Blok, Alexander Alexandrovich

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BLOK, ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVICH

(1880–1921), poet, playwright, essayist.

Alexander Blok, one of Russia's greatest poets and a key figure in the Symbolist movement, was born in St. Petersburg in 1880, into an aristocratic family of German and Russian descent. His father was a professor of law at the University of Warsaw and a talented musician; his mother, a poet and translator. Blok's parents separated shortly after his birth; he spent his childhood with his maternal grandfather, botanist Andrei Beketov, until his mother obtained legal divorce in 1889, remarried, and brought Blok with her into her new apartment. Blok wrote verse from his early childhood on, but his serious poetry began around age eighteen. He studied law without success at the University of Petersburg, transferred to the Historical-Philosophical Division, and received his degree in 1906.

As a young writer, Blok made the acquaintance of Symbolist poets, including Vladimir Soloviev and Andrei Bely. His first poetry collection Stikhi o prekrasnoy dame (Verses on a beautiful lady) was published in 1904. Inspired by a mystical experience and his relationship with Lyubov Mendeleyeva, daughter of the famous chemist, whom he married in 1903, the poems, resonant with Romantic influence, depict a woman both earthly and divine, praised and summoned by the poet. Despite the sublime character of these poems, there are early signs of rupture and disturbance; the supplicatory tone itself borders on despair.

Blok followed his first collection with the lyric drama Balaganchik (The fair show booth), staged in 1906, and his second poetry collection, Nechayannaya radost (Inadvertent joy, 1907). These propelled him to fame. From there he continued to write prolifically, developing a distinctly tumultuous and sonorous style and influencing his contemporaries profoundly. His unfinished verse epic Vozmezdie (Retribution, 1910–1921), occasioned by the death of his father, chronicles his family history as an allegory of Russia's eventual spiritual resurrection; the cycle Na pole Kulikovom (On the field of kulikovo, 1908), celebrates Russia's victory in 1380 over the Mongol Tatars. Yet, despite the spiritual optimism of both works, their lyrical heights coincide with expressions of despair.

Blok supported the 1917 Revolution, perceiving it as a spiritual event, a step toward a transformed Christian world. Yet his twelve-part poem Dvenadtsat (The twelve, 1918) suggests deep ambivalence. Among the most complex and controversial of Blok's works, it mixes voices and idioms (slogans, war cries, laments, wry remarks) without resolving the discord. The shifts of rhythm and diction, the mimicry of sounds, and the punctuation of the verse with diverse exclamations overwhelm the Christian motif.

Blok's disillusionment with the Soviet bureaucracy and censorship is suggested in his fierce and eloquent essay "On the Poet's Calling" (1921), at one level a short treatise on Alexander Pushkin, at another level, a discussion of the conflict between the poet ("son of harmony") and the "mob" (chern ). The poet's calling, according to Blok, is to create form (cosmos) out of raw sound (chaos); this goal is opposed by the mob—the officials and bureaucrats, those committed to everyday vanities.

Blok died in 1921 from a mysterious (possibly venereal) disease, in a state of malnutrition, despair, heavy drinking, and mental illness. His work continued to be published in the Soviet Union after his death, with a marked discrepancy between official and unofficial interpretations.

See also: pushkin, alexander sergeyevich; silver age