The artistic world of the collection of pineapples in champagne. Igor Severyanin

The poet, who loved in poetry and in life, and easily conquered women's hearts with his rhymes, searched for the woman of his dreams all his life, and each time fell passionately in love, without a trace, admired many women and showered them with praises. "Love! You are life, as life is always love" - ​​this is how he saw the meaning of life, and women answered him with love: "All my princesses are loving wives, I, their master, their husband who loves them. Their breasts are burned with a sultry kiss, And streams of their souls are merged into cascades." "Thirteenth"

I remember very well how, as a child, I was literally fascinated by the lines from books memoirs of Mikhail Argo, dedicated to the little-known at that time Igor Severyanin.

"As a rule, the acting reading of poetry differs significantly from the author's. ... Poets for the most part go too far in the direction of melodious pronunciation, sacrificing the meaning, content and plot of their poems in the name of euphony and melodiousness. According to contemporaries, this is how Pushkin read his poems , and many poets before him, beginning with Horace and Ovid.

Just as singsongly, neglecting the inner meaning of the verse, Igor Severyanin uttered his works in a completely monotonous way. A tall man with a horse-like oblong face came out onto the stage with long, yard-long steps in a long black frock coat; clasping his hands behind his back, spreading his legs like scissors and firmly planting them on the ground, he looked in front of him, seeing no one and not wanting to see, and proceeded to chant his chanted caesura stanzas. He did not notice the audience, did not pay any attention to it, and it was this style of performance that delighted the audience, caused a certain reaction from a contingent of a certain type. Everything was planned, prepared and executed.

"The queen played-a-ala in the tower of the castle Shop-e-na, And, listening to Shop-en, fell in love with her page!"

Of course, the shamanistic presentation of the text, the poet's emphasized indifference, and the rhymes themselves played a role here. Having finished reading, Severyanin retired with the same yard-long steps, not giving a bow, a glance, or a smile to the public, which in its certain part was melting, melting and bleeding with the juices of admiration for "real", "pure" poetry.

True, unlike most of my contemporaries, I was familiar with Severyanin's poetry. My grandmother carefully kept a whole notebook of neatly transcribed poems that really fascinated with unthinkable images, such as:

"My duty adjutant,
Princess Julia de Vianto,
She rushed into the room, faster than the express ... "

And so on and so forth. Incidentally, the widely cited "pineapple in champagne" is also an invention of Severyanin. His contemporaries were, let's say, discouraged when he ordered ... a glass of vodka with pickles in a restaurant. Common sense and simplicity - the typical qualities of Taurus could not but manifest themselves at least in this.

It is customary to think that the all-Russian fame of Igor Severyanin came from Tolstoy's famous slip of the tongue about the insignificance of Russian poetry. In 1909, a journalist brought one of Severyanin's pamphlets to Yasnaya Polyana and read poems from it to Leo Tolstoy. The illustrious count and convinced realist was sharply outraged by one of the "clearly ironic" poems - "Put a corkscrew into the elasticity of the cork, and the eyes of women will not be timid" - and he smashed the poet to smithereens. After that, in the words of the poet himself, "the all-Russian press raised a howl and wild hooting, which made me immediately known throughout the country ... With a slight arms Tolstoy, everyone who was not lazy began to scold me. Magazines began to publish my poems willingly, the organizers of charity evenings strenuously invited me to take part in them - in the evenings, and maybe in philanthropists - participation, "the poet later recalled.

But, paradoxically, thanks to this, the name of the future idol of pop music and editorial offices flashed on the pages of newspapers. But let's talk about everything in order.

Igor-Severyanin (Igor Vasilyevich Lotarev) was born on May 16, 1887 in St. Petersburg. His mother came from the well-known noble family of the Shenshins, to which she belonged, the threads of kinship connected her with Fet, Karamzin, Kollontai. He began writing poetry at the age of 8. It was first published in the journal "Leisure and Business" for 1905: there, under the name Igor Lotarev, the poem "The Death of Rurik" was placed. The pseudonym came later.

By the way, Igor-Severyanin himself wrote it with a hyphen: as a middle name, not a surname. The name Igor was given to him according to the calendar, in honor of the holy ancient Russian prince Igor Olegovich; the application "Severyanin" made the pseudonym close to "royal" names and meant a place of special love. But the tradition of writing "Severyanin" as a surname was fixed in the same way as the tradition of interpreting the poet one-sidedly based on his "ecstasy" poems.

Igor Severyanin's first love was his cousin. Elizaveta Lotareva was five years older than her relative, she had just turned ... seventeen. They spent the summer months at the family estate, playing, arguing and talking about everything in the world. And they were happy. Later, Igor dedicated several beautiful poems to his beloved, but after five years of half-friendship, half-love, Elizabeth got married. The wedding ceremony traumatized the too impressionable poet, he became ill in the church.

The real feeling came a little later. In 1905, a meeting took place that left an indelible imprint on the life and work of the poet. With Evgenia, then Zhenechka Gutsan. She was unusually good-looking: slender, with luxurious golden curly hair. Igor, having fallen in love, came up with a new name for his young girlfriend Zlata and showered her with poetry. There was nothing more to give away... Who was he? Just an eighteen-year-old youth, without education, without a specialty and without a penny in his pocket. But at the same time, he is extremely self-confident, having no doubt that he will soon be rich and famous ...

"I am a genius, Igor Severyanin!"

And suddenly Evgenia became pregnant, and there was no question of marriage. And she became a kept woman, which gave the poet a reason to exclaim pathetically:

"You won't come back to me, even for Tamara's sake,
For our daughter..."

"Daughter" Severyanin saw only sixteen years later. Tamara became a ballerina and was very similar to him, having inherited nothing from her beautiful mother. But Igor Vasilievich then already had his own, another family. Romantic reconciliation-reunion did not take place ...

... At the end of his life, when it was time to sum up, Igor Vasilyevich, looking back, sadly admitted to himself that in his early youth he was very prevented from perceiving people correctly and "stupid narcissism" and "some kind of slipping around the environment." And this also applies to friends whom he underestimated, and to women: "in the latter case, the consequences were irreparable and distorted life, painfully and negatively affecting creativity." Since this entry was made in the diary when he irreparably and forever broke up with two women "underestimated" by him - his first love Evgenia and his only legal wife, the Estonian Felissa Kruut, it can be assumed that the above maxim applies specifically to them.

But all this was still very far away. And then, Severyanin became fashionable. In 1911, Valery Bryusov, then poetic master, wrote him a friendly letter. Another master of symbolism, Fyodor Sologub, took an active part in compiling Igor Severyanin's first large collection, The Thundering Cup (1913), accompanying it with an enthusiastic preface. And contemporaries were frankly shocked by the real life of the "sacred one", at whose poetic performances the admirers, distraught with delight, threw diamonds and gold jewelry at his feet.

"From the memoirs of Georgy Ivanov" Petersburg Winters ":

It was the spring of 1911. I was seventeen years old. I published several poems in two or three magazines, I had already made literary acquaintances with Kuzmin, Gorodetsky, Blok, I was full of literature and poetry. Until then, I had not heard the name of the Severyanin. But, once rummaging through Wolf's "poetry" table, I opened a sixteen-page pamphlet, on the back of which it was announced that Igor Severyanin received young poets and poetesses on Thursdays, publishers on Wednesdays, admirers on Tuesdays, etc. All the days of the week were distributed and the hours exactly indicated, as in a hospital.

I have read several poems. They "pierced" me... With what, I don't know. However, I did not immediately decide to go "to an appointment with the master." How to hold on, what to say? Another circumstance confused me: undoubtedly, a person who every day receives visitors of different categories, whose poems are full of lobsters, cars and French phrases, is a brilliant and high society person. Will I not be at a loss when, when an arrogant servant in a violet livery will lead me into a dazzling office, when Igor Severyanin himself appears and speaks to me in French with a stunning accent? .. But the die was cast, a cab was hired, it was too late to retreat .. .

Igor Severyanin lived in apartment number 13. This fatal number was chosen against the will of its occupant. So the smallest, dampest, dirtiest apartment in the whole house was numbered. The entrance was from the yard, the cats darted along the splattered stairs. On the business card pinned to the front door with buttons was reproduced in an autograph with a large flourish: Igor Severyanin. I rang. It was opened to me by a little old lady with soapy hands. “Are you to Igor Vasilyevich? Wait, I'll tell you now ... "We talked all evening, alternately reading poetry to each other. From that day on, our acquaintance began.

My friendship with Igor Severyanin, both everyday and literary, did not last long. We broke up when he was at the height of his fame. The Bureau of Newspaper Clippings sent him fifty pieces a day, quite often whole pages full of delight or rage (which, in essence, is all the same for the "fame technique"). His books had an unprecedented circulation for poetry, the huge hall of the City Duma could not accommodate everyone who wanted to get to his "poetic evenings". All of his dreams suddenly came true: Thousands of fans, flowers, cars, champagne, triumphant trips around Russia ... it was a real, somewhat acting, perhaps glory.

The outbreak of the First World War, albeit not immediately, changed public interests, shifted emphasis, the pronounced hedonistic delight of Severyanin's poetry was clearly out of place. At first, the poet even welcomed the war, was going to lead his fans "to Berlin", but quickly realized the horror of what was happening and again delved into personal experiences, further filling the diary of his soul.

And on February 27, 1918, at an evening at the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow, Igor-Severyanin was elected the "king of poets." The second was V. Mayakovsky, the third - V. Kamensky. Alexander Blok was also present at the evening, but he was not awarded any title. We, who know the further development of history, can either grin or shrug. Who now remembers Kamensky? Who will compare Mayakovsky with Severyanin - "round with red"? But the judgment of contemporaries is always less objective than the judgment of posterity.

A few days later, the "king" left with his mother and his "Muse of Music" - common-law wife Maria Dombrovskaya - to rest in the Estonian seaside village of Toila, and in 1920 Estonia separated from Russia. Igor Severyanin ended up in forced emigration, but he felt comfortable in a small "spruce" Toila with its peace and quiet, he fished a lot. Quite quickly, he began to perform again in Tallinn (now Tallinn) and other places.

It is important to emphasize that Igor Severyanin did not consider himself an emigrant. He said: "I have been a summer resident since 1918." He was sure that the "dacha" stay in Toila was temporary. When the period of civil and inter-ethnic wars passes, when life is strengthened in Russia and a firm peace is established, he will return to Petrograd!

Nevertheless, in 1920 Igor Severyanin's attitude towards Estonia deepened, became more significant in terms of comprehension. However, it must be said that Estonia, as a part of Russia, was perceived by him from Toila at first superficially, mainly as a series of landscapes. Natural gratitude to the "blessed land" for sheltering him and his loved ones during the period of revolutionary revelry eventually grew into a much more complex and lasting feeling. And finally, in Estonia, he found his "queen" ...

It was in Toila that Severyanin met his future wife, then still a schoolgirl. Apparently, Igor Vasilyevich saw a heavenly sign in a chance meeting. Mother, Natalya Stepanovna, the only woman who brightened up his bachelor life (after Igor Vasilyevich's girlfriend, until recently, seemingly in love and tender, ready for any sacrifice for the sake of their mutual happiness, unable to withstand the test of a backwater, left him), was very bad, the local doctor said: hopeless ... And now fate, as if taking pity, sent him this strict girl so that the thirty-four-year-old poet would not be left in dreary loneliness.

Having buried his mother, who died on November 13, 1921, Severyanin hastily, and forty days have not passed since the day of the funeral, fleeing the horror of loneliness in a foreign land, "got married." Yes, in the tall, too straight and too serious “estochka” for her nineteen, the learned daughter of a village carpenter, there was no elegant refinement of Maria Dombrowskaya, whom he called in the dedication to the “Thundering Cup” - “My thirteenth and, like Thirteenth, my last", and with whom he lived together for six and a half years.

In Felissa, affectionately called by him "Chip", there was nothing at all that captivated Severyanin in women - games, coquetry, lightness, grace. But there was, and more than enough, something that both the previous and subsequent ladies of his choice chronically lacked: a solid, practical mind, firmness of character, and most importantly, an innate gift of fidelity. Such a reliable comrade, patient and enduring, about his changeable and difficult fate will no longer exist.

“Love is unreasonable,” the poet considered, and therefore admired many women, although at the same time he showered them with praises with numerous reproaches: self-interest, lack of spirituality, commercialism. The young wife was completely devoid of all these shortcomings, although later Severyanin accused her of precisely this. Taurus prefer to patronize themselves, and not be under someone else's care.

The poet lived with Felissa for 16 years and it was the only legal marriage in his life. Behind her, Igor-Severyanin was like behind a stone wall, she protected him from all worldly problems, and sometimes saved him. Before his death, Severyanin recognized the break with Felissa in 1935 as a tragic mistake. He dedicated about two hundred poems to her, including "The Poetry of the Blue Evening" and "The Poetry of Happiness".

"When I press you to my heart,
And your hood is smoldering tulle,
May I not rejoice
And can I survive my beloved?

In general, 1921 became a turning point in the fate of the poet. His political aspirations are changing, as evidenced by his new poems. Relations with neighboring countries are being established. He took Estonian citizenship. One cannot discount the weighty fact that, having married an Estonian, Severyanin turned from a "Petersburg summer resident" into a resident of Toila.

Igor-Severyanin still wrote a lot: in 1919-1923. 9 new books are out. Since 1921, the poet has been touring outside Estonia: 1922 - Berlin, 1923 - Finland, 1924 - Germany, Latvia, Czech Republic ... But still, Severyanin spent most of his time in Toila, fishing.

And his time, apparently, has irrevocably passed: Russian-speaking emigrants had other problems, the poet was long forgotten in the Soviet Union, his queens, grisettes and landaus turned out to be so irrelevant. Yes, and he himself, in the eternal search for livelihood, was no longer up to pages and boudoirs.

In general, the topic of the poet's attempts to return to his homeland was not considered in the press. All comments on this issue are extremely scarce and are united in the following wording: "The northerner met a local young girl, proposed to her, married and thereby predetermined his fate." This topic was over.

Meanwhile, the work of the poet, his correspondence, as well as the memoirs of his contemporaries make it possible to penetrate into his life full of drama outside his homeland, where a decisive attempt to return to Russia, due to a number of circumstances, was transformed into unrealizable hopes for such a return, and the annexation of Estonia to Russia highlighted the obvious fact: northerners poems did not fit into the Soviet literature of the prewar years.

Igor Severyanin, as a poet, seems to have always lived in two dimensions: real life, where blows were constantly waiting for him and from which he constantly tried to escape, and a dream, a fairy tale that he created for his own needs and in which he always found a comfortable place for himself. In the world of queens and pages he created, he chose the role of a page for himself, then it was the turn of the country he invented, where people lived according to the principles professed by himself. And it was replaced by fabulous Russia with gypsies and robbers, with drunken brags, beaten women, etc. In this fabulous Russia, everything was possible, even the return of the poet. Real life left little time for fairy tales.

But he has not yet drunk his bitter cup to the bottom: for sixteen years the words "it's time to go home" have lost their effectiveness with him, dilapidated and aged, like their author. Too much now connected Severyanin with Estonia. In 1935, he left his wife and began to live with his new companion, Vera Korendi, who was nicely renamed “Tokay’s Trickle” because she had been looking for the only true version of the legend all her life, in which “Tokay’s trickle would not spill past crystal insulted by vodka".

Aged, nervous and sick, he became a heavy burden for a young woman. It was not a border barrier that stood in his way, but foreign citizenship, an undissolved marriage, illness, and finally, the uncertainty of the future in his homeland left practically no way out.

"Life has become quite like death:
All vanity, all dullness, all deceit.
I go down to the boat, shivering chilly,
To sink with her into the fog ... "

By the end of 1939, Estonia's fate was sealed: it was to become part of the USSR. The northerner knew about this and, as it seems, in order to justify himself before the new cruel regime, he wrote the poem "Painful" - a penitent confession to the new government and to the reader.

With the accession of Estonia, the formal return of Severyanin to his homeland took place. But his return as a poet remained unfulfilled. Friends unsuccessfully tried to persuade various editorial offices to publish poems Northerner. In 1940, the poet admits that "publishers for real poems now there is no. They don't have a reader. I write poetry without writing it down, and I almost always forget."

War and the occupation of Estonia were on the threshold. On December 20, 1941, Severyanin died. The poet is buried in Tallinn. On the monument are his lines:

"How good, how fresh the roses will be,
Thrown into my grave by my country!"

After the war, it took another thirty years for a collection of his poems to appear in the poet's homeland.

Svetlana MARLINSKAYA.

"Igor Severyanin is the trout of culture. This ironic, capriciously musical fish, as if dripped with musical notes, got used to the crystal and swift environment. How musically the poet writes about Russia: "Do not shoot trout ducks on the river"

Andrei Voznesensky

At the end of 1941, when the Germans occupied the Baltic states, an Estonian citizen, Russian poet Igor Severyanin (real name - Igor Vasilyevich Lotarev) was very ill. His telegram to Moscow to M.I. Kalinin, with a request to help evacuate to the Soviet rear, remained unanswered, and on December 20, 1941, at the age of fifty-three, Igor Severyanin died of heart failure.

Few people know the name of Igor Severyanin now. This is not surprising for many reasons. The Soviet era imprinted the words "decadentism", "northernerism" on the poet's name, his poems were banned as ideologically harmful. The first incomplete collection of essays appeared in Russia only in 1996. The poetry of Igor Severyanin is still waiting for its reader. And it is no coincidence that Andrei Voznesensky found such exquisite words to evaluate his work.

"Lyrical ironic" - this is how the poet himself defined his style in poetry. The famous line "I, a genius - Igor-Severyanin", which many consider programmatic, with attention to the context, turns out to be just a mischievous pose. Indeed, in another poem, he calls himself quite differently:

... I am a nightingale, I am a gray bird,
And my song is rainbow
I have one habit:
Attract everyone to otherworldly lands...,

and in the sonnet "Igor the Severyanin" he speaks of himself like this:

He is good in that he is not at all
What does the empty crowd think of him ...

Subtle, subtle irony often acts as one of the "plans" of the poem. When the reader is not able to feel this plan and takes everything literally, incidents often arise. This happened more than once with the poem "Overture" (more commonly known as "Pineapples in Champagne"), despite the open line: "... I will turn the tragedy of life into a dream farce." And how much gypsyism was created from this poem!

Surprisingly tasty, sparkling, spicy!
I'm all in something Norwegian! I'm all in something Spanish!
I get inspired impulsively. And take up the pen!

The sound of airplanes! Run cars!
Express whistle! The winglet of the buoys!
Someone's been kissed here. Someone was killed there.
Pineapples in champagne! This is the pulse of the evenings!

In a group of nervous girls, in an acute society of ladies
I will turn the tragedy of life into a dream farce.
Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!
From Moscow to Nagasaki! From New York to Mars!

The beginning of the second stanza is the sound of time with new, then magically sounding words that burst into everyday life: an airplane, an express train, a car ... In the nervous rhythm of the poem - the rhythm of the beginning of the century. "Pineapples in champagne" is a symbol of time, its surprise and sharpness, its discoveries, its twists and turns, an eccentric connection of the previously incompatible. How concise, how bright and expressive - brilliant!

But here is what the famous literary critic V.P. Koshelev writes about this poem: “I read this “Overture” and shrugged indulgently. Stupidity and pretentiousness are terrible ... But something probably remained in me. And no, no, yes a completely unpoetic thought came to mind: is it really so tasty that "pineapples in champagne" really are so tasty .. It was not difficult to check it .., but I somehow did not dare. I was afraid to be disappointed, I was afraid to translate poetry into everyday life ... Then I tried - the poem is much "tastier".

VP Koshelev is not alone in such assessments. The poet Nikolai Gumilyov called the poems of Igor Severyanin "fantastic bad taste." Leo Tolstoy, after reading the poem "Khabanera-2":

Plunge the corkscrew into the resilience of the cork
And the eyes of women will not be timid! ..

he exclaimed indignantly: "And they dare to consider such vileness as poetry?"

The audience burst into the "poetry concerts" of Igor Severyanin. His poems, his inspired image, his recitation in a sing-song voice had a magical effect on the listeners. Ivan Bunin wrote that Igor Severyanin was known not only by all high school students, students, female students, young officers, but even by many clerks, paramedics, traveling salesmen, cadets, who at the same time had no idea that such a Russian writer Ivan Bunin existed.

But Igor Severyanin had other admirers. He was a regular and favorite of Fyodor Sologub's literary salon in St. Petersburg. Valery Bryusov, Fedor Sologub, Konstantin Fofanov, who dedicated enthusiastic poems to him, Alexander Blok, Osip Mandelstam, who criticized him from the standpoint of acmeism, Irina Odoevtseva, Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, who loved to read Igor Severyanin's poems during their speeches.

The most popular among the general public were the so-called ecstatic poems:

It was by the sea, where openwork foam,
Where the city crew is rare...
The queen played - in the tower of the castle - Chopin,
And, listening to Chopin, fell in love with her page.

At the beginning of the 20th century, dissatisfaction with life, a premonition of impending catastrophes: wars and revolutions gave rise in many to the desire to escape from reality. The poet's imagination creates a dreamland Mirrelia (named after the beloved poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya). Mirrelia was filled with the wind of time, like Alexander Grin's Scarlet Sails, his cities Zurbagan and Gel-Gyu, like the romantic worlds of the artist Konstantin Bogaevsky, the mysterious worlds of Alexander Vrubel.

The ecstatic verses of Igor Severyanin are very close to the work of Alexander Vertinsky. The wonderful chansonnier even wrote several songs to Severyanin's words. But the essential difference between them is that if Vertinsky's songs mostly sound in the same melodramatic key, then Igor Severyanin's ecstatic verses are only one of the facets of the brilliant diamond of his work. The artistic transformations of Igor Severyanin are so diverse that many of his poems seem to be written by completely different poets.

The end of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th century is the time of the birth of a new worldview. Following science, which has radically changed the idea of ​​space, time and movement, art is restructuring its view of how we see the world and how it should be depicted. This is the time of rebellion in art, the time of the Avant-garde, this is the time of the "Modern" style with its exquisitely sensual eclecticism, connecting fantasy and reality, East and West, archaic and modern.

The ecstatic poems of Igor Severyanin were the embodiment of the "Modern" style in Russian poetry. Found by this style to depict the continuity of movement, the motif of water - a flowing, curved line - was transformed into verbal twists, bends, unexpected turns. Flowing and singing, bewitching sound constructions in the poetry of Igor Severyanin sometimes dominate the meaning.

In a noisy moire dress, in a noisy moire dress
Along the lunar alley you pass the sea.
Your dress is exquisite, your talma is lazorev
And the sandy path from the foliage is patterned
Like spider legs, like jaguar fur.

It is known that the eight-nine-year-old child of the future poet was taken to all the opera performances of the Mariinsky Theater. He was fascinated by the music, the voices of Chaliapin, Sobinov and other brilliant artists. "Is it any wonder that my poems have become musical," writes Severyanin.

But something else is surprising: very little music has been written to Severyanin's poems. Perhaps only one romance by S.V. Rachmaninoff "Daisies".

In 1941, Igor Severyanin declared himself an ego-futurist. With him are three like-minded people. With this "ego", that is, "I", he distances himself from the rest of futurism, which resolutely declared the classics "dead weight". The Manifesto was published, and the principles of ego-futurism were proclaimed in the poetry collection The Thundering Cup. Recalling this Manifesto in 1924, Severyanin writes: "We simply tried to prove in it ... that there is only one indisputable truth in the world - the human soul as an integral part of the Divine."

The main thing that united Severyanin with other futurists was the assertion of the right to free word creation, the requirement to update the word, rhyme, and rhythm.

Now airships are everywhere
They fly, grumbling with a propeller,
And assonances, like sabers,
Chopped rhyme in the heat of the moment!

We are alive with sharp and instantaneous, -
Our spoiled whim
Be icy but inspired
And no matter what, it's a surprise.

Generally speaking, Igor Severyanin's ego-futuristic declarations are very conditional. His work does not fit into any of the literary trends of the time. Is it really that important? After all, the main thing in art at all times is outstanding works and bright personalities.

But no matter how the Avant-garde opposes its novelty to the classics, sooner or later it cannot do without the classics. This manifests itself in many aspects. But here we are interested in one thing: it is curious that, for example, both the symbolist Andrei Bely and the ego-futurist Igor Severyanin in their mature period of creativity suddenly discover a craving for the simplicity of Pushkin's verse with its colloquial intonations. "The simpler the verse, the more difficult it is," remarks Severyanin. "I am writing a novel in Onegin's line," he says in one of his letters in 1923. It was in Onegin's line that the poem "The Bells of the Cathedral of Feelings" was written in 1925, where the trip of the futurists to the Crimea to the Futurism Olympics is described with ease, grace, and charming humor. In the introduction to the poem there is a stanza:

And after Bely and Blok,
When the verse became harder than a tank.
Deeply in love with simplicity
I go va bangue with simplicity

But it is here, in the understanding of simplicity, that there is a fundamental difference between Igor Severyanin and such poets as Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak. If simplicity for Igor Severyanin is a movement towards Pushkin - backwards, then these poets, striving for simplicity, went towards Pushkin - forward, as if in a spiral. Marina Tsvetaeva writes: “The influence of Pushkin as a whole? Oh, yes. But what can it be, except for liberation? Pushkin’s order of 1820 to us, the people of 1929, is only counter-Pushkin. The best example of Pasternak’s Theme and Variations. A tribute to Pushkin and complete freedom from it. Fulfillment of Pushkin's desire".

It was these poets who paved the high road of Russian poetry. Igor Severyanin was somewhat away from her. He failed to catch the main rhythms of the coming time.

This was due to a number of reasons. Firstly, it can be argued that in subsequent years, for the development of poetry, ego-futuristic principles turned out to be less "strong" than, for example, acmeistic ones with their requirement of a very strict strict selection of words in a stanza compressed to the limit. Secondly, a wave of extraordinary popularity among an undemanding public, as it happens, could cause a counter wave of oblivion. And finally, if for these poets the 1920s were years of extraordinary creative upsurge, then Igor Severyanin from 1918 until the end of his days was in terrible spiritual isolation.

In 1918, he leaves for a dacha in Estonia and remains there forever, cut off from his former literary environment. No one needs his poems here, and "any lyric," according to M. M. Bakhtin's just expression, "exists only in an atmosphere of fundamental sound non-loneliness."

But here comes the blasphemous thought. And, perhaps, it’s good for poetry that Igor Severyanin remained in his unique integrity the way he always was: “a poet with an open soul,” as Blok said, a poet “with a celestial soul,” according to Odoevtseva , a child poet with a surprisingly enthusiastic perception of the world.

Love! Russia! The sun! Pushkin! -
Powerful words!…
And is it not from them at the edge
We are leafing out!
And is it not from them that you are getting younger?
Aging youth?...
And didn’t they subside in their souls
Evil, meanness, hatred and lies!…

All the most beautiful for the poet forever remained associated with Russia: love, the sun, Pushkin. He dedicated many heartfelt poems to the Motherland. In the 1914 poem "Spring", the poet compares Russia with a clean, "inexhaustible" stream of a spring. But his attitude towards Russia has never been jingoistic. He loves her as one sometimes loves a sick child:

There are days I hate
Your homeland, your mother.
There are days she's not around
I sing it with all my being...

The theme of Russia sounds especially often and sharply during emigration.

About Russia to sing - what to strive for in the temple
Over forest mountains, field carpets...
About Russia to sing - what to meet spring,
What to wait for the bride, what to console the mother ...
To sing about Russia - what to forget longing,
That Love is to love, that to be immortal.

Already at the end of 1918 in Toila he wrote:

For a year now I have been living like a plant, Escaping from the horrors of reality ...

Salvation was only in love: for life, for poetry, for a woman: "Love - you are life, like life - always love."

In 1927, in the poem "Ten Years", Igor Severyanin sums up his spiritual loneliness:

Ten years - sad years! - how I am abandoned in the seaside wilderness,
Corpse after corpse of spiritual relatives. Yes, and a half-corpse.
Ten years - terrible years! - suffocating indifference
White, red - and pink! - Russian public groups
Ten years - hard years! - debilitating deprivations,
The humiliation of aching and brain-shattering need.
Ten years - formidable years! - satirical stanzas on the target
Human inhuman and eternal enmity.
Ten years - terrible years! - renunciation of many habits,
In the present view - wisely sober - there is no need for bad ones.
But on the other hand, so many years of fish, lakes, copses and birds
And meeting by the sea incomparable spring!
But on the other hand, there are so many years, innocent years, like white apple trees,
Unearthly flowers growing on the ground
And poems from the soul, like nature, free and bold,
And forgiveness in the eyes that are in tears, and - love on the forehead!

The village of Toila, where the poet lived, was located on a high, pine-covered, sandy shore of the Gulf of Finland. Here in 1921 he married the daughter of a local carpenter. Felissa Kruth was beautiful, tall enough for him, smart. She spoke and wrote poetry equally well in Estonian and Russian. Performed poetry readings. Together with Igor Severyanin, they created the Anthology of Estonian Poetry for 100 Years.

My wife is dearer to me than all women
Your majestic soul.
All my life, all the power to know her, God forbid,
My big love.

In 1922 their son was born. The northerner called him Bacchus, having somehow managed to convince the priest that there is such a name in the calendar.

But neither the birth of a son, nor the love of a beautiful woman could drown out the painful thoughts about his position as a freeloader in the family of his father-in-law.

From the letters to Augusta Baranova: “I often sit ... often without bread, on only potatoes - the cold sets in, there is no firewood, there are no loans ...”, “I can’t earn money by side methods, because now I’m completely sick” (1925).

Traveling abroad for literary earnings "... at enormous costs, nerves and energy do not justify themselves." (1937)

The literary environment of Estonia was alien to the poet, although he, as a classic in 1926-31. and 1937 - 40 years. appoint a state subsidy, which, however, could hardly make ends meet.

And yet, the work of Igor Severyanin does not stop in Toila. Poems 1918 - 1919 compiled 3 books. In 1920 - 26 years. he writes poetry, poems and a novel in verse. Many verses are just as expressive and even more polished, they have more wisdom.

However, interest in them is fading, and this is due not only to the local public - after the war of 1914, which destroyed the usual way of life, the lyrics are generally perceived as something unnatural.

Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova experienced the same difficulties in this regard, but they were looking for new opportunities for creativity. The ground for this was the tragic experience of their life, which the "summer resident" Severyanin, with all his difficulties, still did not have ...

In the early 1940s, Igor-Severyanin stopped writing poetry. He didn't see the point in it. According to him, he performed an abortion on them.

Need, serious illnesses, mutual irritation in the family - in 1931, another woman bursts into the life of Severyanin. Vera Korendi (Koreneva, nee Zapolskaya) from the age of 15 was romantically passionate about the poetry of Igor Severyanin and inspired herself that her purpose was to be close to the poet, to create conditions for his creativity. In 1931, she wrote a letter to the poet, which struck him with impeccable spelling and style. In 1935, after another quarrel with Felissa, he moved to Vera in Tallinn. In 1940, he dedicated the poem "Last Love" to her:

You flowed into my life like a trickle of Tokay
In the crystal insulted by vodka,
And I sighed with the words: "So that's what you are,
Everything is as it should be. "In the mouth
I'll kiss you or kiss you in the eyes
I breathe the southern air.
And then, that I met you like this,
As you are, I do not write poetry.
They write only waiting, suffering, dreaming
Making mistakes, praying and threatening.
But write after words like: "Here you are!
Everything is as it should be!" - it is impossible.

However, the most recent poem was addressed to Felissa. There is this stanza:

Twenty years binds us - a third of life,
And you are very special to me;
I would like to die with you
My love is truly to the grave.

Literature
1 Igor Severyanin. Poems. M. Soviet Russia, 1968. Entry. article by V.P. Koshelev, p. 7
2 I. Odoevtseva. On the banks of the Seine.
3 Cit. by: Igor Severyanin. Poems M. Soviet Russia, 1968, p. 17
4 Igor-Severyanin. Collected works in 5 volumes, volume 5 St. Petersburg, "Logos", 1996. page 69.
5 Marina Tsvetaeva about art. M. Art, 1997. From the essay "Natalia Goncharova" p. 174

___________________

Borovskaya Natalya Ivanovna

"OVERTURE. PINEAPPLES IN CHAMPAGNE”
Igor Vasilyevich Lotarev / Severyanin (1887-1941)
Translation from Russian into Bulgarian: Krasimir Georgiev

Pineapple in champagne! Pineapple in champagne!
Surprisingly tasty, sparkling, good!
Tsyal eat in something Norwegian! Tsyal sm in something Spanish!
Inspirational sm from poriv! And sharpen my pen!

Hvarkat airplanes! Fuck cars!
Windstorm Express! Paid walkers whistle!
Some tuk e kiss! They killed someone there!
Pineapple in champagne - the pulse from the evening is holy!

In a group with nervous girls, in a society they are ladies,
az trouble worldly turned into a blanofars ...
Pineapple in champagne! Pineapple in champagne!
From Moscow to Nagazaki! From New York - chuck to Mars!

accents
OVERTURE. pineapple in champagne

Pineapple in champagne! Pineapple in champagne!
Surprisingly tasty, sparkling, good!
Qial eat something Norwegian! Qial sm in something Spanish!
Inspirational sm from poriv! And I'll sharpen my pen!

Hvarkat airplanes! Furry cars!
Windstorm express! Paid walkers whistle!
Some here kissed! Somebody was killed there!
Pineapple in champagne - the pool is holy from the evening!

In a group with nervous girls, in the environment they are ladies,
I’ll turn worldly into a blano farce ...
Pineapple in champagne! Pineapple in champagne!
From Moscow to Nagazaki! From New York - Chuck to Mars!

Translation from Russian ezik into Bulgarian ezik: Krasimir Georgiev

Igor Severyanin
OVERTURE. PINEAPPLES IN CHAMPAGNE

Surprisingly tasty, sparkling and spicy!
I'm all in something Norwegian! I'm all in something Spanish!
I get inspired impulsively! And take up the pen!

The sound of airplanes! Run cars!
Express whistle! The winglet of the buoys!
Someone's been kissed here! Someone was killed there!
Pineapple in champagne is the pulse of the evenings!

In a group of nervous girls, in an acute society of ladies
I will turn the tragedy of life into a dream farce...
Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!
From Moscow to Nagasaki! From New York to Mars!

OVERTURE. PINEAPPLE WITH CHAMPAGNE (translation into Ukrainian language: Nikolay Sysoylov)

Wonderfully tasty and spicy - mov bi in the sparks of the inside!
I'm wearing a Norwegian! I have Spanish on me!
I'm getting pissed off! I take up the pen!

Skrekіt aeroplanіv! Gurkit cars!
Vitro whistle express! Crilolite buєriv!
There - someone was kissed! Here - someone was beaten!
Pineapple and champagne .. - so the pulse of the evening!

For nervous girls, - in the case of jealous ladies, -
I'm out of life's tragedies .. I'll create a dream-farce ...
Pineapple and champagne! Pineapple and champagne!
From Moscow to Nagasaki! From New York to Mars!

---------------
Ruskiyat sings, writer, playwright and translator Igor Severyanin (Igor Vasilyevich Lotarev) was born on May 4/16, 1887 in St. Petersburg. Parvite mu poetic publications sa from 1904 Prevezda poetry from French, Estonian, Polish and Yugoslav sing. He is attached to the literary direction of his futurism. Authored in verse "The Thundering Cup" (1913), "Pineapples in Champagne" (1915), "The Nightingale" (1923), an autobiographical novel in verse "The Bells of the Cathedral of Feelings" (1925), on the collection "Medallions" (1934), imbued with love for the motherland, on the works of "Lightning Lightning of Thought" (1908), "And the garden is fragrant in spring" (1909), "Intuitive colors" (1910) , "Spring Day" (1911), "Swinging chair" (1912), "With a Lilac Cross" (1913), "Zlatolira" (1914), "Victoria regia" (1915) , "Poezoentrakt" (1915), "Collection of Poetry" (1918), "Behind the stringed fence of the lyre" (1918), "Poezo Concert" (1918), "Creme de Violettes" (1919 g.), „Puhajogi” (1919), „Vervena” (1920), „Minstrel” (1921), „Mirralia” (1922), „Falling rapids” (novel in verse, 1922 1922), Plymouth Rock (comedy, 1922), Eiole Fairy (1922), Titan's Tragedy (1923), Orange Hour Dew (1925), Leandra's Piano (novel in verse, 1925), "Classic Roses" (1931), "Adriatica" (1 932) and others. The trace of 1918 is more alive in Estonia. She died on December 20, 1941 in Talin.

The name of Igor Severyanin was hushed up by domestic literary criticism until the 80s of the twentieth century. The work of Severyanin came into contrast with the perception of reality and the then familiar understanding of poetry. His contemporaries-critics accused the author of bad taste and vulgarity. It should be noted that the poet took such criticism calmly, and over time, he began to receive allied responses from the regulars of the St. Petersburg literary salon Fyodor Sologub.

The poem "Overture" written in 1915 brought Severyanin fame as a "salon" lyricist.

The history of the creation of this work was as follows: V.V. Mayakovsky, who was invited to visit Severyanin, drinking champagne, dipped a pineapple into a glass, ate it and invited the host of the evening to follow his example. The first line of the verse was immediately born in the poet's head, and soon the collection of poems "Pineapples in Champagne" was published.

The poem creates a feeling of delight, solemnity, and at the same time nervousness and hysteria. It symbolizes the time in which the poet worked. Dissatisfaction with life gave rise in many to the desire to escape from reality. A new attitude was born in creative people. Enthusiastically shouting "pineapples in champagne!", the poet is inspired and "takes up the pen!". This sudden inspiration expresses the lyricism of the hero, who runs from the emptiness of reality and pathos.

The surrounding reality is sharply, concisely and vividly described, which is expressed as "pulse of the evenings!" This novelty, according to the author, also deserves a place in poetry, along with the eternal values ​​that are sung everywhere.

The picture of "easy life" is conveyed through the theme of women in high society. girls "nervous", ladies' society "acute". Such an environment is cruel, it is capable of "tragedy of life" turn into "dreamfarce".

The atmosphere pushes to do something, to go somewhere: “From Moscow to Nagasaki! From New York to Mars!” The nervous rhythm, the unexpected combination of the incompatible fits into the three stanzas of the poem.

The diversity of images behind which the author seems to want to hide, the impulse to act, the quick change of plot after reading leaves a feeling of understatement.

The use of neologisms makes the poem very simple for the perception of the current reader. There is a place for the new, magical-sounding words that quickly burst in at that time: airplanes, cars, express trains, boats. And the meanings of archaisms are clear, these words are used in speech to this day: impetuously, pen. Interesting words, the creation of which is attributed specifically to Igor Severyanin: wind whistle, winglet, dream farce.

Allegorical images help to understand the true meaning of empty conversations and the clink of glasses at pretentious evenings. The absence of epithets makes it possible to achieve the dynamism of the poem, and its solemnity is achieved due to the large number of exclamation marks.

The use of new rhythms, neologisms was unusual for the works of literature of that time.

The lyrical poem "Overture" can be attributed to the song genre. No wonder the author gave such a name to the verse, comparing it with a piece of music.

The work of Igor Severyanin is very different from the works of his contemporaries. It has more desire for novelty, courage. Now the poem "Overture" is relevant as never before. The rejection of life according to imposed stereotypes, as well as the senseless race for fashion, were the impetus for the author to create this masterpiece of literature.