Brief biography of Nikolai Zabolotsky. Brief biography of Zabolotsky Zabolotsky 1954 a new stage of creativity

V.A. Zaitsev

Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky (1903-1958) is an outstanding Russian poet, a man of difficult fate, who has gone through a difficult path of artistic quest. His original and diverse creativity enriched Russian poetry, especially in the field of philosophical lyrics, and took a strong place in the poetic classics of the 20th century.

The future poet showed a penchant for writing poetry in his childhood and school years. But serious studies in poetry began in the early twenties, when Zabolotsky studied - first at Moscow University, and then at the Pedagogical Institute. A.I. Herzen in Petrograd. In the “Autobiography” it is said about this period: “I wrote a lot, imitating Mayakovsky, Blok, Yesenin. I couldn’t find my own voice.”

Throughout the 20s. the poet goes through a path of intense spiritual search and artistic experiment. From his youthful poems of 1921 (“Sisyphean Christmas,” “Heavenly Seville,” “Wasteland Heart”), bearing traces of the influences of diverse poetic schools - from symbolism to futurism, he comes to the acquisition of creative originality. By the middle of the decade, his original poems were created one after another, which later formed the first book.

At this time, N. Zabolotsky, together with young Leningrad poets of the “left” orientation (D. Kharms, A. Vvedensky, I. Bekhterev and others) organized the “Union of Real Art” (“Oberiu”), Zabolotsky took part in drawing up the program and declaration group, undoubtedly putting its own meaning into its very name: “Oberiu” - “The unification of the only realistic art, and “u” is an embellishment that we allowed ourselves.” Having entered the association, Zabolotsky most of all sought to maintain independence, elevating “creative freedom of the members of the commonwealth” to the main principle.

In 1929, Zabolotsky’s first book, “Columns,” was published, which included 22 poems from 1926-1928. It immediately attracted the attention of readers and critics and evoked contradictory responses: on the one hand, serious positive reviews by N. Stepanov, M. Zenkevich and others, who celebrated the arrival of a new poet with his original vision of the world, on the other, rude, scathing articles under characteristic titles: “Cat system”, “Girls system”, “Disintegration of consciousness”.

What caused such a mixed reaction? The poems of “Stolbtsy” revealed the author’s sharply individual and alienated perception of contemporary reality. The poet himself later wrote that the theme of his poems was the deeply alien and hostile “predatory life of all kinds of businessmen and entrepreneurs”, “a satirical depiction of this life.” An acute anti-philistine orientation is felt in many of the book’s poems (“New Life,” “Ivanovs,” “Wedding,” “Obvodny Canal,” “People’s House”). In the depiction of the world of the philistines, features of absurdism appear; realistic concreteness coexists with hyperbolization and illogicality of images.

The book opened with the poem “Red Bavaria,” the title of which captures the characteristic realities of that time: this was the name of the famous beer bar on Nevsky. From the first lines there appears an extremely concrete, vivid and plastic image of the atmosphere of this establishment:

In the wilderness of the bottle paradise, where the palm trees had dried up long ago, playing under electricity, a window floated in a glass; it glittered on the blades, then sat down and became heavy; beer smoke curled over him... But it cannot be described.

The author, to a certain extent, in accordance with the self-characterization given by him in the “Declaration” of the Oberiuts, appears here as “a poet of naked concrete figures moved close to the viewer’s eyes.” In the description of the pub and its regulars that unfolds further, internal tension, dynamics and greater generalization consistently increase. Together with the poet, we see how “in that bottle paradise/ sirens trembled on the edge/ of the crooked stage”, how “doors on chains rotate, / people fall from the stairs, / crack a cardboard shirt, / dance in circles with a bottle”, how “men “Everyone was screaming too, / they were swinging on the tables, / on the ceilings they were swinging / bedlam with flowers in half ...” The feeling of the meaninglessness and absurdity of what is happening is intensifying, from everyday specifics a general phantasmagoria arises, which spills out onto the streets of the city: “My eyes fell, as if weights, / the glass was broken - night came..." And before the reader, instead of the "wilderness of bottle paradise" there already appears "... outside the window - in the wilderness of times... Nevsky in splendor and melancholy..." Generalized judgments of this kind are found and in other verses: “And everywhere there is crazy nonsense...” (“White Night”).

The very nature of the metaphors and comparisons speaks about the acute rejection of the bourgeois world: “... the groom, unbearably agile, / clings to the bride like a snake” (“New Life”), “in iron armor the samovar/ makes the noise of a household general” (“Ivanovs”), “Straight bald husbands / sit like a shot from a gun,” “a huge house, wagging its back, / flies into the space of existence” (“Wedding”), “A lantern, bloodless, like a worm, / dangles like an arrow in the bushes” (“People’s House ") and etc.

Speaking in 1936 in a discussion about formalism and being forced to agree with criticism’s accusations against his experimental poems, Zabolotsky did not abandon what he had done at the beginning of his path and emphasized: ““Stolbtsy” taught me to look closely at the outside world, aroused in me an interest in things , developed in me the ability to plastically depict phenomena. In them I managed to find some secret of plastic images.”

The poet comprehended the secrets of plastic representation not for the sake of a purely artistic experiment, but in line with the development of life content, as well as the experience of literature and other related arts. In this regard, the bright miniature “Movement” (December 1927) is interesting, built on the distinct contrast of the static-picturesque first and dynamic second stanza:

The driver sits as if on a throne, his armor is made of cotton wool, and his beard, like on an icon, lies jingling with coins.

And the poor horse waves its arms, then stretches out like a burbot, then again its eight legs sparkle in its shiny belly.

The transformation of the horse into a fantastic animal, with arms and twice the number of legs, gives impetus to the reader’s imagination, in whose imagination the initially seemingly monumental and motionless picture comes to life. The fact that Zabolotsky consistently searched for the most expressive artistic solutions in the depiction of movement is evidenced by the poem “Feast” written soon (January 1928), where we find a dynamic sketch: “And the horse flows through the air, / conjugates the body in a long circle / and with sharp legs/shaft cuts a smooth prison.”

The book “Columns” became a notable milestone not only in Zabolotsky’s work, but also in the poetry of that time, influencing the artistic searches of many poets. The severity of social and moral issues, the combination of plastic imagery, odic pathos and grotesque-satirical style gave the book its originality and determined the range of the author’s artistic capabilities.

Much has been written about her. Researchers rightly connect Zabolotsky’s artistic searches and the poetic world of “Stolbtsy” with the experience of Derzhavin and Khlebnikov, the painting of M. Chagall and P. Filonov, and finally, with the “carnival” element of F. Rabelais. The poet’s work in his first book relied on this powerful cultural layer.

However, Zabolotsky was not limited to the topic of everyday life and city life. In the poems “The Face of a Horse”, “In Our Dwellings” (1926), “Walk”, “The Zodiac Signs Fading” (1929) and others that were not included in the first book, the theme of nature arises and receives an artistic and philosophical interpretation, which becomes the most important in the poet's work in the next decade. Animals and natural phenomena are spiritualized in them:

The horse's face is more beautiful and smarter.
He hears the chatter of leaves and stones.
Attentive! He knows the cry of an animal
And in the dilapidated grove the roar of a nightingale.
And the horse stands like a knight on guard,
The wind plays in light hair,
The eyes burn like two huge worlds,
And the mane spreads like royal purple.

The poet sees all natural phenomena as alive, bearing human traits: “The river, like a nondescript girl, / Hidden among the grass...”; “Every little flower/Waves a little hand”; finally, “And all nature laughs, / Dying every moment” (“Walk”).

It is in these works that the origins of natural philosophical themes in the lyrics and poems of Zabolotsky of the 30-50s, his reflections on the relationship between man and nature, the tragic contradictions of existence, life and death, the problem of immortality.

The formation of Zabolotsky’s philosophical and artistic views and concepts was influenced by the works and ideas of V. Vernadsky, N. Fedorov, especially K. Tsiolkovsky, with whom he was in active correspondence at that time. The scientist’s thoughts about the place of humanity in the Universe undoubtedly worried the poet acutely. In addition, his long-standing passion for the works of Goethe and Khlebnikov clearly affected his worldview. As Zabolotsky himself said: “At that time I was interested in Khlebnikov, and his lines:

I see horse freedoms and equality of cows... -

struck me deeply. I liked the utopian idea of animal emancipation.”

In the poems “The Triumph of Agriculture” (1929-1930), “Mad Wolf” (1931) and “Trees” (1933), the poet followed an intense socio-philosophical and artistic quest; in particular, he was inspired by the idea of the “emancipation” of animals, due to deep belief in the existence of intelligence in nature, in all living beings.

Projected onto the conditions of collectivization unfolding in the country, embodied in the author’s reflections and philosophical conversations of the characters in his poem-disputes, this faith caused misunderstanding and sharp critical attacks. The poems were severely criticized in the articles “Under the Mask of Foolishness”, “Foolish Poetry and the Poetry of Millions”, etc.

Unfair assessments and the dismissive tone of criticism had a negative impact on the poet’s work. He almost stopped writing and at one time was mainly engaged in translation activities. However, the desire to penetrate into the secrets of existence, the artistic and philosophical understanding of the world in its contradictions, thoughts about man and nature continued to excite him, forming the content of many works, including the one completed in the 40s. the poem "Lodeinikov", fragments of which were written in 1932-1934. The hero, who bears autobiographical features, is tormented by the contrast between the wise harmony of the life of nature and its ominous, bestial cruelty:

Lodeinikov listened. Over the garden came the vague rustle of a thousand deaths. Nature, which had turned into hell, carried out its affairs without any fuss. The beetle ate the grass, the bird pecked the beetle, the ferret drank the brain from the bird's head, and the terribly distorted faces of the night creatures looked out from the grass. Nature's eternal winepress united death and being into a single club. But thought was powerless to unite its two sacraments.

(“Lodeinikov in the Garden”, 1934)

In the understanding of natural and human existence, tragic notes sound clearly: “On the abysses of torment our waters shine, / on the abysses of grief forests rise!” (By the way, in the 1947 edition, these lines were redone and smoothed out almost to complete neutrality: “So this is what the waters rustle about in the darkness, / What the forests whisper about, sighing!” And the poet’s son N.N. Zabolotsky is certainly right, who commented on these poems from the early 30s: “The description of the “eternal winepress” of nature indirectly reflected the poet’s perception of the social situation in the country”).

In Zabolotsky's lyrics of the mid-30s. Social motives arise more than once (the poems “Farewell”, “North”, “Gori Symphony”, then published in the central press). But still, the main focus of his poetry is philosophical. In the poem “Yesterday, Reflecting on Death...” (1936), overcoming the “unbearable melancholy of separation” from nature, the poet hears the singing of evening grasses, “and the speech of water, and the dead cry of stone.” In this living sound, he catches and distinguishes the voices of his favorite poets (Pushkin, Khlebnikov) and himself completely dissolves in the world around him: “... and I myself was not the child of nature, / but her thought! But her mind is unsteady!

The poems “Yesterday, Reflecting on Death...”, “Immortality” (later called “Metamorphoses”) testify to the poet’s close attention to the eternal questions of existence, which acutely worried the classics of Russian poetry: Pushkin, Tyutchev, Baratynsky. In them he tries to solve the problem of personal immortality:

How things are changing! What used to be a bird -
Now lies a written page;
Thought was once a simple flower;
The poem walked like a slow bull;
And what was me, then, perhaps,
The plant world is growing again and multiplying.
("Metamorphoses")

In The Second Book (1937), the poetry of thought triumphed. Significant changes have occurred in Zabolotsky’s poetics, although the secret of “plastic images” he discovered in “Columns” received a clear and very expressive embodiment here, for example, in such impressive pictures of the poem “North”:

Where are the people with icy beards?
Putting a conical three-piece cap on his head,
Sit in a sleigh and long pillars
They release an icy spirit from their mouth;
Where are the horses, like mammoths in shafts,
They run rumbling; where the smoke is on the rooftops,
Like a statue that frightens the eye...

Despite the seemingly favorable external circumstances of Zabolotsky’s life and work (the publication of a book, the high appreciation of his translation of “The Knight in the Skin of a Tiger” by Sh. Rustaveli, the beginning of work on poetic adaptations of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and other creative plans), trouble awaited him. In March 1938, he was illegally arrested by the NKVD and, after a brutal interrogation that lasted four days, and detention in a prison psychiatric hospital, he received a five-year sentence of forced labor.

From the end of 1938 to the beginning of 1946, Zabolotsky stayed in the camps of the Far East, Altai Territory, Kazakhstan, worked in the most difficult conditions in logging, blasting, and construction of a railway line, and only thanks to a happy coincidence of circumstances was he able to get a job as a draftsman in a design bureau, which saved him his life.

It was a decade of forced silence. From 1937 to 1946, Zabolotsky wrote only two poems developing the theme of the relationship between man and nature (“Forest Lake” and “Nightingale”). In the last year of the Great Patriotic War and the first post-war period, he resumed work on a literary translation of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” which played an important role in returning him to his own poetic work.

Zabolotsky's post-war lyrics are marked by an expansion of thematic and genre range, deepening and development of socio-psychological, moral, humanistic and aesthetic motives. Already in the first poems of 1946: “Morning”, “Blind”, “Thunderstorm”, “Beethoven”, etc. - the opened horizons of a new life seemed to open up and at the same time the experience of cruel trials was reflected.

The poem “In this birch grove” (1946), all permeated by the rays of the morning sun, carries within itself a charge of high tragedy, the unabating pain of personal and national disasters and losses. The tragic humanism of these lines, their hard-won harmony and universal sound are paid for by the torment that the poet himself experienced from tyranny and lawlessness:

In this birch grove,
Far from suffering and troubles,
Where pink falters
Unblinking morning light
Where is the transparent avalanche
Leaves are pouring from high branches, -
Sing me, oriole, a desert song,
The song of my life.

These poems are about the life and fate of a person who has endured everything, but is not broken and has not lost faith, about the dangerous paths of humanity that have approached, perhaps, the last line, about the tragic complexity of time passing through the human heart and soul. They contain the bitter life experience of the poet himself, an echo of the past war and a warning about the possible death of all life on the planet, devastated by an atomic whirlwind and global catastrophes (“... The atoms are shaking, / Whirling up houses in a white whirlwind... You are flying over the cliffs, / You fly over the ruins of death... And a deadly cloud stretches/Over your head").

We are faced with a prophetically, comprehensively comprehended universal catastrophe and the defenselessness of everything living on earth in the face of formidable, chaotic forces beyond the control of man. And yet, these lines carry light, purification, catharsis, leaving a ray of hope in the human heart: “Beyond the great rivers / The sun will rise... And then in my torn heart / Your voice will sing.”

In the post-war years, Zabolotsky wrote such wonderful poems as “Blind”, “I am not looking for harmony in nature”, “Memory”, “Farewell to friends”. The latter is dedicated to the memory of A. Vvedensky, D. Kharms, N. Oleinikov and other comrades in the Oberiu group, who became in the 30s. victims of Stalin's repressions. Zabolotsky's poems are marked by impressive poetic concreteness, plasticity and picturesqueness of the image and at the same time by a deep social and philosophical understanding of the problems of everyday life and being, nature and art.

Signs of humanism that are not characteristic of the official doctrine - pity, mercy, compassion - are clearly visible in one of Zabolotsky’s first post-war poems “Blind”. Against the backdrop of a “dazzling day” rising to the sky, lilacs blooming wildly in the spring gardens, the poet’s attention is focused on the old man “with his face thrown up to the sky,” whose whole life is “like a big familiar wound” and who, alas, will never open his “half-dead eyes.” " A deeply personal perception of someone else’s misfortune is inseparable from the philosophical understanding that gives rise to the lines:

And I'm afraid to think
That somewhere at the edge of nature
I'm just as blind
With his face upturned into the sky.
Only in the darkness of the soul
I watch the spring waters,
I'll talk to them
Only in my sad heart.

Sincere sympathy for people walking “through thousands of troubles”, the desire to share their grief and worries brought to life a whole gallery of poems (“Passerby”, “Loser”, “At the Movies”, “Ugly Girl”, “Old Actress”, “Where- then in a field near Magadan”, “Death of a Doctor”, etc.). Their heroes are very different, but with all the diversity of human characters and the author’s attitude towards them, two motives prevail here, incorporating the author’s concept of humanism: “Infinite human patience / If love does not go out in the heart” and “There is no limit to human strength / There is no limit... »

In the works of Zabolotsky of the 50s, along with the lyrics of nature and philosophical reflections, the genres of a poetic story and portrait built on the plot were intensively developed - from those written back in 1953-1954. poems “Loser”, “At the Movies” to those created in the last year of his life - “The General’s Dacha”, “The Iron Old Woman”.

In his unique poetic portrait “The Ugly Girl” (1955), Zabolotsky poses a philosophical and aesthetic problem - about the essence of beauty. Drawing the image of an “ugly girl”, a “poor ugly girl”, in whose heart lives “someone else’s joy as well as her own”, the author, with all the logic of poetic thought, leads the reader to the conclusion that “what beauty is”:

And even though her features are not good and she has nothing to seduce the imagination, the infantile grace of her soul already shines through in any of her movements.

And if this is so, then what is beauty and why do people deify it?

Is she a vessel in which there is emptiness, Or a fire flickering in the vessel?

The beauty and charm of this poem, revealing the “pure flame” that burns in the depths of the soul of an “ugly girl,” is that Zabolotsky was able to show and poetically affirm the true spiritual beauty of a person - something that was a constant subject of his thoughts throughout the 50s gg. (“Portrait”, “Poet”, “On the beauty of human faces”, “Old actress”, etc.).

The social, moral, and aesthetic motives intensively developed in Zabolotsky’s late work did not supplant his most important philosophical theme of man and nature. It is important to emphasize that now the poet has taken a clear position in relation to everything connected with the invasion of nature, its transformation, etc.: “Man and nature are a unity, and only a complete fool can talk seriously about some kind of conquest of nature and dualist. How can I, a man, conquer nature if I myself am nothing more than her mind, her thought? In our everyday life, this expression “conquest of nature” exists only as a working term, inherited from the language of savages.” That is why in his work of the second half of the 50s. The unity of man and nature is revealed with particular depth. This idea runs through the entire figurative structure of Zabolotsky’s poems.

Thus, the poem “Gombori Forest” (1957), written on the basis of impressions from a trip to Georgia, is distinguished by its vivid picturesqueness and musicality of images. Here are “cinnabar with ocher on the leaves”, and “maple in illumination and beech in the glow”, and bushes similar to “harps and trumpets”, etc. The poetic fabric itself, epithets and comparisons are marked by increased expressiveness, a riot of colors and associations from the sphere of art (“In the dogwood grove, bloody veins / The bush bristled...”; “... the oak raged, like Rembrandt in the Hermitage, / And the maple, like Murillo, soared on wings"), And at the same time, this plastic and pictorial representation is inseparable from the artist’s close thought, imbued with a lyrical sense of involvement in nature:

I became the nervous system of plants,
I have become the reflection of stone rocks,
And the experience of my autumn observations
I once again wished to give back to humanity.

Admiration for the luxurious southern landscapes did not cancel the long-standing and persistent passions of the poet, who wrote about himself: “I was brought up by harsh nature...” Back in 1947, in the poem “I touched the leaves of the eucalyptus,” inspired by Georgian impressions, it is no coincidence that he connects his sympathies with pain and sadness with other, much more dear visions:

But in the furious splendor of nature
I dreamed of Moscow groves,
Where the blue sky is paler,
Plants are more modest and simpler.

In the poet’s later poems, he often sees the autumn landscapes of his homeland in expressive-romantic tones, realized in images marked by plasticity, dynamism, and acute psychologism: “All day long, / Silhouettes of crimson hearts fall from the maple trees... The flames of sorrow whistle underfoot, / In heaps rustling leaves" ("Autumn Landscapes"). But, perhaps, with particular force he manages to convey the “charm of the Russian landscape”, breaking through the dense veil of everyday life and seeing and depicting in a new way this at first glance “kingdom of fog and darkness”, in fact full of special beauty and secret charm.

The poem “September” (1957) is an example of the animation of a landscape. The solution to this artistic problem is provided by comparisons, epithets, personifications - all components of the poetic structure. The dialectic of the development of the image-experience is interesting (the relationship between the motifs of bad weather and the sun, withering and flourishing, the transition of associations from the sphere of nature to the human world and back). A ray of sun breaking through the rain clouds illuminated the hazel bush and evoked in the poet a whole stream of associations and reflections:

This means that the distance is not forever curtained by Clouds and, therefore, not in vain,
Like a girl, a nut tree burst into flames and shone at the end of September.
Now, painter, grab brush by brush, and on the canvas
Golden like fire and garnet Draw this girl for me.
Draw, like a tree, a shaky young princess in a crown
With a restlessly sliding smile On a tear-stained young face.

The subtle spirituality of the landscape, the calm, thoughtful intonation, the excitement and at the same time the restraint of tone, the colorfulness and softness of the drawing create the charm of these poems.

Noticing details with pinpoint precision, capturing the moments of nature’s life, the poet recreates its living and integral appearance in its constant, fluid variability. In this sense, the poem “Evening on the Oka” is typical:

And the clearer the details of the Objects located around become,
The more vast the expanses of the River meadows, backwaters and bends become.
The whole world is burning, transparent and spiritual, Now it is truly good,
And you, rejoicing, recognize many wonders in his living features.

Zabolotsky knew how to subtly convey the spirituality of the natural world and reveal the harmony of man with it. In his late lyric poetry, he moved towards a new and original synthesis of philosophical reflection and plastic depiction, poetic scale and microanalysis, comprehending and artistically capturing the connection between modernity, history, and “eternal” themes. Among them, the theme of love occupies a special place in his late work.

In 1956-1957 the poet creates the lyrical cycle “Last Love”, consisting of 10 poems. They unfold a dramatic story of relationships between middle-aged people, whose feelings have gone through difficult trials.

Deeply personal love experiences are invariably projected in these poems onto the life of the surrounding nature. In the closest fusion with it, the poet sees what is happening in his own heart. And therefore, already in the first poem, “a bouquet of thistles” carries reflections of the universe: “These stars with sharp ends, / These splashes of the northern dawn /... This is also an image of the universe...” (emphasis added by us. - V.Z.) . And at the same time, this is the most concrete, plastic and spiritual image of a passing feeling, an inevitable parting with a beloved woman: “...Where bunches of flowers, bloody, / Are cut straight into my heart”; “And a wedge-shaped thorn stretched / into my chest, and for the last time / the sad and beautiful gaze of her unquenchable eyes shines on me.”

And in other poems of the cycle, along with the direct, immediate expression of love (“Confession”, “You swore to the grave...”), it appears and is reflected - in the landscape paintings themselves, the living details of the surrounding nature, in which the poet sees “a whole world of jubilation and grief” (“Sea Walk”). One of the most impressive and expressive poems in this regard is “The Juniper Bush” (1957):

I saw a juniper bush in a dream,
I heard a metallic crunch in the distance,
I heard the ringing of amethyst berries,
And in my sleep, in silence, I liked him.
In my sleep I smelled a slight smell of resin.
Bend back these low trunks,
I noticed in the darkness of the tree branches
A little living likeness of your smile.

These poems surprisingly combine the extreme realistic concreteness of visible, audible, perceived by all senses signs and details of an ordinary, seemingly natural phenomenon and the special instability, variability, and impressionistic nature of visions, impressions, and memories. And the juniper bush itself, which the poet dreamed of in a dream, becomes a capacious and multidimensional image-personification, absorbing the ancient joy and today’s pain of passing love, the elusive appearance of the beloved woman:

Juniper bush, juniper bush,
The cooling babble of changeable lips,
A light babble, barely reminiscent of resin,
Pierced me with a deadly needle!

In the final poems of the cycle (“Meeting”, “Old Age”), the dramatic conflict of life is resolved, and painful experiences are replaced by a feeling of enlightenment and peace. The “life-giving light of suffering” and the “distant weak light” of happiness flashing in rare lightning flashes in our memory are unquenchable, but, most importantly, all the hardest things are behind us: “And only their souls, like candles, / Stream the last warmth.”

The late period of Zabolotsky’s work was marked by intense creative quests. In 1958, turning to historical themes, he created a unique poem-cycle “Rubruk in Mongolia”, based on the real fact of what was undertaken by a French monk in the 13th century. traveling through the expanses of what was then Rus', the Volga steppes and Siberia to the country of the Mongols. In the realistic pictures of life and everyday life of the Asian Middle Ages, recreated by the power of the poet’s creative imagination, in the very poetics of the work, a peculiar meeting of modernity and the distant historical past occurs. When creating the poem, the poet’s son notes, “Zabolotsky was guided not only by Rubruk’s notes, which he carefully studied, but also by his own memories of movements and life in the Far East, the Altai Territory, and Kazakhstan. The poet’s ability to simultaneously feel himself in different time periods is the most amazing thing in the poem cycle about Rubruk.”

In the last year of his life, Zabolotsky wrote many lyrical poems, including “Green Ray”, “Swallow”, “Groves near Moscow”, “At sunset”, “Don’t let your soul be lazy...”. He translates an extensive (about 5 thousand lines) cycle of tales from the Serbian epic and negotiates with the publishing house to translate the German folk epic “The Song of the Nibelungs.” His plans also include working on a large philosophical and historical trilogy... But these creative plans were no longer destined to come true.

With all the diversity of Zabolotsky’s creativity, the unity and integrity of his artistic world should be emphasized. Artistic and philosophical understanding of the contradictions of existence, in-depth thoughts about man and nature in their interaction and unity, a unique poetic embodiment of modernity, history, and “eternal” themes form the basis of this integrity.

Zabolotsky's work is fundamentally deeply realistic. But this does not deprive him of his constant desire for artistic synthesis, for combining the means of realism and romance, a complex-associative, conventionally fantastic, expressive-metaphorical style, which openly manifested itself in the early period and was preserved in the depths of later poems and poems.

Highlighting in Zabolotsky’s classical heritage “first of all realism in the broad sense of the word,” A. Makedonov emphasized: “This realism includes both the richness of forms and methods of life-likeness, up to what Pushkin called “the Flemish school motley rubbish,” and the richness of forms grotesque, hyperbolic, fabulous, conventional, symbolic reproduction of reality, and the main thing in all these forms is the desire for the deepest and most generalizing, multi-valued penetration into it, in all its fullness, diversity of spiritual and sensory forms of existence.” This largely determines the originality of Zabolotsky’s poetics and style.

In the programmatic article “Thought-Image-Music” (1957), summarizing the experience of his creative life, emphasizing that “the heart of poetry is in its content”, that “the poet works with his whole being,” Zabolotsky formulates the key concepts of his holistic poetic system. : “Thought - Image - Music - this is the ideal trinity that the poet strives for.” This sought-after harmony is embodied in many of his poems.

In Zabolotsky’s work there is undoubtedly a renewal and development of the traditions of Russian poetic classics, and primarily the philosophical lyrics of the 18th-19th centuries. (Derzhavin, Baratynsky, Tyutchev). On the other hand, from the very beginning of his creative activity, Zabolotsky actively mastered the experience of poets of the 20th century. (Khlebnikov, Mandelstam, Pasternak and others).

Regarding his passion for painting and music, which was clearly reflected not only in the very poetic fabric of his works, but also in the direct mention in them of the names of a number of artists and musicians (“Beethoven”, “Portrait”, “Bolero”, etc.), the poet’s son wrote in the memoirs “About Father and Our Life”: “Father always treated painting with great interest. His penchant for such artists as Filonov, Bruegel, Rousseau, Chagall is well known.” In the same memoirs, Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, Schubert, Wagner, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich are named among Zabolotsky’s favorite composers.

Zabolotsky showed himself to be an excellent master of poetic translation. His poetic adaptations of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and “The Knight in the Skin of the Tiger” by Sh. Rustaveli, translations from Georgian classical and modern poetry, from Ukrainian, Hungarian, German, and Italian poets became exemplary.

Life and creative path of N.A. Zabolotsky reflected in his own way the tragic fate of Russian literature and Russian writers in the 20th century. Having organically absorbed huge layers of domestic and world culture, Zabolotsky inherited and developed the achievements of Russian poetry, in particular and especially philosophical lyrics - from classicism and realism to modernism. He combined in his work the best traditions of literature and art of the past with the most daring innovation characteristic of our century, rightfully taking his place among its classic poets.

L-ra: Russian literature. – 1997. – No. 2. – P. 38-46.

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Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky (1903-1958) - Russian poet and translator, creator of the “rebus verse”. It was he who was the author of the poetic translation of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” The writer was born on April 24 (May 7), 1903 in Kizicheskaya Sloboda near Kazan. His childhood was spent in the village of Sernur, Vyatka province.

Childhood and first poems

Kolya grew up in the family of a teacher and agronomist. From a young age he began writing poems. When Nikolai entered the third grade of school, he created his own magazine. In it, the schoolboy wrote down his poems. In 1913, Zabolotsky became a student at a real school in Urzhum. While studying, he discovered the works of Alexander Blok. The writer was interested in history and drawing, and he also showed interest in chemistry.

In 1920, the young man entered the medical and philological faculties of Moscow University at the same time, but studied there for no more than a year. Nicholas was fascinated by the literary life of the capital. He attended performances by Mayakovsky and Yesenin, and went to meetings of Imagists and Futurists.

In 1921, Zabolotsky left the university and moved to Leningrad. There the young man manages to enter the Herzen Pedagogical Institute. He received his diploma in 1925. During his five years of study, Kolya regularly attended literary circle classes, but could not decide on his own style. He imitated Blok and Yesenin, trying to find his niche in creativity.

Association of Poets

While studying at the institute, the poet joined a group of young writers. They called themselves "wrapped" (Uniting Real Art). None of the circle members were popular among readers, and their works rarely appeared in print. Despite this, writers regularly spoke to the public, reading their poems. It was in their company that Nikolai was able to find his unique style.

In the 1920s, Zabolotsky distinguished himself in the field of children's literature. His poems were published in the magazines "Chizh" and "Hedgehog". Also during this period, books were published in poetry and prose, including “Snake's Milk” and “Rubber Heads”. In 1929, the collection “Columns” was published. In 1937, the poet’s “Second Book” was published. After this, he was illegally repressed to the Far East. Nikolai worked there as a builder. Later he came to Karaganda and the Altai Territory. Only in 1946 did the writer manage to return to Moscow.

From 1930 to 1940, such works as “I do not seek harmony in nature”, “Forest Lake” and “Metamorphoses” were published. At the same time, the poet worked on translations of Georgian classics, and even visited their homeland. In the 1950s, the broad masses learned about Zabolotsky’s work. He became popular thanks to the poems "The Confrontation of Mars", "The Ugly Girl" and "The Old Actress".

Second heart attack

The poet spent the last years of his life in Tarusa-on-Oka. He was seriously ill and suffered a heart attack. Against the backdrop of illness, Nikolai began to write lyrical works, at the same time the poem “Rubruk in Mongolia” was published. In 1957 Zabolotsky visited Italy. The following year he died due to a second heart attack. The death of the writer dates back to October 14, 1958.

The poet has always been distinguished by a scrupulous attitude towards his own creativity. He believed that it was necessary to write a whole book at once, without wasting time on individual poems. Nikolai Alekseevich independently compiled collections; a few days before his death, he wrote a literary will. In it, Zabolotsky described in detail which works should be included in his last book. He focused on the structure and name of the assembly. The writer considered all works not included in this album to be unsuccessful.

Municipal budgetary institution

"Sosnovoborsk City Public Library"

Leningrad region, Sosnovy Bor

Scenario

Life and work of Nikolai Zabolotsky

Sosnovy Bor

2013

"Fire flickering in a vessel..."
Life and work of Nikolai Zabolotsky
(Literary and musical microphone)

HOST(1) : Today’s Literary and Musical Microphone is dedicated to the memory of Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky.

Country of Poetry...One of its faithful servants is a Russian poet
Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky.
One wise man said something like this: “God forbid you live in an era of change...”. Why - because a person, like a piece of wood, is carried and thrown, destroyed and torn apart by life, given as a pledge to time and the inconstancy of power.
To understand and appreciate the poems of any poet, it is important to know what kind of person he was, what his interests and innermost thoughts were, when the poem was written, what was happening at that time in the world around him and in the life of the author...
The life of Nikolai Zabolotsky is divided by fate itself into more or less clearly demarcated 7 periods. His literary heritage is relatively small - it includes a volume of poems and poems, several volumes of poetic translations, works for children, a few articles and notes on literature - however, this is the legacy of a classic of Russian poetry and the most interesting poet of the twentieth century...

So, I invite you on a journey through the waves of memory of the twentieth century about the wonderful poet Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky.

HOST(2 ): Leaving Africa in April
To the shores of the father's land,
They flew in a long triangle,
Drowning in the sky, cranes.
Stretching out silver wings
Across the wide firmament,
The leader led to the valley of plenty
Its small people.
But when it flashed under the wings
Lake, transparent through and through,
Black gaping barrel
It rose up from the bushes towards us.

A ray of fire struck the bird's heart,
A quick flame flared up and went out,
And a piece of wondrous greatness
It fell on us from above.
Two wings, like two huge griefs,
Embraced the cold wave
And, echoing the sorrowful sob,
The cranes rushed into the heights

.
Only where the stars move,
To atone for one's own evil
Nature returned to them again
What death took with it:
Proud spirit, high aspiration,
An unyielding will to fight -
Everything from the previous generation
Youth passes on to you.
And the leader in a metal shirt
Sank slowly to the bottom,
And the dawn formed over him
Golden glow spot.

Presenter (1)

I was the first child in the family and was born on April 24, 1903.
near Kazan, on a farm where his father served as an agronomist (in addition to Nikolai, 6 more children were born in the family, 1 died at an early age). Later we moved to the village of Sernur, Urzhum district.
There were amazing places in this Sernur: the estate of a rich priest, a majestic huge garden, ponds overgrown with willows, endless meadows and groves. I heard plenty of nightingales there, saw sunsets and all the beauty of the plant world. The wonderful nature of Sernur never died in my soul and was reflected in many of my poems.

Presenter (2)

Poem “Autumn Signs” excerpt

Autumn architecture. Location in it
Airspace, groves, rivers,
Location of animals and people
When rings fly through the air
And curls of leaves, and special light, -
This is what we will choose among other signs.
The beetle opened its house between the leaves
And, with his horns out, he looks out,
The beetle dug up various roots for itself
And puts it in a pile,
Then he blows his little horn
And again he disappeared into the leaves like a god.
But then the wind comes. Everything that was pure
Spatial, luminous, dry, -
Everything became sharp, unpleasant, hazy,
Indistinguishable. The wind blows smoke
The air rotates, the leaves fall in heaps
And the top of the earth explodes with gunpowder.
And all nature begins to freeze.
A maple leaf is like copper
It rings when it hits a small twig.
And we must understand that this is an icon,
which nature sends us,
To move on to another time of year.

Presenter (1)

: From childhood, Zabolotsky took away unforgettable impressions from
Vyatka nature and from the activities of his father, a love of books and an early realized calling to devote his life to poetry.
In 1920, he left his parents' home and went first to Moscow, and the next year to Petrograd, where he entered the department of language and literature at the A. I. Herzen Pedagogical Institute. Hunger, an unsettled life and a sometimes painful search for his own poetic voice accompanied Zabolotsky’s student years. He read with enthusiasm Blok, Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Gumilyov, Yesenin, but soon realized that his path did not coincide with the path of these poets. Closer to his search were the Russian poets Derzhavin, Baratynsky, Fyodor Tyutchev, and among his contemporaries - Velimir Khlebnikov.

): In 1925 he graduated from the institute. 1926 - 1927 - military service. And during this period, Zabolotsky, the poet, begins to be born. In the history of poetry there are few examples of such bold and conscious self-change, continuous self-renewal, such an amazing art of stepping over oneself.

Nikolai Zabolotsky is one person, but two poets. St. Petersburg ironic avant-garde artist of the 20s and Moscow neoclassicist of the 50s of the twentieth century. The stages of one person’s creativity are so emotionally different that it’s even interesting and great to find those spiritual threads that tie his image together.

Usually, at first you recognize the late, calm Zabolotsky. It is clearer... And then, when you pick up a collection of poems by this poet, a strange impression arises. It begins to seem that the early modernist Zabolotsky seems to be yearning... for his later self. Through the sparkle, originality, even through the humorous enthusiasm of his young poems, a certain dream already shines through. The dream is great and incredibly simple. This is hope, aspiration and simply expectation of earthly human harmony.

It would seem not surprising: who hasn’t dreamed about this at least once? But here a young man in the very pretentious revolutionary years (in the language of the time, “a fighter of the literary front”, “at the forefront of the fight against the world of philistinism”), his soul is drawn to quiet and kind orderliness. And although he creates passionate, mischievous poems, and although he himself later writes: “I am not looking for harmony in nature,” in the depths of his soul he clearly sees the ideal in the universal harmony of people with people and with nature. He is preparing for the feast, without fear of the plague, which is already obvious and widespread. And this wondrous gravity carries through my entire life, five and a half decades, more than half of which occurred during the Stalin years.

Years of camps will befall him. First, friends and acquaintances will disappear. But it was precisely in this threatening atmosphere of the 1930s that Zabolotsky’s poetry rises to Pushkin’s purity and severity.

On March 19, 1938, N.A. Zabolotsky was arrested and separated from literature, from his family, and from free human existence for a long time. The incriminating material in his case included malicious critical articles and a slanderous review “review.” He was saved from the death penalty by the fact that, despite the most severe physical tests during interrogation, he did not admit the charges of creating a counter-revolutionary organization, which allegedly included N. Tikhonov and B. Kornilov.

Presenter (2)
“The first days they didn’t beat me, trying to break me down mentally and physically. They didn't give me food. They weren't allowed to sleep. The investigators replaced each other, but I sat motionless on a chair in front of the investigator’s table - day after day. Behind the wall, in the next office, someone's frantic screams could be heard from time to time. My feet began to swell, and on the third day I had to tear off my shoes because I could not bear the pain in my feet. My consciousness began to become clouded, and I strained all my strength in order to answer reasonably and not allow any injustice in relation to those people about whom I was asked...” These are lines from N. Zabolotsky’s essay “The History of My Imprisonment.”

Presenter (1)

After his arrest, he did not break down, withstood it, survived, and wrote a wonderful translation in prison “ Words about Igor's Campaign ", kneeling in front of the bunk.
Until 1944, Zabolotsky served undeserved imprisonment in forced labor camps in the Far East and Altai Territory. From spring until the end of 1945, he lived with his family in Karaganda.
Song “Somewhere in a field near Magadan”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP8ga59H9D8 - (3min55s).

Only 2 poems were written by him during the years of the camps “Forest Lake”, “Morning”

Presenter (2).

Poem "Forest Lake"

Again she flashed to me, shackled by sleep,
Crystal bowl in the forest darkness.
Through the battles of trees and wolf battles,
Where insects drink the juice from the plant,
Where the stems rage and the flowers groan,
Where nature rules over predatory creatures,
I made my way to you and froze at the entrance,
Parting the dry bushes with his hands.
In a crown of water lilies, in a headdress of sedges,
In a dry necklace of plant pipes
There lay a piece of chaste moisture,
A refuge for fish and a haven for ducks.
But it’s strange how quiet and important it is all around!
Where does such grandeur come from in the slums?
Why aren’t the hordes of birds raging?
But asleep, lulled by a sweet dream?
Only one sandpiper is indignant at fate
And the plants blow senselessly into the trumpet.
And the lake in the quiet evening fire
Lies in the depths, motionless shining,
And the pines stand tall like candles,
Closed in rows from edge to edge.
Bottomless bowl of clear water
She shone and thought with a separate thought,
So the eye of the patient is in boundless anguish
At the first glow of the evening star,
No longer sympathizing with the sick body,
It burns, directed towards the night sky.
And crowds of animals and wild beasts,
Sticking horned faces through the trees,
To the source of truth, to your font
They bowed down to drink from the life-giving water.

Presenter (1).

In 1946, N.A. Zabolotsky was reinstated in the Writers' Union and received permission to live in the capital. A new, Moscow period of his work began. Despite all the blows of fate, he managed to maintain internal integrity and remained faithful to his life’s work - as soon as the opportunity arose, he returned to his unfulfilled literary plans. Back in 1945 in Karaganda, while working as a draftsman in the construction department, during non-working hours Nikolai Alekseevich basically completed the transcription of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, and in Moscow he resumed work on the translation of Georgian poetry.

The period of returning to poetry was not only joyful, but also difficult. There were happy moments of inspiration, there were doubts, and sometimes a feeling of powerlessness to express the many things that had accumulated in my thoughts and were looking for a way to the poetic word.

Presenter(1)

A third of Zabolotsky’s creations are related to reflections on nature. The poet does not have purely landscape poems. For him, nature is the beginning of all beginnings, an object of poetic research, a complex and contradictory world, full of mysteries, secrets and drama, a source of thoughts about life, about oneself, about man.

Merging with nature is the main idea in Zabolotsky’s theme of nature.

In 1946, thanks to the intercession of Fadeev, Zabolotsky returned from exile. The suffering of seven long years of camp and exile was finally over. There was only no roof over our heads. The writer V.P. Ilyenkov, a man of brave and generous character, kindly provided the Zabolotskys with his dacha in Peredelkino. Nikolai Chukovsky recalls: “a birch grove of indescribable charm, full of birds, approached Ilyenkov’s dacha itself.” The poet wrote twice about this birch grove in 1946:

Presenter(2)

Give me a corner, starling,

Put me in an old birdhouse.

I pledge my soul to you

For your blue snowdrops.

And spring whistles and mutters.

Poplars are flooded knee-deep.

The maples are waking up from their sleep,

So that the leaves flutter like butterflies.

And such a mess in the fields,

And such streams of nonsense,

What should you try after leaving the attic?

Don't rush headlong into the grove!

Start the serenade, starling!

Through the timpani and tambourines of history

You are our first spring singer

From the Birch Conservatory.

Open the show, whistler!

Throw back your pink head,

Breaking the shine of the strings

In the very throat of a birch grove.

I would try my best myself,

Yes, the wanderer butterfly whispered to me:

“Who is a loudmouth in the spring,

And spring is good, good!

The whole soul was covered with lilacs.

Raise your spirit, soul,

Over your spring gardens.

Sit on a high pole

Blazing through the sky with delights,

Cling like a web to a star

Along with bird tongue twisters.

Turn your face to the universe,

Celebrating blue snowdrops,

With an unconscious starling

Traveling through spring fields.

And second. Outwardly built on a simple and very expressive contrast of a picture of a peaceful birch grove, singing orioles of life and universal death, it carries within itself a painful sadness, an echo of what has been experienced, a hint of personal fate and a tragic premonition of “white whirlwinds”, general troubles.

This poem became a song in the movie "We'll Live Until Monday."

In this birch grove"http://video.yandex.ru/users/igormigolatiev/view/9/# (2min.45sec).

Presenter (1).

During his long poetic life, Zabolotsky did not write a single intimate poem, and therefore the cycle “Last Love” unexpectedly burned the reader with hopeless sadness, the pain of saying goodbye to love, which brought such painful doubts. This cycle written at the end of the poet’s life (05/07/1903 - 10/14/1958) - these are Nikolai Zabolotsky’s first poems about love, not about abstract love, not about love as such, in people’s lives, not sketches from other people’s destinies - but his own, personal, lived by the heart. complications in the poet's personal life.

Presenter (2)

In 2000, the poet’s son, Nikita Zabolotsky, in an interview with the Trud newspaper, revealed the secret of this cycle, answering a journalist’s question:

“E. Konstantinova: Restrained, according to eyewitnesses, in everyday life, Zabolotsky remained the same in poetry. But in the “Last Love” cycle, feelings spill out without looking back...

Nikita Zabolotsky: - In the fall of 1956, a tragic discord occurred in the Zabolotsky family, the main cause of which was Vasily Grossman, the author of the famous novel “Life and Fate.” Having settled in neighboring buildings on Begovaya Street, the Zabolotskys and the Grossmans quickly became closer at home: their wives and children were friends, the poet and prose writer communicated with interest. True, the relationship between these too different personalities was not easy. Conversations with Grossman, poisonously ironic and harsh, each time turned to the subject that irritated Zabolotsky’s old spiritual wounds and upset the hard-established internal balance he needed for his work. Ekaterina Vasilievna, who understood her husband’s condition like no one else, nevertheless could not remain indifferent to Grossman’s strength of mind, talent, and masculine charm... It is impossible to convey his surprise, resentment and grief, recalls the poet’s friend Nikolai Korneevich Chukovsky. “He knew all the actions that she could commit, and suddenly, at forty-nine years old, she committed an act that was absolutely not foreseen by him. Left alone, in melancholy and misfortune, Zabolotsky did not complain to anyone. He continued to work as persistently and systematically on translations as ever, and he took careful care of the children. He expressed all his torment only in poetry, perhaps the most beautiful of all that he wrote in his entire life. He missed Katerina Vasilyevna and was painfully worried about her from the very beginning. He believed that they were both to blame, which meant he blamed himself. I thought about her constantly, saw her everywhere. He made no attempts to bring her back, but the acuteness of his melancholy and tenderness did not go away.

http://video.yandex.ru/users/lar2932/view/79/# - Enchanted, bewitched...3 m.45 sec.

Presenter (1).

In early February 1957, they separated. Zabolotsky plunged into work. And after conversations with Ekaterina Vasilievna, he was imbued with the conviction that time would pass and she would return to him. “Many of my poems, in essence, as you know,” my father wrote to my mother in Leningrad on January 20, 1958, “we wrote with you together. Often one hint of yours, one remark changed the essence of the matter... And behind those poems that I wrote alone, you always stood... You know that for the sake of my art I neglected everything else in life. And you helped me with this.”

From the memoirs of Nikolai Chukovsky:

He came to see me one day in the second half of August 1958, Chukovsky was his, and before leaving he read a poem that shocked me. This was a stern demand addressed to himself:

Presenter (2).

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

Drive her from house to house,
Drag from stage to stage,
Through the wasteland, through the brown forest
Through a snowdrift, through a pothole!

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

If you decide to cut her some slack,
Freeing from work,
She's the last shirt
He will rip it off you without mercy.

And you grab her by the shoulders,
Teach and torment until dark,
To live with you like a human being
She studied again.

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

Presenter (1)

After reading this poem, he left cheerfully. And suddenly a week later I find out that Zabolotsky’s wife has returned to him...

He survived the departure of Katerina Vasilievna, but he could not survive her return. His heart could not stand it and he suffered a heart attack.

He lived another month and a half. All his efforts - but he did not allow his soul to be lazy! — he directed to bring his affairs into final order. With his characteristic accuracy, he compiled a complete list of his poems, which he considered worthy of publication. He wrote a will in which he forbade the publication of poems that were not included in this list. This will was signed on October 8, 1958, a few days before his death...”

Presenter (2)

Here is the text of this literary testament:

"This manuscript includes the complete collection of my poems and poems, established by me in 1958. All other poems ever written and published by me, I consider either accidental or unsuccessful. There is no need to include them in my book. Texts of this manuscript checked, corrected and finally established; previously published versions of many verses should be replaced by the texts given here."

Presenter (1).

Song "Juniper Bush"http://video.mail.ru/mail/arkadij-khait/23696/24397.html - (4min 29s).

Presenter (1).

Inna Rostovtseva calls the poet a “discovery.” He is a discovery, because, having gone through such a difficult life and creative path, he was able to remain himself, although in the first half of the 20th century only a few were able to achieve this task.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pt1uLeBMD0 Musical compositions based on poems by Zabolotsky.

Thank you for your attention. Until next time.

*************

Bibliography:

Memories of N. Zabolotsky. - M.: Sov. Writer, 1984. -464s.

Zabolotsky N.A. Selected works. - M.: Artist. Lit., 1991. - 431s.

Zabolotsky N.N. Life of N.A. Zabolotsky. -2nd ed., revised. - St. Petersburg: 2003. - 664 p.

Makedonov A.V. Nikolai Zabolotsky. Life and art. Metamorphoses.- L.: Sov. Prisatel, 1987. - 368s.

Prepared by Moiseeva N.G.

“In general, Zabolotsky is an underrated figure. This is a brilliant poet... When you re-read this, you understand how to work further,” said the poet Joseph Brodsky back in the 80s in a conversation with the writer Solomon Volkov. Nikolai Zabolotsky remains just as underrated to this day. The first monument using public money was opened in Tarusa half a century after the poet’s death.

“A repressed talent, physically repressed during his life, and virtually pushed out of the literary arena after death, he created a new direction in poetry - literary scholars call it the “Bronze Age” of Russian poetry... The concept of the “Bronze Age” of Russian poetry is well-established, and it belongs to my late friend, Leningrad poet Oleg Okhapkin. So for the first time in 1975, he formulated it in his poem of the same name... Zabolotsky was the first poet of the “Bronze Age”, - said the ideological inspirer of the opening of the monument, philanthropist, publicist Alexander Shchipkov.

Tarusa sculptor Alexander Kazachok worked on the bust for three months. He drew inspiration from the work of Zabolotsky himself and from the memories of loved ones about him. I tried to understand the character in order not only to document facial features, but also to reflect the state of mind in the image. A half-smile froze on the poet’s lips.

“He was such a person on the inside, not on the outside, on the outside he was gloomy, but on the inside he was a pretty clear person. The singer of our Russian poetry, who loves Russia, loves the people, loves its nature,” sculptor Alexander Kazachok shared his impression.

People's love for Zabolotsky was manifested in the desire of the Tarussians to rename the city cinema and concert hall in honor of the poet, and in the children's favorite summer festival “Roosters and Geese in the City of Tarusa,” named after a line from the poem “Town” by Nikolai Zabolotsky.

Who should cry today?
In the city of Tarusa?
There is someone in Tarusa to cry -
To the girl Marusa.

They were disgusted with Marusya
Roosters and geese.
How many of them are there in Tarusa?
Jesus Christ!

The monument to Nikolai Zabolotsky found a place at the intersection of Lunacharsky and Karl Liebknecht streets - next to the house where the poet spent the summers of 1957 and 1958 - the last of his life. The ancient provincial town on the Oka River was destined to become the poetic homeland of Zabolotsky.

The poet settled here on the advice of the Hungarian poet Antal Gidas, who lived in the Soviet Union at that time. He had a chance to vacation in Tarusa with his wife Agnes. Remembering Zabolotsky’s brilliant translation into Russian of his poem “The Danube Moans,” Gidash wanted to get to know the poet better, to continue the communication that began in 1946 in the house of creativity of Soviet writers in Dubulti on the Riga seaside.

I found the dacha personally. Having opted for a house with two cozy rooms opening onto a terrace courtyard and a well-kept garden. Nikolai Zabolotsky came here with his daughter Natasha. The poet immediately fell in love with Tarusa, reminding him of the city of his youth, Urzhum: a river could be seen over the gardens and roofs of houses, roosters, chickens and geese milled about in front of the house. To use his own lines, here he lived “by the charm of his years.”

Nikolai Zabolotsky with his wife and daughter

House of Nikolai Zabolotsky in Tarusa

Nikolai Alekseevich devoted himself entirely to writing. The two Tarusa seasons became perhaps his most intense creative period. The poet wrote more than 30 poems. I read some of them that same year in Rome during a trip with a group of Soviet poets.

In the evenings, Zabolotsky met with the Gidashs and talked with artists walking along the banks of the Oka. He was an excellent connoisseur of painting and drew well himself.

In a letter to the poet Alexei Krutetsky on August 15, 1957, Zabolotsky himself said: “... I’ve been living on the Oka for the second month, in the old provincial town of Tarusa, which once even had its own princes and was burned out by the Mongols. Now this is a backwater, beautiful hills and groves, the magnificent Oka. Polenov once lived here, artists flock here in droves.”

Tarusa is a rare phenomenon for Russian culture. Since the 19th century, it has become a mecca for writers, musicians and artists. The names of Konstantin Paustovsky, Vasily Polenov and Vasily Vatagin, Svyatoslav Richter, and the Tsvetaev family are associated with it.

Here the writer Konstantin Paustovsky presented Zabolotsky with his recently published “Tale of Life”, signing: “Dear Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky - as a sign of deep admiration for the classical power, wisdom and transparency of his poems. You are just a sorcerer!” And in a letter to Veniamin Kaverin, Paustovsky wrote: “Zabolotsky lived here in the summer. A wonderful, amazing person. The other day I came and read my new poems - very bitter, completely Pushkin-like in their brilliance, the power of poetic tension and depth.”

The following summer Zabolotsky returned to Tarusa. The poet David Samoilov, who visited him, recalled: “He lived in a small house with a high terrace. For some reason now it seems to me that the house was colorfully painted. It was separated from the street by a high fence with planked gates. From the terrace, over the fence, Oka was visible. We sat and drank Teliani, his favorite wine. He couldn’t drink, and he couldn’t smoke either.”

Zabolotsky fell in love with Tarusa so much that he began to dream of buying a dacha here and living on it all year round. I even noticed a new log house on a quiet green street, overlooking a forested ravine.

The plan was not destined to come true: soon his heart disease worsened, and on the morning of October 14, 1958, the poet passed away. Later, in Zabolotsky’s archive, a plan of the house that he so hoped to purchase in Tarusa was found.

“The Glass Bead Game” with Igor Volgin. Nikolai Zabolotsky. Lyrics

"Copper pipes. Nikolay Zabolotsky"