Russian Poets and the October Revolution:  Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Mikhail Kuzmin and Others

Aleksander Sylaiev; Iryna Razumenko; Oleksandr Tararak; Viktoriia Vorozhbit-Horbatiuk; Inna Prokopchuk

doi:10.34069/AI/2020.27.03.48

Aleksander Sylaiev Department of World literature, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2388-5951
Iryna Razumenko Department of World literature, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3221-4340
Oleksandr Tararak Department of German Philology, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9740-0750
Viktoriia Vorozhbit-Horbatiuk Comparative Pedagogy Department, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5138-9226
Inna Prokopchuk Department of Design of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Woodworking and Computer Technologies and Designers of the National Forestry University of Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9353-2169

DOI: https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2020.27.03.48

Keywords: Russian poetry, literary process of the 1920s, totalitarian regime, Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Mickhail Kuzmin.

Abstract

The article considers the question of the ideological and creative evolution of famous Russian poets at a turning point in the history of the twentieth century - during the years of the active formation of a totalitarian state system and its aesthetic socialist-realist doctrine. Revolutionary maximalism, the idea of a complete renewal of all being, came not only from Marxism and the Bolsheviks, but was also prepared by literature, long before the revolution, it had already “artistically matured” in the poetry of Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Osip Mandelstam, Vladimir Mayakovsky and many others. There is every reason to assert that the sources of Soviet literature as a cultural phenomenon were not only party leaders, not only so called proletarian culture and commissaries, but also honest artists who were ready to see in the cruelty of the revolution the right path to the cardinal renewal of life that their soul, which was full of angry denial of the world. The authors of the article argue that, having survived “belated insight”, Russian poetry in the person of Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Andrey Bely, Mickhail Kuzmin and others began a dramatic struggle for humanistic ideals and creative freedom.

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Author Biographies

Aleksander Sylaiev, Department of World literature, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Doctor hab. in Philology, Full Professor, Department of World literature, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Iryna Razumenko, Department of World literature, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Full Professor, Department of World literature, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Oleksandr Tararak, Department of German Philology, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Doctor hab. in Philology, Professor, Department of German Philology, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Viktoriia Vorozhbit-Horbatiuk, Comparative Pedagogy Department, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Doctor hab. in Pedagogy, Professor, Professor of History of Pedagogy and Comparative Pedagogy Department, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Inna Prokopchuk, Department of Design of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Woodworking and Computer Technologies and Designers of the National Forestry University of Ukraine.

Senior lecturer, Department of Design of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Woodworking and Computer Technologies and Designers of the National Forestry University of Ukraine.

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