Valery Bryusov. Creativity of the “hammer and jeweler”

Valery Bryusov hails from a merchant family. He received an excellent education and had encyclopedic knowledge. In 1893, when he was 20 years old, the young man wrote the first poem “Decadents. (The end of the century). ”

The work breathed sympathy for French symbolism. The poet himself several years earlier wrote to the famous Verlaine that he sees his destiny in being the founder of symbolism in his homeland. Two years later, three collections of Russian Symbolists were published, in which, under the pseudonym Valery Maslov, his poetry is published by none other than Bryusov. The poet’s work was ridiculed after the monopost “On shut your pale legs” appeared in the almanac. It went not only to Bryusov, but to all symbolism as a whole.

Heyday

In 1900, the collection "Tertia Vigilia" appeared. Bryusov’s contemporary Vladislav Khodasevich wrote about this time in his memoirs that the “cutting dissonance” of the verses was “in a combination of decadent exoticism with the simple-minded Moscow philistinism”. However, this did not stop Bryusov from acquiring a retinue of fans and imitators. He tirelessly experimented with the form and "music" of the verse. His dream was to write a book in which samples of poetry “of all times and peoples” would sound. At the same time, in the magazines of that time, one could find a great many works of European poets, which were translated by Valery Bryusov.

Life and work were tightly intertwined with each other in those moments when the poet was in love. His vivid affair with Nina Petrovskaya resulted in a cycle of poems dedicated to her. The historical stylization “Fiery Angel” is partly dictated by the love triangle that happened between her, Bryusov and the poet Andrei Bely. Bryusov devoted a book of poems and his other passion - Nadezhda Lvova. That was the period when the poet reigned supreme in the literary magazines Libra and Scorpio, which he himself created.

Myths Town. Revolution

The refined eroticism of mythological images was gradually inferior to the acuteness of urban landscapes. The urban theme with a reverence for the rumbling rhythms of the city was perhaps most clearly depicted in Russian poetry by Valery Bryusov. The writer's work is not limited to this topic with his own poems. He offers the reader a book of translations of Verkharn’s poetry, where he sees the city as “the ruler of the universe.”

Another powerful source of inspiration for the poet was Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. The author of more than eighty articles about him, the editor of letters and documents related to the work of a genius, was Bryusov. The poet’s work of the period of the first Russian revolution did not remain aloof from public life. Bryusov declares his interest in the fate of "humiliated and offended." Such, for example, the poems "Mason" and "Dying bonfire." Having witnessed the brutal reality of World War I, Valery Bryusov survived a nervous shock. His work found notes of tragic hopelessness in the description of the future. The poet was waiting for the sunset of civilization. These moods were clearly heard in the books “Mountain of the Star” and “Rise of the Machines”.

The writer enthusiastically welcomed the Russian revolution of 1917 . His civic sentiment found a place in publishing. Bryusov inspiredly led the “unions”, “departments” and “committees” of the Soviet republic and even joined the Communist Party.

Sunset

Poetic experiments of the time when Bryusov was trying, according to Khodasevich’s apt remark, “to gain new sounds through conscious cacophony,” did not find a response from the public. Watching the dreams of a new beautiful life crumbling under the rule of the Bolsheviks, the poet was disappointed and even depressed, partly due to his addiction to drugs. Valery Bryusov died of pneumonia at the age of fifty and was buried in the Novodevichy cemetery.

Bryusov’s work is a manifesto of the artist’s infinite freedom. Assessing his controversial and innovative manner, his contemporaries called the poet "a thresher and a jeweler." Undoubtedly, the replica of Valery Bryusov turned out to be prophetic: “I want to live so that there are two lines about me in the history of universal literature. And they will be. ”