Theme of the Revolution in Blok's Poem Twelve: A Brief Overview

The theme of the revolution in Blok’s poem “The Twelve” is key. The poet wrote his work a year after the February events of 1917 and a few months after the October revolution. The text resembles a folk song, ditties, sayings in form, but the author filled the traditional composition with a new philosophical meaning, reflecting his own vision of those terrible events that he became an eyewitness.

Symbols of nature

The main image displayed in the work is the wind, which sweeps away everything in its path. It is with the description of the snow blizzard and the blizzard that the poet begins his story. The picture of a winter evening, in which the black colors of the approaching night and the white colors of snow mixed, personifies a rebellious storm that broke out not only in the city, but also in the souls of people. The theme of the revolution in Blok’s poem “Twelve” at the beginning is presented in the images of nature, and the author chooses the most dramatic elements: wind, snowstorm, sky covered with clouds.

Real images

In addition, he also resorted to material images, depicting posters, flags with revolutionary slogans that wave in Petrograd as a sign of serious political change. At the same time, the poet emphasizes the temporality and futility of this fuss: ordinary people rush about next to these posters, like a poor old woman who does not understand what is happening.

The theme of the revolution in Blok’s poem “The Twelve” is twofold. On the one hand, the author accepts the folk element and, as if with his poetic instinct, listens to the music of rebellion. But on the other, he is horrified by the revelation of passions, lawlessness, a symbol of which are the black belts of rifles, to which the author constantly pays attention.

Heroes

But, of course, people remain at the center of the story — twelve Red Guards who serve in the city at curfew. They feel they are masters in this new world and believe that everything is allowed to them. The culmination and apogee of this revelry was the murder of one of them by his former lover Katka.

The theme of the revolution in Blok’s poem “The Twelve” is manifested primarily through concrete human destinies. At first, the killer, a young guy, sincerely regrets what he did: he talks about his love for the girl and is angry with himself for his jealousy. Thus, the author wanted to show that the conscience in people still remained, despite all the horrors of wartime. However, the worst part is that his comrades are ashamed of him, claiming that time justifies any lawlessness. Thus, the poet sensitively caught the new trend of his time, when many were seized with a sense of permissiveness.

About the old world

The image of this former order occupies an important place in the work. The theme of the revolution in Blok’s poem “The Twelve”, the brief content of which is the subject of this review, is notable for the ambiguous interpretation of these events, which makes this work unique in Russian literature.

On the one hand, the poet shows that all the power of the folk element fell upon him with all his might, preparing to completely destroy what had been accumulated over the centuries of previous history. On the other hand, the narrator, observing from the outside the spontaneous folk element, expresses serious concern over the consequences of such careless handling of his own past. And although he listens to the music of this rebellious spirit, nevertheless the whole composition is permeated with a spirit of anxiety for the future. That is why the ambiguous sound was adopted by the theme of the revolution in Blok's poem "The Twelve." Briefly this idea can be expressed as follows: the essence of the events was not so much in the opposition of estates and classes, but in the struggle of good and evil in the souls of people.

This confrontation is observed, first of all, among those who began the struggle for freedom, and ended with robberies and killings. The poet hopes that the bright principle will finally triumph, but the poem itself remains essentially open and leaves room for reflection. Such a contradictory interpretation of events led to the fact that with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, the composition was banned.

It is difficult to speak unequivocally about the revolution in Blok’s poem “The Twelve”: the author seems to accept it at the same time, and at the same time he is afraid that people have lost their moral orientation in life.