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 wrote a few years earlier 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" appeared, in which Valery Maslov published his poems by none other than Bryusov under the pseudonym. The work of the poet was ridiculed after the appearance in the almanac of the mono "Oh close your pale legs." Not only Bryusov, but all symbolism in general, got it.

The time of bloom

In 1900 the collection "Tertia Vigilia" appeared. About this time the contemporary of Bryusov Vladislav Khodasevich wrote in his memoirs that the "cutting dissonance" of the poems consisted of "a combination of decadent exotics with the simple-hearted Moscow philistinism". However, this did not prevent Bryusov from acquiring a suite of admirers and imitators. He tirelessly experimented with the form and "music" of the verse. His dream was to write a book in which the poetry of "all time and people" would sound. Simultaneously, in the magazines of that time it was possible to find a great many works of European poets translated by Valery Bryusov.

Life and creativity tightly intertwined with each other in those moments when the poet was in love. His bright novel 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. Dedicated Bryusov book of poetry and another of his passion - Nadezhda Lvova. That was the period when the poet reigned supreme in the literary magazines "Libra" and "Scorpio", which he himself created.

Myths. City. Revolution

The refined eroticism of mythological images gradually gave way to the acuteness of urban landscapes. Valery Bryusov portrayed the urban theme with admiration for the rumbling rhythms of the city, perhaps most vividly in Russian poetry. Creativity of the writer is not exhausted in this topic by his own verses. He offers the reader a book of translations of Verkharn's poetry, where the city sees him as the "ruler of the universe."

Another powerful source of inspiration for the poet was Alexander Pushkin. The author of more than eighty articles on him, the editor of letters and documents related to the work of a genius, was Bryusov. The work of the poet 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 insulted." Such, for example, are the poems "The Mason" and "The Dying Fire". As a witness of the brutal reality of the First World War, Valery Bryusov suffered a nervous shock. His creativity acquired a note of tragic despair in the description of the future. The poet was waiting for the decline of civilization. These moods clearly sounded in the books "Star Mountain" and "The Rise of Machines".

The Russian revolution in 1917 enthusiastically welcomed the writer. His civil sentiment found a place in publishing. Bryusov inspired the "unions", "divisions" and "committees" of the Soviet Republic, and even joined the Communist Party.

Sunset

Poetic experiments of that time, when Bryusov tries, according to Khodasevich's apt remark, "through the conscious cacophony to find new sounds", did not find a response from the public. Watching how under the rule of the Bolsheviks the dreams of a new beautiful life are falling, 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 at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Creativity of Bryusov is a manifesto of the artist's boundless freedom. Evaluating his contradictory and innovative manner, contemporaries called the poet "a hammer and a jeweler." Undoubtedly, the prophetic remark was Valery Bryusov: "I want to live, so that in the history of universal literature about me there were two lines. And they will. "