The poem by Eduard Bagritsky, “The Death of a Pioneer” —the only of the works of the Soviet poet included in the school curriculum in literature — was written by him in 1932. A little later, it was published by the Krasnaya Nov magazine, timed to coincide with the publication on the 15th anniversary of the October Revolution. Later, the poem became one of the works of the poet’s lifetime collection.
In the article we will talk about this work, the history of its creation, structure and plot, features of the style.
Eduard Bagritsky
The poet (real surname Dzyubin) was born in Ukraine in 1895 in the city of Odessa, into a Jewish bourgeois family. He was educated in a real school and in a land surveying school. The first poems begin to be published in periodicals in 1913-1914. These were mostly romantic poems, which thematically and stylistically resembled the poetry of Nikolai Gumilyov, R.L. Stevenson and Vladimir Mayakovsky.
In the 1920s, Eduard Bagritsky was a member of the Odessa literary circle, whose representatives were Yuri Olesha, Valentin Kataev, Ilya Ilf, Semyon Kirsanov and other talented prose writers and poets.
He worked as an editor at the Petersburg Telegraph Agency (Odessa branch). During the Civil War he became a volunteer of the Red Army and a member of the Special Partisan Detachment of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Then he served in the political department and wrote propaganda poems.
Under the pseudonyms Someone Vasya, Nina Voskresenskaya and Rabkor Gortsev, the poet published his poems in a number of Odessa newspapers and humorous magazines.
Since 1925 he lived and worked in Moscow. There he became a member of the literary association "Pass". In 1928, he published a collection of poems.
Eduard Bagritsky died in 1934 after a serious long illness.
"The Death of the Pioneer": the story of creation
In Soviet literary criticism, it was believed that this work was written in 1930, when the poet, who at that time was living with his friend, heard about the death of his daughter, thirteen-year-old Val Dyko. Allegedly, she died in the hospital from scarlet fever. The girl’s mother brought the dying baptismal cross, but the pioneer Valya refused to wear it. The same version was voiced by the poet himself at a meeting with correspondents of Pioneer Truth. Moreover, this fact was so strengthened in literary criticism that the street on which stood the house where Bagritsky was staying, later began to bear the name of the poet.
In fact, the real Valentine died much later, when the poet no longer lived in Kuntsevo. Most likely, the spelling of the poem was influenced by the incident that occurred in the town of Pikozero, Arkhangelsk Region (Bagritsky, who had been there, heard about it). The event was similar to the one described above: a pioneer dying of a cold, a twelve-year-old girl Vera Selivanova, they want to force to kiss the icon, but she gives fireworks.
At the same time, the poet himself has repeatedly said that the poem artistically comprehends the real facts, therefore, the basis of the work is still fiction.
Plot
So, the plot of “Death of a Pioneer” is as follows: a pioneer girl, Val, dying of scarlet fever in the hospital, her mother brings a baptismal cross, begging him to put on and ask God for healing. But Valya’s maternal dreams of traditional Christian values ​​and the future, where a good dowry, a well-groomed house, a strong economy and a happy marriage are promised, do not seduce.
Even in a fever, Valya sees walking pioneer detachments, a raised red banner, hears the sounds of horns. The last gesture that the girl, weakened from a serious illness, was able to make, was to show with her hand a pioneer salute, and not a sign of the cross.
Tale of Valentine
Bagritsky wrote a poem in the form of a fairy tale, as some stylization and repetitions speak of. The author himself said this:
I wrote the poem Death of a Pioneer in the form of a fairy tale. I clearly realized that it should be written as simple as possible. Talk about why Valya is dear to me. I wanted to show that her death was unforgettable, and despite the fact that Valya died, the song about her will remain alive, with this song the pioneers will go about her.
A lot of research has been written about this unusual in structure, similar to a spell, poem. There are those in which the poem in the plot is compared even with the lives of the saints.
But there are, for example, parallels that some literary scholars draw between the poem and the humorous poem of one of the poets of the OBERIU association of Nikolai Oleinikov "Karas" (1927). However strange this juxtaposition of the heroic and the comic may be.
Beating the fate of a small fish, Oleinikov asked himself the question of contrasting everyday life and death, which did not reach ideals, but Karasik aspired to them:
White currant
Black trouble!
Do not walk carp
With sweet never.
Or:
So noise, muddy
Neva water!
Do not swim carp
Nowhere else.
But references to saber heroic campaigns at Bagritsky echoed at Oleinikov with a sadistic reference to knives that gutted a poor fish. And the square with a flying banner - with a red-hot kitchen frying pan. At the same time, the poems are written with such a similar rhythmic-intonational pattern that it is quite difficult not to notice it.
Epigraph and song
The poem "Death of the Pioneer" has an auto-epigraph. This is a quatrain about a thunderstorm:
Thunderstorm refreshed,
Shakes the sheet.
Ah, green sticks
Two-turn whistle!
Indeed, the entire plot of the poem is structured so that the last thunderstorm in Vali’s life is compared with the country's bright pioneering youth. Life is understood not as a calm and stable life, but as a battle and the elements. Bright ties flicker like lightning, the call "Be ready!" sounds like thunder. The heavy outlines of the clouds seem to the girl a pioneer system. The thunderstorm is discharged by the rain and ends when Valentina's life dies away:
In the green of the lawn
Drops as they pour!
Valia in a blue T-shirt
Gives a salute.
It rises quietly
Ghostly light
Over a hospital bed
Children's hand ...
Part of the poem is even turned into a song. Rather, the poet himself singled out and named him so at the beginning. This later fragment (starting with the words "Youth took us on a saber trip ...") was put to music by various composers - Mark Minkov, Vladimir Yurovsky, Boris Kravchenko.