“Intelligentsia and Revolution” of the Bloc in summary
“Russia is dying,” “Russia is no more,” “the eternal memory of Russia” – I hear around me. But before me is Russia: the one that our great writers saw in awesome and prophetic dreams.
Russia is a storm. Russia is destined to endure torment, humiliation, division; but it will come out of these humiliations new and – in a new way great.
Europe has gone mad: the color of humanity, the color of the intelligentsia sits for years in a swamp, sits with conviction on a thousand-mile strip called the “front.” People are tiny, the earth is huge. It’s nonsense that the world war is so noticeable: a rather small patch of land to lay hundreds of corpses of human and horse.
Now that all the European air has been changed by the Russian revolution, which began with the “bloodless idyll” of the February days and grows nonstop and threatening, it seems sometimes, as if there were not those recent, such ancient
It is not the artist’s job to watch the fulfillment of what has been planned, to bake about what will or will not happen. The artist’s business, the artist’s duty is to see what is intended, to listen to the music that “rends the wind” rattles.
What is planned? To remake everything. Arrange so that everything becomes new; to live, dirty, boring, ugly, our life has become a fair, clean, fun and wonderful life. When such intentions tear down the bonds that bind them, this is called a revolution.
The revolution as a stormy whirlwind, like a snowstorm, always brings a new and unexpected, it cruelly deceives others; she easily cripples in her whirlpool of worth; she often endures unworthy on land unharmed; But this does not change the general direction of the flow, nor the terrible and deafening roar that the flow produces. This rumble is always about the great.
The scope of the Russian revolution that wants to embrace the whole world is this: it cherishes the hope of raising the world cyclone, which will carry to the snow-swept countries –
What did you think? What revolution is an idyll? What creativity does not violate anything on its way? That the people are good?
The intellectual never had a certain soil under his feet. Its values are immaterial. The skills, knowledge, methods, skills, talents – property nomadic and winged. We are homeless, demonless, disgraceful, poor – what can we lose? It’s a shame to laugh, smirk, cry, break your hands, to gasp over Russia, over which the revolutionary cyclone lies. Russian intelligentsia like a bear in your ear came: small fears, small words. As it does, it will respond. The longer the intelligentsia will be proud and malicious, the more terrible and bloodier it can become around. With the whole body, with all your heart, with all consciousness, listen to the revolution.
This is a rather concise summary of A. Blok’s article. To understand its meaning, you need to know something else. For a long time the Bloc was occupied with the theme of the people and the intelligentsia. As far back as 1908 he devoted 2 articles to this topic: “The people and the intelligentsia” and “Element and culture”. These articles became literally a prophecy. In the first of them Blok opposes the people of the intelligentsia. He talks about the invisible line that always existed between these layers of society, it is very difficult to overcome. The people are getting stronger, and Russia is preparing for an early denouement of the contradictions between him and his oppressors. The people are big, the intelligentsia is smaller in number. The people are a three-bird by Gogol. The intelligentsia have 2 ways: the first – to merge with the people, the second – to be trampled on them.
In the second article Blok compares the people to the elements, which can suddenly rage. And it simply predicts future events.
Blok happily accepted the revolution, since it saw a new, just device. He saw in it the liberation of the Russian people from age-old oppression and called upon all intellectuals to accept the revolutionary movement in the same way. Nevertheless, he understood that there will be casual victims, they can not be avoided in such a global action. Even in Blok himself, the peasants burned his family estate Shakhmatovo, which was very dear to the poet as a memory of childhood. Blok never spoke of this, even when asked; Only once could not resist: “Why talk about what hurts?”. But still, Blok was sure – with the people the truth, with them “black malice, holy malice,” they have the right to revenge. All these thoughts will be reflected later in the poem “Twelve”, written just a few days after the article “The Intelligentsia and the Revolution.”
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