Democratic writers have given enormous
material for the knowledge of economic
everyday life ... psychological characteristics
people ... portrayed his manners, customs,
his moods and desires.
M. Gorky

In the 60s of the XIX century, the formation of realism as a complex and diverse phenomenon is associated with the deepening of literature into the coverage of peasant everyday life, into the inner world of the individual, into the spiritual life of the people. The literary process of realism is an expression of various facets of life and, at the same time, a striving for a new harmonious synthesis, merging with the poetic element of folk art. The artistic world of Russia with its distinctive, highly spiritual, primordially national art of folk poetry has constantly aroused the keen interest of literature. The writers turned to the artistic comprehension of the people's moral, ethical and poetic culture, the aesthetic essence and poetics of folk art, as well as folklore as an integral folk world outlook.

It was the folk principles that were an exceptional factor that, to some extent, determined the path of development of Russian literature in the second half of the 19th century, and especially Russian democratic prose. Folklore and ethnography in the literary process of time become the phenomenon that determines the aesthetic character of many works of the 1840-1860s.

The theme of the peasantry permeates all Russian literature of the 19th century. Literature delves into the illumination of peasant everyday life, into the inner world and the national character of the people. In the works of V.I. Dahl, D.V. Grigorovich, in “Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev, in "Sketches from peasant life" by A.F. Pisemsky, in the stories of P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky, N.S. Leskov, early L.N. Tolstoy, P.I. Yakushkina, S.V. Maximov, in the Russian democratic prose of the 60s and in general in Russian realism of the second half of the 19th century, the desire to recreate the pictures of folk life was imprinted.

Already in the 1830s and 1840s, the first works appeared on the ethnographic study of the Russian people themselves: collections of songs, fairy tales, proverbs, legends, a description of the customs and customs of antiquity, folk art. A lot of song and other folklore and ethnographic material appears in magazines. At this time, ethnographic research, as noted by the famous literary critic and critic of the 19th century A.N. Pypin, proceed from a conscious intention to study the true character of the people in its true expressions in the content of the life of the people and the legends of antiquity.

The collection of ethnographic materials in the subsequent 50s "took on truly grandiose dimensions." This was facilitated by the influence of the Russian Geographical Society, the Moscow Society of History and Antiquities, a number of scientific, including literary, expeditions of the 50s, as well as a new organ of folk studies that emerged in the 60s - the Moscow Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography.

The role of the outstanding folklorist-collector P.V. Kireevsky. Already in the 30s of the 19th century, he managed to create a kind of collecting center and attract his outstanding contemporaries to the study and collection of folklore - before A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol inclusive. The songs, epics and spiritual poems published by Kireevsky were the first monumental collection of Russian folklore.

In a collection of songs, Kireevsky wrote: “Whoever has not heard a Russian song over his cradle and who has not been accompanied by its sounds in all the transitions of life, of course, his heart will not flutter at her sounds: she does not resemble those sounds on which her soul has grown, or she will be incomprehensible to him as an echo of the rough rabble, with which he feels nothing in common; or, if she has a special musical talent, she will be curious to him as something original and strange ... ”1. The attitude to folk songs, which embodied both personal inclinations and ideological convictions, led him to turn to practical work on collecting Russian songs.

The love for Russian song will later unite the members of the "young editorial board" of the "Moskvityanin" magazine; S.V. Maximov, P.I. Yakushkin, F.D. Nefedov, the song genre of folk poetry will organically enter their literary work.

The Moskvityanin published songs, fairy tales, descriptions of individual rituals, correspondence, articles about folklore and folk life.

M.P. Pogodin, editor of the magazine, writer and prominent public figure, with exceptional persistence put forward the task of collecting monuments of folk art and folk life, intensively recruited collectors from different strata of society, and attracted them to participate in the magazine. He also contributed to the first steps in this field of P.I. Yakushkin.

A special role in the development of the ethnographic interests of writers was played by the "young editorial board" of the "Moskvityanin" magazine, headed by A.N. Ostrovsky. The “young editorial board” at various times included: A.A. Grigoriev, E. Endelson, B. Almazov, M. Stakhovich, T. Filippov, A.F. Pisemsky and P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky.

Already in the 40s and early 50s, Russian literature turned in more depth to the peasant theme. In the literary process of time, the natural school occupies a leading place 2.

NATURAL SCHOOL - designation of the species that existed in the 40-50s of the XIX century Russian realism(by the definition of Yu.V. Mann), successively associated with the work of N.V. Gogol and developed his artistic principles. The natural school includes the early works of I.A. Goncharova, N.A. Nekrasov, I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.I. Herzen, D.V. Grigorovich, V.I. Dahl, A.N. Ostrovsky, I.I. Panaeva, Ya.P. Butkova and others. The main ideologist of the natural school was V.G. Belinsky, the development of its theoretical principles was also promoted by V.N. Maikov, A.N. Pleshcheev and others. Representatives were grouped around the journals Otechestvennye zapiski and later Sovremennik. The collections "Physiology of Petersburg" (parts 1-2, 1845) and "Petersburg collection" (1846) became programmatic for the natural school. In connection with the last edition, the name itself arose.

F.V. Bulgarin (Northern Bee, 1846, No. 22) used it to discredit the writers of the new trend; Belinsky, Maikov and others took this definition, filling it with positive content. Most clearly, the novelty of the artistic principles of the natural school was expressed in "physiological sketches" - works aimed at the extremely accurate recording of certain social types ("physiology" of the landowner, peasant, official), their species differences ("physiology" of a Petersburg official, a Moscow official), social, professional and everyday characteristics, habits, attractions, etc. By striving for documentation, for accurate detail, using statistical and ethnographic data, and sometimes by introducing biological accents into the typology of characters, the "physiological sketch" expressed the tendency of a certain convergence of figurative and scientific consciousness at this time and ... contributed to the expansion of the positions of realism. At the same time, it is inappropriate to reduce the natural school to "physiologies", since other genres towered over them - novel, story 3 .

Natural school writers - N.A. N. V. Nekrasov Gogol, I.S. Turgenev, A.I. Herzen, F.M. Dostoevsky - known to students. However, speaking about this literary phenomenon, one should also consider such writers who remain outside the literary education of schoolchildren, such as V.I. Dal, D.V. Grigorovich, A.F. Pisemsky, P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky, with whose work the students are not familiar, but in their works the peasant theme is developed, being the beginning of literature from the peasant life, continued and developed by the fictional writers of the sixties. Acquaintance with the work of these writers seems necessary and deepens the knowledge of schoolchildren about the literary process.

In the 1860s, the peasant element most widely penetrates the cultural process of the era. The literature asserts the "popular direction" (the term of AN Pypin). Peasant types and the folk way of life are fully included in Russian literature.

Russian democratic prose, presented in the literary process by the work of N.G. Pomyalovsky 4, V.A. Sleptsova, N.V. Uspensky, A.I. Levitova, F.M. Reshetnikov, P.I. Yakushkina, S.V. Maximova. Entering the literary process during the revolutionary situation in Russia and in the post-reform era, she reflected a new approach to the depiction of the people, highlighted the real pictures of his life, became "A sign of the times", recreated in Russian literature the peasant world at a turning point in history, capturing various trends in the development of realism 5.

The emergence of democratic prose was caused by the changed historical and social circumstances, the socio-political conditions of life in Russia in the second half of the 19th century, the arrival of writers in literature, for whom “the study of folk life has become a necessity” (AN Pypin) 6. Democratic writers uniquely reflected the spirit of the era, its aspirations and hopes. They, as A.M. Gorky, "gave a huge amount of material for the knowledge of the economic life, psychological characteristics of the people ... depicted its manners, customs, his mood and desires" 7.

The sixties drew their impressions from the depths of people's life, from direct communication with a Russian peasant. The peasantry, as the main social force in Russia, defining the concept of the people at that time, became the main theme of their work. Democratic writers have created a generalized image of people's Russia in their essays and stories. They created in Russian literature their own special social world, their own epic of folk life. "All hungry and downtrodden Russia, sedentary and wandering, ruined by serf predation and ruined by bourgeois, post-reform predation, was reflected, as in a mirror, in the democratic essay literature of the 60s ..." 8.

The works of the sixties are characterized by a range of related themes and problems, common genres and structural and compositional unity. At the same time, each of them is a creative individual; each one has its own special style. Gorky called them "diverse and sweepingly talented people."

Democratic writers in their essays and stories recreated the artistic epic of the life of peasant Russia, drawing closer and individually disuniting in their work in the depiction of the folk theme.

Their works reflected the very essence of the most important processes that made up the content of Russian life in the 60s. It is known that the measure of the historical progressiveness of each writer is measured by the degree of his conscious or spontaneous approach to democratic ideology, reflecting the interests of the Russian people. However, democratic fiction reflects not only the ideological and social phenomena of the era, it definitely and widely goes beyond the ideological and ideological trends. The prose of the sixties is included in the literary process of the time, continuing the traditions of the natural school, correlating with the artistic experience of Turgenev, Grigorovich, which reflected a kind of artistic illumination by the democratic writers of the people's world, including an ethnographically accurate description of everyday life.

Democratic fiction with its ethnographic orientation, which stood out from the general flow of development of Russian prose, took a certain place in the process of the formation of Russian realism. She enriched him with a number of artistic discoveries, confirmed the need for the writer to use new aesthetic principles in the selection and coverage of life phenomena in the revolutionary situation of the 1860s, which posed the problem of the people in literature in a new way.

The description of the people's life with reliable ethnographic accuracy was noticed by the revolutionary democratic criticism and was expressed in the requirements for literature to write about the people "the truth without any embellishment", as well as "in the correct transmission of real facts", "in paying attention to all aspects of the life of the lower classes ". Realistic description of everyday life was closely associated with elements of ethnography. Literature took a fresh look at the life of the peasants and the existing conditions of their life. According to N.A. Dobrolyubov, the clarification of this matter has become no longer a toy, not a literary whim, but an urgent need of the time. The writers of the sixties originally reflected the spirit of the era, its aspirations and hopes. Their work clearly recorded the changes in Russian prose, its democratic character, ethnographic orientation, ideological and artistic originality and genre expression.

In the works of the sixties, a common circle of related topics and problems, a commonality of genres and structural and compositional unity are distinguished. At the same time, each of them is a creative individuality, each of them has its own individual style. N.V. Uspensky, V.A. Sleptsov, A.I. Levitov, F.M. Reshetnikov, G.I. Uspensky brought their understanding of peasant life into literature, each depicting folk paintings in his own way.

The sixties showed a deep ethnological interest. Democratic literature strove for ethnography and folklorism, for the development of folk life, merged with it, penetrated into the people's consciousness. The works of the sixties were an expression of everyday personal experience of studying Russia and the life of the people. They created in Russian literature their own special social world, their own epic of folk life. The life of Russian society in the pre-reform and post-reform era and, above all, of the peasant world is the main theme of their work.

In the 60s, the search for new principles of the artistic depiction of the people continued. Democratic prose provided examples of the ultimate truth for art in reflecting life, confirmed the need for new aesthetic principles in the selection and coverage of life phenomena. The harsh, "idealless" depiction of everyday life entailed a change in the nature of prose, its ideological and artistic originality and genre expression 9.

Democratic writers were artists, researchers, everyday life writers; in their work, fiction came into close contact with economics, ethnography, and folklore 10 in the broad sense of the word, operated with facts and figures, was strictly documentary, gravitated towards everyday life, remaining at the same time for artistic study of Russia. The writers of the sixties were not only observers and registrars of facts, they tried to understand and reflect the social reasons that gave rise to them. The writing of life introduced into their works a tangible concreteness, vitality, and reliability.

Naturally, the Democratic writers were guided by folk culture, by the traditions of folklore. In their work there was an enrichment and deepening of Russian realism. Democratic themes have expanded, literature has been enriched with new facts, new observations, features of everyday life and mores of people's life, mainly peasant. The writers, with all the brightness of their creative individuals, were close in expressing their ideological and artistic tendencies, they were united by ideological closeness, artistic principles, the search for new themes and characters, the development of new genres, and common typological features.

The sixties created their own art forms - genres. Their prose was predominantly story-based. Essays and stories of the writers appeared as a result of their observation and study of the life of the people, its social status, way of life and customs. Numerous meetings at inns, taverns, at post stations, in train carriages, on the way, on the steppe road determined the peculiarity of the style of their works: the predominance of dialogue over description, the abundance of skillfully conveyed folk speech, the contact of the narrator with the reader, concreteness and factuality, ethnographic accuracy, appeal to the aesthetics of oral folk art, the introduction of abundant folklore inclusions. In the artistic system of the sixties, a tendency towards everyday life, vital concreteness, strict documentaryism, objective recording of sketches and observations, the originality of the composition (the disintegration of the plot into separate episodes, scenes, sketches), journalism, orientation towards folk culture and traditions of folklore were manifested.

Narrative-essay democratic prose was a natural phenomenon in the literary process of the 60s. According to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, the sixties did not pretend to create integral, artistically complete paintings. They limited themselves to "excerpts, essays, scenes, sometimes remaining at the level of facts, but they paved the way for new literary forms, more widely embracing the diversity of the surrounding life" 11. At the same time, in the most democratic fiction, integral pictures of peasant life were already indicated, achieved by the idea of ​​an artistic connection between the essays, the desire for epic cycles ("Steppe Essays" by A. Levitov, F. Reshetnikov's cycles "Kind People", "Forgotten People", "From travel memories ”, etc., the contours of the novel from the life of the people (FM Reshetnikov) were visible, the ideological and artistic concept of the people was formed.

Narrative-essay democratic prose of the sixties organically merged into the literary process. The very trend of depicting people's life turned out to be very promising. The traditions of the sixties were developed by the domestic literature of subsequent periods: populist fiction, essays and stories by D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak, V.G. Korolenko, A.M. Gorky.

The concept of "peasant poetry", which has entered into historical and literary use, unites poets conditionally and reflects only some common features inherent in their worldview and poetic manner. They did not form a single creative school with a single ideological and poetic program. As a genre, "peasant poetry" was formed in the middle of the 19th century. Its largest representatives were Alexey Vasilyevich Koltsov, Ivan Savvich Nikitin and Ivan Zakharovich Surikov. They wrote about the work and life of the peasant, about the dramatic and tragic collisions of his life. Their work reflected the joy of the merger of workers with the natural world, and a feeling of dislike for the life of a stuffy, noisy city, alien to wildlife. The most famous peasant poets of the Silver Age period were: Spiridon Drozhzhin, Nikolai Klyuev, Pyotr Oreshin, Sergei Klychkov. Sergey Yesenin also adjoined this stream.

S. Gorodetsky: Klyuev is the quiet and dear one, the son of the earth with his consciousness deepened into the distance of his soul, with a whispering voice and slow movements. His face with a wrinkled, albeit youthful forehead, with bright eyes shifted far under the raised sharp angles of the eyebrows, with parched country lips, with a shaggy beard, and all wild blond hair, is a familiar face in the depths of his living man, only keeping her and only her faithful laws. This short and high-cheeked little peasant with his whole appearance speaks of the divine melodious power that dwells in him and creates.

"Peasant poetry" came to Russian literature at the turn of the century. That was the time of presentiment of social decay and complete anarchy of meanings in art, so a kind of dualism can be observed in the work of the "peasant poets". This is a painful desire to pass into another life, to become someone who was not born, forever feeling therefore wounded. So they all suffered, so they fled from their favorite villages to the cities that they hated. But knowledge of peasant life, oral poetry of the people, deeply national feeling of closeness to their native nature constituted the strong side of the lyrics of the “peasant poets”.

Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev was born in the small village of Koshtugi, located in Vytegorsky district, Olonets province. The inhabitants of the village of Koshtugi were distinguished by their piety, since earlier schismatics lived here. In this region, located on the banks of the Andoma River, among the dense forests and impenetrable swamps, he spent his childhood.

Klyuev graduated from a parish school, then a public school in Vytegra. Studied as a paramedic for a year. At the age of sixteen he went to the Solovetsky Monastery to “save himself,” for some time he lived in sketes. In 1906 he was arrested for distributing the proclamations of the Peasant Union. He refused to serve in the army for religious reasons. Later he wrote: “For the first time I was in prison, 18 years old, beardless, thin, voice with a silver crack. The authorities considered me dangerous and "secret". Starting to write poetry, Klyuev corresponded for several years with Alexander Blok, who supported his poetic endeavors. The first collection of poems "Pine Chime" was published in the fall of 1911 with a foreword by V. Bryusov. In the same year, the second book, Brothers' Songs, was published.

Before the revolution, two more collections were published - Lesnye Byli (1913) and Mirskie Dumas (1916). Not only Blok and Bryusov noticed this original, great poet, but also Gumilev, Akhmatova, Gorodetsky, Mandelstam, etc. In 1915 Klyuev met S. Yesenin, and around them the poets of the new peasant trend were grouped (S. Klychkov, P. Oreshin, A. Shiryaevets, etc.).

These writers poeticized, praised the closeness of the Russian peasant to nature, a pure, untouched iron civilization. Nikolai Klyuev came to literature with the consciousness of his independence and a special path in the art world. He brings together the traditions of classical poetry and folk. And again, as once with Koltsov, the main theme in Klyuev's poetry is the theme of the Motherland, Russia. Sending the first poetic experiments to the capital's magazines, Klyuev defiantly signed them - an Olonets peasant. He was proud of his peasant background. The very air of the Olonets province was filled with the poetry of patriarchal antiquity.

On April 24, 1915, friendship was struck between Klyuev and Yesenin. Together they visit friends, writers, artists, and communicate a lot with Blok. In winter, Klyuev and Yesenin confidently entered the circle of the capital's writers. They visited Gumilyov, Akhmatova, Gorky. In January 1916, Yesenin and Klyuev came to Moscow. In alliance with the young Yesenin, whose talent he appreciated as soon as he saw his poem in print, Klyuev hoped to draw the public's attention to "peasant" poetry. Public readings in Moscow and St. Petersburg were extremely important to him. Klyuev's influence on Yesenin at that time was enormous. Taking care of his "younger brother" in every possible way, Klyuev tried to neutralize the impact that other writers had on Yesenin. Yesenin, in turn, considered Klyuev his teacher, and loved him very much.

Attitude to the Revolution Klyuev warmly welcomed the October Revolution, regarding it as the fulfillment of the age-old aspirations of the peasantry. During these years he works hard and with inspiration. In 1919, the collection "The Copper Whale" was published, which included such revolutionary poems as "Red Song" (1917), "From cellars, from dark corners ..." deep among the people.

Old Russian bookishness, splendid liturgical rituals, folklore were surprisingly mixed in his poems with momentary events. In the first post-revolutionary years, he wrote a lot, often published. In 1919, a large two-volume "Pesnoslov" was published, followed by a collection of poems "The Copper Whale". In 1920 - "Song of the Sunbearer", "Beaten Songs". In 1922 - "Lion's Bread". In 1923 - the poems "The Fourth Rome" and "Mother Saturday". “Mayakovsky dreams of a whistle over the Winter Palace,” wrote Klyuev, “and me - a crane flight and a cat on a couch. The songwriter should care about lifting cranes .. "

Religiousness of the poet In March 1920, the Third Uyezd Conference of the RCP (b) in Vytegra discussed the possibility of Klyuev's further stay in the party's ranks, the poet's religious convictions, his visit to church and the veneration of icons naturally caused discontent among the Vytegorsk communists. Speaking to the audience, Klyuev made a speech "The Face of a Communist." "With his characteristic imagery and strength," the "Star of Vytegra" reported a few days later, "the speaker revealed a solid noble type of ideal communard, in which all the best precepts of humanity and universal humanity are embodied." At the same time, Klyuev tried to prove to the assembly that "one should not scoff at religious feelings, for there are too many points of contact in the teaching of the commune with the popular belief in the triumph of the best principles of the human soul." Klyuev's report was listened to "in an eerie silence" and made a deep impression. With a majority of votes, the conference, "amazed by Klyuev's arguments, by the blinding red light sprinkling from every word of the poet, fraternally spoke out for the poet's value to the party." However, the Petrozavodsk provincial committee did not support the decision of the district conference. Klyuev was expelled from the Bolshevik party ... "

A critical article about him by L. Trotsky (1922), which appeared in the central press, played a decisive role in the fate of Klyuev. The stigma of the "kulak poet" has accompanied him for a whole decade. Moreover, in the middle of 1923 the poet was arrested and taken to Petrograd. The arrest, however, did not last long, but, having freed himself, Klyuev did not return to Vytegra. As a member of the All-Russian Union of Poets, he renewed old acquaintances, devoted himself entirely to literary work. The poet is in dire need, he turns to the Union of Poets with requests for help, writes M. Gorky: "... Poverty, wandering around other people's dinners destroys me as an artist."

He wrote a lot, but much has changed in the country; now Klyuev's poems were frankly annoying. The exaggerated gravitation towards patriarchal life provoked resistance, misunderstanding, the poet was accused of promoting kulak life. This is despite the fact that it was in those years that Klyuev created, perhaps, his best works - "Lament for Yesenin" and the poems "Pogorelshchina" and "Village". “I love gypsy camps, firelight and foals neighing. Under the moon, trees and night iron leaves fall like ghosts ... I love an uninhabited cemetery gatehouse, frightening comfort, distant ringing and with crosses spoons, in whose carving spells live ... Dawn silence, harmonica in the dark, barn smoke, hemp in the dew. Distant descendants will marvel at my boundless "love" ... As for them Smiling eyes catch fairy tales with those rays. I love the ostozhia, the magpie's gray, near and far, the grove and the brook ... ”For life in a harsh country, turned upside down by the revolution, this love was no longer enough.

Since 1931 Klyuev has been living in Moscow, but the path to literature is closed for him: everything he writes is rejected by the editors. In 1934 he was arrested and exiled from Moscow for a period of five years to the city of Kolpashevo, Narym Territory. "I was exiled for the poem" Pogorelschina ", there is nothing else for me," he wrote from exile. By the middle of 1934, Klyuev was transferred to Tomsk. Painfully experiencing his forced separation from literature, he wrote: "I do not feel sorry for myself as a public figure, but I feel sorry for my bee songs, sweet, sunny and golden. They sting my heart very quickly."

In 1936, already in Tomsk, Klyuev was arrested again in the case of the counterrevolutionary, ecclesiastical (as stated in the documents) "Union for the Salvation of Russia" provoked by the NKVD. For some time he was released from custody only because of an illness - "paralysis of the left half of the body and senile dementia." But this was only a temporary reprieve. “I would like to talk to my dear friends,” wrote the poet Khristoforova in despair, “to listen to genuine music! Behind the plank fence from my closet - day and night there is a modern symphony - drunkenness ... Fight, curses, - the roar of women and children, and all this is blocked by the valiant radio ... I, poor man, endure everything. The second of February will knock three years of my unfitness as a member of the new society! Woe to me, the insatiable wolf! .. "In October, a meeting of the troika of the NKVD Directorate of the Novosibirsk region decided" to shoot Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev. Confiscate his personally owned property ”in October 1937 (as indicated in the extract from the case), the decision of the troika was carried out.

Archaic, folklore vocabulary creates a special lyrical mood in the poem, the atmosphere of a cottage tale. Wheat, birch bark paradise lives its own life, far from the noise and dust of big cities. The poet saw undying aesthetic and moral values ​​in the hut's fairy tale. The unity of this special world is also achieved by the fact that Klyuev conveys the peasant's attitude to the world, which manifests a warm gratitude to nature and admiration for its power. Klyuev praises every earthly tree, animals, birds and reptiles, all forest breath. Peasant life, a village hut, its decoration, utensils, domestic animals - all this is an organic continuation of the life of nature. It is no coincidence that Klyuev calls his collections of poems Pine chime, Forest were, Songs from Zaonezhie, Beaten songs. Nature and man are one whole. And therefore, the image dear to the human heart is inextricably merged with nature, with its natural beauty.

Another important feature of Klyuev's creative manner is the widespread use of color painting. Pushkin smells the hearty alarm - the poet of the eternal sweets ... Like apple tops, Sound flowers are fragrant. It is in a white letter, in a scarlet line, In a pheasant with a motley comma. My soul is like moss on a hummock Warmed by Pushkin's spring. Klyuev the artist is rightfully called an isographer. The poet was fond of fresco painting, he himself painted icons, imitating the ancient Novgorod masters; in poetry, he also paints, decorates, gilded the word, achieving maximum visual clarity. Klyuev's poetry has something in common with the painting of Roerich, with whom he was closely acquainted. In the cycle of paintings Beginning of Russia. The Slavs, antiquities, according to a modern researcher, receive from Roerich such an environment with a natural environment that is inherent in themselves: they merge with it, and their beauty, and their strength, as it were, arises from the beauty and strength of nature itself, felt by the heart of the Russian people themselves. ... In both cases - in Klyuev's poetry and in Roerich's painting - chronicle and folklore sources are of great importance. The poet creates verbal patterns that are asked to be printed on canvas or wood in order to coexist with folk ornaments. Klyuev skillfully uses the techniques of church painters (bright color contrasts and symbolism of colors), creating images that are memorable.

One of the characteristic features of Russian culture at the beginning of the 20th century. - deep interest in myth and national folklore. In the first decade of the century, creative searches of such dissimilar artists of the word as A. Blok, A. Bely, V. I. Ivanov, K. D. Balmont, S. M. Gorodetsky, A. M. Remizov et al. Orientation towards folk-poetic forms of artistic thinking, the desire to know the present through the prism of nationally colored "antiquity of the old days" is of fundamental importance for Russian culture. The interest of the literary and artistic intelligentsia in ancient Russian art, literature, the poetic world of ancient folk legends, Slavic mythology is even more acute during the years of the world war. In these conditions, the work of peasant poets attracts special attention.

Organizational peasant writers - N. A. Klyuev, S. L. Yesenin, S. L. Klychkov, A. A. Ganin, A. V. Shiryaevets, P. V. Oreshin and who entered literature already in the 1920s. PN Vasiliev and Ivan Pribludny (Ya. P. Ovcharenko) did not represent a clearly expressed literary trend with a strict ideological and theoretical program. They did not come out with declarations and theoretically did not substantiate their literary and artistic principles, but their group is distinguished by a bright literary originality and socio-ideological unity, which makes it possible to distinguish them from the general stream of neo-folk literature of the 20th century. The commonality of literary and human destinies and genetic roots, the proximity of ideological and aesthetic aspirations, a similar formation and similar paths for the development of creativity, a system of artistic and expressive means that coincides in many of its features - all this fully allows us to talk about the typological commonality of the work of peasant poets.

So, S. A. Yesenin, having discovered in the poetry of N. A. Klyuev already a mature expression of a poetic attitude close to him, in April 1915 he addressed Klyuev with a letter: “We have a lot in common with Vamp. I am also a peasant and I write in the same way like you, but only in your Ryazan language. "

In October-November 1915, a literary and artistic group "Beauty" was created, headed by S. M. Gorodetsky and which included peasant poets. The members of the group were united by their love for Russian antiquity, oral poetry, folk songs and epic images. However, "Beauty", like the "Strada" that replaced it, did not last long and soon fell apart.

The first books of peasant poets were published in the 1910s. These are collections of poetry:

• - N. A. Klyueva "The Pine Chime" (1911), "Brothers Dogs" (1912), "Forest Were" (1913), "Mir Dumas" (1916), "Copper Whale" (1918);
• - With A. Klychkov "Songs" (1911), "Secret Garden" (1913), "Dubravna" (1918), "Ring of Lada" (1919);
• - Sergei A. Yesenin's "Radunitsa" (1916), published in 1918 by his "Dove", "Transfiguration" and "Rural Hours".

In general, peasant writers were characterized by a Christian consciousness (compare with S. A. Yesenin: "Light from a pink icon / On my golden eyelashes"), but it was intertwined in a complex way (especially in the 1910s) with elements of paganism, and in N.A.Klyuev - and Khlystovism. Indomitable pagan love of life is a distinctive feature of the lyric hero A.V. Shiryaevts:

The choir glorifies the Almighty Vladyka. Akathists, canons, troparia, But I hear the cries of the Kupala night, And in the altar - the dance of the sparkling dawn!

("The choir glorifies the Almighty Vladyka ...")

The political sympathies of the majority of peasant writers during the years of the revolution were on the side of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Singing the peasantry as the main creative force, they saw in the revolution not only the peasant, but also the Christian principle. Their work is eschatological: many of their works are dedicated to the last destinies of the world and man. As RV Ivanov-Razumnik rightly noted in his article "Two Russia" (1917), they were "true eschatologists, not armchair, but earthy, deep, folk".

In the work of peasant writers, the influence of artistic and stylistic searches of contemporary literature of the Silver Age, including modernist trends, is noticeable. There is no doubt about the connection between peasant literature and symbolism. It is no accident that Nikolai Klyuev, undoubtedly the most colorful figure among the new peasants, had such a profound influence on A. A. Blok and the formation of his populist views at one time. The early poetry of S. A. Klychkov is associated with symbolism, his poems were published by the Symbolist publishing houses "Alcyone" and "Musaget".

The first collection of N. A. Klyuev is published with a foreword by V. Ya. Bryusov, who highly appreciated the poet's talent. In the print organ of the Acmeists - the Apollo magazine (1912, No. 1), N. S. Gumilyov publishes a favorable review of the collection, and in his critical studies, Letters about Russian Poetry, he devotes many pages to the analysis of Klyuev's work, noting the clarity of Klyuev's verse, his fullness and richness of content.

Klyuev is a connoisseur of the Russian word of such a high level that an extensive erudition, not only literary, but also cultural, is needed to analyze his artistic skill: in the field of theology, philosophy, Slavic mythology, ethnography; knowledge of Russian history, folk art, icon painting, history of religion and church, ancient Russian literature is necessary. He easily "rolls over" such layers of culture that Russian literature never suspected before. "Bookiness" is a distinctive feature of Klyuev's art. The metaphoric nature of his poetry, which he himself is well aware of ("I am the first of a hundred million / Gurtovshchik of golden-horned words"), is inexhaustible also because his metaphors, as a rule, are not isolated, but, forming a whole metaphorical series, stand in context as a solid wall. One of the main artistic merits of the poet is the use of the experience of Russian icon painting as the quintessence of peasant culture. With this, he undoubtedly opened a new direction in Russian poetry.

Klyuev learned the ability to "speak redly" and write from the Zaonezh folk storytellers and was fluent in all forms of folklore art: verbal, theatrical and ceremonial, musical. Speaking in his own words, he learned "self-talkative and caustic words, gestures and facial expressions" at fairs from buffoons. He felt himself to be a bearer of a certain theatrical and folklore tradition, a trusted envoy to the intelligentsia from the "bottom" Russia, deep hidden from the eyes, unknown, unknown: "I am an initiate from the people, / I have a great seal." Klyuev called himself the "burning offspring" of the famous Avvakum, and even if this is just a metaphor, his character really resembles many features - earnestness, fearlessness, perseverance, uncompromising readiness to go to the end and "suffer" for his convictions - the character of the protopope: "" Prepare for the fire early in the morning! "- / My great-grandfather Avvakum thundered."

The literature of the Silver Age was distinguished by sharp controversy between representatives of various trends. Peasant poets polemicized simultaneously with the Symbolists and Acmeists. Klyuev's programmatic poem "You promised us gardens ..." (1912), dedicated to KD Balmont, is built on the opposition "you - we": you - symbolists, preachers of vaguely unrealizable ideals, we - poets from the people.

Has flown around your patterned garden, Brooks flowed like poison.

For the newcomers at last We go unknown, - Our scent is resinous and eater, We are refreshing winter.

We were fed by the gorges of the bowels, He helped the sky with rains. We are boulders, gray cedars, Forest keys and ringing pines.

Consciousness of the greatest intrinsic value of "muzhik" perception dictated to peasant writers a sense of their inner superiority over representatives of the intelligentsia, unfamiliar with the unique world of folk culture.

"The secret culture of the people, about which our so-called educated society does not even suspect at the height of its scholarship," notes N. A. Klyuev in his article "Gem Blood" (1919), "does not cease to radiate to this very hour."

Klyuev's peasant costume, which seemed to many to be a masquerade, his speech and demeanor, and above all, of course, creativity performed the most important function: to attract the attention of the intelligentsia, which had long been "split off" from the people, to peasant Russia, to show how beautiful it is, how everything is okay and wise arranged, and that only in it is the guarantee of the moral health of the nation. Klyuev doesn’t seem to say — shouts to “brothers, educated writers”: where are you going? stop! repent! come to your senses!

The peasant environment itself shaped the peculiarities of the artistic thinking of the new peasants, organically close to the folk. Never before has the world of peasant life, displayed taking into account local peculiarities of life, dialect, folklore traditions (Klyuev recreates the ethnographic and linguistic flavor of Zaonezhie, Yesenin - Ryazan region, Klychkov - Tver province, Shiryaevets models the Volga region), has not found such an adequate expression in Russian literature. In the work of the new peasants, the outlook of a person close to the earth and nature was expressed in its entirety, the outgoing world of Russian peasant life with its culture and philosophy was reflected, and since the concepts of "peasantry" and "people" were equivalent for them, then the deep world of Russian national identity ... Rural Rus is the main source of the poetic attitude of peasant poets. S. A. Yesenin emphasized his initial connection with Pei - the very biographical circumstances of his birth in the nature, in the field or in the forest ("Mother went to the Bathing House in the forest ..."). This theme is continued by SA Klychkov in a poem with a folklore and song inception "There was a valley over the river ...", in which the animate forces of nature act as the successors and first nannies of a newborn baby. Hence, the motive of "returning to the homeland" arises in their work.

“I miss the city, for three whole years now, along the hare paths, along the pigeons-willows, on my mother’s miraculous spinning wheel,” admits N. A. Klyuev.

In the poetry of Sergei Antonovich Klychkov (1889-1937), this motive is one of the main ones:

In a foreign land, far from home. I remember my garden and home. Currants are blooming there now And under the windows - bird soda ...<...>

I meet this early springtime Alonely I meet in the distance ... Ah, I should snuggle, hear the breath, Look into the glowing radiance of Dear mother - the native land!

("In a foreign land, far from home ...")

In the mythopoetics of the new peasants, their integral mythopoetic model of the world, the myth of the earthly paradise, embodied through biblical imagery, is central. The leitmotifs here are the motives of the garden (in Klychkov's case, the "secret garden"), the helipad; symbols associated with the harvest, harvesting (Klyuev: "We are the reapers of the universal field ..."). The mythologeme of the shepherd, which goes back to the image of the evangelical shepherd, holds together the creativity of each of them. The new peasants called themselves shepherds (Yesenin: "I am a shepherd, my chambers are / Between the rippling fields"), and poetic creativity was likened to shepherding (Klyuev: "My golden deer, / herds of chants and dooms").

Popular Christian ideas about the cyclical nature of life and death can be found in the works of each of the new peasants. For Klychkov and his characters, who feel themselves to be a particle of one Mother Nature, who are in harmonious relationship with Pei, death is something natural, like the change of seasons or the melting of "rime in spring", as Klyuev defined death. According to Klychkov, to die means "to go into the undead, like roots to the ground." In his work, death is presented not in a literary and traditional way of a disgusting old woman with a stick, but as an attractive peasant toiler:

Tired of the day's troubles, How good is a hollow shirt To wipe away hardworking sweat, Move closer to the cup ...<...>

How good it is when in the family.

Where the son is the groom and the daughter is the bride,

Already not enough on the bench

Under the old shrine of the place ...

Then, having lost fate, like everyone else,

Not to meet death in a miracle in the evening,

Like a reaper in young oats

With a sickle draped over his shoulders.

("Tired of the day's troubles ...")

In 1914-1917. Klyuev creates a cycle of 15 poems "Beloved Songs" dedicated to the memory of his deceased mother. The plot itself: the death of a mother, her burial, funeral rites, the cry of her son, the mother's visit to her home, her help to the peasant world - reflects the harmony of the earthly and heavenly. (Compare with Yesenin: “I know: with different eyes / The dead feel the living.”) The cyclical nature of life and death is also emphasized compositionally: after the ninth chapter (corresponding to the ninth memorial day), the Easter holiday comes - sorrow is overcome.

The poetic practice of the new peasants at an early stage made it possible to single out such common moments in their work as the poeticization of peasant labor (Klyuev: "Bow to you, labor and sweat!") And village life; zoo, flora and anthropomorphism (anthropomorphization of natural phenomena is one of the characteristic features of thinking in folklore categories); a sensitive feeling of one's inseparable connection with the world of the living:

The cry of a child across the field and the river, Cock's cry, like pain, miles away, And the spider's tread, like longing, I hear through the growths of the scab.

(I AM. A. Klyuev, "Crying of a child across the field and the river ...")

Peasant poets were the first in Russian literature to elevate rural life to a previously unattainable level of philosophical understanding of the national foundations of life, and a simple village hut to the highest degree of beauty and harmony. Izba is likened to the Universe, and its architectural details are associated with the Milky Way:

The conversation hut is a semblance of the universe: In it there is sholom - heaven, and the milky way - where the helmsman's mind, the much-lamentable soul Under the spindle clergy can delightfully rest.

(I AM. A. Klyuev, "Where it smells like kumach - there are women 's gatherings ...")

They poeticized her living soul:

The hut is a hero, Kokoshnik is carved, The window is like an eye socket, Supplied with antimony.

(N. A. Klyuev, "The hut is a hero ...")

Klyuev's "hut space" is not something abstract: it is locked in a circle of hourly peasant concerns, where everything is achieved through labor and sweat. The stove stove is its indispensable attribute, and like all Klyuev images, it should not be understood in a simplistic and unambiguous way. The stove, like the hut itself, like everything in the hut, is endowed with a soul (the epithet "spirit woman" is not accidental) and is equated, along with Kitovras and the kovriga, with the "golden pillars of Russia" ("At sixteen - curls and gatherings ...") ... The Klyuev image of the hut is further transformed in the author's creative polemics with proletarian poets and Lefovites (in particular, with Mayakovsky). Sometimes it is an outlandish huge beast: "On heavy log paws / My hut danced" ("They bury me, they bury me ..."). In other cases, it is no longer just a farmer's dwelling, but a prophetic Izba - a prophet, an oracle: "Simple, like a moo, and a cloud in Kazinet trousers / Russia will not become - that is how Izba is broadcasting" ("Mayakovsky dreams of a beep over the Winter ...") ...

Yesenin proclaimed himself the poet of the "golden log hut" (see "The feather grass is sleeping. The plain is dear ..."). Klychkov poets a peasant hut in Home Songs. Klyuev in the cycle "To the Poet Sergei Yesenin" persistently reminds his "younger brother" of his origins: "Izba - a writer of words - / You did not raise you in vain ..." The only exception here is Peter Vasilyevich Oreshin (1887-1938) with his interest in social motives , continuing in peasant poetry the Nekrasov theme of the dispossessed Russian peasant (it is no accident that the epigraph from N. A. Nekrasov to his collection "Krasnaya Rus"). Oreshinsky "huts covered with thatch" are a picture of extreme poverty and desolation, while in the work of, for example, Yesenin and this image is aestheticized: "Under the straw-riza / Raised rafters, / The wind is gray mold / The sun sprinkled you are my abandoned ... "). Almost for the first time in Oreshin's work, the aestheticized image of a peasant hut is associated with a presentiment / accomplishment of the revolution: "The dawns whistle like arrows / Above the Solnechnaya Izba".

For the peasant-farmer and the peasant poet, concepts such as mother-land, hut, economy are the concepts of one ethical and aesthetic series, one moral root. The primordially popular ideas about physical labor as the basis of the foundations of peasant life are affirmed in the famous poem by S. A. Yesenin "I walk along the valley ...":

Fuck I take off my English suit. Well, give a scythe, I'll show you - Am I not yours, am I not close to you, Do I not value the memory of the village?

For N. A. Klyuev there is:

The joy to see the first haystack, The first sheaf from the native strip. There is a otzhinochno pie Pa meger, in the shade of a birch tree ...

("The joy to see the first haystack ...")

The cornerstone of the world outlook of the new peasant poets is the view of the peasant civilization as the spiritual cosmos of the nation. Having been outlined in Klyuev's collection "Forest were" (1913), entrenched in his book "Worldly Dumas" (1916) and the cycle "To the Poet Sergei Yesenin" (1916-1917), he appears in his various facets in the two-volume "Songs" (1919), and subsequently reaches the peak of sharpness and turns into an inconsolable funeral lament for crucified, desecrated Russia in Klyuev's later work, drawing closer to Remiz's "Word about the destruction of the Russian land." This dominant of Klyuev's creativity is embodied through the motive double world: combining, and more often opposing each other of two layers, real and ideal, where the ideal world is patriarchal antiquity, the world of virgin nature, remote from the destructive breath of the city, or the world of Beauty. Adherence to the ideal of Beauty, rooted in the depths of folk art, peasant poets emphasize in all their landmark works. "Russian joy will be bought not with iron, but with Beauty" - N. A. Klyuev does not get tired of repeating after F. M. Dostoevsky.

One of the most important features of the work of the new peasants is that the theme of nature in their works carries the most important not only semantic, but conceptual load, revealing itself through the universal multidimensional antithesis "Nature - Civilization" with its numerous specific oppositions: "people - intelligentsia", "village - city "," natural man - city dweller "," patriarchal past - modernity "," earth - iron "," feeling - reason ", etc.

It is noteworthy that city landscapes are absent in Yesenin's art. Their fragments - "skeletons of houses", "chilled lantern", "Moscow curved streets" - are single, accidental and do not add up to a whole picture. The "Moscow mischievous reveler", which proceeded along and across "the entire Tver neighborhood", cannot find words to describe the month in the city sky: "And when the moon shines at night, / When it shines ... the devil knows how!" ("Yes! It's decided now. No return ...").

Alexander Shiryaevets (Alexander Vasilyevich Abramov, 1887-1924) is a consistent aptiurbanist in his work:

I am in Zhiguli, in Mordovia, on Vytegra! .. I listen to epic streams! .. Let the city's best confectioners pour cakes in sugar -

I will not stay in the stone lair! I'm cold in the heat of his palaces! Into the fields! to Bryn! to the accursed tracts! To the tales of grandfathers - wise simpletons!

("I am in Zhiguli, in Mordovia, on Vytegra! ..")

In the work of the new peasants, the image Cities acquires the qualities of an archetype. In his multi-page treatise "Stone-Iron Monster" (ie City), completed by 1920 and still not published in full, A. Shiryaevets most fully and comprehensively expressed the goal of the new peasant poetry: to return literature "to miraculous keys Mother Earth ". The treatise begins with a legend-apocryphal about the demonic origin of the City, followed by a fairy tale-allegory about the young Town (then - the City), the son of the Foolish Villager and the blowing Man, for the sake of the devil who strictly fulfills the dying punishment of the parent "multiply!" grunts in joy, mocking the defiled earth. " The demonic origin of the City is emphasized by N. A. Klyuev: "The Devil City beat with its hooves, / Terrifying us with a stone mouth ..." ("From cellars, from dark corners ..."). A. S. Klychkov in his novel "Sugar German" (1925), continuing the same thought, asserts the dead-end, hopelessness of the path the City is taking - there is no place for the Dream in it:

"The city, the city! Under you and the earth does not look like the earth ... Satan killed, rammed it with a cast-iron hoof, rolled it with an iron back, rolling on it, like a horse rolls in a meadow in myta ..."

Distinct anti-urban motives are also visible in Klyuev's ideal of Beauty, which originates in folk art, put forward by the poet as a link between the past and the future. In the present, in the realities of the Iron Age, Beauty has been trampled underfoot and desecrated ("The deadly theft has taken place, / Mother Beauty has been debunked!"), And therefore the links of the past and the future have decayed. But faith in the messianic role of Russia permeates the entire work of N.A.Klyuev:

In the ninety-ninth summer The sworn castle will creak And the gems of Dazzling prophetic lines will swirl like a river.

The melodious foam of Kholmogorye and Celebey will overwhelm, Vienna of Silver words-crucians will be caught in a sieve!

("I know songs will be born ...")

It was the new peasant poets at the beginning of the 20th century. loudly proclaimed: nature itself is the greatest aesthetic value. On a national basis, S.A.Klychkov managed to build a vivid metaphorical system of natural balance, organically going deep into the depths of folk poetic thinking.

“It seems to us that in the world we are only standing on our feet, and everything else either crawls on our belly in front of us, or stands as a wordless pillar, while in reality it’s not at all like that! ..<...>There is only one mystery in the world: there is nothing inanimate in it! .. Therefore, love and caress flowers, trees, pity different fish, chol a wild beast and it is better to bypass a poisonous reptile! .. "- writes S. A. Klychkov in the novel" Chertukhinsky balakir "(1926).

But if in the poems of Klyuev's collection "The Lion's Bread" the onset of "iron" on living nature is a premonition, a premonition that has not yet become a terrible reality ("I would have had a chuckle from hearsay / About an iron ns-calm!"), Then in the images of his "Village", "Burnout", "Songs of the Great Mother" - this is a tragic reality for peasant poets. The approach to this topic clearly shows the differentiation of creativity of the new peasants. S. L. Yesenin and P. V. Oreshin, although not easy, painfully, through pain and blood, were ready to see the future of Russia, in Yesenin's words, "through stone and steel." For II. A. Klyuev, A. Klychkov, A. Shiryaevts, who were dominated by the concept of "muzhik paradise", the idea of ​​the future was fully embodied by the patriarchal past, the Russian gray-haired antiquity with its fairy tales, legends, beliefs.

"I do not like modernity, a cursed, destroying a fairy tale," admitted A. Shiryaevets in a letter to V. F. Khodasevich (1917), "but without a fairy tale what life in the world?"

For N. A. Klyuev, the destruction of a fairy tale, legend, the destruction of a host of mythological characters is an irreplaceable loss:

Like a whitewash, a handkerchief on the eyebrow, There, where the forest haze, From the bed headboards Silently the fairy tale has gone. Brownies, undead, Mavki - Only rubbish, hardened dust ...

("Village")

The new peasant poets defended their spiritual values, the ideal of initial harmony with the natural world in polemics with the proletarian theories of the technization and mechanization of the world. The industrial landscapes of the "statuesque nightingales", in which, according to Klyuev, "fire is replaced by folding and consonance - a factory whistle" contrasted sharply with the lyricism of nature created by peasant poets.

"It is difficult to understand me concrete and turbine, they get stuck in my straw, carbon monoxide from my hut, porridge and carpet worlds", - wrote N. S. Klyuev in a letter to S. M. Gorodetsky in 1920.

Representatives of the Iron Age rejected everything "old": "Old Russia has been hanged, / And we are her executioners ..." (V. D. Aleksandrovsky); "We are the bearers of a new faith / beauty that sets an iron tone. / So that the parks are not defiled by frail natures, / reinforced concrete is thrown into heaven" (V.V. Mayakovsky). For their part, the Novokrsstians, who saw the main cause of evil in isolation from natural roots, people's perception of the world, and national culture, stood up to defend this "old" one. Proletarian poets, defending the collective, denied the individual-human, everything that makes a person unique; ridiculed categories such as soul, heart; declared: "We will take everything, we will learn everything, / We will penetrate the depth to the bottom ..." (MP Gerasimov, "We"). Peasant poets asserted the opposite: "To know everything, take nothing / A poet came into this world" (S. A. Yesenin, "Mares' ships"). The conflict between "nature" and "iron" ended with the victory of the latter. In the final poem "A field strewn with bones ..." from the collection "Lion's bread" N. A. Klyuev gives a terrible, truly apocalyptic panorama of the "Iron Age", repeatedly defining it through the epithet "faceless": "Above the dead steppe, a faceless thing - that / gave birth to madness, darkness, emptiness ... "Dreaming of a time in which" will not be carried with the hammer, about the blind flywheel "(" A caravan with saffron will come ... "), Klyuev expressed his secret, prophetic:" hour, and to the peasant lyre / Proletarian children will fall. "

By the beginning of the XX century. Russia has approached a country of peasant agriculture based on more than a thousand years of traditional culture, polished in its spiritual and moral content to perfection. In the 1920s. the way of Russian peasant life, infinitely dear to peasant poets, began to crumble before their eyes. The letters of SA Yesenin relating to this time are permeated with pain for the dwindling origins of life, a careful reading of which has yet to be researched; works by N. A. Klyuev, novels by S. A. Klychkov. The tragic attitude, characteristic of the early lyrics of this "singer of unprecedented sadness" ("The carpet fields are golden ..."), which intensified by the 1920s, reaches its peak in his latest novels - "Sugar German", "Chertukhinsky balakir", "Prince of Peace ". These works, which show the absolute uniqueness of human existence, are called existential by many researchers.

The revolution promised to fulfill the age-old dream of the peasants: to give them land. The peasant community, in which the poets saw the basis of the foundations of a harmonious life, was revived for a short time, peasant gatherings rustled in the villages:

Here I see: Sunday villagers At the volost, as in a church, gathered. With clumsy, unwashed speeches They are discussing their "live".

(S. A. Yesenin, "Soviet Russia")

However, already in the summer of 1918, the systematic destruction of the foundations of the peasant community began, food detachments were sent to the village, and from the beginning of 1919 a food appropriation system was introduced. Millions of peasants die as a result of hostilities, hunger and epidemics. Direct terror began against the peasantry - the policy of de-peasantry, which eventually brought terrible results: the eternal foundations of Russian peasant farming were destroyed. The peasants furiously rebelled against exorbitant extortions: the Tambov (Antonov) uprising, the Veshensky on the Don, the uprising of Voronezh peasants, hundreds of similar, but smaller peasant uprisings - the country went through another tragic phase in its history. Spiritual and moral ideals, accumulated by hundreds of generations of ancestors and seemed unshakable, were undermined. Back in 1920, at a congress of teachers in Vytegra, Klyuev spoke with hope about folk art:

"We must be more attentive to all these values, and then it will become clear that in Soviet Russia, where truth must become a fact of life, we must recognize the great significance of culture generated by the craving for heaven ..." ("A word to teachers about the values ​​of folk art" , 1920).

However, by 1922 the illusions were dispelled. Convinced that the poetry of the people, embodied in the work of peasant poets, "under the rule of the people should occupy the most honorable place," he sees with bitterness that everything turns out differently:

"When you break with us, you break the Soviet power with the most tender, with the deepest in the people. You and I need to accept this as a sign - for the Lion and the Dove will not forgive the power of its sin," N. L. Klyuev wrote to S. L. Yesenin in 1922 g.

As a result of social experiments in the eyes of peasant poets, involved in a tragic conflict with the era, an unprecedented collapse of what was dear to them - traditional peasant culture, folk foundations of life and national consciousness - began. Writers are labeled "kulaks", while one of the main slogans of the country's life is "Elimination of the kulaks as a class." Scammed and slandered, the resistance poets continue to work, and it is no coincidence that one of Klyuev's central poems of 1932 with its transparent metaphorical symbolism, addressed to the leaders of the country's literary life, is called "Slanderers of Art":

I am angry with you and curse you sadly,

That the song horse is ten years old,

Diamond bridle, hoof gold,

The blanket is embroidered with accords,

You didn't give a handful of oats

And they were not allowed into the meadow, where the drunken dew

I would fresh the broken wings of a swan ...

In the new millennium, we are destined to take a fresh look at the works of the new peasant writers, for they reflect the spiritual, moral, philosophical, social aspects of the national consciousness of the first half of the 20th century. They contain true spiritual values ​​and truly high morality; in them the breath of the spirit of lofty freedom - from power, from dogma. They affirm a respectful attitude towards the human personality, defend the connection with national origins, folk art as the only fruitful path of the artist's creative evolution.

Novokrestyanskaya poetry (Klyuev, Yesenin, Klychkov, Shiryaevtsev)

Novokrestyanskaya poetry is a movement of poets who emerged from the popular milieu. They relied on the folk tradition and literary tradition of the 19th century (Nekrasov, Koltsov, Nikitin, Surikov). The main motives are - the life of the village, nature, the relationship of the life of the village with the life of nature... Main problems - city ​​/ village opposition and tragic contradictions within the village itself.

First wavepeasant poetry - 1903-1905 (Drozhzhin, Leonov, Shkulev) They united within the Surikov literary and musical circle, published collections, collaborated with proletarian poets.

Second wave- 1910s (Klyuev, Yesenin, Klychkov, Shiryaevtsev, Oreshin). In 1916 Yesenin's collection "Radunitsa" was published. They were greeted as messengers of the new Russian village. The group was heterogeneous: different fates, different ideologies, a different approach to mastering the poetic tradition. Therefore, this name, although traditional, is rather arbitrary.

New peasant poets experienced impact of symbolism and acmeism... The Symbolists were interested in them because of the tendencies inherent in them in the years preceding the First World War: nationalistic sentiments, reflections on the "national element", the fate of Russia, interest in Slavic mythology. The same tendencies were observed in the religious and philosophical searches of the Russian intelligentsia.

Another representative of the new peasant poetry - Sergey Klychkov... The main theme of his collections (“ Songs», « Hidden garden") - rural nature. The influence of Blok, Gorodetsky and Klychkov is obvious. Thus, we can talk about a synthesis of symbolism, acmeism and folklore tradition.

His landscapes are conventional, decorative, in the images of Slavic mythology. He ignores reality as such. Most of his poems are an adaptation of Slavic myths: about the goddess of spring and fertility, Lada, about her sister Kupava, about Ded, who rules the natural world.

Unlike Klychkov, whose leitmotif was "sadness-sorrow", creativity Alexander Shiryaevtsa was imbued with life-affirming pathos. The sincerity and spontaneity of poetic feeling makes him related to Yesenin, and Slavic mythology and folklore themes (Vanka the key-keeper) with Klychkov. But in his poems there are more feelings than in Klychkov (love for the Motherland, for will, for life).

Peasant poets

The movement of peasant poets is closely connected with the revolutionary movements that began in Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Typical representatives of this movement were Drozhzhin Spiridon, Yesenin Sergei, Klychkov Sergei, Klyuev Nikolai, Oreshin Peter, Potemkin Peter, Radimov Pavel, and in more detail I will dwell on the biography of Demyan Bedny (Pridvorov Efim Alekseevich) (1883 - 1945 years of life)

Born in the village of Gubovka, Kherson province, in a peasant family.

He studied at a rural school, then at a military paramedic school, in 1904-1908. - at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University.

Began to publish in 1909.

In 1911, the Bolshevik newspaper "Zvezda" published the poem "About Demyan Bedny - a harmful peasant", from which the poet's pseudonym was taken.

From 1912 until the end of his life he was published in the newspaper Pravda.

Bolshevik partisanship, nationality - the main features of the work of Demyan Bedny. The program verses - "My verse", "Truth-mother", "Forward and higher!", "On the nightingale" - captures the image of a poet of a new type, who has set himself a lofty goal: to create for the broad masses. Hence - the poet's appeal to the most democratic, intelligible genres: fable, song, ditty, agitational poetic story.

In 1913, the collection "Fables" was published, which was highly appreciated by V. I. Lenin.

During the Civil War, his poems and songs played a huge role, raising the spirit of the Red Army, satirically exposing class enemies.

During the Great Patriotic War, Demyan Bedny worked a lot again, published in Pravda, in TASS Windows, and created patriotic lyrics and anti-fascist satire.

He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner and medals.

Poets outside the currents

These include Nikolai Agnivtsev, Ivan Bunin, Tatiana Efimenko, Rurik Ivnev, Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Georgy Shengeli, whose work is either too diverse or too unusual to be attributed to any trend.