Toy wolves look with scary eyes. ABOUT
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Osip Mandelstam
Stone
Poems
1928
Stone
“The sound is cautious and deaf…”"They burn with gold leaf..."
The sound is wary and muffled
The fruit that fell from the tree
In the midst of the silent chant
Deep silence of the forest ...
"Only children's books to read..."
Burning with gold leaf
Christmas trees in the woods;
Toy wolves in the bushes
They look with terrible eyes.Oh, my sadness,
Oh my quiet freedom
And the inanimate sky
Always laughing crystal!
I'm dead tired of life
I won't take anything from her.
But I love my poor land
Because the other did not see.I rocked in a distant garden
On a simple wooden swing
And tall dark firs
I remember in a foggy delirium.
Tender than tender
your face,
Whiter than white
Your hand
From the whole world
You are far away
And everything is yours -
From the inevitable.From the inevitable
Your sadness
And fingers
never cooling down,
And a quiet sound
Cheerful
speeches,
And far
Your eyes
“There are chaste charms…”
On pale blue enamel
What is conceivable in April,
Birch branches raised
And imperceptibly evening.The pattern is sharp and fine,
Frozen thin mesh
Like on a porcelain plate
Drawing, drawn aptly -When his artist is cute
Displays on the glassy firmament,
In the consciousness of momentary power,
In the oblivion of a sad death.
“I was given a body – what should I do with it…”
There are chaste charms -
High way, deep world,
Far from the ethereal lyres
Lars installed by me.At carefully washed niches
At watchful sunsets
I listen to my penates
Always ecstatic silence.What a toy lot
What timid laws
Orders torso chiseled
And the cold of these fragile bodies!There is no need to praise other gods:
They are equal to you!
And with a careful hand
You are allowed to change them.
"Unspeakable sadness..."
I was given a body - what should I do with it,
So single and so mine?For the quiet joy to breathe and live
Who, tell me, should I thank?I am the gardener, I am the flower,
In the darkness of the world, I am not alone.On the glass of eternity has already fallen
My breath, my warmth.A pattern will be imprinted on it,
Recently unrecognizable.Let the dregs flow for a moment -
Do not cross out the cute pattern.
"To the mother-of-pearl shuttle..."
Unspeakable sadness
Opened two huge eyes
Flower woke up vase
And threw out her crystal.The whole room is drunk
Tiredness is a sweet medicine!
Such a small kingdom
So much sleep has been consumed.A little red wine
A little sunny May -
And, breaking a thin biscuit,
The thinnest fingers are white.
"Nothing needs to be said..."
On the mother-of-pearl shuttle
Stretching silk threads
Oh, fingers are flexible, start
Charming lesson!Ebb and flow of hands -
monotonous movements,
You conjure, without a doubt,
Some solar fright, -When a wide palm
Like a shell, flaming
That goes out, gravitating towards the shadows,
Then the fire will go pink!
"When blow meets blow..."
Nothing needs to be said
Nothing should be taught
And sad and good
Dark Beast Soul:Doesn't want to teach
Can't speak at all
And swims like a young dolphin
Through the gray abysses of the world.
"Slower snow hive ..."
When blow meets blow,
And fatal over me
The tireless pendulum swings
And wants to be my destinyIn a hurry, and rudely stop,
And the spindle will fall;
And it is impossible to meet, to agree,
And you can't dodge.Sharp patterns intertwine
And faster and faster
Poison darts soar
In the hands of brave savages...
Silentium 1
Slower snow hive
More transparent than crystal windows,
And a turquoise veil
Carelessly thrown on a chair.Fabric intoxicated with itself
Indulged in the caress of light,
She experiences summer
No matter how touched in winter;And if in ice diamonds
Eternity frost flows,
Here is the flutter of dragonflies
Fast-living, blue-eyed.
Silence (Latin title of Tyutchev's poem).
She hasn't been born yet
She is both music and words,
And therefore all living things
Unbreakable connection.Calmly breathe the seas of the chest -
But, like crazy, the day is bright,
And pale lilac foam -
In a cloudy-azure vessel.May my lips find
initial silence,
Like a crystal note
What is pure from birth!
Stay foam, Aphrodite,
And, word, return to music!
And, heart, be ashamed of the heart,
Merged with the fundamental principle of life!
"Like the shadow of sudden clouds..."
Hearing sensitive sail strains,
Expanded empty eyes,
And the silence floats
Midnight birds unsound chorus.I'm as poor as nature
And as simple as heaven
And my freedom is illusory
Like midnight birds.I see a breathless month
And the sky is deader than the canvas;
Your world is painful and strange
I accept, emptiness!
"From the pool of evil and viscous ..."
Like the shadow of sudden clouds
The sea visitor has flown
And, slipping, rustled -
Confused past the shoresThe huge sail hovers severely;
deathly pale wave
She recoiled - and again she
Don't dare to touch the shore;And the boat, rustling in the waves,
Like leaves...
“In a huge pool it is transparent and dark…”
From the pool of evil and viscous
I grew up, rustling with a reed,
And passionately, and languidly, and affectionately
Breathing forbidden life.And I'll go, unnoticed by anyone,
In a cold and swampy shelter,
Greeted with a welcoming rustle
Short autumn minutes.I am happy with a cruel insult
And in a life like a dream
I secretly envy everyone
And secretly in love with everyone.
"How the horses walk slowly..."
In a huge pool it is transparent and dark,
And the languid window turns white;
And the heart, why is it so slow
And so stubbornly heavy?Then with all its weight it goes to the bottom,
Longing for sweet silt,
Like a straw, bypassing the depth,
It rises to the top, without effort ...With feigned tenderness, stand at the head
And lull yourself all your life,
Like a fiction, languish with your longing
And be gentle with arrogant boredom.
"A meager beam, cold measure ..."
How the horses walk slowly
How little fire there is in the lanterns!
Strangers surely know
Where are they taking me?And I entrust myself to their care,
I'm cold, I want to sleep;
Tossed up on a bend
Towards the star beam.hot head bobbing
And the gentle ice of someone else's hand,
And dark firs outlines,
Not yet seen by me.
"The air is cloudy and humid and booming..."
A meager beam, cold measure,
Sows light in the damp forest.
I am sorrow, like a gray bird,
In my heart I slowly carry.What should I do with an injured bird?
The firmament fell silent, died.
From the foggy belfry
Someone removed the bells.And stands orphaned
And dumb height -
Like an empty white tower
Where is fog and silence.Morning, bottomless tenderness, -
Half real and half dream
Forgetfulness unsatisfied -
Doom foggy chime...
"Today is a bad day..."
The cloudy air is humid and booming;
Good and not scary in the forest.
A light cross of lonely walks
I will humbly take it again.And again to the indifferent homeland
A wild duck will reproach:
I participate in the gloomy life
And innocent that I'm lonely!The shot rang out. Over the sleepy lake
Duck wings are now heavy
And double being reflected
Stupefied pine trunks.The sky is dim with a strange glow -
World foggy pain -
Oh let me be hazy too
And let me not love you.
"Vaguely breathing leaves..."
Today is a bad day
The grasshopper choir sleeps
And gloomy rocks canopy -
Darker than tombstones.Flashing arrows ringing
And prophetic crows cry ...
I see a bad dream
Moment flies by.Phenomena push the line,
Destroy the earthly cage,
And a furious hymn will sound,
Rebellious mysteries copper!Oh, the pendulum of souls is strict -
Swinging deaf, straight,
And passionately knocks rock
Through the forbidden door to us...
"Why is the soul so melodious ..."
Vaguely breathing leaves
The black wind rustles
And a fluttering swallow
Draws a circle in the dark sky.Quietly arguing in an affectionate heart
Dying mine
Falling dusk
With a burning beam.And over the evening forest
The copper moon has risen;
Why is there so little music?
And such silence?
Sink
Why is the soul so melodious
And so few cute names
And instant rhythm is just a case
Unexpected Aquilon?He will raise a cloud of dust
Noise with paper foliage,
And won't come back at all - or
He will return completely different ...Oh broad wind of Orpheus,
You will go to the sea
And, cherishing the uncreated world,
I forgot the unnecessary "I".I wandered in the toy thicket
And opened the azure grotto...
Am I real
Will death really come?
"O heaven, heaven, I will dream of you! .."
Maybe you don't need me
Night; from the abyss of the world,
Like a shell without pearls
I have been cast ashore.You indifferently foam the waves
And intractably eat;
But you will love, you will appreciate
Unnecessary sink lies.You lie on the sand next to her,
You will wear your robe,
You are inextricably linked with her
Huge bell swells;And the fragile shell of the wall, -
Like a house of an uninhabited heart, -
Fill with whispers of foam
Fog, wind and rain...
"I'm shivering from the cold..."
Oh heaven, heaven, I will dream of you!
You can't be completely blind
And the day burned like a white page:
Some smoke and some ash!
"I hate the world..."
I'm shivering from the cold -
I want to be dumb!
And gold dances in the sky -
Tells me to sing.Tomis, an anxious musician,
Love, remember and cry
And, abandoned from a dim planet,
Pick up an easy ball!So this is the real one
Connection with the mysterious world!
What an aching longing
What a disaster!What if over a fashion store
shimmering always,
In my heart with a long pin
Will a star suddenly fall?
“Your image, painful and unsteady…”
I hate the light
Monotonous stars.
Hello, my old delirium, -
Towers lancet growth!Lace, stone, be
And become a web:
Heaven's empty chest
Wound with a thin needle.It will be my turn
I can feel the wingspan.
Yes, but where will it go?
Thoughts of a living arrow?Or, your way and time,
I, exhausted, will return:
There - I could not love,
Here - I'm afraid to love ...
“No, not the moon, but a bright dial ...” A pedestrian
Your image, painful and unsteady,
I couldn't feel in the fog.
"God!" I said by mistake
Without even thinking to say it.God's name is like a big bird
It flew out of my chest.
A thick fog swirls ahead,
And an empty cage behind...
<М. Л. Лозинскому>
Casino
I feel an invincible fear
In the presence of mysterious heights.
I'm happy with the swallow in the sky
And the bell towers I love flying!And, it seems, an old pedestrian,
Over the abyss, on the bending bridges,
I listen how snowball growing,
And eternity strikes on a stone clock.Whenever so! But I'm not the traveler
Flickering on faded sheets,
And truly sorrow sings in me;Indeed, there is an avalanche in the mountains!
And all my soul is in the bells, -
But music will not save from the abyss!
Gold
I'm not a fan of preconceived joy,
Sometimes nature is gray spot, -
I, in a light intoxication, are destined
Experience the colors of a poor life.The wind plays with a shaggy cloud,
Anchor falls to the bottom of the sea
And lifeless as a sheet
The soul hangs over the damned abyss.But I love casinos on the dunes
Wide view through a foggy window
And a thin beam on a crumpled tablecloth;And, surrounded by greenish water,
When, like a rose, in crystal wine, -
I love to follow the winged gull!
Lutheran
All day damp autumn air
I breathed in confusion and anguish;
I want to have dinner and the stars
Gold in a dark wallet!And, trembling from the yellow fog,
I went down to the little cellar;
I'm nowhere such a restaurant
And I didn’t see such a rabble!Petty officials, Japanese,
Theorists of someone else's treasury ...
Behind the counter feels the gold coins
Man - and they are all drunk.Be so kind, exchange, -
I earnestly ask him,
Just don't give me papers -
I can't stand three-ruble bills!What should I do with a drunken mob?
How did I get here, my God?
If I have the right -
Exchange my gold for me!
Hagia Sophia
I met a funeral on a walk
Near the Protestant church, on Sunday,
Absent-minded passer-by, I noticed
Those parishioners are in stern unrest.Someone else's speech did not reach the ear,
And only a thin harness shone,
Yes pavement festive deaf
Lazy horseshoes reflected.And in the elastic twilight of the carriage,
Where did sadness hide, hypocrite,
Without words, without tears, buying up on greetings,
Autumn roses flashed boutonniere.Stretched foreigners with a black ribbon,
And weeping ladies walked on foot.
Blush under the veil, and stubbornly
Above them the coachman ruled into the distance, stubborn.Whoever you are, late Lutheran,
You were easily and simply buried.
The gaze was clouded with a decent tear,
And discreetly the bells rang.And I thought: there's no need to play.
We are not prophets, not even forerunners,
We do not love heaven, we are not afraid of hell
And at noon we burn dull, like candles.
Hagia Sophia - where to stay
The Lord judged nations and kings!
After all, your dome, according to an eyewitness,
As on a chain suspended from heaven.And to all ages - the example of Justinian,
When to steal for foreign gods
Ephesian Diana allowed
One hundred and seven green marble pillars.But what did your generous builder think,
When, soul and thought is high,
Arranged apses and exedra,
Pointing them to the west and east?Beautiful is the temple bathed in peace,
And forty windows - a triumph of light;
On sails, under the dome, four
Archangel is the most beautiful.And a wise spherical building
Nations and centuries will survive,
And seraphim's booming sob
Will not warp dark gilding.
Old man
Where the Roman judge judged a foreign people,
There is a basilica - and, joyful and first,
Like once Adam, spreading his nerves,
The cross light arch plays with muscles.But a secret plan betrays itself from the outside,
Here, the strength of the girth arches took care,
So that the mass of the heavy wall does not crush,
And the vault of the impudent ram is inactive.Elemental labyrinth, incomprehensible forest,
Souls of the gothic rational abyss,
Egyptian power and Christianity timidity,
With a reed next to it - oak,
and everywhere the king is a plumb line.But the more attentively, the stronghold of Notre Dame,
I studied your monster ribs
The more often I thought: from the gravity of the unkind
And someday I will create something beautiful ...
Petersburg stanzas
It's already light, the siren sings
At seven o'clock in the morning.
An old man who looks like Verlaine
Now it's your time!In the eyes of a sly or childish
Green light;
I put a Turkish on my neck
Patterned scarf.He blasphemes, mutters
incoherent words;
He wants to confess
But sin first.Frustrated Worker
Or a distressed spendthrift -
And the eye, lined in the bowels of the night,
How the rainbow blooms.Thus keeping the Sabbath day,
He weaves - when
Looks from every doorway
Merry trouble;And at home - winged abuse,
Pale with rage,
Meets drunken Socrates
Rough wife!
<Н. С. Гумилёву>
"Here I stand - I can not help it..."
Above the yellowness of government buildings
A long cloudy blizzard swirled,
And the jurist again sits in the sleigh,
With a broad gesture, wrapping his overcoat.Steamboats winter. in the sun
The thick glass of the cabin lit up.
Monstrous - like an armadillo in the dock -
Russia is having a hard time.And over the Neva - the embassies of half the world,
Admiralty, sun, silence!
And states<крепкая>purple,
Like a sackcloth coarse, poor.Heavy burden northern snob -
Onegin's old melancholy;
On the Senate Square - a snowdrift shaft,
The smoke of a fire and the chill of a bayonet ...Skiffs scooped water, and seagulls
Marines visited the hemp warehouse,
Where, selling sbiten or saiki,
Only opera men roam.A string of motors flies into the fog;
Proud, modest pedestrian -
Eccentric Eugene - ashamed of poverty,
Gasoline inhales and curses fate!
"Hier stehe Ich - Ich kann
nothing anders…”
"... Maidens of midnight courage..."
Bach
... Maidens of midnight courage
And crazy stars run,
Let the tramp bind
Asking for an overnight stay.Who, tell me consciousness
Will stir up grapes
If reality is Peter's creation,
Bronze Horseman and Granite?I hear signals from the fortress
I notice how warm it is.
Cannon shot in the cellars,
Probably got it.And much deeper than delirium
inflamed head
Stars, sober conversation,
West wind from the Neva ...
"Snow in the tranquil suburbs..."
Here parishioners are children of dust -
And boards instead of images,
Where chalk, Sebastian Bach,
Only numbers appear psalms.High wrangler, is it?
Playing their chorale to grandchildren,
The support of the spirit indeed
Are you looking for proof?What's the sound? sixteenths,
Organ polysyllabic cry,
Only your grumbling, no more,
Oh, intractable old man!And a Lutheran preacher
On the black pulpit
With yours, angry interlocutor,
Interferes with the sound of his speeches.
“We can’t stand tense silence…”
Snow in the tranquil suburbs
Rake the janitors with shovels;
I'm with bearded men
I'm going, passerby.Flickering women in headscarves,
And yapping mutts are crazy,
And scarlet roses of samovars
They burn in taverns and houses.
Admiralty
We can't stand tense silence
The imperfection of souls is insulting, finally!
And in confusion, the reader already showed up,
And they greeted him joyfully: “Please!”I knew who was present here invisibly:
Nightmare man reads "Ulyalum".
Meaning is vanity, and the word is only noise,
When phonetics is a servant of a seraphim.The harp sang about the house of the Eschers.
The madman drank water, woke up and fell silent ...
I was on the street. Whistling autumn silk ...
"There's a gang of thieves in the tavern..."
The dusty poplar languishes in the northern capital,
The transparent dial is entangled in the foliage,
And in the dark green frigate or acropolis
Shines from afar, brother to water and sky.The boat is airy and the mast is touchy,
Serving as a line to the successors of Peter,
He teaches: beauty is not a whim of a demigod,
And the predatory eye of a simple carpenter.The four elements favor us dominance,
But created the fifth free man.
Doesn't space deny superiority
This chaste built ark?Capricious jellyfish are angrily molded,
As plows are thrown, anchors rust;
And now the bonds of three dimensions are broken,
And the world's seas open up.
Cinema
A gang of thieves in a tavern
Played dominoes all night.
The hostess came with scrambled eggs;
The monks drank wine.Chimeras argued on the tower:
Which one is ugly?
And in the morning the preacher is gray
He called people to the tents.There are dogs in the market
The money changer clicks the lock.
Everyone steals from eternity;
And eternity is like sea sand:He is showered from the cart -
Not enough for bags of matting -
And, dissatisfied, about the lodging for the night
Monk tells lies!
Tennis
Cinema. Three benches.
Sentimental fever.
Aristocrat and rich woman
In the networks of rival villains.Do not keep love flying:
She is not to blame for anything!
Selflessly, like a brother,
Loved the Lieutenant of the Navy.And he wanders in the desert -
The gray-haired count's side son.
This is how the lubok begins
The novel of the beautiful Countess.And in a frenzy, like a gitana,
She wrings her hands.
Parting; frenzied sounds
Hounded piano.In the chest gullible and weak
Still Enough Courage
Steal important papers
For the enemy headquarters.And along the chestnut alley
The monstrous motor rushes
Ribbon chirps, heart beats
More disturbing and more fun...In a travel dress, with a bag,
In the car and in the wagon,
She's only afraid of the chase
Dry exhausted by a mirage.What a bitter absurdity:
The end does not justify the means!
To him is his father's inheritance,
And she is a lifetime fortress!
American
Among the lurid dachas,
Where the hurdy-gurdy staggers
The ball flies by itself -
Like magic bait.Who, humbled rough ardor,
Clothed in alpine snow,
With a frisky girl entered
In an Olympic duel?The strings of the lyre are too decrepit:
Golden rocket strings
Fortified and thrown into the world
The Englishman is forever young!He creates games rite,
So lightly armed
Like an Attic soldier
In love with your enemy!May. Thunderclouds shreds.
Inanimate greenery withers.
All motors and horns -
And the lilac smells like gasoline.Drinking spring water
From the bucket, the sportsman is cheerful;
And again the war is on
And a bare elbow flickers!
Dombey and son
American at twenty
Gotta get to Egypt
Forgetting the "Titanic" advice,
What sleeps at the bottom is darker than the crypt.In America, the horns sing
And red skyscrapers chimneys
Cold clouds give
Your smoked lips.And in the Louvre the ocean's daughter
It stands, beautiful as a poplar;
To grind sugar marble,
Climbs a squirrel on the Acropolis.Understanding nothing
Reading "Faust" in the car
And regret why
Louis is no longer on the throne.
“The bread is poisoned and the air is drunk…”
When, more piercing than a whistle,
I hear English language -
I see Oliver Twist
Over piles of account books.Ask Charles Dickens
What was in London then:
Dombey's office in the old City
And the Thames yellow water.Rain and tears. Blond
And gentle boy Dombey son;
Merry clerks puns
He alone does not understand.There are broken chairs in the office;
On shillings and pence account;
Like bees flying out of the hive
The numbers are swarming all year round.And dirty lawyers sting
Works in tobacco haze -
And now, like an old washcloth,
Bankrupt dangles in a noose.Laws on the side of enemies:
Nothing can help him!
And plaid knickers
Sobbing, hugging her daughter ...
“Valkyries fly, bows sing ...”
The bread is poisoned and the air is drunk.
How difficult it is to heal wounds!
Joseph sold into Egypt
I couldn't grieve more!Under starry sky bedouin,
Close your eyes and on horseback
Compose free epics
About a troubled day.Need a little for inspiration:
Who lost his quiver in the sand;
Who traded the horse - events
The fog dissipates;And if truly sung
AND full chest finally,
Everything disappears - remains
Space, stars and singer!
HOW LONG AND WHERE DID THE CHRISTMAS TREE TRADITION APPEAR IN ORTHODOXY?
Valkyries fly, bows sing.
The cumbersome opera is coming to an end.
With heavy fur coats hayduk
The gentlemen are waiting on the marble stairs.Already the curtain is ready to fall tightly;
A fool still applauds in the district.
Cab drivers dance around the fires.
Such and such a card! Departure. End.
THE APPEARANCE OF THE CUSTOM TO PUT SPRUCE IN HOUSES on the feast of the Nativity of Christ, tradition connects with the name of the Apostle of Germany, St. Boniface (+ 5 June 754). Preaching among the pagans and telling them about the Nativity of Christ, he cut down an oak tree dedicated to the god of thunder Thor to show the pagans how powerless their gods were. Oak, falling, knocked down several trees, except for spruce.
Boniface called spruce the tree of the Christ Child. Apparently, at first the spruce was placed on the feast of the Nativity of Christ without decorations. She herself, slender, beautiful, exuding thick nice smell, was the decoration of the house. The custom of dressing a fir tree appeared after the Reformation in Protestant countries.
The custom was introduced by Peter the Great
In Russia, the establishment of the Christmas tree, apparently, dates back to the reign of Peter the Great. The Orthodox Church celebrated the beginning of the new year on September 1 in memory of the victory won by Constantine the Great over Maxentius in 312. In 1342, under Metropolitan Theognost, it was decided to start both the church and civil year on September 1, which was also confirmed at the council of 1505 d. The celebration of the new civil year and the church year were closely intertwined.The year 1700 was celebrated twice in Russia. First September 1st. And on December 20, 1699, Peter the Great adopted a decree "on the celebration of the New Year." He ordered the beginning of the year to be postponed from September 1 to January 1, 1700. At the same time, Peter the Great ordered that houses be decorated that day with “pine, spruce and juniper branches, according to the samples exhibited in Gostiny Dvor; as a sign of fun to each other, be sure to congratulate each other on the New Year. Fire fun was arranged on Red Square.
The custom introduced by Peter the Great took root with difficulty. Even at the beginning of the 19th century, Christmas trees were placed only in the houses of St. Petersburg Germans. The Christmas tree became a ubiquitous decoration in Russia only at the end of the 19th century. However, in the 40s of the same century, it began to enter the life of Russian society. This can be judged from the story of F. M. Dostoevsky “The Christmas Tree and the Wedding”, published in the September issue of Notes of the Fatherland for 1848: “The other day I saw a wedding ... but no! I'd rather tell you about the Christmas tree. The wedding is good; I liked it very much, but another incident is better. I don’t know how, looking at this wedding, I remembered this tree. This is how it happened. Exactly five years ago, on the eve of the New Year, I was invited to a children's ball.
Before Christmas in the markets, squares - a forest of Christmas trees!
Putting up and decorating a Christmas tree for Christmas was a favorite thing not only for children, but also for adults. In A.P. Chekhov’s story “Boys” (1887), Katya, Sonya and Masha and their father prepare decorations for the Christmas tree: “After tea, everyone went to the nursery. The father and the girls sat down at the table and began to work, which was interrupted by the arrival of the boys. They made from colorful paper flowers and fringe for the Christmas tree. It was exciting and noisy work. Each newly made flower was greeted by girls with enthusiastic cries, even cries of horror, as if this flower had fallen from the sky; Papa also admired. The Christmas tree was set not only at home, but also in the city on the squares: “Before Christmas, three days, in the markets, in the squares, there is a forest of Christmas trees. And what trees! This goodness in Russia as much as you want. Not like here - stamens. At our Christmas tree ... as it warms up, spreads its paws, - a thicket. There used to be a forest on Theater Square. They stand in the snow. And the snow will fall - lost the road! Guys, in sheepskin coats, as in the forest. People walk, choose. Dogs in Christmas trees are like wolves, right. Bonfires are burning, get warm. Smoke pillars "(I. Shmelev," Summer of the Lord ").In the first poetry collection of O. E. Mandelstam "Stone" (1913), his adolescent experiences were captured:
Christmas trees burn with gold leaf In the woods; In the bushes, toy wolves look with terrible eyes. Oh, prophesying my sadness, Oh, my quiet freedom And the inanimate firmament Always laughing crystal! (1908)
After two years, he takes special care to ensure that the children have fun New Year: “In pre-revolutionary times, the bourgeoisie and bourgeois officials always arranged a Christmas tree for their children on New Year's Eve. The workers' children looked enviously through the window at the Christmas tree sparkling with multi-colored lights and the rich children having fun around it. Why do our schools, orphanages, nurseries, children's clubs, Palaces of Pioneers deprive the children of the working people of the Soviet country of this wonderful pleasure? Some, none other than "leftists", denigrators denounced this children's entertainment as a bourgeois undertaking. This wrong condemnation of the Christmas tree, which is a wonderful entertainment for children, should be put to an end.
Komsomol members, pioneer workers should arrange collective New Year's parties for children on New Year's Eve. In schools, orphanages, in Pioneer Palaces, in children's clubs, in children's cinemas and theaters - there should be a children's tree everywhere. There should not be a single collective farm where the board, together with the Komsomol members, would not arrange a Christmas tree for their children on the eve of the New Year. City councils, chairmen of district executive committees, village councils, public education bodies should help arrange a Soviet Christmas tree for the children of our great socialist motherland. Organizing a children's Christmas tree, our children will only be grateful. I am sure that the Komsomol members will accept the most Active participation and eradicate the absurd notion that the children's tree is a bourgeois prejudice. So, let's organize a fun New Year's Eve for children, arrange a good Soviet Christmas tree in all cities and collective farms!
The star of Bethlehem is back
It was the period of the "godless five-year plan" (1932-1937). Actively created rituals for new holidays in order to completely abolish Orthodox holidays. At the top of the Christmas tree instead star of bethlehem a five-pointed star appeared.Decades have passed. Millions of children again saw the guiding star of Bethlehem over the decorated Christmas tree. And below it is the Divine Infant, Who was born so that the spiritual night would end for us.
He slept, all radiant, in a manger made of oak, Like a moonbeam in the hollow of a hollow. He was replaced with a sheepskin coat Donkey lips and nostrils of an ox. They stood in the shade, as if in the twilight of a barn, Whispered, barely choosing words. Suddenly someone in the darkness, a little to the left From the manger with his hand pushed the sorcerer, And he looked back: from the threshold at the Virgin, Like a guest, the star of Christmas looked. (Boris Pasternak, 1947)
Archimandrite Job Gumerov
resident of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow, spiritual writer, candidate of theology
O. Mandelstam "They burn with gold leaf"
Burning with gold leaf
Christmas trees in the woods;
Toy wolves in the bushes
They look with terrible eyes.
Oh, my sadness,
Oh my quiet freedom
And the inanimate sky
Always laughing crystal!
The first question that arises is what is it all about? Is it true?
Let's find images that we understand. Perhaps related to Christmas? Holiday images. Then the question arises - why did the Christmas trees end up in the forests and immediately dressed up? The lyrical hero in the first stanza is a child. The toys still seem alive to him - the wolves look with scary eyes, but our little hero still understands that they are not dangerous.
- Were you afraid of toys as a child?
And the Christmas trees, probably, so dressed up in the forest and grow, and they themselves come to the house. some harsh truth life is hidden from the child: that the Christmas tree was cut down, and after the holiday it will be thrown into the trash or, as when writing a poem, burned in the oven.
Is the second stanza the view of a child or an adult? Adult. And he is already assessing his childish view of the world. What is used to evaluate? With the help of epithets.
Prophetic, quiet, inanimate.
So, the three "whales" of children's perception of the world are singled out by the poet - prophetic sadness about growing up, aging and death. Quiet freedom - internal above all. Freedom of thoughts and feelings, which is not yet limited external influence. And the feeling of security, the inviolability of nature - a strong and static firmament echoes the image given by Tyutchev in the poem "Day and Night".
It would seem that such a small poem, but how much is hidden in it.
Unfortunately, I did not find a graphic illustration for this poem, but in my opinion this photo illustrates it quite well:
So, what will be the fragrant illustration? Of course, it should be a crystal-fragile smell, evoking associations with winter holiday, with childhood:
- 1. needles. The smell of pine needles is a mandatory component of the New Year holidays.
- 2. tangerine. Tangerines evoke the brightest associations with childhood and Christmas. Of the "three whales", the smell of mandarin will symbolize freedom.
- 3. incense. In this composition, the coolness and monumentality of incense will convey “prophetic sadness” and a sense of time that pervades the poem.
- 4. vanilla. Vanilla aroma also evokes some childish feelings of comfort and tranquility.
- 5. Cedar wood. Used as a symbol of "the inviolability of nature."
Christmas in Russian literature
Text: Arseny Zamostyanov
Photo courtesy of oboi.cc
Yes, in the Orthodox Russian tradition, as opposed to the Catholic one, Christmas is more important. And the feast of the Bright Resurrection is sharper. But the Russian winter has long established itself as a classic Christmas background. Christmas trees, not palm trees, huge snowdrifts, not European drizzle!
Who came up with the fairy tale of the “secular” New Year is known for certain. Surname. Sergey Mikhalkov, Vladimir Suteev, Lev Kassil - scriptwriters of the first Christmas trees in the Hall of Columns. This happened relatively recently, in the mid-thirties of the twentieth century. The Christmas literary tradition is more mysterious. Prayers, carols, then - fleeting episodes in the odic poetry of the XVIII century and, finally, the XIX century, canonical classics.
The first thing that comes to mind clearly is, perhaps, Gogol's The Night Before Christmas. History with devils and Cossacks. Christmas in Little Russian. Blacksmith Vakula can be found on New Year's cards as well as in opera and cinema. Everything there is fascinating, from the very saying: “The last day before Christmas has passed. A clear winter night has come. Stars looked. The moon rose majestically into the sky to shine kind people and to the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and glorifying Christ. It was freezing colder than in the morning; but on the other hand it was so quiet that the creak of frost under the boot could be heard half a verst away. Before Gogol, no one in Russian literature so boldly and cheerfully reworked folklore plots. He saddled the fairy tale like Vakula the devil.
Christmas for Gogol is the space of a miracle, not only sublime, but also mundane. wrote: "The holiday, the beliefs associated with it, its special atmosphere of liberty and fun take life out of its usual rut and make the impossible possible (including the conclusion of previously impossible marriages" . "Evenings on the farm ..." indeed correspond to Bakhtin's concept of "carnival ". You can slowly read and compare.
Poems for Christmas in the post-Pushkin era appeared annually - in newspapers and children's collections. They don't seem to be taken seriously. Best Sample poetry of this kind - Fetov's variation on the theme of 1842:
The night is quiet. On firm ground unsteady
The southern stars tremble.
Mother's eyes with a smile
Quiet looking into the manger.
No ears, no superfluous eyes, -
Here the roosters crowed -
And for the angels in the highest
Shepherds praise God.
Chantly, traditionally, festively and without the tragic struggles characteristic of Christianity. Well, in the 1840s it was not yet a common cliché, but by the end of the century, high school students also learned to compose in this way. The tradition had to be revived.
In a series of “on-duty” Christmas leaf poems, Vladimir Solovyov stands out, who did not mitigate the tragedy of the Christian worldview:
Let everything be defiled by centuries of crimes,
Let nothing remain unsullied,
But reproach of conscience is stronger than all doubts,
And that once lit in the soul will not go out.
And a little later, the Symbolists put poetic God-seeking on stream, and for some reason they began to retell in verse a story that was already known to everyone in those days. They began to write in a new way, but too quickly ...
It was a late evening and crimson,
The harbinger star has risen.
A new voice cried over the abyss -
The Virgin gave birth to a child.
The voice is thin and lingering,
Like a long squeal of a spindle
An important old man went into confusion,
And the king, and the boy, and the wife.
This is Alexander Blok. Smooth, musical, illustrative. The inertia of this verse manifested itself in many poets.
There was also a genre of a Christmas story, a Christmas tale, in Russia. The tone was set by translated short stories by Andersen, whom the Russian reader loved extremely. In 1876, Dostoevsky wrote the Christmas story "The Boy at Christ on the Christmas Tree", real masterpiece sacred literature.
Unfortunately, he rarely wrote stories, thought in novels. And then he squeezed the tragedy of this world into a few pages. “Christ always has a Christmas tree on this day for little children who don’t have their own Christmas tree there ... - And he found out that these boys and girls were all the same as he, children, but some were still frozen in their baskets, in which they were thrown on the stairs to the doors of St. Petersburg officials, others suffocated near the little educational home on feeding, the third died at the withered breasts of their mothers, during the Samara famine, the fourth suffocated in third-class carriages from the stench, and they are all here now, they are all now like angels, everything is with Christ, and He himself is in the midst of them, and stretches out his hands to them, and blesses them and their sinful mothers... And the mothers of these children are still standing right there, on the sidelines, and crying; each recognizes her boy or girl, and they fly up to them and kiss them, wipe their tears with their hands and beg them not to cry, because they feel so good here ... ". The boy is dying. The story was reprinted annually. It did not become, and could not become, a popular children's reading; it is intended for prepared readers of Dostoevsky.
Here the motif of “a feast during the plague” also appears. For some, illumination noisy holidays in palaces, for others - homeless frost, hunger, death. That's "social motives" for you. And what about without them in our classics with its critical realism, which was not an empty invention of literary critics?
Fyodor Mikhailovich also composed poetry. He did not achieve coherence and smoothness - as, indeed, in prose. That's what makes it interesting that he did not write by stencils. “I read your poems and found them very bad. Poetry is not your specialty,” his brother wrote to him. But they are remarkable for the fact that every now and then they turn into muttering. There is a naive, unrefined sentimentality in these verses - on the verge of parody:
Little Angel on Christmas Eve
God sent to earth:
“How will you go through the spruce forest,
He said with a smile,
You will cut down the Christmas tree, and the baby
The kindest on earth
The most affectionate and sensitive
Give me as a memory of Me.”
1854
Like Captain Lebyadkin's poems, these lines will come back to haunt children's and twentieth-century poetry. In addition, Dostoevsky's "God's gift" still remains in the school reading repertoire.
Perhaps, best description Christmas in the twentieth century - the nostalgic "Childhood of Nikita" by Alexei Tolstoy. This is a sophisticated idyll. How in detail and lovingly the cheerful Tolstoy describes the preparation of toys, happy ritual Christmas, when the children “groan with delight”: “They dragged a large frozen Christmas tree into the living room. Pakhom knocked for a long time and hewed with an ax, adjusting the cross. The tree was finally lifted, and it was so high that the soft green top was bent under the ceiling. The spruce wafted cold, but little by little its compacted branches thawed, rose, fluffed out, and the whole house smelled of pine needles. The children brought a pile of chains and cardboard with decorations into the living room, put chairs up to the Christmas tree and began to clean it up. But it soon turned out that things were not enough. I had to sit down again to glue the pounds, gild the nuts, tie silver strings to the gingerbread and Crimean apples. The children sat at this work all evening, until Lilya, with her head down with a crumpled bow on her elbow, fell asleep at the table. It was written in the non-idyllic twenties. At that time, many recalled their childhood; Tolstoy exemplarily wove it.
Boris Pasternak in the pre-war years, Christian motifs appeared in verse infrequently. It was difficult to predict that he would be drawn to the "archaic". The mask of Yuri Zhivago, the hero of the novel, made it possible to escape from reality. However, Pasternak long ago learned to escape from it in fundamental translations, in Goethe and Shakespeare ... He did not just turn to a new aesthetic for himself, the poet's worldview changed:
It was winter.
The wind blew from the steppe.
And it was cold for the baby in the den
On the hillside.
The breath of an ox warmed him.
Pets
Were standing in a cave
A warm haze floated over the manger -
This is how the canon of the Christmas poem developed in the 20th century. Warm, but not hot.
At the peak of anti-religious propaganda, Joseph Brodsky began to write Christmas poems “following Pasternak”. It was a multi-year literary action, about which he willingly talked: “I had an idea in my time, when I was 24-25 years old ... to write a poem every Christmas ... It was 1972 ... ". We must give him his due: the idea was almost realized. And Brodsky began even earlier: in 1962 he wrote the famous "Christmas Romance", in which, however, there is almost no gospel texture. By that time, he had not even read the Bible. But a year later, a poem appeared, oversaturated with biblical signs:
A savior is born
into the bitter cold.
Shepherd's fires burned in the desert.
The storm raged and exhausted the soul
from the poor kings who delivered gifts.
The camels lifted their shaggy legs.
The wind howled.
Star burning in the night
watched as the three caravans of the road
converged into the cave of Christ, like rays.
This is a kind of archaic manifesto, which in 1963 was perceived as a challenge. Poets then remembered the first astronauts much more often than the heroes of the Gospels, and the popularity of Christian aesthetics would arise among the intelligentsia closer to the beginning of the seventies. Definitely, Brodsky was fascinated by the Poems of Yuri Zhivago. Khrushchev promised to present the “last priest” to society, and the valiant parasite, in the voice of a sexton, repeated biblical names like a spell.
Brodsky began to write no less "otherworldly" poems than Pasternak on behalf of Zhivago. This helped to avoid any manifestations of the Soviet conjuncture, which the poet was afraid of in panic. He achieved his goal: Christmas poems were incompatible with the magazine conjuncture of that time. Snobbery in relation to the Soviet reality became the reason for the biblical cycle. In Brodsky's best Christmas verses, there is more urban whirlwind of the 20th century and less significant biblical enumerations:
At Christmas, everyone is a little wise.
In food slush and crush.
Because of a can of coffee halva
Causes a counter siege
a pile of bundles laden with people:
each to his own king and camel.
Here it is rather a panorama of the New Year's Eve, and not of the Christmas hustle and bustle of Leningrad, although it was not without gospel symbolism: when Brodsky remains in the museum space of ancient Bethlehem, he only repeats the melodies and rhythms of Yuri Zhivago. It turns out more cold-blooded than Pasternak's.
And the best poem about Christmas, in my opinion subjective view wrote Mandelstam. He did without rhetoric, without " artistic retelling". Yes, and it turned out uneven work. Rough and nervous. Eight lines, fragmentary narration. But the real lyrics:
Burning with gold leaf
Christmas trees in the woods
Toy wolves in the bushes
They look with terrible eyes.
Once you read these lines, you will never forget them. Although they were not written for anthologies.
