau. The ability to see the world through the eyes of an artist remained with the poet for life.

Zabolotsky's first book "Columns" (1929, 22 poems) stood out even against the backdrop of a variety of poetic trends in those years and was a resounding success. Separate favorable reviews appeared in the press, the author was noticed and supported by V. A. Hoffman, V. A. Kaverin , S. Ya. Marshak, N. L. Stepanov, N. S. Tikhonov, Yu. N. Tynyanov , B. M. Eikhenbaum ... But the further literary fate of the poet was complicated by the wrong, sometimes downright hostile and slanderous interpretation of his works by most critics. The persecution of Zabolotsky especially intensified after the publication in 1933 of his poem "The Triumph of Agriculture". Quite recently, having entered literature, he already found himself with the stigma of a champion of formalism and an apologist for an alien ideology. The new book of poems compiled by him, ready for printing (1933), could not see the light of day. This is where the poet's life principle came in handy: "We must work and fight for ourselves. How many failures are yet to come, how many disappointments, doubts! But if at such moments a person hesitates, his song is sung. Faith and perseverance. Labor and honesty ..." (1928, letter to E. V. Klykova). And Nikolai Alekseevich continued to work. The work in children's literature, which began back in 1927, provided a livelihood - in the 30s he collaborated in the magazines "Hedgehog" and "Chizh", wrote poetry and prose for children. The best known are his translations of Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" for youth (a complete translation of the poem was made in the 1950s), as well as the transcriptions of Rabelais' book "Gargantua and Pantagruel" and de Coster's novel "Til Ulenspiegel".

In his work, Zabolotsky increasingly concentrated on philosophical lyrics. He was fond of poetry Derzhavin , Pushkin , Baratynsky , Tyutchev , Goethe and, still, Khlebnikov , actively interested philosophical problems natural sciences - read the works of Engels, Vernadsky, Grigory Skovoroda ... At the beginning of 1932, he became acquainted with the works of Tsiolkovsky, which made an indelible impression on him. In a letter to a scientist and a great dreamer, he wrote: "... Your thoughts about the future of the Earth, humanity, animals and plants deeply excite me, and they are very close to me. In my unpublished poems and poems, I resolved them as best I could."

Zabolotsky's natural-philosophical concept is based on the idea of ​​the universe as a single system that unites living and non-living forms of matter, which are in eternal interaction and mutual transformation. The development of this complex organism of nature comes from the primitive chaos to the harmonic ordering of all its elements. And the main role here is played by the consciousness inherent in nature, which, in the words of K. A. Timiryazev, "smolders dully in lower beings and only flares up like a bright spark in the human mind." Therefore, it is man who is called upon to take care of the transformation of nature, but in his activity he must see in nature not only a student, but also a teacher, for this imperfect and suffering "eternal winepress" contains the wonderful world of the future and those wise laws by which man should be guided. The poem "The Triumph of Agriculture" states that the mission of reason begins with the social improvement of human society and then social justice extends to man's relationship to animals and all of nature. Zabolotsky remembered the words well Khlebnikov : "I see the freedom of horses, I am the equality of cows."

Gradually, the position of Zabolotsky in the literary circles of Leningrad was strengthened. With his wife and children, he lived in a "writer's superstructure" on the Griboyedov Canal, actively participated in the public life of Leningrad writers. Such poems as "Farewell", "North" and especially "Goryayskaya symphony" received favorable reviews in the press. In 1937, his book was published, including seventeen poems ("Second Book"). On the desktop of Zabolotsky lay the begun poetic transcription of the ancient Russian poem " A word about Igor's regiment "and his poem "The Siege of Kozelsk", poems, translations from Georgian ... But the prosperity that came was deceptive ...

On March 19, 1938, N. A. Zabolotsky was arrested and cut off from literature, from his family, from a free human existence for a long time. As accusatory material in his case, spiteful critical articles and a review "review" appeared, which tendentiously distorted the essence and ideological orientation of his work. Until 1944, he served an undeserved sentence in labor camps in the Far East and in the Altai Territory. From spring to the end of 1945 he lived with his family in Karaganda.

In 1946, N. A. Zabolotsky was reinstated in the Writers' Union and received permission to live in the capital. A new, Moscow period of his work began. Despite all the blows of fate, he managed to maintain internal integrity and remained faithful to the cause of his life - as soon as the opportunity arose, he returned to unfulfilled literary plans. Back in 1945 in Karaganda, working as a draftsman in the construction department, after hours, Nikolai Alekseevich basically completed the arrangement " Words about Igor's regiment ", and in Moscow resumed work on the translation of Georgian poetry. His poems from G. Orbeliani, V. Pshavela, D. Guramishvili, S. Chikovani - many classical and modern poets of Georgia - sound great. He also worked on the poetry of other Soviet and foreign peoples .

In the poems written by Zabolotsky after a long break, continuity with his work of the 30s is clearly traced, especially with regard to natural philosophical ideas. Such are the poems of the 10s "Read, trees, Geeiod's poems", "I am not looking for harmony in nature", "Testament", "Through the magic device of Leeuwenhoek" ... In the 50s, the natural philosophical theme began to go deep into the verse, becoming, as it were, its invisible foundation and giving way to reflections on the psychological and moral ties between man and nature, on the inner world of man, on the feelings and problems of the individual. In "Road Makers" and other poems about the work of builders, the conversation about human accomplishments, which began even before 1938 ("Wedding with Fruits", "North", "Sedov"), continues. The poet measured the affairs of his contemporaries and his experience of working on eastern construction sites with the prospect of creating a harmonious living architecture of nature.

In the poems of the Moscow period, spiritual openness previously unusual for Zabolotsky appeared, sometimes autobiographical (“Blind”, “In this birch grove”, the cycle “Last Love”). The heightened attention to the living human soul led him to psychologically rich genre-plot sketches ("Wife", "Loser", "To the Cinema", "Ugly Girl", "Old Actress" ...), to observations of how warehouse and fate are reflected in human appearance ("On the beauty of human faces", "Portrait"). For the poet, the beauty of nature, its impact on inner world person. A whole series of ideas and works of Zabolotsky was associated with an invariable interest in history and epic poetry ("Rubruk in Mongolia", etc.). His poetics was constantly improved, the triad proclaimed by him became the formula of creativity: thought - image - music.

Not everything was simple in the Moscow life of Nikolai Alekseevich. creative upsurge, which manifested itself in the first years after the return, was replaced by a decline and an almost complete switching of creative activity to literary translations in 1949-1952. The timing was troubling. Fearing that his ideas would again be used against him, Zabolotsky often restrained himself and did not allow himself to transfer to paper everything that was ripening in his mind and asking for a poem. The situation changed only after the 20th Party Congress, which condemned the perversions associated with Stalin's personality cult. Zabolotsky responded to new trends in the life of the country with poems "Somewhere in a field near Magadan", "Opposition of Mars", "Kazbek". Breathing became easier. Suffice it to say that over the last three years of his life (1956-1958) Zabolotsky created about half of all the poems of the Moscow period. Some of them have appeared in print. In 1957, the fourth, most complete collection of his lifetime was published (64 poems and selected translations). After reading this book, an authoritative connoisseur of poetry, Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky, wrote to Nikolai Alekseevich enthusiastic words, so important for a poet unspoiled by criticism: “I am writing to you with that respectful timidity with which I would write to Tyutchev or Derzhavin. For me there is no doubt that the author of Cranes” , "Swan", "Give in to me, starling, corner", "Loser", "Actresses", "Human Faces", "Morning", "Forest Lake", "Blind", "In the cinema", "Walkers", " Ugly girl", "I'm not looking for harmony in nature" - a truly great poet, whose work sooner or later Soviet culture (maybe even against their will) will have to be proud of, as one of their highest achievements. Some of the current my lines will seem reckless and gross mistake, but I answer for them with all my seventy years of reading experience" (June 5, 1957).

Prediction K. I. Chukovsky comes true. In our time, the poetry of N. A. Zabolotsky is widely published, it has been translated into many foreign languages, it is comprehensively and seriously studied by literary critics, dissertations and monographs are written about it. The poet achieved the goal that he had been striving for throughout his life - he created a book that worthily continued the great tradition of Russian philosophical lyrics, and this book came to the reader.

Used material from the website of the Moshkov Library http://kulichki.rambler.ru/moshkow

Zabolotsky Nikolai Alekseevich (04/24/1903-10/14/1958), poet. Born on a farm near Kazan in the family of an agronomist and a teacher.

All R. 20s Zabolotsky, editor of the children's section of the State Publishing House, author of the book “Good Boots” (1928), met members of the OBERIU group (real art association) D. Kharms, A. Vvedensky, K. Vaginov and others and became an active supporter, “ theorist" of this trend. True, it existed rather in ardent declarations, theatrical performances, declared itself at debates, at the “Posters of the Press House” in Leningrad. From this, the meaning of the Oberiuts, or "plane trees", as D. Kharms, A. Vvedensky used to call themselves, is a combination of the words "rank" (i.e., spiritual rank) and "chinariq" (i.e., a small cigarette butt) for the early Zabolotsky's poetry was not diminished.

Zabolotsky's first book of serious poems "Columns" (1929), which was a great success, bears traces of OBERIU programs, including programs written by him personally.

The Oberiuts were looking for meaning in the absurd, the mind in zaumi, they represented the world in the forms of the grotesque, fantastic visions. They "shifted" all life and the word into the element of the game, often illogical, "absurd". Doesn't the metaphors of the early Zabolotsky sound in the same way: “Straight bald husbands / They sit like a shot from a gun” (“Wedding”); “The baby grows stronger and matures / And suddenly, walking across the table, / Sits right into the Komsomol” (“New Life”).

Zabolotsky possessed too strong a natural beginning to share the enthusiasm of his brothers about the "abstruse language", "shiftology", "war on all meanings" in the name of creating an absurd reality. But he supported their desire to revive in poetry “a new sense of life and its objects”, to cleanse a specific subject from literary and everyday husks. He dreamed of showing the reader a world that had previously been “littered with the languages ​​of many fools”, entangled in the mire of “experiences” and “emotions” , in all the purity of their specific masculine forms ”(From the declaration of the Oberiuts. 1928).

The collection "Columns" - in the best poems that compiled it - is a phantasmagoric picture of Leningrad, presented from the inside, with a deliberate, philistine-NEP side. Here reigns dense, petty-bourgeois life, the elements of gluttony, market, beer. This element flattened, squeezed a person, narrowed his horizons. In Stolbtsy, an evening bar turns into a “deserence of a bottle paradise”, where a waitress or a singer, “a pale siren at the counter, treats guests with tincture”, “bedlam with flowers in half” lives in it. Here, the "new life" is aware of its novelty in such signs of a wedding as the appearance of the chairman of the housing committee (or trade union) instead of

And taking a red speech,
Sits on the table Ilyich.

Under the influence of the Oberiuts, in the collection there is every effort of the negative, petty-bourgeois features of Leningrad in the 20s:

people's house- chicken coop of joy,
barn of magical living,
festive trough of passion,
thick hell of life.

Of all the designations of girlish beauty, the charm of youth, Zabolotsky in "Columns" knows, alas, only one thing: "here the girl leads her pure dog on a lasso"; “he touches the girls with his hand”; "Ivanov kisses the girl"; “but there are no girls in front of him” ... “Women”, of course, are “like tubs” ...

When describing the market, Zabolotsky far from recreated everything in the spirit of the Oberiuts, their universal irony. The poet is determined to laugh, to create an inverted, grotesque world, but in his paintings the cheerful, healthy spirit of the carnival, the spirit of the French novelist Rabelais, comes to life, perhaps even the splendor of the bazaars of B. M. Kustodiev:

Herrings sparkle with sabers,
Their eyes are small meek,
But here, cut with a knife,
They curl up...
Eels like sausages
In smoked splendor and laziness
Smoked, knees bent,
And among them, like a yellow fang,
The tsar-balyk shone on a dish.

Yes, this is no longer a market, but a feast of the earth, a collection of its gifts, a demonstration of life-creation and the power of nature! The poet has not yet made this conclusion in The Columns: the inhabitants, owners and visitors of the markets are already very primitive, invisible or vulgar in his fish markets, weddings. Here "the scales are reading the Lord's Prayer", here morality cannot break through "through the fat trenches of meat", here "the samovar makes noise like a house general". The poet looks with horror at this realm of picturesque inanimate matter and does not know where his place is in the world of new everyday heroes:

Is it possible to find a place for me there,
Where is my bride waiting for me
Where the chairs lined up
Where is the hill - like Ararat? ..

He only outlines his future place in the "Columns", rather hints at it. In the poem "Lunch" he recreates the entire rite of the "bloody art of living" - cutting meat and vegetables. We see onions and potatoes being tossed in a boiling pot. The poet returns memory to the land where all these products, both potatoes and onions, still lived, did not yet know death, this throwing in boiling water:

When we saw in the radiance of the rays
blissful infancy of plants, -
we, right b, knelt down
in front of a boiling pot of vegetables.

Soon after The Columns, the poet found and since then has not lost his place in the natural world, in the kingdom of plants and animals. I did not find it at all through the market, not through the glutton's row and counters with broken poultry, meat. In 1929-30 he wrote the natural-philosophical poem "The Triumph of Agriculture", then the poems "The Crazy Wolf", "Trees", "The Wedding with Fruits". It was his poetic project of establishing the unity of the universe, uniting living and inanimate forms of matter, increasing the purity and harmony of the relationship between man and nature.

Nature and man in it must get out of the state of the "eternal winepress" - this is the key image of all Zabolotsky's poetry - when the strong devour the weaker, but then they themselves become the prey of the strongest.

In 1934, the poet will again create an image of a world where weak beings are eaten by others, stronger ones, and these strong ones become food for even stronger ones: this is an endless process that connects being and death. Where is immortality? His hero Lodeinikov once heard (realized) in the night garden the terrible harmony of devouring, the cycle of successive extermination:

Above the garden
there was a vague rustle of a thousand deaths.
Nature turned into hell
she did her business without a hitch.
The beetle ate grass, the beetle was pecked by a bird,
a ferret drank the brain from a bird's head,
and terribly twisted faces
night creatures looked out from the grass.
Nature's age-old winepress
united death and life
into a single club.

("Lodeynikov in the garden")

Such a terrible world order is very unpredictable. And this cycle is crowned, alas, with human "robbery" of nature in all its forms.

The picture of the "nature of the age-old winepress" is not Zabolotsky's own discovery. He created this picture based on the ideas and images of the philosopher N. F. Fedorov, the creator of the grandiose philosophical utopia "Philosophy of the Common Cause" and, of course, his follower, the Kaluga dreamer K. E. Tsiolkovsky. Zabolotsky corresponded with the latter in 1932, agreeing and arguing, dedicating him to the range of his topics. The poet dreamed of outliving in nature the process of devouring some creatures by others, "nature's age-old winepress" - the embodiment of its market.

In March 1938 Zabolotsky was arrested. Zabolotsky stayed in prison and camps from 1938 to 1944. After returning to Moscow, to Tarusa, where he lived for a long time, the most fruitful period of his creative life began. The poet translated The Tale of Igor's Campaign (already in 1945), Sh. Rustaveli's poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin, and created an entire anthology of translations of Georgian lyrics. But most importantly, he revealed the potential riches of the human soul as the highest manifestation of all, including the spiritual, life of nature. This is a very dramatic page of his lyrics. In it, as the scientist V.P. Smirnov noted, the poet not only "sought to comprehend the contradictions, but also took himself as an element of the contradiction."

V. Chalmaev

Used materials from the site Great Encyclopedia of the Russian people - http://www.rusinst.ru

SEDOV

He was dying clutching a true compass.
Nature is dead, chained with ice,
She lay around him, and the face of the cave sun
It was hard to see through the fog.
Shaggy, with straps on the chest,
The dogs dragged their light load a little.
The ship, worn out in an icy grave,
Already far behind.
And the whole world was left behind!
To the land of silence, where the pole is a giant,
Crowned with an icy tiara,
With the meridian brought the meridian;
Where is the aurora semicircle
Crossed the sky with a diamond spear;
Where is the age-old dead silence
Only one person could break
There, there! To the land of foggy delusions,
Where the thread of the last life breaks!
And the heart groan and the last moment of life -
Everything, everything to give, but to win the pole!
He died in the middle of the road
We suffer from sickness and hunger.
In scorbutic spots icy feet,
Like logs, the dead lay before him.
But strange! In this half dead body
A great soul still lived:
Overcoming pain. barely breathing
Bringing the compass closer to the face,
He checked his route by the arrow
And he drove forward his funeral train ...
O end of the earth, gloomy and sad!
What kind of people have been here!

And there is a grave in the far North...
She rises far from the world.
Only the wind howls there sadly,
And a veil of snow shines evenly.
Two true friends, both barely alive,
The hero was buried among the stones,
And he didn’t even have a simple coffin,
Pinch was not his native land.
And he did not have any military honors,
No mourning fireworks, no wreaths,
Only two sailors, kneeling,
Like children, crying alone among the snows.

But men of courage, friends, do not die!
Now that's over our head
Steel whirlwinds cut through the air
And disappear into the blue haze
When, having reached the snowy zenith,
Our flag flutters over the pole, winged,
And indicated by the angle of the theodolite
Moonrise and sunset, -
My friends, at the national celebration
Let us remember those who fell in the cold land!

Get up, Sedov, brave son of the earth!
We replaced your old compass with a new one,
But your campaign in the severe North
They could not forget in their campaigns.
And we would live in the world without limit,
Gnawing into the ice, changing riverbeds, -
Fatherland raised us in the body
Breathed a living soul forever.
And we will go to any tracts,
And if death catches by the snows,
I would ask only one thing from fate:
So die, as Sedov died.

YIELD TO ME, STARLING, CORNER

Give me, starling, a corner,
Set me up in an old birdhouse.
I pledge my soul to you
For your blue snowdrops.

And the spring whistles and mutters,
Poplars are flooded knee-deep.
Maples awaken from sleep,
So that, like butterflies, the leaves clapped.

And such a mess in the fields,
And such nonsense of streams,
What to try, leaving the attic,
Do not rush headlong into the grove!

Serenade, starling!
Through the timpani and tambourines of history
You are our first spring singer
From the birch conservatory.

Open the show, whistler!
Tilt your pink head back
Breaking the glow of the strings
In the very throat of a birch grove.

I myself would try much,
Yes, the wanderer butterfly whispered to me:
“Who is loud in the spring,
He will remain without a voice by the summer "

And spring is good, good!
It covered the whole soul with lilacs.
Raise the birdhouse, soul,
Above your spring gardens.

Sit on a high pole
Blazing in the sky with delight,
Cleave a cobweb to a star
Together with bird tongue twisters.

Turn to face the universe
Honoring blue snowdrops,
With the unconscious starling
Traveling through spring fields.

WILL

When in my declining years my life runs out
And, having extinguished the candle, I will go again
In the boundless world of foggy transformations,
When millions of new generations
Will fill this world with the sparkle of miracles
And complete the structure of nature,
Let these waters cover my poor ashes,
Let this green forest shelter me.

I will not die my friend. By the breath of flowers
I will find myself in this world.
Centuries-old oak my living soul
Roots wrap around, sad and harsh.
In his large sheets I will give shelter to the mind
I will cherish my thoughts with the help of my branches,
So that they hang over you from the darkness of the forests
And you were involved in my consciousness.

Above your head, my distant great-grandson,
I'll fly in the sky like a slow bird
I will flash over you like a pale lightning,
Like summer rain I will spill, sparkling over the grass
There is nothing more beautiful in the world than being.
The silent darkness of the graves is empty languor.
I have lived my life, I have not seen peace;
There is no peace in the world. Everywhere life and me.

Not I was born into the world when from the cradle
My eyes looked at the world for the first time, -
I began to think for the first time on my land,
When the lifeless crystal sensed life,
When for the first time a raindrop
She fell on him, exhausted in the rays.
Oh, I did not live in this world for nothing!
And it is sweet for me to strive from the darkness,
So that, taking me in the palm of your hand, you, my distant descendant,
Finished what I didn't finish.

CRANES

Leaving Africa in April
To the shores of the fatherland,
Flying in a long triangle
Drowning in the sky, cranes.

Stretching out silver wings
across the wide sky,
Led the leader to the valley of abundance
Your few people.

But when under the wings flashed
Lake transparent through
Black gaping muzzle
It rose from the bushes.

A ray of fire hit the bird's heart,
A quick flame flared up and went out,
And a particle of wondrous greatness
It fell on us from above.

Two wings, like two huge sorrows,
Embraced the cold wave
And, echoing a sorrowful sob,
The cranes took off into the air.

Only where the lights move
In atonement for your own evil
Nature has given them back
What death took with it:

Proud spirit, high aspiration,
Will unbending to fight -
Everything from the past generation
Passes, youth, to you.

And the leader in a shirt made of metal
Slowly sinking to the bottom
And the dawn formed over him
Golden glow spot.

READING POEMS

Curious, funny and subtle:
A verse that almost doesn't look like a verse.
The muttering of a cricket and a child
The writer has comprehended perfectly.

And in the nonsense of crumpled speech
There is a certain sophistication.
But is it possible human dreams
To sacrifice these amusements?

And is it possible Russian word
Turn into a chirping carduelis,
To make sense a living foundation
Couldn't you sound through it?

Not! Poetry puts up barriers
Our inventions, for she
Not for those who, playing charades,
Puts on a sorcerer's cap.

The one who lives the real life
Who has been accustomed to poetry since childhood,
Forever believes in the life-giving,
Full of reason Russian language.

I was brought up by harsh nature,
It's enough for me to notice at the feet
Dandelion ball downy,
Plantain hard blade.

than usual simple plant,
The more alive excites me
The first leaves his appearance
At the dawn of a spring day.

In the state of daisies, at the edge,
Where the stream, gasping, sings,
I would lie all night until the morning,
Throwing your face up into the sky.

Living like a stream of glowing dust
Everything would flow, flow through the sheets,
And the misty stars shone
Filling the bushes with rays.

And, listening to the spring noise
Among the enchanted herbs,
Everything would lie and think, I think
Boundless fields and oak forests.

1953

WALKERS

In zipuns of home cut,
From distant villages, because of the Oka,
They walked, unknown, three -
On mundane business walkers.

Russia rushed about in famine and storm,
Everything was mixed up, shifted at once.
The rumble of stations, the cry at the commandant's office,
Human grief without embellishment.

For some reason these three
Stand out in a crowd of people
They didn't shout furiously and fiercely,
They didn't break the line.

Looking through old eyes
In what need has done here,
Travelers grieved, and themselves
We didn't talk much, as always.

There is a trait inherent in the people:
He does not think with reason alone, -
All my spiritual nature
Our people associate with him.

That's why our fairy tales are beautiful,
Our songs, folded in harmony.
They have both mind and heart without fear
They speak the same dialect.

The three didn't talk much.
What words! It wasn't the point.
But in their hearts they accumulated
Much for this long journey.

Because, perhaps, they hid
In their eyes, anxious lights
At a late hour when we stopped
They are at the threshold of the Smolny.

But when their host is hospitable,
Man in a shabby jacket
Worked to death himself,
I talked to them briefly

He spoke about their poor area,
Talking about the time when
Electric horses will come out
In the fields of folk labor,

Said how life spread its wings
How, perking up, all the people
Golden Loaves of Abundance
Through the country, rejoicing, will carry, -

Only then severe anxiety
In three hearts melted like a dream,
And suddenly it became clear
From what only he saw.

And the knapsacks themselves were untied,
Gray dust in the dust room
And shyly appeared in their hands
Stale rye pretzel.

With this tasteless treat
The peasants approached Lenin.
Ate everything. And it was bitter and delicious
A meager gift from a tormented land.

1954

UGLY GIRL

Among other children playing
She resembles a frog.
A thin shirt is tucked into shorts,
Rings of reddish curls
Scattered, the mouth is long, the teeth are crooked,
Facial features are sharp and ugly.
Two little boys, her peers,
Fathers bought a bicycle.
Today the boys, not in a hurry for dinner,
They drive around the yard, forgetting about her,
She runs after them.
Someone else's joy, just like your own,
It torments her and breaks out of the heart,
And the girl rejoices and laughs,
Embraced by the happiness of being.

No shadow of envy, no evil intent
Doesn't know this creature yet.
Everything in the world is so immeasurably new to her,
Everything that is dead for others is so alive!
And I don't want to think, watching
What will be the day when she, sobbing,
He will see with horror that among her friends
She's just a poor bastard!
I want to believe that the heart is not a toy,
You can hardly break it all of a sudden!
I want to believe that this flame is pure,
Which burns in the depths of her,
One will hurt all his pain
And melt the heaviest stone!
And let her features are not good
And she has nothing to seduce the imagination, -
Infant grace of the soul
Already see through in any of its movements.
And if so, what is beauty
And why do people deify her?
She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,
Or fire flickering in a vessel?

1955

ON THE BEAUTY OF HUMAN FACES

There are faces like magnificent portals
Where everywhere the great is seen in the small,
There are faces - the likeness of miserable shacks,
Where the liver is cooked and the abomasum gets wet.
Other cold, dead faces
Closed with bars, like a dungeon.
Others are like towers in which
Nobody lives and looks out the window.
But I once knew a small hut,
She was unsightly, not rich,
But from her window on me
The breath of a spring day flowed.
Truly the world is both great and wonderful!
There are faces - the likeness of jubilant songs.
From these, like the sun, shining notes
Compiled a song of heavenly heights,

DON'T LET YOUR SOUL BE LAZY

Don't let your soul be lazy!
So as not to crush water in a mortar,
The soul must work

Drive her from house to house
Drag from stage to stage
Through the wasteland, through the windbreak,
Through the snowdrift, through the bump!

Don't let her sleep in bed
By the light of the morning star
Keep a lazy man in a black body
And don't take the reins off her!

If you want to give her an indulgence,
Releasing from work
She's the last shirt
Will rip you off without pity.

And you grab her by the shoulders
Teach and torture until dark
To live with you like a human
She re-learned.

She is a slave and a queen
She is a worker and a daughter,
She has to work
And day and night, and day and night!

Compositions:

Sobr. cit.: In 3 vols. M., 1983-84;

Georgian classical poetry translated by N. Zabolotsky. Tbilisi, 1958. Vol. 1, 2;

Poems and poems. M.; L., 1965. (B-ka poet. B. series);

Fav. works: In 2 vols. M., 1972;

Snake apple: Poems, stories, fairy tales / Book. comp. according to the materials of the journal. "Chizh" and "Hedgehog" 20-30s. L., 1973;

Columns. Poems. Poems. L., 1990;

History of my imprisonment. M., 1991;

Fire flickering in a vessel...: Poems and poems. Translations. Letters and articles. Biography. Memoirs of contemporaries. Analysis of creativity. M., 1995.

Was born (April 24) May 7, 1903 in Kazan in the family of an agronomist. The writer spent his childhood in the Kizicheskaya Sloboda and in the village of Sernur, not far from the city of Urzhum. Already in the third grade, Nikolai published a school magazine, where he published his poems.

After graduating from a real school in Urzhum in 1920, Zabolotsky entered Moscow University in two faculties at once - philological and medical. The literary life of Moscow captured the poet. He was fond of imitating either Blok or Yesenin.

In 1921, Zabolotsky entered the Pedagogical Institute. Herzen in Leningrad. During the years of study, he became close to a group of young authors, the "Oberiuts" ("Association of Real Art"). All members of this association were characterized by elements of alogism, absurdity, grotesque. Participation in this group helped the poet find his way. Zabolotsky graduated in 1925, having behind his soul, by his own admission, "a voluminous notebook of bad poems." The following year, he was called up for military service.
He served in Leningrad, in 1927 he retired to the reserve. Despite the short duration of military service, he wrote his first poetic works.

The first book of his poems, "Columns", was published in 1929 and was a scandalous success. Livelihood was provided by work in children's literature - in the 30s he collaborated in the magazines "Hedgehog" and "CHIZH", which were supervised by Samuil Marshak, wrote poetry and prose for children.

In 1938, he was repressed on false charges of anti-Soviet propaganda and sent to work as a builder in the Far East, in the Altai Territory, Karaganda. In these difficult conditions, Zabolotsky accomplished a creative feat: he completed The Tale of Igor's Campaign.

Poet Zabolotsky Nikolai Alekseevich was born on April 24 (May 7), 1903 near Kazan in the family of an agronomist and a teacher. He spent his childhood in the Kizichesky Sloboda near Kazan. Zabolotsky's literary talent manifested itself at an early age. In the third grade of school, he made a handwritten journal in which he posted his poems.

In 1913, Zabolotsky entered a real school in Urzhum. The poet is fond of chemistry, history, drawing, discovers Blok's work.

In 1920, Zablotsky entered the medical faculty of Moscow University. However, six months later, he drops out of school and returns home. Soon he moved to Petrograd and entered the Herzen Pedagogical Institute in the department of language and literature. In 1925 he graduated from high school.

Creative activity

In 1926 - 1927, Nikolai Alekseevich served on conscription in Leningrad, was a member of the editorial board of the military wall newspaper. It was at this time that Zabolotsky was able to hone his own, unique poetic style.

short biography Zabolotsky would be incomplete without mentioning that in 1927, together with other writers, he founded the Association of Real Art (OBERIU), which included D. Kharms, A. Vvedensky, I. Bakhterev. In the same year, Nikolai Alekseevich got a job in the children's book department of the OGIZ in Leningrad.

In 1929, the first collection of the poet was published - "Columns", which caused a mixed reaction from critics. In 1933, the poem "The Triumph of Agriculture" was published, in which the author touched on many philosophical and moral issues. Soon Zabolotsky began working in the children's magazines "Chizh" and "Ezh". In 1937, his collection The Second Book was published.

Conclusion. Return to Moscow

In 1938, Nikolai Zabolotsky, whose biography had previously not included problems with the law, was arrested, accused of anti-Soviet propaganda. Until 1943, the poet was in camps, first near Komsomolsk-on-Amur, then in Altaylag. Since 1944, Zabolotsky lived in Karaganda, where he completed work on the arrangement of The Tale of Igor's Campaign.

In 1946, Nikolai Alekseevich was allowed to return to Moscow. In the same year he was reinstated in the Writers' Union. Soon the poet translated Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin". In 1948, the third collection of Zabolotsky's "Poems" was published.

Last years

Since 1949, Zabolotsky, fearing the reaction of the authorities, practically did not write. Only with the beginning Khrushchev thaw The poet returned to active literary activity. In 1957, the most complete collection of Zabolotsky's works was published.

The first heart attack in 1955 undermined the health of the poet. On October 14, 1958, Nikolai Alekseevich died of a second heart attack. The poet was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Other biography options

• In the work of Zabolotsky, the 40s were a turning point - the poet moved from avant-garde works to classical philosophical poems.
• Nikolai Alekseevich is the largest translator of Georgian poets - Sh. Rustaveli, D. Guramishvili, V. Pshavela, Gr. Orbeliani, A. Tsereteli, I. Chavchavadze. Zabolotsky also translated the works of the Italian poet U. Saba, processed for children the translation of the book by F. Rabelais "Gargantua and Pantagruel", etc.
• In 1930, Zabolotsky married Ekaterina Vasilievna Klykova, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Pedagogical Institute. They had two children.
• Zabolotsky was indelibly impressed by the works of Tsiolkovsky, revealing the idea of ​​a variety of life forms in the Universe. In addition, Nikolai Alekseevich was fond of the works of A. Einstein, F. Engels, K. Timiryazev, G. Skovoroda, Yu. Filipchenko, V. Vernandsky, N. Fedorov.

Biography test

Try to pass the test on Zabolotsky's short biography.