Brief biography of Klyuev. Nikolai Klyuev Biography of Nikolai Klyuev

Klyuev Nikolai Alekseevich - poet. Father is a constable who received the position of inmate of a state-owned wine shop in the village. Zhelvachevo, Mokachevo volost, Vytegorsk district, where the family moved in the 1890s. Mother is from an Old Believer family, a zealous guardian of the traditions of “ancient piety”. According to the memoirs of village old-timers, “there were many old printed and handwritten books in the Klyuevs’ house, icons of old pre-Nikon writing hung in the upper rooms, lamps burned in front of them. This house was often visited by wanderers, God's people ”(A. Gruntov). From his mother, the future poet (according to his “autobiographies” performed in the hagiographical genre) also receives a kind of home education: “My mother taught me to read and write from the Chasovnik (...). I didn’t know the letters yet, I didn’t know how to read, but I look at the Clockwork and sing the prayers that I knew from memory, and leaf through the Clockwork, as if I was reading. And the deceased mother will come and praise me: “Here, she says, my child is growing up, it will be like John Chrysostom” (“Loon Fate” // Sever. - 1992. - No. 6), To the mother, according to the poet, not only the origins of the religious and moral foundations of his personality, but also his poetic gift go back. She was, as he wrote immediately after her death in 1913 to V. Bryusov and V. Mirolyubov, a “songwriter” and “epic writer”, i.e. kind of spontaneous poetess. Later, this talent of hers, not without a polemical sight, was even elevated to an ideal: “Thousands of poems, whether mine or those poets whom I know in Russia, are not worth one chanter of my bright mother” (“Loon Destiny”). Klyuev studied at the parochial school (1893-1895), then at the Vytegorsk city school (1896-1897); in 1898 he entered the Petrozavodsk paramedic school, from which he left after studying for a year. According to the “autobiography”, at the age of 16, at the insistence of his mother, he goes to Solovki “to save himself” and puts on “nine-pound chains” there, then sets off from there to wander around the sketes and shelters of secret mystical sects in Russia. In one of the schismatic communities of the Samara Territory, he becomes "King David", i.e. composer of "songs" for the needs of the local Khlyst "ship". This is the beginning of Klyuev's poetic path in the semi-mythical version of his autobiography. The historically reliable beginning is the poems published in the little-known St. Petersburg almanac "New Poets" (1904) and then in two Moscow collections. "Waves" and "Surf" (1905), published by the "people's" circle of P.A. Travin, of which Klyuev was a member.

Having taken part in the revolution of 1905 as an agitator from the Peasant Union and paid for it with a six-month prison sentence, Klyuev sets out on the path of intense spiritual quest and creative self-determination, paving his way to great poetry. A. Blok is chosen as a guide to its heights. Klyuev entered into a correspondence with Blok in 1907, which continued for a long time. Klyuev adheres to two goals: firstly, to introduce himself, “dark and beggar, whom any symbolist would shun on the street” (from a letter to Blok on November 5, 1910), to the elite of the priests of modern art; and secondly, to enlighten these priests themselves, cut off from the national element of life and true culture, with the spirit of goodness and beauty emanating from the hidden people's Russia, the messenger of which he realizes himself. Blok also takes him for such, including fragments of Klyuev's letters in his articles, and calling a personal meeting with him in October 1911 "a big event" in his "autumn life" (Diary. - 1911. - October 17). In a letter to one of his correspondents, Blok even admits: “My sister, Christ is among us. This is Nikolai Klyuev ”(Alexander Blok in the memoirs of his contemporaries. - M., 1980. - T.1. - P.338). Klyuev resolutely enters the circle of the metropolitan literary elite and already in 1908 is published in the luxuriously published magazine of the symbolists "Golden Fleece". At the end of 1911 (with an indication - 1912) the first book of his poems "Pine Chimes" was published. V. Bryusov's preface said that "Klyuev's poetry is alive with inner fire", flashing "suddenly in front of the reader with an unexpected and dazzling light", that Klyuev "has lines that amaze". In the verses of the book, the echo of the recent revolution is palpable. In the exalted appearance of the heroine of a kind of lyrical novel (the only one in Klyuev with a female addressee), the traits of a revolutionary and at the same time a nun were guessed full of sacrifice.

In 1912, the second book of Klyuev's poems, "Brotherly Songs", was published, compiled, according to the author, from texts composed by him when he was still a young "Tsar David". The release of this book accompanies Klyuev’s rapprochement with the “Golgotha ​​Christians” (a revolutionary-minded part of the clergy who called for personal, like Christ, responsibility for the evil of the world and published their magazines New Life, then New Wine). The "Golgotha ​​Christians" relied on Klyuev as their prophet. However, having not justified their hopes, Klyuev departs from the religious and prophetic path, he chooses the path of a poet. In 1913 he publishes a new book of poems, "The Forests were." It depicts “pagan”, folk Rus', rejoicing, riotous, yearning, expressing itself with an almost natural (in fact, skillfully stylized) voice of folk songs (“Love”, “Kabatskaya”, “Ostrozhnaya”). Considering this turn of Klyuev from the religious dominant of his first books, V. Khodasevich was ironic about the failed claims of the “mystics” from Novaya Zhizn to Klyuev as a prophet of a “new religious revelation”; he emphasized that the content of "Forest Tales" is "erotica, quite strong, expressed in sonorous and bright verses" (Alcyone. - M., 1914. - Book 1. - P. 211).

By this time, Klyuev had already been recognized on the national Olympus. N. Gumilyov in literary reviews defines the main pathos of his poetry as “the pathos of the one who found”, as “the Slavic feeling of the bright equality of all people and the Byzantine consciousness of the golden hierarchy at the thought of God”, calls the poet himself “the herald of a new force, folk culture”, and his poems "impeccable" (Letters on Russian poetry. - M., 1990. - P. 136, 137, 149). In Klyuev's poetry, acmeists are impressed by the verbal weight, multi-coloredness and sonority of the patriarchal peasant world depicted in it. O. Mandelstam in his “Letter on Russian Poetry” (1922) will call this world “the majestic Olonets, where Russian life and Russian peasant speech rest in Hellenic importance and simplicity” (Word and Culture. - M., 1987. - P. 175) . Acmeists readily rank Klyuev in their guild group: “A sigh of relief swept from his books. Symbolism reacted sluggishly to him. Acmeism joyfully welcomed him ”(Gorodetsky S. Some trends in modern Russian poetry // Apollo. - 1913. - Book 1. - P. 47). During his visits from Vytegra to St. Petersburg in 1911-1913. Klyuev attends meetings of acmeists. His poems are published in the almanac "Apollo" and "Hyperborea".

Since 1913, Klyuev became the center of attraction for "poets from the people", who soon formed the core of the new peasant poetry - A. Shiryaevets, S. Klychkov, S. Yesenin. In the latter, immediately upon first meeting him, he saw “the most beautiful of the sons of the baptized kingdom” and perceived him as a kind of messiah of deep Russian poetry, in relation to whom he was ready to define himself only as a forerunner.

In 1916, the fourth book of Klyuev's poems, Worldly Thoughts, was published; in the middle of the 10s. a cycle dedicated to the death of his mother "Izbyanye Songs" is being created, Klyuev's pinnacle achievement in this period.

The landscape played a special role in Klyuev's poetry. Perfectly developed by the poetry of the XIX century. the realistic landscape image is spiritualized in him by an unusually vivid vision of Holy Rus' in it, which he calls “bottomless Russia”, “Rublevskaya Russia”, Russia of “birch bark paradise”. In painting, a similar insight into the spiritual, religiously intimate image of Russia to its natural incarnation was made by the "singer of the religious North" M. Nesterov.

The poet, who usually began realistically recreating nature, then harmoniously switches to the plan of its mystical perception - through the worldview and spiritual vision of Christian and Orthodox culture. In this case, nature begins to acquire a certain thrill of mysterious otherness, there is an element of churchness in its perception: “The ice on the river thawed, / Became piebald, rusty-gold ... , the ice on the river thawed...”, 1912). The aesthetic perception of nature is combined in Klyuev's landscape lyrics with a sense of divine grace. "A deep religious feeling and no less deep sense of nature" is not accidental, by definition, he met with Klyuev at the turn of the 20-30s. Ettore Lo Gatto, are the fundamental principles of his personality (My meetings with Russia. - M., 1992. - P. 86).

At the same time, the poet subtly brings together both poetic “mothers” (nature and Orthodox spirituality, the temple) at the points of their greatest, for example, color, correspondences: the first spring leaves-candles, the whiteness of birch trunks - the pallor of the faces of monastic youths and nuns, the gilding of the iconostasis - the yellowness of autumn forests, cinnabar on the icon is the dawn, the blue color on it is heavenly blue, human life is a candle burning in front of the icon, but together with km also “in front of the face of the forests”.

Klyuev accepts the revolution of 1917 enthusiastically at first, erroneously assuming in it a force capable of contributing to the historical embodiment of that Rus', which was outlined in Klyuev's poetry as a "birch-bark paradise", "sak" peasant kingdom ". Along with A. Bely, A. Remizov, E. Zamyatin, M. Prishvin, S. Yesenin and others, he is included in the lit. the Scythians group, whose members adhered to the idea of ​​peasant socialism, understood in the spirit of Christian utopia (R.V. Ivanov-Razumnik and others). Klyuev generously advances the revolution with fiery lines of poetry glorifying Lenin as a kind of abbot of peasant-schismatic Russia (the cycle of poems "Lenin", 1918) and "homely Soviet authorities." In 1918, his book of poems "The Copper Whale" was published, representing mainly the face of the revolutionary Klyuev muse. When soon the poet’s hopes that he “will love the stormy Lenin / Motley Klyuevsky verse” (“Motherland, I am a sinner, a sinner ...”, 1919) are not justified, he loses all interest in the leader of the world proletariat. Klyuev contrasts his ideals with those of Lenin: “We believe in brothers with many eyes, / And Lenin in iron and in a red mind” (“We believe in brothers with many eyes ...”, 1919).

In 1919, Klyuev's two-volume "Songbook" was published, which includes both new works and poems of previous books in a revised and supplemented form. The dominant idea of ​​the Songbook is related to the Christian idea that “the world lies nearby” and that only through its spiritual “transformation” can universal liberation from existing suffering and imperfection, peace and prosperity be achieved. But if at first such a “transforming force” for Klyuev was entirely the teaching of Christ itself, now the natural and agricultural world is coming to the fore (without displacing, however, Christ) - as a kind of universal cosmos of human existence, as the “flesh” and “spirit” of the national life. The world of darkness and evil is presented here to a large extent by infernal images - from completely harmless "furnace imps" to the very "master" of hell, the seven-horned "Son of the Abyss" as the embodiment of both social evil and moral torment of the soul. But still, the most extreme evil that threatens the "birch-bark paradise", "hut" Rus', is here the technical progress and urbanization of all life, which bring spiritual and physical impoverishment to the "organic man", and death to nature. In a letter to A. Shiryaevts (November, 1913), Klyuev conjured: “Oh, mother desert! Spiritual paradise, mental paradise! How hateful and black the whole so-called Civilized world seems, and what would it give, whatever cross, whatever Golgotha ​​would bear - so that America would not advance on the gray-feathered dawn, on the chapel in the forest, on the hare by the haystack, on the fairy tale hut ... " (Coll. - T.1. - P.190). In the verses “He called the silence wilderness...” (mid-10s), the forces of evil that bring death to the “birch-bark paradise” are personified in a rather concrete, albeit faceless image of a certain “jacket”-city dweller, “son of iron and stone boredom”: “I breathed a cigarette into coniferous incense / And burned a forget-me-not with a spit ...” One of the few opens K. in the poetry of the 20th century. the topic of environmental danger: “A plant spews into Svetloyar / Blast furnace belching - slag” (“Rus-Kitezh”, 1918); later he will note that both “the swell of the Aral Sea is in the dead mud ...”, and “The blue Volga is shallowing ...” (“Devastation”, 1933 or 1934).

In the center of the artistic world of "Songs" is a peasant hut, deepened and expanded to the limits of a certain "hut space", in which everything is poeticized: "Find out now: there is a ridge on the roof / There is a silent sign that our path is far" ("There is a bitter sandy loam, deaf chernozem...”, 1916). But the cosmic purpose of the hut, according to Klyuev, is only the unraveled part of its incomprehensible fate, its many secrets: “The hut is the sanctuary of the earth / With a baking secret and paradise ...” (“To the poet Sergei Yesenin”, 1916-1917); “... a forest hut / Looks into the centuries, dark as fate ...” (“The day shuns the oven darkness ...”, 1912 or 1913); the misfortune awaiting her: “There is in the hut, in the cricket memorial service / the Wailing Wall, the Sacrificial Resentment” (“Nila Sorskogo voice ...”, 1918).

In 1922, a new Sat. Klyuev's poems "Lion's Bread", reflecting the turning point in his worldview from the illusions of 1917-1918. to the tragic motifs of the poetry of the 20s. The controversy with urban poets (Mayakovsky and Proletkultists) alternates with gloomy pictures of the death of Russia and his own (“For me, Proletkult will not cry ...”, 1919; “I am being buried, they are burying ...”, 1921). In the same 1922, the poem "Mother Saturday" was published as a separate edition, dedicated to the mysticism of the creation of peasant bread. The author himself then explained the essence of the poem: “The Christmas of bread is its slaughter, burial and resurrection from the dead, which the Russian people long for as beauty, and are told in my Blue Saturday. (...) A plowman, a little less than the angels, will redeem the world with rye blood. (...) “Mother Saturday” is a hackneyed ecclesiast, the Gospel of bread, where the Face of the Son of Man is among the animals ... ”(“ Blue Saturday ”, 1923. - RO IRLI).

In September 1922, in Pravda (No. 224), L. Trotsky's article about Klyuev appeared (one of several under the general title "Extra-October Literature"), in which the author, having paid tribute to the poet's "large" individuality, "pessimistically" generalized: “The spiritual isolation and aesthetic identity of the village (...) is clearly at a loss. It seems that Klyuev is also at a loss ”(Literature and Revolution. - M., 1991. - P. 62). In the same year, in a review of Klyuev’s poem “The Fourth Rome” (1922), N. Pavlovich (pseudonym Mikhail Pavlov) wrote: “For his songs about this dark forest element, we should be grateful to Klyuev - you need to know the enemy and look him right in the face "(Book and revolution. - 1922. - No. 4). With the special purpose of exposing the mysticism of Klyuev's "arable ideology", V. Knyazev's book "The Rye Apostles (Klyuev and Klyuevshchina)" was published in 1924. Knowing in advance about the work on it, Klyuev, in a letter to Yesenin on January 28, 1922, writes about it: “... breaking with us, the Soviet government breaks with the most tender, with the deepest in the people” (Questions of Literature. - 1988. - No. 2).

In the mid 20s. Klyuev makes some attempt to adjust his muse to “new songs” (“Bogatyrka”, 1925; “Leningrad”, 1925 or 1926), however, in parallel with them, “new songs” are also created, in which the motive of Russia’s “departure” from alien modernity sounds : “The page conceals along the river / Swan flying cry. / Flies off Rus flies away (“I won’t write from the heart ...”, 1925) and curses to the “iron”: “The iron cattle gored / Kolyada, a warm jacket, a sleigh” (“Our Russian truth perished ...”, 1928). With special epic force, the idea of ​​the death of Russia is developed by K. in the poems "The Village" (1927), "Solovki" (1926-1928), "Pogorelshchina" (1928), "The Song of the Great Mother" (1931), which are the tragic epic of the end Russia and the swan song of her last rhapsod. They are joined by the poems “Lament for Sergei Yesenin” (1926) and “Zaozerye (1927). In "Pogorelshchina", calling himself "the songwriter Nikolai", the poet takes on the mission of testifying to distant descendants about the unique beauty of the "Miracle Russia" burnt by the "human rabble". Responding on January 20, 1932, to the proposal of the Board of the Writers' Union to subject “self-criticism of his last works, K. expresses himself; “If Mediterranean harps live for centuries, if the songs of poor, snow-covered Norway are carried around the world on the wings of polar gulls, then is it fair to take the birch bark Sirin of Scythia, whose only fault is its many-colored witch pipes. I accept both the finca and the machine gun if they serve the Sirin-art ”(Rereading again. - L., 1989. - P. 216.

Only “Lament for Sergei Yesenin”, “Village” and “Zaozerye” are published during the life of the poet, all the rest of the poems will appear in print in his homeland only after more than fifty years.

In 1928, Klyuev's last collection of poems, The Hut and the Field, was published, entirely compiled from previously published. However, the next five years are the period of the most intense and even, as it were, “desperate” creativity. In addition to the tragic epic of “flying away” Russia, a significant layer of lyrics is being created, united by the name of Anatoly Yar-Kravchenko, the hero of his last lyrical novel (“I Remember You and Don’t Remember ...”, 1929; “To My Friend Anatoly Yar”, “From Death Songs” , "A Tale of Sorrow" - 1933), as well as a large cycle of poems "What are the gray cedars rustling about", marked by the drama of personal life (loneliness) and the conflicting confrontation of modernity.

Invariably emphasizing his spiritual (and even genetic) affinity with the "fiery name" of the unbending archpriest Avvakum, Klyuev does not intend to give up his positions in an unequal struggle. In "Pogorelshchina", under the guise of historically ancient, legendary enemies of Rus', the Polovtsians and Saracens, the image of the current destroyers of its spirituality and beauty is drawn. He not only fiercely defends his own "birch-bark Sirin", but in a passionate invective "Slanderers of Art" (1932) he takes under protection from the pogromists of Russian poetry the most persecuted by them S. Klychkov, S. Yesenin, A. Akhmatova, P. Vasiliev. At the end of 1933 or the beginning of 1934, Klyuev created the “Ruin” cycle, which was already openly directed against the atrocities of the existing regime, from the pages of which a stunning picture of people’s suffering arises: hunger, mass deaths of dispossessed Ukrainians taken to the Vologda region, digging the infamous canal: “That is the White Sea death -channel, / Akimushka dug it, / From Vetluga Prov and aunt Fekla, / Great Russia got wet / Under a red downpour to the bones / And hid tears from people, / From the eyes of strangers into the deaf swamps. In all these works, filled with pain and anger for everything that is happening in Russia, the poet's voice sounds firm and fearless. And only in his dreams (K. told them to his relatives, they were preserved in their records) - prophetic forebodings of his own death. Many lines from “Ruin” turned out to be prophetic, in particular about future Russia (unfortunately, about real Russia): “She must lead the black ones, the horse from Karabakh ...”

February 2, 1934 Klyuev (at that time he lives in Moscow) is arrested for anti-Soviet agitation. During interrogations, he does not hide his resolute rejection of "the policy of the Communist Party and Soviet power aimed at the socialist reorganization of the country", which he considers "as the state's violence against the people, bleeding and fiery pain." The October Revolution, he says, "plunged the country into an abyss of suffering and disaster and made it the most miserable in the world." “I believe that the policy of industrialization is destroying the basis and beauty of Russian folk life, and this destruction is accompanied by the suffering and death of millions of Russian people ...” (Spark. - 1989. - No. 43). Exiled at first in the village. Kolpashevo (West Siberia), Klyuev was soon transferred to Tomsk, where in the spring of 1937 contact with him was lost, giving way to versions and legends about his end. And only in 1989, from the materials of the Tomsk NKVD that became available, the true picture of his death was revealed: on July 5, 1937, he, already completing his term of exile, was arrested for the second time as an active, “close to the leadership” member of the “monarcho-cadet” rebel organization " Union for the Salvation of Russia" (never existed); sentenced to the highest measure of "social protection", he was shot on one of three days - October 23-25, 1937.

The last of Klyuev's famous works is the poem "There are two countries: one is the Hospital ...". Sent with the last letter to A. Yar-Kravchenko (March 25, 1937), it testifies that, despite all the suffering and disasters, the creative forces did not leave the poet.

Works: Works: In 2 volumes - Munich, 1969; Poems and poems. - L., 1977; Forefathers // Literary Review. - 1987. - No. 8; Letters to S. Klychkov and V. Gorbacheva // New World. - 1988. - No. 8; Songbook. - Petrozavodsk, 1990; Poems and poems. - M., 1991; Song of the Great Mother // Banner. - 1991. - No. 11; Dreams // New Journal (Leningrad). - 1991. - No. 4; Loon fate. From letters of 1919 // Sever. - 1992. - No. 6; Letters to A. Yar-Kravchenko // Sever. - 1993. - No. 10; Letters to N.F. Khristoforova-Sadomova // North. - 1994. - No. 9.

Lit .: Filippov B. Nikolay Klyuev; Materials for the biography // Klyuev N. Soch. - Munich, 1969. - V.1; Gruntov A. Materials for the biography of N.A. Klyueva // Russian literature. - 1973. - No. 1; Azadovsky K. Nikolai Klyuev: The path of the poet. - L., 1990; Bazanov V.G. From the native shore: On the poetry of Nikolai Klyuev. - L., 1990; Subbotin S. Kostin K. Return of the Pesnoslov // Klyuev N. Pesnoslov. - Petrozavodsk, 1990; Kravchenko B. Through my life // Our heritage. - 1991. - No. 1; Kiseleva L. Christianity of the Russian Village in the Poetry of Nikolai Klyuev // Orthodoxy and Culture. - Kyiv, 1993. - No. 1; Mikhailov A. History and fate in the mirror of dreams (according to the dreams of Nikolai Klyuev) // Measure. - 1994. - No. 2; Meksh E. The image of the Great Mother: Religious and mythological traditions in the epic work of Nikolai Klyuev. - Daugavpils, 1995; Pichurin L. The last days of Nikolai Klyuev. – Tomsk, 1995; Mikhailov A. "Cranes Caught in a Blizzard..." (N. Klyuev and S. Yesenin) // Sever. - 1995. - No. 11-12; Nikolay Klyuev. Research and materials. - M., 1997.

(October 10, 1884 - between October 23 and 25, 1937)

Poet and prose writer, one of the largest representatives of Russian culture in the first third of the 20th century.

The fate of Klyuev - both biographically and literary - was not easy. He was born in one of the villages of the Koshtug volost, which, according to the then territorial-administrative division, was part of the Olonets province. In which particular village is unknown, since in the parish book of the Sretenskaya Church with. Koshtugi, where the future poet was baptized, only the parish is indicated as the place of birth. Klyuev's father, Alexei Timofeevich (1842 - 1918), a native of peasants, was a native of the Kirillovsky district of the Novgorod province; returning after fifteen years of military service, he became a sergeant (lower rank of the county police), and then - a prisoner in a state-owned wine shop in the village of Zhelvachevo, Makachevsky volost, Vytegorsk district. The poet's mother, Praskovya Dmitrievna (c. 1851 - 1913), was brought up in an Old Believer family. Thanks to her, already a seven-year-old boy, Klyuev mastered the reading and writing of the Book of Hours, "like a palace decorated", joined the folk poetic work and the spiritual heritage of Ancient Rus'. Early printed and handwritten books, as well as icons of pre-Nikon writing, were part of the parental home.

In 1893 - 1895. Klyuev studied at the Vytegorsk parochial school, then graduated from a two-year city school, entered the Petrozavodsk paramedic school, but left it a year later for health reasons.

There is almost no documentary evidence of his biography at the turn of the century. The poet's own memoirs about this period of life (autobiographical notes, the story "Loon's Fate") are clothed in an artistic form and cannot be regarded as completely reliable. According to these memoirs, young Klyuev underwent a severe training with the Solovetsky elders, belonged to the sect of "white doves-Christs", wandered around Russia from the Norwegian coast to the mountains of the Caucasus. During these wanderings, he happened to see Leo Tolstoy and perform religious chants of his own composition in front of him.

Revolutionary ferment in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. captured Klyuev. For inciting the peasants of the Makachevo volost to take anti-government actions, he was captured in January 1906 by the police and spent six months in the prisons of Vytegra, St. Petersburg and Petrozavodsk. Klyuev continued to engage in political activities even after his release. He maintained ties with the All-Russian Peasant Union, with the Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats. In 1907, Klyuev had to put on a soldier's overcoat. For refusing to take up arms on religious grounds, he was subjected to another arrest. The doctors of the Nikolaev military hospital in St. Petersburg declared him unfit for military service. After that, he settled in the village of Zhelvachevo and took up literary work. Klyuev lived in this village from 1895 to 1915. From time to time he had to visit St. Petersburg on publishing business.

Klyuev first published his poems in the St. Petersburg almanac "New Poets" in 1904. The turning point in his biography was the correspondence with A. A. Blok, which began in 1907. Blok saw in Klyuev a representative of healthy popular forces and helped him enter the world of literature. The poet's works began to appear in well-known periodicals - both reputable, with an established reputation, and newfangled (in the journals Sovremennik, Russian Thought, Testaments, Northern Notes, Golden Fleece, Hyperborea, in supplements to the Niva magazine, in the Birzhevye Vedomosti newspaper, etc.). In 1912, Klyuev's first poetic book "Pine Chime" was published. It was followed by others: "Brotherly Songs" (1912), "Forest Songs" (1913), "Worldly Thoughts" (1916). The works written by Klyuev attracted the attention of critics. They were reviewed by well-known writers: V. Ya. Bryusov, S. M. Gorodetsky, N. S. Gumilyov, Ivanov-Razumnik (R. V. Ivanov), V. L. Lvov-Rogachevsky, P. N. Sakulin, D. V. Philosophers. Klyuev was invited to read poetry by the owners of fashionable salons and organizers of concerts and poetry evenings.

Sophisticated public of the early XX century. he appeared as a poet from the depths of the people and struck her with unusual images, rich language, deep knowledge of the hidden aspects of the spiritual life of the northern peasantry. The world that opened up in Klyuev's poetry was admired by Alexander Blok and Nikolai Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova and Sergei Yesenin. These verses made a deep impression on Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

In terms of subject matter, Klyuev’s work adjoined “peasant poetry”, represented by the names of A. V. Koltsov, I. S. Nikitin, I. Z. Surikov, S. D. Drozhzhin. Klyuev himself did not refuse such a literary relationship. But almost from the very beginning it was clear that the scale of his talent was not limited to a masterful description of village life and sympathy for the bitter fate of the peasant. The constant desire to discover their deep essence behind the appearance of phenomena, to feel the “presence of the Creator in creation” gave reason to consider him the heir of the symbolists. For some time, the young poet was counted in their ranks by acmeists.

The closest to him for some time was the literary group "Scythians", formed in 1916. In the program settings of this group, Klyuev was attracted by the rejection of bourgeois civilization, spiritually relaxing a person, relying on the creative power of the national element, the aspiration of revolutionary changes, faith in the saving role for Russia peasant socialism. It was also important for him, apparently, that the group included people who were creatively close to him: S. A. Yesenin, A. M. Remizov, P. V. Oreshin, A. P. Chapygin. However, the "Scythians" did not become a reliable ideological and aesthetic stronghold for Klyuev. He never connected his creative fate with any of the literary movements and with any of the groups of the early 20th century. and remained, in essence, a lone poet, without permanent companions.

Klyuev enthusiastically accepted not only the February, but also the October Revolution of 1917 and, like many contemporary writers, tried to present it in his works as a long-awaited transformation of all life, as a grandiose spiritual upheaval, equal in significance to the creation of the world. But the events taking place in the country quickly dispelled poetic illusions. In the first post-revolutionary years, despite everyday troubles and difficulties, he still felt himself an active participant in cultural life. Mass public events in Vytegra would not take place without him. He collaborated in the local periodical press, gave readings of his works in Petrograd. Books of his poems and poems were published in separate editions (“Red Song” - 1917, “Copper Whale” - 1919, “Songbook” - 1919, “Pussy Songs” and “Fadeless Color” - 1920, “Lion's Bread”, “Mother Saturday ”and“ The Fourth Rome ”- 1922,“ Lenin ”- 1924, etc.). Then the situation began to change noticeably.

For the adherents of the Soviet ideology, Klyuev was a stranger even in the first post-revolutionary years, when at least relative free-thinking was allowed. In 1920, he was expelled from the Russian Communist Party "for his religious beliefs." He did not want to give up these beliefs and could not. The poet's attempts to feel the spirit of "socialist construction", sing in his own way the leader of the proletariat and come to terms with the dominance of Bolshevism in the country were unsuccessful. He continued to remain faithful to the peasant way of life and considered the hut "the sanctuary of the earth", and the village the custodian of the main human values. Industrialization was perceived by him as evil, as a threat to culture (“The invisible Tsargrad is not subject to the turbine”, “The chisel does not yearn for Tyutchev”).

Utopian images of the invisible city of Kitezh and White India begin to play an ever greater role in Klyuev's work. Both of them go back to ancient Russian literature and folklore. The first of them is connected with the belief in the indestructibility of the beautiful spiritual essence of Russia and in the miracle of the coming revival of this essence. And the second became for Klyuev the focus of the most expensive ideas and motives. In the image of White India, the poet expressed his conviction that historically and spiritually Russia is closer to the East than to the West. This image clearly embodied his idea of ​​an earthly paradise, where tirelessly fertile land provides fabulous abundance, where people live in harmony with the surrounding world and do not know enmity towards their neighbor, where peoples merge into a single family, and the human spirit, sensitive to awe "Seraphim resurrections", reaches an unprecedented flowering.

The stubborn unwillingness of the “singer of the Olonets hut” to submit to the “demands of the era” led to the fact that spokesmen for the interests of the proletariat hastened to bury him as a poet and declare him creatively untenable. Throughout the 1920s. there was a gradual displacement of Klyuev from literature.

In the summer of 1923 he was arrested and brought to Petrograd. He was released very soon, but decided not to return to Vytegra, hoping to find more favorable conditions for creative life on the banks of the Neva. Hopes, however, did not materialize. It was more and more difficult to find the way to the reader of his works. Klyuev was ranked among the "kulak poets", and the word "Klyuevshchina" was used to stigmatize "muzhik" writers who did not find the strength to renounce the centuries-old culture of the Russian peasantry. The poem "The Village", published in the January issue of the Leningrad magazine "Zvezda" for 1927, was sharply criticized. argument against it. A year earlier, the 15th Congress of the VKP(b) (All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks) had proclaimed a policy of collectivization of agriculture, and any expression of attachment to the old village was perceived as the intrigues of the class enemy.

In 1932, the instinct of self-preservation prompted Klyuev to move to Moscow. But the poet was destined for the same fate as many of his contemporaries. In February 1934 he was arrested and exiled. The last years of his life were spent in Tomsk. These years were filled with deprivation and suffering, both spiritual and physical. In June 1937, the poet was again arrested on false charges of creating a monarchist and church organization, and a few months later he was shot. The execution took place on 23, 24 or 25 October. It is impossible to establish the exact date of the end of Klyuev's earthly journey.

For almost half a century, Klyuev's literary heritage was withdrawn from cultural circulation. For several generations of readers, such a poet simply did not exist. Re-printing of his works, and then in small print runs for those times, began only in the 1970s. And the real scale of the poet's legacy was revealed to the reading public at the very end of the 20th century, when works that had not been published before became available.

Unfortunately, not all of Klyuev's works "survived the ashes" of the creator and "fled away decay." The text of the play "Red Easter", apparently, has been irretrievably lost, little remains of the poem "Cain". But, fortunately, the manuscripts of the unfinished poems "Pogorelshchina" (1928), "Solovki" (1928), "The Song of the Great Mother" (1931), the poetic cycle "What gray cedars rustle" (1933) have been preserved. Several works written in exile have come down to us. They testify that Klyuev's talent, in extremely unfavorable conditions for creativity, not only did not die out, but also reached new heights. Klyuev's last poems are large-scale works dedicated to the fate of the people at the turning points of their history. Despite the dominant tragic flavor, the main thing in them is the belief in the transformation of long-suffering Russia, in the indestructible ability of the people's soul to rebirth.

Petersburg composer V.I. Panchenko wrote a cycle of songs and romances based on Klyuev's poems. In Vytegra, where the poet lived in the late 1910s and early 1920s, there is his museum. Since 1985, annual Klyuev readings have been held in this city. The Department of the Russian Language of the Vologda Pedagogical University has released a series of collections of scientific papers dedicated to the poet's work.

S. Yu. Baranov, Ph.D., professor

Of course, dividing writers according to their place of residence into "village" and "urban" ones is utter nonsense. Where, in this case, to “stick” the creativity and personality of V.M. Shukshin, who rushed about and was torn “between the city and the village”? Unless to the marginals, people with a dual social orientation. And yet it is impossible for us to get rid of the fact that Russia at the beginning of the last century was a purely peasant country. And is it any wonder that from time to time real nuggets, like, for example, N.A. Klyuev, entered the literature.

Biography of Nikolai Klyuev

Born on October 10 (22), 1884 in the Olonets province in the village of Koshtugi. He belongs to those who with good reason can be called the myth-maker of his own life. On his contemporaries, he made an impression either of the holy fool, or of Christ, or of the second Grigory Rasputin. Klyuev has so confused his own biography that it is almost impossible today to separate the truth from poetic fiction in it.

Being from the Old Believers, Klyuev refused military service, for which he was arrested and persecuted by the authorities more than once. Traveled a lot in Russia. He appeared in the capitals at the beginning of the 20th century, quickly gained fame, performed at literary salons, dressing up as a rustic peasant, sometimes together with S. Yesenin. Like the latter, he took the events of the February Revolution and the October Revolution in a folk poetic, religious vein, dreaming of a peasant paradise.

He highly appreciated the personality of Lenin, finding that he has a "Kerzhen spirit" and "abbot's cry." Nevertheless, criticism looked at Klyuev first as a suspicious "fellow traveler", and then as a "kulak echoer". In fact, he was on the periphery of the literary process. He lived from hand to mouth, almost never published, but he did not give up creativity. "Black days" came in the second half of the 30s. In 1934, even before the assassination of Kirov and the spinning of the flywheel of mass repressions, Klyuev was arrested and exiled to Siberia. There, in Tomsk, three years later, the poet was shot and rehabilitated posthumously only twenty years later, in 1957.

Creativity of Nikolai Klyuev

Klyuev's poetic debut came in 1904. Until 1928, several collections of poems were published. The period of greatest activity was the 1910s, since then the poet began to be "squeezed" out of literature, even despite the initial loyalty to the Bolshevik regime. It is difficult to put any of his contemporaries next to Klyuev in terms of poetic originality - bowing to A. Blok, being friends with V. Bryusov and N. Gumilyov, he went his own way and did not imitate anyone. Rather, they imitated him - the same S. Yesenin and younger contemporaries: S. Klychkov, P. Oreshin, A. Shiryaevets. However, without much success. Klyuev managed to combine the incompatible: symbolist aesthetics with the elements of folklore, literary poetic vocabulary with the density of dialectisms.

Reading Klyuev's poems is an extremely difficult task. It requires intellectual effort, a certain encyclopedism, a good knowledge of peasant life, as well as the historical past of Russia, when it was still called Rus. When it dawned on Klyuev that the Bolsheviks were heading for the destruction of the peasantry as a class, that rural Rus was rapidly becoming a thing of the past, he responded with perhaps the most powerful and poignant work - the poem "Pogorelshchina", an excerpt from which was even preserved in a phonographic recording. In many ways, this poem became fatal in the fate of the poet.

• Homosexuality and lesbianism are known to have been common in Silver Age literature.
• Nikolai Klyuev also belonged to the adherents of same-sex love. During the last meeting with friend-enemy Sergei Yesenin, in order to expose Klyuev's imaginary religiosity, he decided to quietly extinguish the lamp, assuring that the owner would not notice anything. The idea was completely successful.

Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev (1884-1937) was born in the Olonets province in a village on the Vytegra River; his mother taught him "literacy, song structure and all verbal wisdom." He studied in Vytegra at the parochial school, then at the city school, he did not finish the medical assistant's school due to illness.

He began to publish in 1904, and in 1905 his poems appeared in the Moscow collective collections Surf and Wave. At the beginning of 1906, he was arrested for "inciting" the peasants and "agitating illegal ideas." I spent six months in Vytegorsk and then in Petrozavodsk prisons. Klyuev's rebellious ideas were based on a religious (close to sectarianism) basis: the revolution seemed to him the onset of the Kingdom of God, and this topic is the leitmotif of his early work.

After his release, he continued illegal activities, became close to the revolutionary populist intelligentsia (including the sister of the poet A. Dobrolyubov, Maria Dobrolyubova, the “Madonna of the Socialist-Revolutionaries”, and the poet L. D. Semenov). New acquaintances led him to the pages of the capital's journal "Working Way", which was soon banned for its anti-government orientation.

In the autumn of 1907, Klyuev was called up for military service, but, following his religious convictions, he refused to take up arms; under arrest, he is brought to St. Petersburg and placed in a hospital, where doctors find him unfit for military service, and he leaves for the village. At this time, he began a correspondence with A. Blok (the problem of relations between the intelligentsia and the people - from different poles - occupied both, and this communication was mutually important and significant).

Blok contributed to the appearance of Klyuev's poems in the Golden Fleece magazine, later Klyuev began to collaborate with other publications - Sovremennik, Niva, Zavetami, etc. Especially often in 1910-12. Klyuev is published in the Novaya Zemlya magazine, where they are trying to impose on him the role of the spokesman for the “new people's consciousness”, a preacher and prophet, almost a messiah.

In the autumn of 1911, Klyuev's first collection of poems, The Pines Chime, was published in Moscow, to which almost all influential critics responded, unanimously regarding the book as an event in literary life. At this time, Klyuev becomes known in literary (and even bohemian) circles, participates in meetings of the "Workshop of Poets" and in publications of acmeists, visits the literary and artistic cafe "Stray Dog"; around his name there is an atmosphere of increased curiosity, rush interest, and a variety of people are looking for acquaintance with him.

After the release of two collections - “Brotherly Songs”, 1912 (religious poems inspired by genuine “fraternal songs” of the whips), and “Forest were” (stylizations of folk songs), Klyuev returned to the Olonets province. His poems continue to appear in the capital's magazines and newspapers, he visits the capital from time to time.

In 1915, Klyuev met Yesenin, and a close relationship developed between them: for a year and a half they appeared together both in the press and at readings, Klyuev became the spiritual mentor of the young poet, patronizing him in every possible way. A circle of “new peasant” writers is gathering around them, but attempts to institutionalize the commonwealth do not lead to the creation of a durable and lasting association (the Krasa and Strada societies lasted only a few months).

In 1916, Klyuev's collection Worldly Thoughts was published, on the subject of which military events left their mark. Klyuev greeted the revolution enthusiastically (this was reflected in numerous poems of 1917-1918), regarding everything that was happening primarily as a religious and mystical event that should lead to the spiritual renewal of Russia.

In 1919 the books "The Copper Whale", the two-volume "Songbook" (selected from previous years and new poems) and in 1922 his best lifetime collection - "Lion's Bread" were published.

The lyrics of those years reflect the complex experiences of the poet - the painful belief that all suffering will be redeemed by the onset of "brotherhood", "peasant's paradise", longing for dying Rus', crying for the disappearing, murdered village.

In 1928, Klyuev's last collection, "The Hut in the Field", was published, compiled from poems already published, everything that was written by him in the 30s did not get into print.

In 1934 Klyuev was arrested in Moscow and deported to Tomsk; in June 1937 he was arrested a second time, imprisoned in Tomsk and shot.

Nikolai Alekseevich Klyuev (1884 - 1937) - Russian poet, coming from the people's environment. His work was not like the work of other poets "from the plow". It is filled with symbolism and religious images.

Childhood and youth

The future poet was born on October 10, 1884 in the Olonets province. His father was a constable. The mother of the future poet had a great influence on his development.

A storyteller and crying, she taught the boy to love the song style and see the surrounding beauty. The woman was literate and passed on her knowledge to her son.

Parents were convinced of the need for education for their child. Therefore, Nikolai graduated from the parochial school and the city school. His father also sent him to a medical assistant's school, but due to illness, Klyuev could not be trained there.

In 1904, the poems of the young poet were published for the first time. The public accepted them favorably. The poems were melodic, full of symbols, which aroused curiosity and a desire to solve the riddle. In addition, Klyuev did not hide his religiosity, he used biblical themes with might and main in his work. Everything went to the fact that the first collection of the poet was to appear soon, but events turned out differently.

First revolution

Nikolai Klyuev was carried away by the ideas of the revolution. He began to actively agitate the peasants, to promote new views among them. Several times he was arrested and soon released.

Interestingly, Klyuev's religious beliefs coexisted perfectly in his perception with the revolution. In it he saw the struggle for the coming of the Kingdom of God. This he tirelessly reported in his works.

In 1907, the poet still went to jail because of his refusal to do military service. However, this time he did not have to stay there for long. The young man was declared unfit for health reasons and sent to the village. Being far away from St. Petersburg and the main events, the poet began to actively correspond with familiar poets and writers. Among them was Alexander Blok, who had a huge influence on Klyuev.

Hoaxes

Nikolai Klyuev has always been a mysterious person among his acquaintances. This was largely facilitated by the fact that no one knew anything about the life of the poet. Klyuev himself actively used this and told the most interesting stories that happened to him. In particular, according to him, he traveled a lot, traveled all over Russia.

The devout religiosity of the poet enveloped him in a mystical halo. He often mentioned his origin from among the Old Believers. This was true, but Klyuev's parents and grandfathers had long since departed from the old religion. The poet allegedly novitiated in distant monasteries, including Solovki, was familiar with Rasputin and Tolstoy himself.

Creation

Blok became not just a friend of Klyuev. It was thanks to him that the poet's poems began to be published in literary magazines.

In 1911, the collection "Pine Chimes" was published. Critics unanimously announced the emergence of a new brilliant poet. This attracted increased attention to Klyuev. He became a welcome guest in many literary associations.

The following collections "Brotherly songs" and "Forest were" consolidated the poet's fame.

In 1915, Klyuev met Yesenin. The latter saw in him his teacher and subsequently repeatedly stated this. Both took a liking to each other. They even organized joint performances on several occasions. But their relationship was uneven, with frequent quarrels and disagreements.

Life after the revolution

The events of 1917 delighted Klyuev. He believed that his dream of the spiritual renewal of Russia was finally coming true.

However, he was severely disappointed. The new collections "Copper Whale" and "Lion's Bread" reflect Klyuev's confusion, his attempts to see suffering in what is happening in the name of redemption. He understands that the beloved land was in the power of the wrong people, that it was destroyed and trampled, the village is dying, like all of Rus'.

Gradually, Klyuev began to stigmatize the new order. His poems were practically not printed, but this did not prevent them from being distributed illegally.

Death

In 1937 the poet was arrested. He was found guilty of participating in the rebel organization "Union for the Salvation of Russia". Despite the fact that in fact such an association never existed, Klyuev was sentenced to death.