Nikolai Rubtsov had to create at the right time, which went down in history as the “Khrushchev Thaw.” At that time, many had hope for a bright future, because the cult of the leader was debunked. But in reality everything was not like that. For his innovative ideas, Rubtsov was repeatedly persecuted and sharply criticized for his creativity at the institute. He was not like other young poets, because he did not glorify the West, but wrote about the Russian land, the Russian man with his “broad” soul. Rigidity and stubbornness did not allow Nikolai Rubtsov to deviate from the intended path; he achieved his goals.
In 1964, Rubtsov completed work on the poem “Russian Light”. What is this work about? It is about the Russian man and his mysterious Russian soul.
The main character of the poem “Russian Light” is the author himself, who finds himself “in an endless dead field.” Rubtsov does not say where he is going. From the text of the poem we understand that it is winter outside and a severe frost is raging, from which “the small spruce trees have become numb.” A person can't last long in this weather. But salvation is near. The traveler saw a “quiet light.” It was a light in a small rural hut, where the main character asked to go to warm up.
The traveler was met by a gray-haired hostess, who immediately offered to change into warm clothes and invited him to come closer to the stove.
Then Rubtsov draws our attention to the large number of photographs that hung on the walls of the hut. We understand that these are photographs of the old mistress’s favorite men - husband, brother, sons. Unfortunately, all of them are no longer alive, because they died in the war.
Nikolai Rubtsov, again raising the topic of war, emphasizes that it has become a real tragedy for our people. To confirm this, the hostess asks her overnight guest a question: “Tell me, dear, will there be a war?” Even twenty years after the end of the war, she, like many residents of our country, could not move away from all the horrors of the war. The pain of loss still gnawed at her soul.
After a short conversation, the traveler began to get ready for the journey. He wanted to thank the gray-haired mistress with a few coins. But the old woman objected: “The Lord is with you! We don't take money." Then the traveler wished her health and left the hut.
Unfortunately, today people have become completely different. Asking to go to someone's house or ask for help has become alien in our society, although half a century ago it was commonplace. I think that the “breadth and mystery” of the Russian soul lies precisely in the fact that our simple person can help another person, even a stranger, without any benefit. The poem “Russian Light” encourages us to remember our roots and become more humane, kind, and sympathetic.
(I present the text of the collection after additional editing and correction.)
The warm light of Rubtsov's poetry warms Rus'.
“When I read Rubtsov,
I see it as a native word
In his poems he sings and cries...
The wedding gallops through the noise of the pines,
The bells are jingling!
And the light flies to all ends...
...Don’t be lazy and take a look
In the line of the poet... Rodnikov
A line from the gloomy Rubtsov...
“Rubtsov’s Line” Gennady Morozov
Chapter first.
Rubtsov's words ring like crimson.
In the center of Vologda, on Herzen Street, there is a wooden house from the 19th century with carved platbands.
On the second floor of this architectural structure there is a small museum “Literature. Art. XX century. Two destinies."
In four small halls of the museum there are more than modest exhibitions about the life and work of V.A. Gavrilin. and Rubtsova N.M.
Leisurely peering through museum materials about the destinies of these two wonderful people, I tried to learn something new, but I couldn’t find anything more than I already knew.
However, in the halls with exhibitions of notes, glasses and other personal items of V.A. Gavrilin, I suddenly remembered a catchphrase, it seems, by Ludwig Van Beethoven:
“Music should strike fire from the human soul.”
I saw this phrase many years ago on a stand in the school class where my son studied, but only at that moment for some reason it surfaced in my memory.
Still, it makes a lot of sense to visit small museums.
Of course, I doubted both the authenticity of Rubtsov’s vest and the fact that the old, battered accordion was exactly the one that the writer Vasily Ivanovich Belov gave to the poet.
You can see these items in almost all Rubtsovsk museums.
Carefully reading the handwritten copies of Rubtsov’s poems, written in calligraphic handwriting, one can discern between the lines his character, accuracy, and careful attitude towards his WORD as a holy gift.
In the process of thinking at these stands, words from the Prologue of the Gospel of John surfaced in my memory: -
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
And immediately these words, as if by themselves, connected with Beethoven’s phrase about the meaning of music in our lives.
This is how I found the answer to a seemingly simple question lying on the surface: - how and where is the WORD born?
A WORD is a SOUND. Sound reigns in nature, accompanying movement, breathing and even the cosmic silence of death. Words and Sounds have power over life and death. They give birth to LOVE and JEALOUSY, strongly mixed with hatred.
Rubtsov wrote:
"…Your destiny
No less severe
Carve it the same way
Fire from the word!
But the work of the mind
Insomniac patient
Just a tribute
For joy not earthly,
In your hand
Sparkling Word
Suddenly feel
Like manual lightning!
(“A man took a cold dead stone”)
Nikolai Rubtsov felt with every cell of his feelings and natural gift of mind the incredible value and power of every word he spoke.
He did not tolerate falsehood either in his relationships with people or in the flowery words of others.
“...After all, the power of poetic lines
Not at all in the volume of the verse...
...Why with boring pretentiousness
Write with a loud tongue
Let the verse be simple and sonorous,
And let the feeling bubble within him!”
(“Phenomena, deeds, events are a pile” N. Rubtsov.)
Slowly moving from stand to stand, peering at the beauty of the poet’s calligraphic handwriting, I suddenly suddenly come to a simple conclusion:
- Feeling awakens thought. A thought with a simple sound gives birth to the WORD.
***
Chapter two.
Rubtsov’s words rang like prayer in the Pamirs.
In the soul of each of us, the poets we reverence do not settle in the same way, but one thing is certain: this happens in some specific place, at some specific time and in some significant situations in our life’s destiny.
This is approximately how my acquaintance with the poet-countryman Nikolai Mikhailovich Rubtsov happened.
In 1968, I arrived in the city of Khorog to my new place of officer service in the Pamirs.
By that time, I had already traveled around the USSR “from the southern mountains to the northern seas” back and forth.
He graduated from evening school and a technical school, worked as a turner at a factory, made horseshoes in a collective farm forge, harnessed a horse and carried firewood from the forest, served for more than three years in the Soviet Army in the North in the wilderness of the Arkhangelsk swamps.
In Khorog, I had to temporarily live in the Leninist room of the Administration.
In the evening, I spread a political map of the world on the floor, laid a mattress on it, laid a sheet on it, and under a cotton pillow (the size of a fist), to make the headboard higher, I placed volumes of V.I. Lenin or reports of the congresses of the CPSU, since there was nothing softer in this room.
So, under the reproachful, stern glances of the members of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, looking at me from the portraits on the wall, I rested and wrote term papers for the University at night.
Somehow, while rummaging through the waste paper of party publications, in search of material for a test on the History of the CPSU, I unexpectedly came across clippings from some newspapers.
There, among a selection of poems by already famous poets E. Yevtushenko and A. Voznesensky at that time, I saw the poem “Village Nights” by N. Rubtsov.
I confess to you that during this Pamir starry September night, countless times, with a spasm in my throat, I read and reread the words of this poem:
“The wind under the windows, quiet as a dream
And behind the vegetable gardens in the twilight of the fields...
...For me, the world will be filled with music again
The joy of a date with a girl is simple,
I love everything madly in the village camp,
Excites my heart in the twilight of the fields
The cries of quails, the twinkling of early stars,
The neighing of hobbled young horses..."
(1966 "Country Nights")
In every word of the verse, thousands of kilometers from my village, on the distant Afghan-Chinese border, I felt the breath of my small homeland. The words are simple, but thoroughly imbued with the Russian spirit. It even seemed to me that my native land was somewhere here, nearby, behind the snow caps of the Pamir mountain peaks.
A couple of days later, in the library of the Khorog border detachment, they gave me a thin collection of poems by Nikolai Rubtsov, “Lyrics,” which had already been well read.
Somewhat later I learned that the comic song “Oh, what am I doing”:
“Oh, what am I doing, why am I torturing
Is your body sick and small?
Oh, on what occasion?
After all, people are fighting for communism!...
...I drank at the pole, drank at the equator -
All the way.
So notice me, motherfucker,
Blizzard-blizzard, oh, notice...",
Which we sang in the evenings to the accompaniment of guitar chords in the shady courtyards of Dushanbe was also written by Rubtsov.
***
Chapter three.
Vologda rumors about Rubtsov and more...
Time passed, my service in Central Asia continued.
And not only Rubtsov and Yesenin helped me serve and love.
My life also had its own “neutral zone”, in which I, with the “blessing” of Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky, picked flowers for my wife, who voluntarily came to me in Pyanj, on the border, scorched by the Afghan sun.
However, sooner or later everything has its beginning and end.
Fate sometimes presents people, perhaps as a reward for their patience and hardships, and pleasant surprises.
In 1977, I was transferred for service to my native Vologda.
With the light hand of the kind patron of our family, Nina Pavlovna Zinovenko, a sincere admirer of N.M. Rubtsov, we temporarily settled in one of the apartments in house No. 3 on Yashina Street, in the entrance where Nikolai Mikhailovich lived until the last moment of his life.
In the last years of her life, Nina Pavlovna Zinovenko was an ardent promoter of Rubtsov’s poetry.
She actively promoted and helped Maya Andreevna Poletova, the founder of the Moscow N.M. Museum. Rubtsov, to collect material about the life and work of the poet.
Nina Pavlovna, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, who left her autograph on the portal column of the Reichstag, as well as Rubtsov’s neighbors told me about some of the circumstances of the tragic death of Nikolai Mikhailovich and his life in this house, but I see no point in retelling anything from their words.
So much has already been told and written about this Vologda drama that fact and fiction have become intertwined into one tangled tangle of contradictions.
Rubtsov, anticipating even such gossip, wrote:
“...Oh Rus'! Who have I offended here?
Don't listen to evil old women..."
Fame always comes difficult to any poet, sometimes only after death, and sometimes it doesn’t come at all.
Rubtsov's path to poetry was thorny and made his way through the hard times of war, orphanhood, hunger, cold, lack of comfort and loneliness in the crowd.
People started talking about him when his poems sprouted songs in the souls of people.
Today, the circulation of editions of Rubtsov’s poems has exceeded more than five million copies, and during the poet’s lifetime, only four skinny little books were published with a circulation of just over 40 thousand copies.
Of course, after the death of the poet, thanks to the personal participation of the poet’s friends: Korotaev V.V., Kunyaev S. Kozhinov V., Gleb Gorbovsky and some others, the literary world learned almost the whole truth about the life and death of Rubtsov N.M.
Various collections of the poet's poems were published many times.
In 1983, “Memories of Rubtsov” was published.
In 1993, when the White House was shot at from tanks in Moscow, Korotaev V.V. compiled a new, additional collection “Memories of Rubtsov” and a collection of poems by N.M. Rubtsov "Russian Light".
Whoever said that when the guns speak, the muses are silent probably knew little about both the war and Russian poets.
Interest in Rubtsov’s poetry continues to this day; I believe that as long as Rus' stands, it will grow and expand.
Rubtsov's books do not sit in stores, even in expensive gift bindings.
In Vologda, the “Rubtsovskaya Autumn” festivals are held annually; songs based on the poet’s poems are performed in the art gallery and other venues by amateur groups and individual performers.
In connection with the appearance in 1994 of Derbina L.’s collection of poems “Krushina” and her book “Memories of Rubtsov,” a wave of heated discussion arose about the life and death of Rubtsov, and his “bride,” his failed wife, and his destroyer, L.A. Granovskaya-Derbina.
Once again, the excitement around the name of Rubtsov erupted again after the publication in 2006 of a book by Surov, a well-known Vologda entrepreneur, a collector of ancient antiquities from his “young days.”
This book is called “Rubtsov. documents, photographs, certificates"
was published in a circulation of five thousand in the form of a massive folio in an expensive, colorful design.
The contents of this book, like a “long-acting bomb,” will be perceived by everyone in their own way and ambiguously.
Getting acquainted with the evidence and evidence given in the book, one gets the feeling that Rubtsov, 35 years after his tragic death, not only turned out all his pockets, but also shook out from private museums and archives all certificates from sobering-up centers, promissory notes, penny accounts for passbook.
Even the cash remaining with the deceased was counted to within 20 rubles.
Collectors of evidence, among other things, thoroughly dug into the souls of people who knew the poet.
This book should be read and understood, but not leafing through it for the sake of idle interest or the desire to find some confirmation of your conjectures. By reading this book at a glance and diagonally in search of the truth, you can bury Nikolai Mikhailovich Rubtsov even deeper.
After all, Rubtsov was a seer and during his lifetime he knew everything that would happen in advance:
“... Rumors came through my window
In my clean room
They fly by like flies -
I sometimes rush around it myself!..”
(“Who did you offend?”) N. Rubtsov.
I, as a lover of evidence, and not some dubious facts, mustered up the patience and strength to not only read the book by M.V. Surov, but was not too lazy to re-read the collections “Memories of Rubtsov” 1983 edition and “Memories of Nikolai Rubtsov ", published in 1994.
I read the memories of those who have long been friends of the poet, and those imaginary “friends” who, as if from behind the poet himself, lynched the unfortunate murderer Rubtsov, Granovskaya-Derbina, in parallel with the poems of Nikolai Rubtsov and the poems of Derbina in her collection “ Buckthorn".
You know, such analytical readings have given rise to a kind of split feeling that many who wrote memoirs are not telling something and seem to be hiding the truth about the poet and combing their attitude towards him, hiding behind greased epithets about Rubtsov’s life.
It seems to me that some are hiding their partial voluntary or involuntary moral guilt for the untimely death of the poet, which they themselves not only foresaw, but also silently did nothing to prevent.
Viktor Korotaev wrote about this premonition: - "...And I even started poetry about it. During his lifetime...
"We will soon lose a person,
A joker wandered into this world.
At the legislative age
Eternally an illegitimate child...” He himself was frightened by what was written: “Why did I croak ahead of time?” And he gave up. I had to finish writing soon. But after Rubtsov’s death...”
True, the poet’s close friend, journalist Ninel Starichkova, sending a greeting card to Nikolai Mikhailovich on the eve of 1971, wrote as a warning: “Take care of your head before it’s too late.” But it was too late.
By this time, Rubtsov had already “paid his bills in this world” in full.
"...I left a reason.
I look after others.
I would go myself
and rules
Yes, there is no way for me..."
His “fastidious horses” were already carrying him to his last refuge:
"...I will perish, a hurricane will sweep me away from the palm of your hand like a feather
And in the sleigh they will gallop me through the snow in the morning....
...And I didn’t even have time to finish singing...
...We had time to visit, there are no delays to God..."
V. Vysotsky. "Horses are picky"
"January Vologda. Rubtsova
Friends carry us on our final journey.
January Vologda, so young.
Without the burden of a boat of sorrows,
The poet sails through the ancient city
To your harsh pier.
In the snow, like in a shroud, Russia -
Their even light from edge to edge..."
(In loving memory of N. Rubtsov. V. Ponomarenko. 01/28/1971)
***
Chapter Four.
Rubtsov is a poet about Rubtsov the man.
“... when everything sacred was forgotten in the country, -
Rubtsov came to poetry
Like a gentle son he spoke to Russia
He responded with kindness to human evil..."
Alexander Kolesov.
"I started life in the slums of the city
And I haven’t heard any kind words.
When you caressed your children,
I asked for food, I was freezing.
When you see me, don't hide your gaze
After all, I am not to blame for anything, nothing...
...You knew the caresses of your dear mothers,
But I didn’t know and only in a dream
In my childhood dreams, golden
Mother sometimes appeared to me...”
Dorival Caymmi Song from the film “Generals of the Sand Quarries”
Rubtsov's poems are so autobiographical that no one can say anything better about him.
This is exactly what Nobel laureate in literature Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book, said in his poem “A Request”:
“...And keeping the memory of me
One short moment
Ask about me
Only from my own books..."
In the preface to the manuscript of the collection of poems “Waves and Rocks,” Rubtsov wrote in 1962: “...poems are strong and durable when they go through the personal, through the private, but at the same time they need the scale and vital character of moods, experiences, reflections ... »
At the same time, Nikolai Mikhailovich, as the author of this collection, wrote on July 11, 1962
that, “this collection includes very different poems. Funny, sad, angry. With direct expression and with a formalistic, as they say, bias. I don’t consider the latter to be experimental and I don’t refuse them, because, as far as I feel, they turned out to be alive. ...
Something in the collection (for example, some poems from the cycle (“AH, WHAT AM I DOING?”) is too subjective. This “something” is interesting only to me, as a memory of what I had in my life. These are poems moment...
...In life and poetry, I cannot calmly tolerate any falsehood if I feel it...
..."WAVES AND ROCKS" - the beginning. And, like any beginning, the poems in the collection do not need serious evaluation. It’s good if someone has a good memory of these verses.”
As part of the festival of poetry and music "Rubtsovskaya Autumn", on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding poet Nikolai Rubtsov, the exhibition-installation "Waves and Rocks" was opened in the Vologda museum "Literature. Art. XX Century". This exhibition-installation concluded the anniversary project “Axis of Life,” which tells about various themes of N. Rubtsov’s lyrics. Currently, for some reason, this exhibition has been removed from the museum, perhaps due to its ambiguous assessments by the “evaluators”. I personally read that it says a lot about Rubtsov as a poet and a person. The creators of the exhibition treated this work in a philosophically reasonable manner, without bending their hearts.
At the same time, we must understand that we get to know the author’s personality exactly as much as he opens the door to his life.
As you know, you don’t choose times. This time chooses us.
Our generation, born in the pre-war and war years, is now called “Children of War.”
True, with the hard hand of pension legislation and particularly poisonous “humorists” from the media, another label is being attached to us - “the generation of survivors.”
So the time of Nikolai Rubtsov’s adolescence and youth fell during the years of post-war devastation and complete impassability.
Only by the pale light of a kerosene lamp, dimly shining in the window, could a belated traveler see in the blizzard an unextinguished light dozing in the night of a Vologda forest village.
In Rubtsov’s life the sun did not always shine; he saw more often:
“...A lot of gray water,
Lots of gray skies
A little flat native land
And a few lights along the shore..."
(“On the Sukhona River”)
Not everyone, not even everyone, had a warm, cozy, sunny and satisfying childhood.
Many did not have fathers, not all even had mothers and their own home. So Rubtsov lost his parents in early childhood, his father went to the front, his mother died.
“...I vaguely remember
Morning of the funeral
And outside the window
Poor nature.
From where -
Like from underground -
Got into housing
And twilight and dampness..."
("Childhood")
And immediately they fell on the shoulders of little Kolya and
other misfortunes.
The owner of the apartment lost her food cards, and Rubtsova was immediately unfoundedly accused of theft.
Nikolai spoke about this through tears of resentment:
“...The evil neighbor does not allow passage....
Then an orphanage on the shore...
and a belated light in the field..."
“... And there, in the wilderness,
Under the roof of an orphanage
It sounded to us
Somehow unfamiliar, we were offended
The word "orphan..."
("Childhood")
Throughout the war-ravaged USSR, tens of thousands of homeless wanderers huddled in orphanages and boarding schools.
Among them was Kolya Rubtsov with the orphanage nickname “Scarfik” and “Stallion”, so nicknamed for his love of horses.
They called him “Scarfik” because from childhood until the last days of his life he almost always wore a long scarf.
From his adolescence, without his own corner, Rubtsov was doomed to wander around the world.
He lived in barracks, “dorms,” or in dwellings that would provide temporary shelter for someone.
In all his life, Rubtsov had never gotten used to the comfort and warmth of home.
He felt extremely constrained when visiting fellow poets and writers, especially in the apartments of those who had carpets on the walls and floors, and sideboards with crystal.
“...I won’t give up all the mansions,
Your own low house with nettles at the window..."
("Hello Russia")
He always wanted to go somewhere, go, “...swim, float, float...”, but only so as not to feel lonely and unnoticed.
As a child he wrote:
“...And I realized...
That all the horror and poison in the world
Sometimes you are openly surrounded,
When they suddenly see that you are alone..."
(“Autumn Study”)
It was under such conditions that the poet’s character, disposition and habits were formed.
Feeling within himself a great talent of mind, which filled him with poetry, he was constantly looking to the future.
“...It happens that an ardent boy
We come after the guest
You're in too much of a hurry:
I'll leave here too!...
...When will you grow up in the capital?
Look at life abroad
Then you will appreciate Nikola,
Where did you graduate from primary school?
(Home village")
Not only Rubtsov was in such a mood.
In the 60s of the last century, I, and people like me, strove with terrible force to escape from poverty, hopeless rural life, into big cities flooded with electric light.
And so.
Rubtsov: “... I’m covered in fuel oil, covered in grease, but I work in the trawl fleet...”.
Here he is already in the factory stoker on the banks of the Neva:
“A white flame beats in the firebox
There's fire here, don't get burned..."
("In the stoker")
I write his lines, but I see in them not him, but myself in 1960-1962, a turner at a factory in Stalinabad-Dushanbe, a blacksmith in the workshop of the collective farm “Soviet Russia” in the Vologda region.
Our years flew by, we grew up quickly, we wanted something, we wanted somewhere:
“...Oh, I also wish for the vastness of the universe!
Oh, I want to go to heaven too,
But in an unfamiliar land
Sadness will never change
According to the native meadow in the window ... "
(Song")
In those years, we, such wanderers in search of ourselves, always wanted to “... somehow live in the city and in the village at once...” (“Grani”)
In 1962, N.M. Rubtsov in the village of Nikola met with his old friend from the orphanage, Henrietta Mikhailovna Menshikova. As it often happens in life:
"...Nothing
I didn't expect it!
I got carried away by accident!
Chayano,
Not unexpectedly
Still desperate!..”
"…When you
Under the caresses
It was like gunpowder burst into flames!..”, they danced and celebrated a village wedding.
“...Temporary, Not temporary,
Can't hold back the tears!
Upon you,
Pregnant,
Flew around the aspen tree…” and in 1963, Rubtsov’s daughter Lena was born.
One feels bitter in one’s soul and offended to the point of anger for the poet with a pure, bright soul, for his only, albeit “unmarried” in the registry office, wife Henrietta and their daughter Lena, who is now living, when evil tongues are still found and blaspheme over them: is Rubtsov’s wife Henrietta , is Lena her father Rubtsov’s daughter???
Yes, it’s true, by that time he had already completely “...forgot how to harness a horse...”
But, having married so “accidentally,” the thought of village life still crossed his mind:
“...Oh, I wish I could harness it
I'm a filly now
And I would carry hay
As much as I could
And then
It would be important to stick a fork
Piglet
Fried
To the side."
("I forgot how to harness a horse")
Yes, where did he have to harness the horse, the residents of Nikola did not perceive Rubtsov as a peasant. At best, they looked at him as a contemplator of nature, drowned in his thoughts.
Once in his letter to Gleb Yakovlevich Gorbovsky, Rubtsov wrote:
“... I’m sitting now, wrapped in a coat and hiding my feet in huge torn felt boots, in one of the oldest and blackest huts in the village of Nikolskoye. ...I've already been missing here for a month...
Here... the classic Russian people have almost disappeared, looking at and listening to them brings nothing but joy and peace.
...The saddest thing in the world is especially annoying - the combination of ancient ignorance with modern godlessness, which has long been widespread here..."
Rubtsov did not force himself on the villagers as friends, and sometimes even avoided them. In a letter to Alexander Yashin on June 19, 1965, he wrote:
“... In the village, to be honest, I’m already tired of a lot of things. Sometimes you just get sick of the monotonous women's conversations that constantly revolve around two or three everyday concepts or circumstances. It happens that no matter what you say, they will distort everything in their distorting mirror and spread it throughout the entire nation...”
(Nikolai Rubtsov. Collection “Russian Ogonyok” 1994, p. 387.)
Around the same time, N. Rubtsov will write about this in his poem “Whom did he offend?
“...And I remembered the alarming murmur
Several old women in the evening.
They, they then follow the paths
They spread their bad rumors!...”
Rubtsov’s mother-in-law diligently convinced Henrietta that Rubtsov would be of no use in the household, and in every possible way “sang to her about her husband.”
Rubtsov told his friends that his mother-in-law’s masterly ability to rattle the claws in the closet every morning (as a result of which only a cast iron pot with potatoes “in their uniforms” appeared on the table from pickles) brought him to “white heat.”
It all ended with Rubtsov knocking out the frames in his mother-in-law’s house and moving on to seek his destiny.
He sincerely pitied Henrietta, but he also could not stay with her in Nikola.
Henrietta sincerely wanted family life, but poetry bubbled in Rubtsov’s head and drove him out of this house.
Parting with Geta, he dedicated a farewell song to her, as an apology and his deep regret:
“I will leave this village...
...That night at the birch bark
You will pay for my betrayal...
Do you hear the wind rustling through the barn?
Do you hear your daughter laughing in her sleep?
Maybe the angels are playing with her
And they fly away into the sky with her...
…Don't be sad! On the chilling pier
Don't expect a steamer in the spring!
Let's have a drink and say goodbye
You and I are like different birds!
What should we wait on the same shore?
Maybe I can return
Maybe I will never be able...
...But one day I will remember about cranberries,
About your love in the gray land
And I will send you a wonderful doll,
Like your last fairy tale.
So that the girl, rocking her doll,
I never sat alone.
- Mom, mommy! What a doll!
And she blinks and she cries..."
(“Farewell song” by Rubtsov.)
Returning from wandering around the country to his family - his wife and daughter - to their village home and life, he immediately tried to become both a husband and a caring father. He expressed his sincere attitude towards village family life, albeit with periodic visits, his heartfelt tenderness and love for his daughter Lena in his poem “For Firewood”
"...I will immortalize in verse
Harvesting firewood...
I'll bring it to my daughter Lena
From the forest gifts
Teddy bear on the knee,
In addition to carrying firewood.
Past the shaky hedge,
Past different places
Here comes the horse
In Siperovo, in the forest.
I'll load the big sleigh
Yes, I'll wave the whip
And I’ll just be in time for the bathhouse,
With a broom at that!"
He was such a short, great Russian man, with enormous soul and talent, Rubtsov. Everything nested in it together and suddenly all at once.
So, calm down, you are victims of Russophobes standing behind your back.
Rubtsov had everything real in his life - a wife and daughter, poetry and his native land.
Wherever Rubtsov was, he always keenly felt “... the most burning, most mortal connection” with his native land:
"... Like a centripetal force
Life carried me all over the earth!..
...But my native land
It's up to me to hold power
Memory returns like a bird
To the nest in which I was born..."
("Axis")
It was not easy for the orphan Rubtsov to become a poet and singer of “my quiet homeland”; various people came across his thorny path.
He speaks about this bitterly:
“...Haven’t stroked me for a long time
No one on the head...
...Everyone is ironing against the grain-
I can not do that!
Let me get drunk out of grief -
I’m a human too!”
("The Alcoholic's Complaint")
But in his soul, Rubtsov firmly believed in his talent and felt that his true word would ring, therefore, after discussing his poems with fellow poets, he wrote to them with a smile:
“...” They shouted, praised...
And they left...
In oak insult,
Oh, you say
Luminous genius!
I know that
They decided about me:
And talented
A- g..obviously.-
But Gorbovsky doesn’t care.”
(09/23/1961 “To fellow writers”)
It is not surprising that no one becomes famous poets in Rus' easily.
Another thing that is striking is that none of the geniuses of poetry “quietly” dies; - Pushkin A.S., Lermontov M.Yu., Gumilyov N., Yesenin S.A.
And Rubtsova N.M. this tragic cup has not passed.
Rubtsov's poetic gift was thoroughly saturated and inspired by earthly love for people.
His poetry illuminates us with the undying star of his fields and the Russian light that illuminates the path for everyone in a pathless field.
“...This is how poetry is
It's ringing - you can't stop it!..
She is invisible and free
Will it glorify us or humiliate us,
But it will still take its toll
And she doesn’t depend on us,
And we depend on her..."
("Poetry")
And he said to himself: “... your fate is no less harsh, so also strike fire from the word...”
***
Chapter five.
Nikolay Rubtsov – “Lonely Wandering Star”
"...How mysterious are the fogs over the swamps.
Who wandered in these mists, who suffered a lot...
That's the whole point!..."
M.A. Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita. "
“...I walk, wandering through the gray fogs;
I don’t know myself, where and for what?...
... Am I, born by mistake,
Not an idiot, not a bastard, not a human being?..
...Go through storms, thunderstorms, to name oneself
Among others, a fool and... die?"
(Rubtsov. 1955 “I’ve been loitering for so many years...”)
Almost until 1969, Rubtsov traveled around the country, living in different corners: either in the dormitory of the Literary Institute with fellow students, then with the Vologda poet Boris Chulkov, then in the apartment of his poet friend Viktor Korotaev, where he went to sleep right on the floor, on mattress, pressed like a Russian stove to a hot radiator.
"...He came to me from the blizzard.
Having warmed up a little in the warmth,
almost without cursing life,
Her blizzard songs
Played a broken accordion.
The district hummed and howled,
But he crawled out of the corner.
And again a cold blizzard
I was waiting for him at the door..."
Victor Korotaev "In memory of Nikolai Rubtsov."
Who walked around the world quite a bit, who in childhood huddled in village huts and lived from hand to mouth, in search of his destiny, got confused in the autumn fogs, in February snowstorms, was afraid of wolves in the night forest, Rubtsov’s voice will always be in his soul a guiding star in life and shine like a light in the night.
"...And the sky was dark, without stars.
What a wilderness! I was the only one alive.
One alive in an endless dead field!
Suddenly a quiet light - a dream, or what? -
Flashed in the desert like a sentry..."
(N. Rubtsov. “Russian Light”)
From reading publications about Rubtsov, I know that after wandering around the world, Nikolai Mikhailovich was a frequent guest at the house of his good friend Ninel Starichkova. There, at any time of the year, day or night, the door was always open for him, behind which they were waiting for him: shelter and tea in a personal glass; overnight in a warm place. Starichkova, like a guardian angel, protected him, deeply understood him as a person with all the twists of fate and sincerely loved the spiritual qualities and poetic gift of a natural born poet.
“... He walks the streets of the State,
Breathes the same Time with us,
He respects its Charters,
But he lives, however, in his own way..."
Victor Korotaev “In Memory of Nikolai Rubtsov”
Viktor Korotaev, a friend of the poet, published two collections in the 90s of the last century: - “Memories of Nikolai Rubtsov” and “Russian Light” with poems, translations, memoirs and letters of Nikolai Rubtsov.
Viktor Veniaminovich did everything possible to preserve the poet’s legacy and perpetuate his memory.
In his collection “Unity,” Viktor Korotaev, feeling the time, sought:
"...Save what's left
Restore for now
Memory and spirit live on..."
Once Rubtsov lived all summer in the village of Timonikha, in the house of the world famous writer Vasily Ivanovich Belov.
He called Belov's mother, Anfisa Ivanovna, mom.
Speaking about Rubtsov with great warmth, she compared him to a little sparrow.
And the poet himself sometimes identified himself with approximately the same bird:
“A little alive. Doesn't even tweet.
The sparrow is completely frozen...
...And he trembles over the poor grain,
And flies to his attic.
And look, it doesn’t become harmful
Because it’s so difficult for him...”
(N. Rubtsov “Sparrow”)
This is exactly how the residents of the city saw him when, ruffled, in an old coat, wrapped in a long gray scarf, with his suitcase - a “ballet shoe” in his hands, and in winter in old felt boots, he moved thoughtfully along the streets of Vologda.
His housemates remembered him the same way when he returned from the grocery store (which is across the street from his house) with a string bag containing his “meager food”: black bread and a can of canned sprat in tomato.
Only sometimes, “when Rubtsov’s pocket rings,” a bottle of cheap wine, like; “Golden Autumn” “two rubles each.”
He did not stand out at all in the crowd of townspeople.
Probably, hardly anyone has written better, kinder and more objectively about Rubtsov than the Vologda writer Vyacheslav Sergeevich Belkov.
In 1991, he published “One Hundred Stories about Rubtsov”, and in 1994, in the collection “Memories of Nikolai Rubtsov” - “Biography of N. Rubtsov”
“...Let me go beyond a thousand lands
Takes away life! Let it carry me
Throughout the land there is hope and a blizzard...
("Above Eternal Peace" 1963)
In his letter to Stanislav Kunyaev, Rubtsov wrote on November 18, 1964:
“... I’m disappearing again in my sad, distant place, in the village of Nikolskoye...
This is... one of the most remote corners of the Vologda side...
...I find here not solitude and peace, but loneliness and a feeling as if someone is always bothering me, and I am disturbing someone, as if I am guilty before someone...”
“...Am I rushing on a courier train?
From all squabbles and insults
And in the worst mood
I'm looking for a simple, heartfelt life..."
("Am I Spinning..." October 1965)
He looked for shelter and a cordial life on earth, but did not find it and looked again.
“He walked against the snow in the darkness,
Homeless, hungry, sick.
He then knocked on the barracks
In some forest village.
They didn't let him in...
... - The tramp is probably a thief...”
“Unknown” N. Rubtsov
And who among you at large train stations has not met such “unknowns,” the homeless, the hungry and the disadvantaged?
Not all, not all of them, are thieves and swindlers; there are probably vagabond poets among them.
Let's take a closer look at the faces and eyes of these “station homeless people,” and what if, sitting next to you on a station bench in the waiting room… “Nikolai Rubtsov”?
In 1954, Rubtsov accompanied his girlfriend Agafonova Tatyana to Moscow, who was leaving to work as an assigned worker in Azerbaijan, but sensing her cooling towards him, with a heavy feeling of rejection, he broke up with her and went to wander around the world in another southern direction... to Tashkent.
It was there, in Tashkent, at the station or in the park on a bench, that he was noticed by a kind Asian man who sheltered him in his adobe tent.
In Tashkent, Rubtsov, like an alien from the North, could not find his place in the sun. With this, Rubtsov returned from the hot regions back without a sip. However, this trip to Asia left a deep furrow in Rubtsov’s memory, plowed in his soul by separation from Tatyana. It is no coincidence that he brought a poem from Tashkent: “Yes, I will die!”
“...My pathetic trace
Will be trampled
The shoes of other tramps.
And everything will remain
As it was,
On Earth, not for everyone...
It will be the same
Shine Shining
On the spit-stained globe!
(1954 Tashkent.)
While serving in the Northern Fleet, Rubtsov, through the night noise of the waves against the side of the ship, remembered both his separation from Tatyana and the girl Taya, who promised to wait for him from the sea voyage, and his memory returned to his past wanderings through life.
In August 1958, in his poem “Desire” he remembers Tashkent:
“...Life carried me around the North
And through the markets of sultry Chor-su...”
Another poem by Rubtsov, “In the Desert,” written by him in 1967-1968,
"Hundreds of years,
Flew by without a trace.
Hundreds of years
Supernaturally evil
As intended
Someone for revenge
Hundreds of years
The heat is over the deserts!
They walked with curses
All caravans...
Who loved you?
And who caressed you?..., also flashed through him like a mirage of memory of Tashkent and, perhaps, of a chance meeting in Vologda with Agafonova-Reshetova Tatyana.
Wherever Rubtsov wandered, his soul was always and everywhere in his native land:
“... Like a centripetal force,
Life carried me all over the earth..."
...But my native land
The power that holds over me is..."
...My life revolves invisibly
Like the earth on its axis!..”
("Axis")
In his poems, Rubtsov, not about strangers, but about the miles of paths and roads he had traveled across the country, and his mark in life, wrote:
“...The gloomy forest swayed and rustled,
And the road was covered with snow!
I see something black in the distance
Looming through the snowstorm... no, not Christmas trees!
My legs seemed rooted to the spot!
A thought flashed through my head: “Wolves, wolves!”...
“...I walked, stumbling, and the snowstorm
Sweeping a snowdrift under my feet,..."
...Afterwards everything calmed down. It's dawn...
I came, exhausted, to the village..."
(“Memorable Case” 1962).
When Rubtsov was given an apartment in 1969, he had neither a chair, nor a table, nor basic supplies to write down poetry on paper.
He kept them all in his head.
In his letter to S.V. To Vikulov, in November 1964, he wrote: “...In general, I never use pen and ink and do not have them. I don’t even type out all the final drafts on a typewriter - so I’ll probably die with a whole collection of poems, “printed” or “written down” only in my disordered head...”
Some “rubber-eating experts” of Rubtsov, both in those 70s of the last century and now, claim that if not for the tragedy of that January night, Rubtsov would not have lived much, since he drank often.
So!!!
But here, let me tell you in more detail...
Yes! Rubtsov drank “wine,” which is what he called all alcoholic drinks, regardless of strength.
I drank Port Wine, Golden Autumn, and did not turn away from beer.
“...The poet, like a wolf, gets drunk
on an empty stomach
And motionless, as if
In the portrait
It's getting heavier and heavier
On a stool
And everything is silent, without moving
no way,…"
(Rubtsov N. “Poet”)
On this subject he wrote to his friend Stanislav Kunyaev:
“...after several (successful or unsuccessful) poems I’ve written, I need a release - a drink and some fun”...
(Nikolai Rubtsov. Collection “Russian Light.” 1994, p. 406.)
But, by the way, he drank these “balms for the soul” not alone, but with his poet friends, so that he would have someone with whom to “jockey” about poetry.
Even when he was studying at the institute, his friends at Rubtsov would gather their acquaintances in the evenings to listen to songs performed by a Vologda guy with a village harmonica or guitar.
Naturally, at such evenings, those who gathered “for the light” often “took on their chests” a glass, a glass, and then called Rubtsov to answer.
“...Among such surroundings
Life is easier
In hops
And as an object of imagination,
I really love ghosts..."
(1962 Rubtsov)
Rubtsov even had to write explanatory notes about this to the rector of the Literary Institute.
The rector’s office even heard one such explanation from the poet:
“Perhaps I am flickering for you in a coffin,
But I tell you in the end:
I, Nikolai Mikhailovich Rubtsov,
I deny the possibility of a sober life.”
In those days, everyone drank, but did not get drunk: Komsomol volunteers, the party elite, and hard workers and poets did not lag behind them.
And what, after Rubtsov’s death, did the poets stop drinking and swearing and, speaking only in “high style,” fit into the society of teetotalers?
You might think that now all of Great Rus' has stopped drinking and smoking?
Yes, nothing happened.
In the old years, even adults did not dare to swear in a low voice in public, women did not smoke at all, and the notorious youths, those who smoked, puffed up their sleeves with an eye around the corner. And now? There are a lot of laws, but in a world like a sea, they don’t care about all the commandments.
Vologda poets, whom I used to know and now know some of, have not forgotten how to hold a “glass of wine” and their poems are no worse for this.
The main thing in this matter is not to abuse your health. We know, we checked it ourselves.
Rubtsov's poetry is a poetic mirror of the moral purity and conscience of Rus'.
“In this village the lights are not extinguished,
Don't predict melancholy!
Gently decorated with light stars
Quiet starry night.
(N. Rubtsov “Winter Song”)
Today, perhaps more than ever, we all need the beauty of Rubtsov’s style, the depth of original thought in his WORDS.
“...Let reason serve the living soul!
There is fire in the soul - both will and love! -
And pathetic is the one who drives these passions..."
(N. Rubtsov “Philosophical Poems”)
Nothing can drown out such poems by Nikolai Rubtsov; they will sound forever in Rus'.
“Russia, Rus' - wherever I look...
I love your, Russia, antiquity..."
(N. Rubtsov “Visions on the Hill”)
With all this, Rubtsov’s life developed in such a way that he almost always and everywhere, in a crowd of people and even while visiting, experienced a state of loneliness.
“...I listen... The village sleeps cautiously...
The water in the river purrs like a cat.
I don’t know where the stitch is leading me...
...I myself am a small particle of nature,
But what a great sadness!
It’s so scary to be alone in the world...”
(N. Rubtsov “The night is short”)
(Probably everyone noted this - author A.G.)
But, having wandered around the country and returned to his native Vologda wilderness, “...he found a semblance of peace and remembered the years he had lived, like an angel, without bothering anyone” (Stanislav Kunyaev “In Memory of the Poet”).
“...I’m spending the night! Deaf peace
The darkness heals my soul
Only the pendulum silently beats
everything is swinging on the wall..."
(N. Rubtsov “Overnight”)
In the already mentioned letter to Stanislav Kunyaev, on November 18, 1964, Rubtsov wrote:
“... My vegetation here is brightened up by some random joys...
Well, for example, in a semi-dark room I heat a small stove on a cold evening, sit next to it and am very happy with it, and I forget everything...”
(Nikolai Rubtsov. Collection “Russian Light.” 1994, p. 406.)
“...This is what is needed
In my state of mind.
To the cooled stove
I'll throw some logs while I'm pregnant
Sweet in the hut
To while away the lonely time..."
(N. Rubtsov “Autumn Leaves”)
Dear reader, now, while I was writing these lines about Nikolai Mikhailovich’s “vegetation” in a remote village, even then forgotten by God, I felt more acutely than ever the living state of Rubtsov’s spirit, sitting in a hut near a fire burning in the stove.
This is so because I am also writing about this in the depths of pre-winter in a village house next to the same small stove with a fire and crackling coals. I’m wearing a padded jacket and old, old soft felt boots. It’s warm and cozy in the soul, and that’s probably why it’s written so easily and quickly, without losing the thread of the conversation with you about the poet of the Russian land.
Rubtsov, although rarely, had an urgent need to break out of his state of loneliness in order to feel that:
“I am not alone in the entire Universe.
With me are books and an accordion,
And a friend of imperishable poetry -
There is a birch fire in the stove..."
(N. Rubtsov “Winter quarters on a farm”)
Together with Nikolai Mikhailovich Rubtsov, we have lost an irreplaceable layer of Russian poetry.
Will a poet like Rubtsov soon appear in Rus'?
All that remains is to wait patiently.
Such talents of the poetic Russian word are always welcome.
"...Thank you, humble Russian light,
Because you are in an anxious premonition
You burn for those who are in the roadless field
I am desperately far from all my friends..."
N. Rubtsov “Russian Light”
***
Chapter six.
The muses of the poet Rubtsov as “a woman’s farewell voice.”
"...The soul has long been tired of wandering
In former love, in former hops,
The time has come to understand,
That I love ghosts too much..."
"In moments of sad music"
Rubtsov.N.
In his life, Rubtsov experienced a lot of injustice: in early childhood he took the first blow of fate - he lost his mother and family; in his youth he knew the bitterness of being rejected by the first, and in his mature years he more than once encountered a cool attitude towards the feelings he showed. As a poet, I recognized the poisonous-salty taste of the envy of my fellow writers.
And, nevertheless, our time and his were still good. There was also “a bird cherry tree all in bloom.”
Rubtsov picked flowers in remote meadows and gave a “Bouquet” to the girl he loved. And only he, and the one to whom he once gave these wild flowers, know the secret meaning of that song.
However, years later, many of those with whom Rubtsov was casually acquainted or briefly communicated, today suddenly, almost unanimously, claim that it was to them that Rubtsov, passing by on a bicycle, gave a field bouquet.
“Wake up” girls - “...The daisies hid, the buttercups withered
The cold water in the river ripples..."
I believe that the light of love in Rubtsov’s poetry could have been a hundred times brighter and lighter, but the trouble is, the muses in the poet’s poetic fate left behind deep painful scars in his human life.
Kolya loved him from the cradle and, like a flower to the light, was drawn to women.
The scarlet flower, which he grew in secret from everyone in a secluded corner for his mother’s birthday, he had to lay it on her coffin:
“...This flower is small
How I loved and hid!
Caressed him - here's momma
I will be glad to receive a gift!...
...I was carrying my mother's coffin
Your own scarlet flower."
("The Scarlet Flower")
In his friendships with girls, Rubtsov was always sincere and did not try to pretend to be a game of love.
Stanislav Kunyaev, a literary associate and friend of Rubtsov, wrote:
“...And women?
Yes, none of them
I probably didn’t understand his soul
And his gloomy verse did not breathe
Hope for them
At least the smallest one.
Probably because
What a woman's gaze
In matters of comfort
And in matters of device
Suddenly stared at this look
Never once lost concern..."
(“In Memory of the Poet”)
Kunyaev S.Yu, of course, knew Rubtsov’s inner world and therefore deeply understands what he is talking about.
Unlike Yesenin, Rubtsov’s relationships with women were not easy and were almost always interrupted by his girlfriends. Most likely, these breaks in relations occurred not only due to the fact that they did not see the prospects of a family relationship with Rubtsov, but also largely due to his complex, and sometimes quarrelsome, character.
Kolya met his first youthful love, Tatyana Agafonova-Reshetova, when he was studying at the Totemsky Forestry College.
They met at a dance, confessed their love, corresponded, fought, and then broke up, but love for Tatyana, judging by the poet’s songs and poems, always remained in Rubtsov’s soul.
In 1954, Tatyana Agafonova was assigned to work in Azerbaijan.
Nikolai, holding out hope, also went with her on the same train to Moscow, but, realizing the cooling of Agafonova’s relationship with him, he, with a heavy feeling of rejection, broke up with her and left to wander around the world in the other direction... to Tashkent.
In Tashkent, Rubtsov did not find his place in the sun. He did not live long in the “town of grain”, where he spent the night with casual acquaintances, in the park on benches or at the train station. With this, Rubtsov returned from the warm lands back without slurping.
In his only poem, written in Tashkent, he expressed his state of mind and the pain of parting with the first love of his youth.
To understand Rubtsov’s poetic soul, you need to read the poet’s poems.
Then you will immediately feel that in your thoughts you are becoming brighter and kinder.
"Yes! I'll die!
So what's wrong?
At least now from a revolver to the forehead!...
...Bury me anyway!
My pathetic trace
will be trampled
the shoes of other tramps.
And everything will remain
as it was-
On the ground,
Not dear to everyone..."
(Rubtsov N. “Yes, I will die!”. Tashkent, 1954)
No one’s first love passes without a trace and settles in the soul for life, constantly stirring up the past in memory. Therefore, Tatyana Agafonova for Rubtsov was also “the muse of sad and sorrowful love.” Maybe his difficult relationship with Tatyana forced him to sing about it.
In all his songs, in which Nikolai in reality wanders through a remote meadow, or rides a bicycle, and then on a winter night, looking at the stars, in his memory he returns to the snow-covered meadow, to where in the summer he picked a bouquet of wildflowers, one can sense the love of Tatiana Agafonova, or maybe not to Tatiana, but to his wife Goethe? Only the “cyclist” himself knows about this.
“The lights in this village are not turned off.
Don't predict melancholy!...
...A modest girl smiles at me,
I myself am smiling and happy!
Difficult, difficult - everything is forgotten,
Bright stars are shining!
Who told me that in the dark darkness
Is the abandoned meadow going silent?
Who told me that hope is lost?
Who came up with this, friend?
The lights in this village are not turned off."
Nikolai Mikhailovich dedicated many poems to Tatyana Agafonova - Reshetova, but all of them were tinged with bitterness and melancholy, and even resentment.
"I'll ride my bike for a long time
In the remote meadows I will stop him
I'll bring you flowers and give you a bouquet
To the girl I love...
…I will tell her:
- Alone with another
You forgot about our meetings..."
("Bouquet")
This poem in the 2004 collection “To the Girl I Love” dates back to 1962.
So look for the answer to Nikolai Mikhailovich’s secret question, to whom he could have given his song “Bouquet”.
“...What will I answer you for the deception?
That our long-standing meetings at the haystack?
When did you run away to Azerbaijan...
...Yes, I loved it. Well then. Well, let.
It's time to leave the past alone..."
"Response to the letter"
“... We said goodbye, and let...
...How many blizzards and thunderstorms flew by!
How are you, dear, there, behind the birches?..."
(“At the Church Birches”)
60 years later, after Tatyana Reshetova-Agafonova broke up with Rubtsov, she released a colorfully designed book of memoirs about Rubtsov, “How many years have flown by...”
It is sad and bitter that we remember poets not during their lifetime, but sometimes in their twilight.
Such memories give rise to complex feelings in the soul. Are they a bit like a belated confession or...?
At the same time, I ask you to pay attention to the depth of the poet’s experience that these two phrases are filled with, between which lay quite a few difficult years of the poet’s life:
"Yes! I'll die!
And what’s wrong?...”...
And
“...Yes, I loved. Well then. Well, let…."
In her memoirs, Tatyana Reshetova writes: “... it seems that until midnight we sang our favorite songs to the accordion (Rubtsova - author A.G.).
I didn’t talk to him, I was afraid that he would go with me to Baku...
Kolya was nervous and angry.
And I still didn’t understand that I was deceiving myself by playing at love.
Apparently this was just another hobby..."
But Kolya Rubtsov thought about it completely differently:
"...You and I didn't play at love,
We didn't know such art
We're just at the woodpile
Kissed out of a strange feeling...."
“...Nikolai felt this and in the morning in Moscow he told me that... he was going to Tashkent....So the love of a man passed by me, without touching my heart... Apparently it was fate...
So we parted with our youth in Moscow...” (From the collection “Memories of Nikolai Rubtsov” Vologda. 1994. Page 71.)
I feel that behind these words of Reshetova lies some kind of understatement about the true reason for her break with Rubtsov. "...Well, well. Well, let..." It is her right to keep her secret.
Women are always unsolved mysteries.
"In moments of sad music
I represent the yellow reach
And the woman's voice farewell
And the sound of gusty birches..."
(In moments of sad music")
In the annotation of the Vologda Museum “Literature, Art. Century XX" it is stated that Taya Smirnova is rightfully considered the poet’s muse. I don’t know by what right this was established. However, not only Taya, but other women in Rubtsov’s life, albeit briefly, were his muses. In any case, he dedicated his poetic lines to many.
I believe that Taya Smirnova could have been the same person who “played at love” with Rubtsov.
Somewhere at the end of 1954 or 1955, Rubtsov found his brother Albert in the village of Priyutino near Leningrad and moved to live with him.
There he became friends with Taya Smirnova.
In the fall of 1955, Nikolai was called up to serve in the Northern Fleet, where he served until the fall of 1959.
During his service, he corresponded with Taya, counting on her reciprocal feelings for him.
It turned out that I was in vain.
She didn’t wait for him, and Rubtsov acquired another deep scar on his heart from disappointment in the sincerity of a woman’s words and promises.
Yes, of course, he also dedicated several poems to Taia, filled with irony, disappointment and resentment:
“...My beloved almost died,
Oh, mother, native land!
Sobbing, she beat on my chest,
Like the sea hitting the side of a ship...
And somewhere at the end of separation
She forgot about everything..."
("The Tale of First Love")
“...I was cold
She has a palm
But burned it to the ground
I'm breathing fire."
("Octalms")
“...By your caresses and glances
I don’t need swear words!..
Take a quick look?
All clear.
Three years for you, little bastard
I wrote letters in vain!..”
(“After Separation” T.S. 1957)
“...Perhaps you are proud to be a poet?
Naive. She couldn't imagine
What do I need to be happy?
You just need to have
What made me sing..."
("Thaw".
A woman for a man is his wings in life.
Any of us men, inspired even by a kiss from an unclear feeling or burning in the flame of passion, in the name of a woman is capable of performing feats and accomplishing great creations.
Any of us, be it a blacksmith or a poet, a plowman or a general, with broken wings from dislike and betrayal, in blind jealousy and wild rage, can easily fall into the abyss of drunken madness or, in general, into the agony of life.
At all times, women always know better than men what is most important to them and who they need for life: a spouse, lover, cohabitant or supporter.
Just by casting the first fleeting glance at a man, she will immediately “scan” him better than any computer, while taking into account everything: intelligence, abilities, personal qualities, physical capabilities and determine the degree of his suitability in her life.
Among other things, a woman will immediately appreciate her strength and ability to control and manipulate a man who finds himself in her network.
It only seems to us, men, that we choose a woman for ourselves; in life, everything happens differently. It is they who “take us lukewarm under our mikitki,” throw on a leash and lead us like heifers, and then, when the need has passed, if the bull begins to buck, they send us to slaughter as a sacrifice on the altar of another love.
Rubtsov and his girlfriends, with whom fate brought him together, were also assessed.
Everyone saw his giftedness and talent, but immediately determined his everyday unsuitability for family life, and most importantly, they saw that the poet, no matter what his pocket you hit, “neither hears nor rings,” and when he becomes famous, even God didn't know.
With that, they parted with him without any special sorrows or worries. This means that they had… “not destiny”, but just like that… “a game of love”
In grief and despair he could only say:
“...Haven’t stroked me for a long time
No one on the head...
...Everyone is ironing against the grain-
I can not do that!
Let me get drunk out of grief -
I’m a human too!”
("The Alcoholic's Complaint")
In 1962, N.M. Rubtsov in the village of Nikola met with his old friend from the orphanage, Henrietta Mikhailovna Menshikova. This is how it often happens in life, that “...Nothing
I didn't expect it!
I got carried away by accident!..."
We danced at a village wedding.
"...When you
Under the caresses
It was like gunpowder ignited!..
Temporarily,
Not temporary
Can't hold back the tears!
Upon you,
Pregnant,
The aspen tree flew around..."
In April 1963, Geta gave birth to Rubtsov's daughter, Elena.
However, they did not have a family life, although Rubtsov and Geta sincerely and with warmth in their souls felt sorry for each other, exactly as this feeling was called in Rus' - SORRY.
Henrietta for Nikolai Mikhailovich is his sick family muse in his short life. He dedicated several very warm and heartfelt poems to her and his daughter Lena; parting with Geta, he sang his farewell song to her:
"… Don't be sad…
Don't expect a steamer in the spring!
Let's have a drink, let's say goodbye
For a short tenderness in the chest.
You and I are like different birds
Why should we wait on the same shore..."
("Farewell Song")
***
Chapter seven.
Chance meeting of Rubtsov.
Who would have imagined that Rubtsov’s chance meeting on May 2, 1963 in the dormitory of the Literary Institute in Moscow with Granovskaya-Derbina would not only continue a few years later, but would also prove fatal for both.
I don’t know whether by the time of their meeting Derbina had written the poem “Jealousy,” supposedly dedicated to her friend Alexander Govorov, in which she wrote about herself:
"... Someday in the heat of passion
I'll rise up like a witch from a chimney
and mix up all the cards
Your brilliant destiny."
But I also don’t know whether in 1963 Rubtsov wrote his poem “Am I Spinning,” which contains the following lines:
“...When, rampaging everywhere,
Death will break my fate
Then I'll be a handful of ashes
But my spirit... will go down the drain.”
Isn’t it true that in these poems by Derbina and Rubtsov, for the time being, some mystical meaning was hidden.
At the age of Jesus Christ, in May-June 1969, Rubtsov N.M. received a one-room apartment No. 66, in house No. 3 on Alexander Yashin Street. It would seem that he had finally found the conditions for creativity. But not everything is so simple for poets.
In Voronezh, far from the city of Vologda, Lyudmila Granovskaya saw in the window of a bookstore the collection “Star of the Fields,” the author of which turned out to be her casual Moscow acquaintance Nikolai Rubtsov.
Could Granovskaya at that moment, picking up this collection, think that she would dramatically turn her fate around and break the thread of Rubtsov’s life?
On June 23, 1969, the confusion of Rubtsov’s thoughts about his wife, about his daughter, about how he should continue to arrange his and their lives, was unexpectedly and unceremoniously interrupted by a CALL to the poet’s apartment.
Rubtsov opened the door... and She entered with the intention of expressing delight to the poet. Before “Hello” had even left his lips, they, among the manuscripts scattered on the floor, stunned by the meeting, with furious excitement began to “confuse the decks” of the cards of their destinies.
Rubtsov, of course, was always waiting for his muse, but the muse could not find his refuge. After all, Rubtsov’s address for many years was “neither a house nor a street,” but the entire Soviet Union.
In many of Rubtsov’s poems, I encountered his disagreement with himself and a close look into the depths of his awareness of life and soul, and... anxious, “guarded” expectation of something and someone.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seemed to me that, at this turning point in Rubtsov’s life, Alexander Blok’s famous poem “I Anticipate You...” from the cycle “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” was very consistent with Nikolai Mikhailovich’s state:
“I have a feeling about you. The years pass by -
All in one form I foresee You.
The whole horizon is on fire - and unbearably clear,
And I wait silently, yearning and loving.
The whole horizon is on fire, and the appearance is near,
But I’m scared: you’ll change your appearance,
And you will arouse impudent suspicion,
By changing the usual features at the end..."
Rubtsov always needed a like-minded woman and inspirer who understood the flow of his creative thought and was able to appreciate and elevate the poet’s talent.
So he “waited”!
She, a fiery red-haired beauty with a braid, entered his apartment and immediately filled the rest of his life with her, “... drove him crazy, broke his heart..., took peace...”.
Granovskaya-Derbina burst into Rubtsov’s loneliness like a hurricane.
With its irrepressible energy of some kind of “pagan” poetic
gift, Derbina, like a “witch,” drugged and bewitched him and tried to take possession of him.
Before her, Rubtsov lived according to his inner poetic charter of soul and heart, with his own temper and not a sugary character.
And so they met with Granovskaya Derbina, not ice and flame, but like fire and flame, and both poetic souls burned in this fire.
By the time they met in Vologda in 1969, Granovskaya-Derbina had already separated from her husband Granovsky, gave birth to a daughter, published her first collection of poems “Siverko” and prepared the next one.
She already saw herself as a rising star in the poetic firmament of Russia in the 70s.
Rubtsov, considering himself a famous, well-known and long-awaited poet of Russia, “opened his crazy arms” to Derbina and zealously rushed to review her work.
He was flattered to be a teacher of poets.
Reviewing the collection “Krushina,” Rubtsov wrote: “The fact that Lyudmila Derbina’s poems are talented can hardly be doubted by anyone...”
In a letter to L. Derbina dated July 21, 1970, Rubtsov wrote to her: “By the way, let’s try to publish your poems in some Moscow magazine. Is it time?.. Besides, Luda, don’t think that you will feel bad in Vologda...”
Rubtsov did not know then that within six months Derbina would be very ill not only in Vologda, but in general in this world for the rest of her life.
***
Chapter eight.
Poets from the past sent signs to Rubtsov.
“I live near an empty temple,
On the steep coastline,…
There's a log dump across the river,
Crane, mountain of sand
And hastily - the hour is not even!
Women gargle from the bridge
Your own underwear...
... Poplars are visible everywhere,
And there, glowing, it drowns in the fog
The head of the silent Kremlin..."
(Rubtsov N. “Vologda landscape” 1969)
This is how Nikolai Rubtsov saw our city in 1969.
This place, which he described in the poem “Vologda Landscape”, actually has hardly changed, except that the mountain of sand was taken away and raked, and the logs were sold over the years.
And the rest is still the same.
If we walk along Alexander Yashin Street from house No. 3, where Nikolai Rubtsov lived until his last minute, towards the Vologda River, then after a block we will come out onto Sovetsky Prospekt.
Turning left, we just need to pass by the house of Peter the Great and we will see a monument to the poet Nikolai Rubtsov.
He stands stone in his gray stone coat, with a long stone scarf around his neck, with his small stone suitcase in his hands and seems to be quietly saying:
“...I delve into the wisdom of ancient sayings
About the complex meaning of life on earth
I'm not afraid of autumn gloom!
I fell in love with the stormy evening noise,
Lights in the river and Vologda in the darkness...
(N. Rubtsov “Evening Poems”)
At the same time, his gaze glides along the quiet flow of the Vologda River and rests on the Vologda pier.
Rubtsov left this pier many times on steamships and motor ships to the city of Totma and returned back to Vologda.
So on July 23, 1969, immediately after the meeting between Granovskaya and Derbina, they left this pier by boat to Totma.
An old landing stage was built close to the pier, swaying on the river swell.
In it, as before, until recently there was a “worker-peasant” restaurant “Float”, which Rubtsov used to visit with friends. There, he and the poets more than once organized unique poetic gatherings.
“... It’s hazy and cozy in that restaurant,
He sways a little on the waves...
...A heap of leaves rushes along the walkway, -
You can see out the window and hear the wind moaning,
And you can hear the sad noise and rustle of the waves,
And, as if alive, in our conversations
Yesenin, Pushkin, Lermontov, Villon....”
(N. Rubtsov “Evening Poems”)
Our Russian geniuses of poetry were far from “white and fluffy,” but they all appeared to the world as the most talented people of their time.
They lived in different conditions, had different social status and level of education, and not all lived in material prosperity.
However, for all that, their fates were in many ways similar.
All of them were united, not by show or “by Decree from above,” but by sincere love for the Motherland, for Rus', free and original in its purity and holiness.
In life and poetry, poets meant a lot to Rubtsov: Yesenin, Pushkin, Lermontov, Villon, Fet, Tyutchev, and many others.
“...All earthly shrines and bonds
As if entered by the nervous system
Into the waywardness of Yesenin's muse!
This is not a muse of yesterday.
I love her, I’m indignant and I cry.
She means a lot to me
If I myself mean anything..."
(N. Rubtsov.)
This is how Rubtsov assessed Yesenin and himself next to him...
Both of them wanted to be famous and dreamed of having monuments erected to them in their native land.
Nikolai Rubtsov was sure that “... they would erect a monument to him in the village,” and Yesenin generally stated:
"…I will
Famous and rich
And there will be a monument
Standing in Ryazan is for me...”
(S. A. Yesenin, “My Way”)
Yesenin bathed in female love, fell in love many times, fought and parted with his “muses.”
He ate sweetly and drank bitterly until he was “blue in the face,” and then, together with Isadora Duncan, they together, wherever drunken courage and double-edged jealousy overtook them, smashed noble crystal and Venetian mirrors in restaurants and hotels in Europe and America.
Yesenin and Duncan, in their quarrels and bloody fights, were very close to a dramatic outcome, but fate saved them from this and temporarily postponed the tragic ending of their lives.
Everything was forgiven to Yesenin.
Empress Maria Fedorovna herself, after listening to Yesenin’s poems, told him that he was a real Russian poet.
For some time he was treated kindly even by the leaders of the young Soviet government; - Trotsky and Lunacharsky.
With Trotsky’s blessing, he was “patronized” by Blyumkin from the Cheka, although from time to time he repeatedly threatened Yesenin with a revolver. The outcome of such attention from the authorities to the poet is known.
For Rubtsov, unlike Yesenin, everything was exactly the opposite.
An orphan since childhood, he was dressed poorly, ate meagerly, and often lived like a tramp wherever night overtook him.
Moreover, he was talented from birth.
Poetry seethed in him constantly, like a flame in an open-hearth furnace.
From his youth, Rubtsov sought to find his true love, but he never found it.
All of Rubtsov’s “muses” turned out to be picky.
And Derbina, who came to him herself, turned out to be the femme fatale in his life.
She herself told everyone about this: “....there was no affectionate wife, no priestess of the muses who longs for loud fame...”
Rubtsov was kicked out of the institute for “innocent sins” and only thanks to the intercession of his fellow students and those who recognized him as a talented poet of Rus', he was reinstated after some time.
During his lifetime, the authorities remained indifferent and indifferent to Rubtsov’s fate.
It is no coincidence that Rubtsov mentioned the French poet Francois Villon in his poem “Evening Poems.”
Once, having seen a book of poems by Francois Villon in the home library of the poet Boris Chulkov, he was imbued not only with the work of this French poet of the 15th century, but also found many similarities in his life with the life of Villon, a vagabond poet, an equally lonely and homeless wanderer.
Jean Richpin wrote in his “Ballad of Villon”:
"King of the naked poets
Maitre François Villon is like this
You started a bunch of drunks...
Be immortal, to the shame of your enemies
Your unfading creations.
King of Poets - Tramps
Rogue, pimp, tramp, genius!
Rubtsov, of course, could not help but know these poems by Villon
“..At Christmas, sometimes deaf
Cruel icy winter,
When all you hear is the howl of a wolf
And we will return to the warmth of the house
Let's hurry before darkness sets in,
I planned to get rid of
From the shackles of love, prison,
Where does my soul suffer today?
“With a smile and sparkle in the eyes
She deceived me...
Though. As I realized only now,
Out of indifference or out of evil
Didn't thirst and couldn't
Help me in my sorrows
And I should be warm
Search in the arms of others.”
(Francois Villon. Works. 1998. Series “World of Poetry”. Translation by Yu.B Korneev.)
It seems that while living together with Derbina, Rubtsov could not help but remember these signs of fate that Villon gave him from his past.
Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev in 1851 wrote a poem about himself and his secret love E. Denisyeva “Oh, how murderously we love.”
“...Do you remember, at the first meeting,
At the first fatal meeting,
Her magical gaze and speech,
And the laughter of a child is alive?
So what now? And where is all this?
And was the dream long lasting?
Alas, like a northern summer
He was a passing guest...
Your love was for her
And undeserved shame
She laid down her life!...
And on earth she felt wild
The charm is gone...
The crowd surged and trampled into the mud
What bloomed in her soul.
Oh, how murderously we love!
As in the violent blindness of passions
We are ruining everything the most
Whatever is dearer to our hearts.”
Almost 120 years after writing this verse, Rubtsov, of course, read it in Tyutchev’s volume, which he always had with him.
I don’t know what Rubtsov could have been thinking about then.
Maybe, even very likely, he then recalled another poem by F.I. Tyutchev, which also sounded like a sign - like a warning to Rubtsov from above:
“Love, love,” says the legend,
Union of the soul with the dear soul -
Their unification, combination,
And their fatal merger
And... the fatal duel..."
(“Predestination” by F.I. Tyutchev.)
In these poems by Fyodor Ivanovich, I see for myself that the tragedy of the relationship between Tyutchev and Denisyeva somehow echoes the relationship between Rubtsov and Granovskaya-Derbina in 1969-1971 and is perceived as a prediction, as a possible repetition of someone’s destinies in the future.
In 1996, Lenizdat published a wonderful book by G.V. Chagina.
"Oh you, last love."
Women in life and poetry F.I. Tyutcheva.
Rubtsov might not have known about the events from Tyutchev’s life given in this book.
But they are extremely interesting because it contains the memoirs of the professor of the Richelieu Lyceum Georgievsky Alexander Ivanovich, one of Tyutchev’s few friends.
“... Before the birth of his third child, Fyodor Ivanovich tried to dissuade Lelya (Denisyeva - A.G.) from this, but this loving, adoring and generally kind Lelya went into such a frenzy that she grabbed from the desk the first bronze dog that came to her hands on malachite and threw it with all her might at Fyodor Ivanovich, but fortunately it didn’t hit him, but into the corner of the stove and broke off a large piece of tile in it: there was no end to Lelya’s repentance, tears and rejoicings after that...
...Fyodor Ivanovich himself was very good-natured about her weakness in falling into such a frenzy out of love for him...”
In the everyday course of life, we often ignore facts known to us, do not attach importance to known events of the past, and do not trust our intuition. Sometimes, realizing and anticipating the coming danger, we nevertheless go to meet it.
So it was with Rubtsov. Knowing well the poetry and life of the idol, he wrote:
“...I won’t rewrite
From the book of Tyutchev and Fet,...
And I won't make it up
Myself special, Rubtsova, ...
...But I’m with Tyutchev and Fet
I'll check your sincere word,
So that the book of Tyutchev and Fet
Continue with Rubtsov’s book...”
(N. Rubtsov.)
Rubtsov seemed to know and have a presentiment, but was heading towards a tragic ending to his life.
The death of the poet forever married Granovskaya-Derbina to Rubtsov.
***
Chapter Nine.
Dedicated to those
who knows how to love, forgive and understand.
The femme fatale in Rubtsov's life.
"...Guilty or not - decide for yourself,
Having humbled my pride little by little..."
"Appeal to Derbina" by Valentin Glushankov.
When Rubtsov received an apartment, Vologda friends, poets and writers: Korotaev V., Belov V.I., Astafiev V., Chukhin S. and other friends began to constantly come to visit him. Moscow and Leningrad acquaintances also did not pass by.
From the moment Rubtsov’s “bride” Derbina-Granovskaya suddenly appeared, as if dropped from the sky, she immediately began making attempts to excommunicate the poet from “wine” and “cull” his drinking companions.
A fiery red-haired woman with a “braid” entered the poet’s apartment and immediately filled the rest of his life with her, “... drove him crazy, broke his heart..., took peace...”.
“...I didn’t even try to smile,
Immediately struck by a premonition,
That the lines of fate will cross...
L. Derbina. (“Krushina” p. 75.)
“…. I want men to like me
It's deceitful to know what's at my knees
It is not without reason that my companion languishes;
Everyone languished, anticipating their captivity.
Where did I get the peace and smoothness of gestures, -
Where does honey and silver come from in speech?
I do not know…"
(L. Derbina. “Where does this duality in me come from” “Krushina” p. 170)
Granovskaya-Derbina burst into Rubtsov’s loneliness like a hurricane.
“... Pagan, savage, trapper,
Agility, like a lynx, is only obedient to instinct,
Towards the great movement of the worlds
Over your head
I was indifferent..."
(L. Derbina. “Krushina” “The Law is Harsh” p. 159.)
By her nature, as it seems to me, she was capable of not only knocking down a galloping horse, but in her rage incinerating an enemy and his entire village.
“...Oh, my eyes are all the gluttony of a wolf,
When severe hunger torments us,
Love each other day and night!..”
(L. Derbina “Krushina” “I Love Wolves” p. 173.)
Granovskaya, with the force of her assertive character, rushed to stake out the poet’s territory, fiercely trying to curb his temper and take the reins into her tough hands.
“...Oh, how I was secretly furious,
When I tried to tame!...”
(L. Derbina “Krushina”)
However, telling Rubtsov who not to drink with and who not to be friends with was completely hopeless. His character was not the same. He had enough obstinacy of his own. He could buck like a well-bred stallion, and in the heat of the moment he could even use an unprintable syllable to “send the offender far away, without regard to whether he got to where he was sent.”
For such a man, the worst thing is when a woman comes to his house and immediately tries to grab him by the “gills” with a death grip.
With her pressure, without penetrating into the depths of his subtle mental organization, without delving into the particularities of his complex disposition and orphanage-like character, Derbina tried to take the poet into a battering ram and immediately tame him;
“...I can be angry and daring
And in that anger I seem more and more cheerful..."
(Oh, father, make some beer”) L. Derbina
All of us, men, even not poets, have a command: do not let go of the reins from your hands for a minute, know how to hold the “dose” and pause. Then maybe, without tragedies and cataclysms, we will get to our permanent refuge.
Rubtsov also understood that his relationship with Derbina was not at all easy:
“And now she’s already sad
And now the meeting is more serious
She will completely confuse
A tangle of my contradictions..."
(“Why” Rubtsov)
Rubtsov was looking for female love and dreamed of the warmth of a home.
He even told his friends that in his heart he envied the family harmony of the writers V. Belov and A. Romanov and sadly noted that he lived by poetry, and not by family comfort.
Granovskaya could only allow him to love herself for a while:
“My soul is arrogantly high...
...When my eyes are naughty,
deliberately disturbing the flesh of men,
I see the sad look of my soul
And I truly yearn for love...”
(L. Derbina “Soul”)
From the moment she met Rubtsov in the summer of 1969, Granovskaya-Derbina realized with her mind that her family life with Rubtsov would not work out.
"…Well? It didn’t turn out to be an affectionate wife,
Not the priestess of the muses, who longs for great fame..."
(Derbina "Krushina")
It was then, I think, that she should have shown strength of character and turned her relationship with Rubtsov into a business and friendly one: poetess-poet. However, she could not and did not want to communicate like that.
Poetry also seethed in her, but not in Rubtsov’s mode, but in its special, capricious, demonic intensity.
Seeing Derbina’s behavior among the poet’s entourage and feeling her attitude towards him, he deliberately, because of his inappropriate modesty (in village terms: “it’s inconvenient in front of the people” or “what people will think”), allowed her to “play naughty” with him.
Meanwhile, the majority of ordinary residents of the city of Vologda were, simply put, indifferent to how Rubtsov’s relationship with Granovskaya or, conversely, Granovskaya’s relationship with Rubtsov developed.
And only the tragic denouement of this novel, which thundered in Vologda and blew up Vologda public opinion, forced the townspeople to start talking about the death of the poet-compatriot.
In his memoirs about Rubtsov, some of the poet’s acquaintances who knew his work said that in his poems of 1970 he did not write anything about his relationship with Granovskaya-Derbina because he did not have sincere and reckless love for her.
And who has the right to talk about love or its absence between Rubtsov and Granovskaya-Derbina?
Were there people who held a candle near them???
Even people close to Rubtsov essentially did not know about their personal life and romantic relationships.
The rest is all idle speculation to the best of one’s own ambitions.
Read Rubtsov and Derbina. Their poems explain a lot, almost everything; "their novel is not a novel, and the title itself."
So what kind of love between them can we even talk about without knowing absolutely nothing about it?
In life, everyone judges love in their own way.
But in Rubtsov’s poetry of 1970 there are still poems that shed light on his relationship with Derbina, just as Derbina writes about the same thing in her poems.
Rubtsov's poems of 1969-1970, and Rubtsov wrote quite a lot of them during this period, are filled with tragedy and forebodings of some kind of upcoming dramatic outcome.
Constantly visiting the village of Trinity near Vologda, where Granovskaya lived, they constantly sorted out their relationship in disputes, but they could not sort it out peacefully.
In the summer of 1970, Rubtsov, during another scandal, knocked out the frame in the window of Granovskaya’s house and, having severely cut his hand, ended up in the hospital.
There he wrote a poem in which Granovskaya said apologetically:
“...No, not everything,” I say, “has flown by!”
We are stronger than this disaster..."
(N. Rubtsov. 1970 “Under the branches of hospital birches”)
It is clear that here Rubtsov did not mean the injury he received, but the deep meaning of their relationship.
Apparently, one day in 1970, Rubtsov, Granovskaya and her daughter Inga walked on foot to the village of Trinity.
On the way, another dispute and showdown ensued between Rubtsov and Granovskaya, and poems about this dispute were later born to both him and her:
Rubtsov: -
"Belated chilled
A rook flew over us.
You, me, and this baby (Inga - author A.G.)
We are alone in the entire space.
And in the village at the window
An unfed cat is waiting
And he doesn’t know about our dispute.
Your whim is subtly rejected
I see that anger is taking over you...
...Silently, looking at the path
You decide little by little
What a game... not worth the candle!
(1970 Rubtsov. “Belated and Chilled”)
Granovskaya, it seems to me, writes about the same case:
“How those rooks shouted to me
So that I break up with him, break up!
I didn't listen (be quiet??)
And this is what happened.
This is what happened..."
(Derbina “Krushina” p. 74.)
So what happened?
To this Rubtsov replied:
"And under the moonlight over the city
How many oath words did I blurt out...
Late at night the door will open
It will be a sad moment
At the threshold I will stand like an animal,
Wanting love and comfort
He will turn pale and say - Go away!
Our friendship is now over!
(Rubtsov N. “Reckoning” 1970.)
Vyacheslav Belkov, in his narrative “Biography of Nikolai Rubtsov” about the poem “Reckoning,” which was originally written in 1962, said that some kind of secret was hidden in it.
However, when in 1970 Rubtsov made some changes to this poem, in particular;
"And under the moonlight over the city
How many oath words I blurted out…” everything fell into place.
The meaning of the poem received its new reading. It turns out that Rubtsov redirected it to Granovskaya-Derbina. Maybe I'm wrong in my assumption, but it's unlikely.
In desperation and some kind of hopelessness in finding a way out of the impasse in the relationship into which he and Granovskaya had wandered, Rubtsov writes:
"I left a reason
I look after others.
I would drive and drive myself,
Yes, there is no way for me..."
(1970 N. Rubtsov.)
To this, Granovskaya-Derbina answered both with words and with a death grip of her hands:
“...Primitive wild will
My being was invaded then,
As if in the bright field of our great-grandfathers
dark-faced Mongols horde...
... These jets are a fatal plexus
An evil attack was prophesied for me;
There won't be enough patience for a moment,
You can disappear in the same instant..."
(L. Derbina. “Krushina” “My Motherland - Ancient Villages” p. 147.)
But what happened!
“What have you done? Renounced
In a fit of cruel jealousy
And my life was cut short
On a disastrously high note.”
(“Krushina” by Derbin)
But these lines from the forest fairy tale “The Robber Lyalya,” written by Rubtsov in 1969 - 1970, also read like Rubtsov’s prediction:
“...For a century Lyalya would be in an unknown area
Kissed the young princess
With his UNGET TOLD BRIDE!...
...Shalukha walks meekly through the world...
And she (Shalukha) withered in sadness
A fearful farewell fairy tale
Tells them about Lyalya’s life
About the sad love of a robber...
(N. Rubtsov. “The Robber Lyalya” forest fairy tale.)
In them, as I see it, one can guess the future fate of L. Derbina - his “Shalukha” - “unexpected bride”.
People often, in the everyday course of life, ignore facts known to them without due attention, do not attach importance to significant events of the past, do not trust their intuition, although they are aware and even foresee the coming danger, but nevertheless go to meet it.
So it was with Rubtsov.
He knew, he had a presentiment, but he was heading towards a tragic ending in his life.
“...I will die in the Epiphany frosts.
I will die when the birches crack..."
(N. Rubtsov “I will die in the Epiphany frosts”)
French philosopher and politician. 1797-1871 Pierre Leroux said: “True poets are always prophets.”
Derbina also felt Rubtsov’s inner state in the last months of their relationship.
She wrote about this some time later, probably when she was already serving her sentence in a colony:
“...They feared my love like an abyss...
...Fans did not dare to perish in it,
And they preferred to love from afar.
But there was a madman... Infatuated with me,
He saw the abyss, knew that I would destroy
And yet he stepped lightly and doomedly
With the last word: I love you!”
(L. Derbina. “Krushina” p.83.)
Rubtsov's death forever married Derbina to the memory of the poet.
Now it will always be like this: they will remember Rubtsov and from his shadow the ghost of Granovskaya-Derbina will emerge with her “Krushina” from poems about repentance, but without the depth of sincere repentance.
In connection with the appearance in 1994 of L. Derbina’s collection of poems “Krushina” and her book “Memories of Rubtsov,” a wave of heated discussion arose about the life and death of Rubtsov and his “unexpected bride,” the failed strangler wife L. A. Granovskaya-Derbina .
In our time, when through the Internet and dozens of television channels, moral foundations and moral values are being intensively washed away, when the lines between conscience and shame are blurred, and evil is presented as virtue, tubs of unscrupulous speculation about the life and death of Russian poets Pushkin, Lermontov, Yesenina, Rubtsova. At the same time, their killers: the Dantes and Martynovs, and others like them, are presented as “victims” due to the fault of their victims.
Once again, the excitement around the name of Rubtsov erupted again, after the publication in 2006 of the book “Rubtsov” by the famous Vologda businessman M.V. Severe.
Mikhail Vasilyevich Surov must be given credit for the fact that during his lifetime he managed to publish his book “Rubtsov” and present copies of the materials of the criminal case accusing L.A. Granovskaya of murdering Rubtsov.
It is these documents, where each sheet is signed personally by Granovskaya-Derbina and certified by the investigator, that contains most of the truth about the relationship between Rubtsov and Granovskaya in the last months and hours of their cohabitation.
But what kind of diabolical force pushes, not ordinary people, but some people with scientific titles and high-profile titles, to stir up what was dotted and all the accents in the court verdict more than 40 years ago???
In certain circles, the idea is being circulated that Rubtsov allegedly died “of a heart attack or paralysis,” read; - “died in the hands of Derbina.”
That is, the conclusion suggests itself; - “She’s innocent - he himself died.”
Even the newly minted “pathologists-exhumators” from medicine, in an incomprehensible desire to dress up the gas chamber Granovskaya-Derbina in “white clothes,” got involved in the matter with a readiness to commit a sacrilegious act;
- exhume Rubtsov’s ashes in order to refute the conclusion of the forensic medical examination on the causes of Rubtsov’s death.
The “debate” between these scientists is not only written in the book by M.V. Severe, but, as I was told at the N. Rubtsov Museum, a separate book has even been published.
Do they understand that with their intentions to dig up Rubtsov’s grave, they are trying to realize in reality the second part of Rubtsov’s prediction:
"...From my flooded grave
The coffin will float up, forgotten and sad,
It will break with a crash,
and into the darkness
Terrible debris will float away.
I don't know what it is...
I don’t believe in eternity of peace!”
(Rubtsov N. “I will die in the Epiphany frosts”)
In the paranoia of their madness, these people attempted an act of vandalism; -destruction of the monument to the poet, on which the immortal words of Rubtsov are inscribed: - “Russia, Rus'! Take care of yourself"
In practice, these “voluntary defenders” of the poetess Derbina almost demand:
- “Let's exhume and check”?
This is how they even try to put the question on edge.
Everything in this world today has often begun to be turned upside down or even shifted from a sore head to a healthy one. The main thing in such a matter is that the director has “the right mind.”
A reasonable question arises:
- Why is the lawyer of the accused Granovskaya L.A. in 1971 in court did not make any claims to the content of the forensic medical examination report and agreed with the expert’s conclusions?
Appealing the verdict in the cassation instance, the defender of the convicted Granovskaya stated only empty, essentially insignificant, arguments in “favor of the poor.”
Why didn’t she sharpen the issue of insufficient research during the preliminary investigation into all aspects of the crime, and in particular, the subjective side of L. Granovskaya’s criminal act?
Why didn’t the lawyer demand from the court a detailed clarification of the reasons and conditions that led to the tragic outcome?
At least a year and a half before the tragedy, these reasons gradually grew and worsened in the relationship between Rubtsov and Granovskaya, and ultimately resulted in a crime drama on Epiphany morning on January 19, 1971.
If the investigation and the court had investigated these circumstances more deeply, then no one, including the “truth teller” writer Viktor Astafiev, would have dared to delve into Derbina’s relationship with Rubtsov and stir up the laundry that had not been washed by the “bride”, found in Rubtsov’s bathroom during the inspection scene of the incident.
In his article “The Death of Nikolai Rubtsov,” published in the Trud newspaper on January 27, 2000, Astafiev doused not only Derbina with his verbal excrement, but, as if casually, trampled on the memory of the poet.
Meanwhile, this very fact of the discovery of soaked linen in the bathroom, recorded in the inspection report, indicates that Derbina had no intention of taking the poet’s life even on the afternoon of January 18, but intended to become the legal wife of citizen Nikolai Mikhailovich Rubtsov in a few weeks.
In law enforcement agencies, bloody fights between relatives, husbands and wives, boyfriends, stabbings in kitchens, dachas, and garages, which have become common and everyday events in the country, are characterized as “domestic violence”, and in case of death; – murders on domestic grounds.
So in 1991, a drama similar to the tragic death of Nikolai Mikhailovich Rubtsov took place in Vologda.
Vologda artist Osiev Gennady Nikolaevich, who painted a wonderful portrait of Nikolai Rubtsov in 1987, was stabbed to death by his wife Marina out of jealousy, while in a state of passion.
The murder of Rubtsov, as a result of an all-night quarrel between the bride and groom, which ended not in peace, but in a fight with a fatal outcome, is also considered by ordinary people and some law enforcement officials to be a domestic murder.
But personally, it seems to me that such definitions are often superficial and are given because the investigation does not establish the full depth of the causes and conditions due to which such tragedies occur, similar to the Vologda drama of the twentieth century.
The ongoing embitterment and indignation in the literary and semi-literary philistine environment, it would seem, over these decades should have settled into a sediment of bitterness and deep regret about the loss of the poet.
Russian people know how to forgive, but for this they only want Christian repentance of the guilty.
“The sword does not cut off a guilty head” - right?
After all, repentance makes it possible to turn from “Saul into Paul”
Derbina also had to come to terms, but until now, in an effort to somehow rehabilitate herself, she has not come to terms.
Perhaps it is not humility that still gnaws and torments Granovskaya-Derbina’s soul like rust.
Having crossed the commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” there is no salvation in self-justification.
In the Vologda newspaper “Russian North” on September 27, 1996, the writer Vladimir Arinin published an article under the heading “Allow me to object”: “The myth of “Tragic Love” is being created, or Why the murderer N. Rubtsov is not forgiven in Vologda.”
It was written as a response to V. Karkavtsev’s publication “Life is the villain, not you” in Komsomolskaya Pravda on September 29, 1996, where an attempt was made to morally rehabilitate Derbina.
By the way, in the title of the article, Karkavtsev used a phrase from E. Yevtushenko’s letter to L. Derbina: “... I couldn’t even think that you deliberately killed Kolya. It really was a nervous breakdown...
...LIFE IS THE VILLAIN, NOT YOU.
But still, you committed a sin and must atone for it with your whole life.”
One might think that Yevtushenko, introducing himself as “Kolya’s friend,” did not know Nikolai Rubtsov’s words:
"We're leaving
not entitled
Blame it on your life.
Who's going -
he rules..."
Of course he knew, he knew it, and Karkavtsev managed to cleverly hide behind this sly phrase from the many-faced “perestroika man of the sixties” Yevtushenko.
I don’t know what kind of “friend” Rubtsov was for Yevgeny Yevtushenko, but in magazine No. 3 for 2013, in his article “Young Bukharites against the Young Trotskyists,” Timur Pulatov spoke about a conversation with Yevgeny Yevtushenko that took place between them during the days of the State Emergency Committee in August 1991.
In his article T. Pulatov writes:
...- You know, Zhenya, when I was studying at the Higher Screenwriting Courses... I became close friends with the guys: Nikolai Rubtsov, Tolya Peredreev... Yevtushenko, it seems, having listened to him,
- Interesting, interesting... But you, it turns out, are not like that at all. Yesterday I was reproached in Peredelkino for why I invited an Asian man in a turban and robe to the Writers' Union... And what attracted you to these KAMIKAZES? (highlighted by the author A.Zh)
-National, natural, natural... At some point I felt that I was cramped and did not have enough vocabulary to express feelings. We need to plunge into the language of the Russian hinterland. And this was what Rubtsov, Peredreev, Primerov had - the unclouded spirit of language... Why are they kamikazes?
“Don’t you hear: only melancholy, unstoppable intoxication, a craving for death... This generation did not fit into our progressive age, into our revolutionary time,” Yevtushenko convinced me with his characteristic passion.
“Yes,” I thought, “none of these house-builders would have composed either “Bratskaya Hydroelectric Power Station” or “Consider Me a Communist”...
This is the diversity of Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
In general, the author of the poems “Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant” and “Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty” had some kind of obsession, under the guise of whitewashing the murderers of Russian poets, to turn them (Lermontov, Rubtsov) into the perpetrators of their own death.
For example, in 2012, Yevtushenko wrote a triptych about Mikhail Lermontov:
"...Killed by a bullet - not by mortars,
full of misfortune,
why did he tease Martynov,
making him unhappy too?..."
And in a letter to Derbina, Yevgeny Yevtushenko calls her not at all to repentance, albeit involuntarily, of the murder she committed. And these words of Yevtushenko cast a shadow on Rubtsov, that he, precisely he, remained in Derbina’s life as “the villain of life.”
In his article, Arinin writes that “...in Vologda she (Derbina) was not forgiven and will not be forgiven.”..., but is it really possible to say that on behalf of all Vologda residents?
I personally, if I were such a famous Vologda resident, would never dare to say so.
Arinin also immediately comes to the conclusion that “... I am sure: if in Rubtsov’s lonely, unhappy fate, a great event happened like a turning point - true love, then he would not remain silent about it. He would have sung... But... I repeat: it is no coincidence that Rubtsov’s poetry is silent about this.”
So it may be so, but probably a little wrong. I have already told you about what poems Rubtsov dedicated to his “bride”.
Vologda residents spoke differently then and think differently about the death and life of Rubtsov.
Vologda residents have not lost their originality and Russian spirit. Our people, for the most part, are conscientious and moral, they know how to spare and forgive.
Most people understand that Derbina suffered a well-deserved punishment, and in determining this, the court was more than lenient in imposing the penalty.
Moreover, the residents of Vologda realize that now Derbina has to drag moral punishment for life, like her cross, but not to Golgotha, but into the bottomless abyss of everyday awareness of the mortal sin she has committed.
I personally would not wish such a fate even on my enemy.
Derbina, of course, is perceived by most Vologda residents as a poet’s gas chamber, but counting twenty years ago, someone really wants to introduce doubts about this into the minds of citizens.
In the preface to the collection of poems by L. Derbina “Krushina,” published in Velsk in 1994, Doctor of Philology Alexander Mikhailov sang a “rehabilitation ode” to Derbina.
In his article “On the poetry of Lyudmila Derbina” he writes:
“Siverko’s first collection of poems by Lyudmila Derbina was published in 1969.
Between him and this book, which is now being published, lies the way of the cross of her lyrical heroine, herself, which is almost a quarter of a century long. There, at its beginning, there occurred, according to the poetess herself, a fatal “cataclysm”,
which became her Golgotha, that very Golgotha, which for two millennia has been rising above our Christian world with its signs of both mortification and resurrection.
In her shadow stands the tragic figure of Rubtsov, whose meeting with Lyudmila Derbina and painful love for her resulted in death for him...” and so on, in the same spirit, the entire article.
Derbina herself announced this to the entire baptized world:
“...But it is necessary to the fullest measure
To cry, to suffer,
Learn by example
The whole abyss of grief to say:
- Passed without a disaster,
My time to rise has come.
Do not doubt, the cross of Calvary
A very reliable pedestal!..”
(L. Derbina “Krushina”)
Isn’t it true that both Derbina and her patron-admirer A. Mikhailov are deeply involved???
And the whole root of evil and blasphemous exaltation over the death of Rubtsov, which, having destroyed the brilliant Russian poet, lies in the fact that to this day Derbina mourns her ruined fate more than, not even the death of Rubtsov the man, the death of the poet Rubtsov. Until now she has not pacified herself.
Does Derbina look every day at her hands, which had a death grip on the poet’s throat? I don’t know, but I’m convinced that Nikolai Rubtsov’s death rattles: “Luda, I love you,” she is doomed to hear for life. This punishment is great and, probably, incommensurable with any other.
“...When are you bewildered
Read the volume of my poems,
You will call me...a genius.
Oh, what kind of genius is without sins?!”
(L. Derbina “Krushina” “To Enemies with a Smile”)
Derbin admits his sin, but seeks justification in it, in his sin, without looking at his hands.
Here is the answer to the question: “Who is Derbina and who is Rubtsov.”
Rus' will honor the poet Rubtsov alive and remember him forever, but Derbina will forever remain the ghost of Rubtsov’s death.
“...As if the farewell hour is eternal,
As if time has nothing to do with it...
In moments of sad music
Don't talk about anything."
(Rubtsov N. “In minutes of music”)
***
Chapter ten.
Rubtsov's star shines above the Earth.
“...Russia, Rus'! Protect yourself, protect yourself!
Look, again into your forests and valleys
They came from all sides,
Tatars and Mongols of other times..."
Around the spring of 1993, I was lucky enough to attend an exhibition of paintings by the original Russian artist Konstantin Vasiliev (Great Russian), which at that time was held in the Vologda Regional Art Gallery.
All the artist’s paintings “Waiting”, “Man with an Owl”, “An Unexpected Meeting”, “Farewell of a Slav”, “Longing for the Motherland” and many others, to this day, illuminate with the unquenchable holy light of the CANDLE depicted in his works.
Almost every painting by Vasiliev is filled with live music of the time depicted in the picture.
Just like the paintings of Vasiliev K.A., the poems of Nikolai Rubtsov are also imbued with the light of the RUSSIAN LIGHT and the twinkling of the STAR OF THE FIELDS.
Music also sounds in them and TIME lives in them.
The paths of these two most talented artists of the brush and word of the twentieth century were bound to intersect, but, alas.
The existing phraseology: “History does not tolerate the subjunctive mood” is also applicable to human life.
And life, as we know, sometimes ends unexpectedly and untimely, like an unsung song, on the highest note.
In 1969, Rubtsov, while living in the village of Timonikha with the writer Vasily Ivanovich Belov, wrote a forest fairy tale “The Robber Lyalya”.
Then he began to voice the idea of his desire to write the poem “Alexander Nevsky”.
Of course, Nikolai Rubtsov understood that there was a long and difficult path between desire and writing such a poem.
Rubtsov apparently discussed this topic with V.I. Belov is quite serious.
Apparently, Rubtsov intended to start a new path in his poetry. Moreover, historical themes about the past of Rus' have already been heard in Rubtsov’s poems before:
“...I’ll run up the hill and fall into the grass.
And suddenly there will be a whiff of antiquity from the valley!..
...Eclipse for a moment
In blood and pearls
The stupid shoe of the high-cheekbone Batu...
Russia, Rus' - wherever I look...
For all your suffering and battles
I love your, Russia, antiquity,..."
(Nikolai Rubtsov “Visions on the Hill”)
What Rubtsov could not do was brilliantly accomplished in memory of the poet Vasily Ivanovich Belov.
The historical play “Alexander Nevsky”, seventeen years after Rubtsov’s death, was written by V.I. Belov in his own unique manner.
Today, when crusaders of all stripes are attacking Rus', the work of Vasily Belov, reflecting Nevsky’s feat, is worthy of popular recognition.
Although modern historians are trying to challenge the decisions of Alexander Nevsky, no one can refute the fact that it was he who saved the Russian state and the Orthodox faith.
Prince Alexander Yaroslavich became the shield of Rus' and protected it from conquerors,
with his sword and his mind he saved Ancient Rus' from the invasion of the crusaders from the West and the Tatar-Mongol hordes from the East.
Today, humanity in Europe and Asia flourishes largely due to the wise policies of Alexander.
Prince Alexander Yaroslavich, according to his merits, was canonized.
Rubtsov’s intentions to take on creative work about such a difficult and complex time in Rus' allows us to conclude that although Rubtsov had a presentiment of his short life, he still expected to live in this world.
This is precisely what is confirmed by the letter that he wrote to the artist Vasiliev Konstantin on September 12, 1970:
“Deeply respected Konstantin Alekseevich!
I saw your caricatures in “Chayan” (magazine - author A.G.), graphic portraits of Lermontov, Dostoevsky... and a color photograph of the painting “Swans”.
I realized that you (and only you) can draw illustrations for my collection...
Other modern graphic artists - with the exception of a few venerable draftsmen - do not think in Russian, and do not draw in ours...
You and I will get along and understand each other. I’m sending a bunch of poems...
Drop me a line. If you agree to illustrate the collection, I may come see you next summer. We’ll think through the whole design together.”
These are the plans for the future that Nikolai Mikhailovich Rubtsov made.
However, man posits, but God disposes.
On January 19, 1971, Nikolai Rubtsov passed away prematurely and tragically, and on October 29, 1976, Konstantin Vasiliev also died tragically under the wheels of a train.
“The train rushed with a roar and howl,...
...Takes off...Give way, on foot!...
Just before there might be a crash
I shout to someone: Goodbye!..."
(Nikolai Rubtsov. 1969. “Train”)
Nikolai Rubtsov is a Russian poet. Russia speaks with many voices, and one of its purest, soul-piercing voices is the poetry of Rubtsov.
The tragic fate of Nikolai Rubtsov developed like the fate of most great Russian poets. During his lifetime, his name was dear only to a narrow circle of poetry connoisseurs; Even among professional writers, very few realized the real value of his work. But starting from the mid-seventies (after his death), in an extremely short period of time, the poetry of Nikolai Rubtsov gained truly national recognition. On September 21, 1985, a monumental monument to the poet was inaugurated in the city of Totma.
Nikolai Mikhailovich Rubtsov was born on January 3, 1936 in the village of Yemets, Arkhangelsk Region. His childhood was orphaned and difficult, but he remembered it without bitterness.
His father fought, but when he returned from the front, he did not return to his family, but created another. Mother died when Kolya was six years old. He and his brothers and sisters (there were six of them together) were scattered among orphanages. From 7 to 14 years old, Nikolai spent in an orphanage in the village of Nikolskoye, Vologda region. He graduated from the Nikolsk seven-year school and studied at the Totemsky Forestry Technical School. At the age of 16, he began wandering around the country: Nikolai worked as a librarian, a ship's fireman, and served in the Northern Fleet. After demobilization, Rubtsov lives in Leningrad, works at the Kirov plant, moving from one working specialty to another.
In 1962, Rubtsov entered the Literary Institute. Gorky, but two years later he was expelled for violating discipline. He had to finish his studies in absentia.
From 1964 until his tragic death, Nikolai Rubtsov lived either in Vologda or in the village of Nikola, Totemsky district, sometimes working in different editorial offices, doing daily literary work. He had a family, a daughter was born, but the constant homelessness followed him on his heels. Like many Russian talents, Rubtsov had a difficult life, he drank a lot, was often penniless, and did not have his own corner. Everyday troubles created tension in his relationships with people and, although he had many friends and acquaintances, for none of them he was “the main one,” the person who occupies first place in the heart.
During these years, Rubtsov published collections of poetry (during N. Rubtsov’s lifetime, the collections “Lyrics”, “Star of the Fields”, “The Soul Keeps”, “The Noise of Pines”) were published, he was published in magazines, his name gradually became famous in Russia. And yet the true scale of his enormous talent became clear only after his death.
Shortly before his death, Nikolai Mikhailovich found his own home, where he settled with the poetess Lyudmila Derbina. Their life together did not go smoothly, serious quarrels broke out between them, and during one such quarrel, on January 19, 1971, the poet died at the hands of Derbina. Shortly before his death he writes a prophetic verse:
I will die in the Epiphany frosts
I will die when the birches crack
And in the spring there will be complete horror:
River waves will rush into the churchyard!
From my flooded grave
The coffin will float up, forgotten and sad
It will break with a crash,
and into the darkness
Terrible wreckage will float away
I don’t know what it is...
I don't believe in eternity of peace!
Rubtsov's poetry is noticeably uneven, but the best poems place him in the first rank of Russian poetry. Depth with extreme simplicity - this is how one could characterize his work. The main features of Rubtsov’s poetry are a tragic attitude, the inner loneliness of his lyrical hero, love for the dim northern land:
MY SILENT HOMELAND
Quiet my homeland!
Willows, river, nightingales...
My mother is buried here
In my childhood years.
- Where is the churchyard? You did not see?
I can't find it myself. -
The residents answered quietly:
- It's on the other side.
The residents answered quietly,
The convoy passed quietly.
Church monastery dome
Overgrown with bright grass.
Where I swam for fish
Hay is rowed into the hayloft:
Between river bends
People dug a canal.
Tina is now a swamp
Where I loved to swim...
My quiet homeland
I haven't forgotten anything.
New fence in front of the school
The same green space.
Like a cheerful crow
I'll sit on the fence again!
My school is wooden!..
The time will come to leave -
The river behind me is foggy
He will run and run.
With every bump and cloud,
With thunder ready to fall,
I feel the most burning
The most mortal connection.
The poetry of Nikolai Rubtsov reflected the soul of the Russian people, its tragic tossing and searching. Rubtsov also has a lot of heartfelt poetry dedicated to nature and rural life.
A wonderful moon floats over the river
A wonderful month floats over the river -
Somewhere a young voice sings.
And over the homeland, full of peace,
A golden dream is falling!
Robbers' faces don't scare me,
And they don’t think of starting fires,
The crazy bird doesn't scream
There is no unfamiliar speech.
Restless shadows of the dead
They don’t get up, they don’t come near me.
And, yearning less and less,
Like god I walk in silence.
And where does this come from?
That dew flickers on the branches,
And over the homeland, full of peace,
The skies are so bright at night!
It's like hearing a choir singing,
It’s like messengers galloping in troikas,
And in the wilderness of a dozing forest
All the bells are ringing and ringing...
***
September
Glory to you, heavenly one
Joyful brief peace!
Your sunshine is wonderful
He plays with our river,
The crimson one plays with the grove,
With a scattering of berries in the entryway,
As if a holiday had arrived
On golden-maned horses!
I rejoice in loud barking,
Leaves, cow, rook,
And I don't wish for anything
And I don't want anything!
And no one knows
That, speaking with winter,
The heavenly one lurks in the abyss
Wind and sadness of October...
SNOW FALLED AND EVERYTHING WAS FORGOTTEN
Snow fell - and everything was forgotten,
What was the soul full of!
My heart suddenly began to beat faster,
It's like I drank wine.
Along the narrow street
A clear breeze rushes by,
The beauty of ancient Russian
The town has been renewed.
Snow flies on the Church of Sophia,
For children, and there are countless of them.
Snow is flying all over Russia,
Like good news.
Snow is flying - look and listen!
So, simple and clever,
Life sometimes heals the soul...
Well, okay! And good.
***
It's light in my upper room
It’s light in my upper room.
This is from the night star.
Mother will take the bucket,
Silently bring water...
My red flowers
Everything in the kindergarten withered.
Boat on the river bank
It will soon rot completely.
Slumbering on my wall
Willow lace shadow.
Tomorrow I have under her
It's going to be a busy day!
I will water the flowers
Think about your destiny
I'll be there before the night star
Make your own boat...
Song based on verses by Rubtsov, performed by Elmira Kalimullina:
Class: 8
Lesson format:
It is held in the school museum of local history in the room "Russian Hut", there is a Russian stove, a table covered with a knitted tablecloth, on the table there is a large samovar, on the wooden walls of the hut there are photographs in large frames, in each frame there are from 6 to 10 photographs.
Epigraph
Hello, Russia is my homeland!
Target: to introduce the work of N. Rubtsov, teach to understand and love poetry, cultivate love for the Motherland, and contribute to instilling the best moral qualities of the Russian people.
1. Introductory speech by the teacher.
Our lesson is dedicated to the work of the Russian poet N.M. Rubtsova. The epigraph of the lesson is reported.
Why is this lesson being held in such unusual conditions?
We are in a Russian hut. This is what it looked like in ancient times, and at the time when N. Rubtsov was still a boy, and in post-war times closer to us.
Let's look at the structure of a Russian hut. Here is a samovar that stood either on the table or by the stove, a peasant family gathered around it, treated the guest to tea, the owners themselves drank several cups per evening.
Hurry, hurry! When you're completely chilled,
How glorious is the house and the melodious samovar!
This is the village over which the clouds are hovering,
It is a dear village and is:
But the favorite resting place in the hut is “mother stove,” as they affectionately called it in the village.
It will warm you up and cheer you up, it’s good to listen to a fairy tale, and have a heart-to-heart talk, and ask for advice, and complain about your fate.
I'm not alone in the whole universe,
Books and accordion are with me,
And a friend of imperishable poetry -
Birch fire in the stove:
Here is a photograph of the poet Rubtsov.
Slide No. 2. What can you say about the person depicted here? A simple Russian man. On the table there is a photo of him with a Russian accordion, which he played well since childhood; he loved the accordion very much.
What are the origins of Rubtsov’s creativity? Where are the roots of this beloved Russian poet? The student will tell you about this.
Nikolai Rubtsov - biography (slides No. 3 - No. 10)
Nikolai Mikhailovich Rubtsov is a Russian Soviet lyric poet. Born on January 3, 1936 in the village of Yemetsk, Arkhangelsk region. In 1940 he moved with his family to Vologda, where the Rubtsovs were caught in the war. The boy was left an orphan early on - his father, Mikhail Andreyanovich Rubtsov (1900-1962), went to the front and, as the children believed, died already in 1941 (in fact, the father abandoned the family and lived separately in Vologda after the war). In 1942, his mother died, and Nikolai was sent to the Nikolsky orphanage in the Totemsky district of the Vologda region, where he graduated from seven classes of school.
The Vologda “small homeland” gave him the main theme of his future work - “ancient Russian identity”, became the center of his life, “a sacred land”, where he felt “both alive and mortal.”
From 1950 to 1952, the future poet studied at the Totemsky Forestry College. Then he worked for two years as a fireman in the Arkhangelsk trawl fleet of the Sevryba trust and for another two years as a laborer at an experimental military training ground in Leningrad.
From 1955 to 1959 he served in the army in the Northern Fleet (with the rank of sailor and senior sailor). After demobilization, he lived in Leningrad, working alternately as a mechanic, fireman and charger at the Kirov plant. However, in his soul he lives with poetry, and therefore decides to change his destiny.
In 1962 Rubtsov entered the Literary Institute. M. Gorky in Moscow and met V. Sokolov, S. Yu. Kunyaev, V. V. Kozhinov and other writers, whose friendly participation more than once helped him both in his creativity and in the matter of publishing poetry. The poet continues to write, and in the mid-1960s his first collections were published.
In 1969, Rubtsov graduated from the Literary Institute and received the first separate one-room apartment in his life.
Rubtsov died in a family quarrel on January 19, 1971 in his Vologda house, at the hands of his wife Lyudmila Derbina. In Vologda, a street was named after Nikolai Rubtsov and a monument was erected (1998, sculptor A. M. Shebunin). A monument by sculptor V. Klykov was erected in Totma. A monument to Rubtsov was also erected in his homeland, in Yemetsk (2004, sculptor N. Ovchinnikov).
Creation
The first book of poems, “Lyrics,” was published in 1965 in Arkhangelsk. Then the poetry collections “Star of the Fields” (1967), “The Soul Keeps” (1969), and “The Noise of Pines” (1970) were published. “Green Flowers”, which was being prepared for publication, appeared after the poet’s death.
Rubtsov's poetry, extremely simple in its style and themes, associated primarily with his native Vologda region, has creative authenticity, internal scale, and a finely developed figurative structure.
Particularly famous are the songs based on his poems “It’s light in my upper room”, “I’ll ride my bike for a long time”, “In moments of sad music”
Teacher's word
So, the homeland is the village of Yemetsk in the Arkhangelsk region, then the city of Totma in the Vologda region, similar to a large village in which the townspeople lived in houses like this, first covered with straw, then with tiles, and later with iron and slate. The history of the region is the history of every person living in it. It is history that leaves its mark on a person’s character, actions, and his principles of life.
And Totma has a rich history.
Zoya Gaiduchenko will read an excerpt from an essay by N. Rubtsov, published in the Vologda regional newspaper.
These are the serious historical events the ancestors of the residents of Totma had to endure. And then there were other trials: the Second World War, the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War. And people continued to live and enjoy life. The villages around Totma lived their leisurely, measured life; the Russian log house remained just as expensive and friendly, where a willow or birch tree grows under the window, nettles rage, and, leaving the house, you immediately find yourself in a vegetable garden, a meadow, a field, or a river bank.
There is peace in the room
All guests are honored
Full river
My life flows
I'll go out in no hurry
I'll take a look at the village:
Take a dip, soul,
Into a clean wave!
The ancient word “upper room” replaced “room”, but the meaning remained - this is a dear, dear father’s house.
Based on Rubtsov's poems, composer A. Morozov wrote the song "It's Light in My Room:".
One of the students will perform it to the accompaniment of a guitar.
Teacher's word
Another image is associated with the home. Which?
Mother, mother, mamma - like the center of the house, the connecting link between all family members. The poet himself lost his mother very early, but he carried his love for her throughout his life and dedicated several poems to his mother.
Many poets wrote about their native land, about the village, about their native nature. But only Rubtsov could write so piercingly and purely about his homeland.
Students read excerpts from Rubtsov's lyrics.
Oh, humble and dear sight!
Birch trees, huts along the hills
And, reflected by the depths,
Like a hundred-year-old dream, God's temple.In the holy abode of nature,
In the shade of overgrown birches
Turbid waters flow
And the creaking of wheels is heard.
With a farewell haze
Old women's huts above the river,
Unforgettable views!
Unforgettable peace!..At a rotten forest hut,
Wandering between the white trunks,
I love collecting waves
On the slope of an autumn day.I love it when the birch trees rustle
When the leaves fall from the birches.
I listen and tears come
On eyes weaned from tears.Hello, Russia is my homeland!
Stronger than storms, stronger than any will
Love for your barns by the stubble,
Love for you, hut in the azure field.
I won’t give up all the mansions
Your low house with nettles under the window:
How peaceful it is in my upper room
The sun was setting in the evenings!
Like all the space, heavenly and earthly,
I breathed happiness and peace through the window,
And the glorious air of antiquity emanated,
And he rejoiced under the showers and heat!..Quiet my homeland!
Willows, river, nightingales:
My mother is buried here
In my childhood years.Before this
Yellow, provincial
Birch side
Mine,
Before the stubble
Cloudy and sad
On autumn days
sorrowful rains,
Before that
Strict village council,
Before that
Herd by the bridge
Before everything
With old white light
I swear:
My soul is pure.
Let her
Will remain clean
To end,
Until the death cross!
Teacher's word
And we return again to the hut, in the window of which there is a light burning, first a kerosene lamp, and since the 60s an electric light bulb.
Let's look at the walls of the hut, where we will see frames with photographs, these hung in every house. These are relatives and friends of the owners, many of whom did not return from the war. The memory of the dead was sacredly kept in every home.
Reading the poem "Russian Light". A prepared student reads.
What is this poem about? (About the loneliness of the lyrical hero)
Read the beginning. What mood arises? (Sadness, sadness)
What does “the sky is dark, without stars” mean for the hero? (The severity of loneliness)
What does the hero find solace in? (In the light of a light).
What is the significance of the symbolic image of a house? (Home is a source of goodness and happiness. It is a symbol of the soul’s refuge).
What lines speak about the national tragedy, about how the fate of the people affected the fate of the peasant woman?
What lines contain the ideological meaning? (Last stanza: Russian light is a symbol of hope, a symbol of people’s love for each other, for their homeland, a symbol of complicity).
Expressive reading of a poem by students.
Work on the expressive means of the poem.
Summing up the lesson:
In N. Rubtsov's lyrics there is always light, symbolizing hope for the future. Russian nature, Russian people, Russian spirit - the theme of the lyrics of the Russian poet N.M. Rubtsova.
“Russian Light” Nikolay Rubtsov
Immersed in languid frost,
The snow around me has become numb!
The little spruce trees became numb,
And the sky was dark, without stars.
What a wilderness! I was alone alive
One alive in an endless dead field!
Suddenly a quiet light - a dream, or what? —
Flashed in the desert like a sentry...I was just like Bigfoot
Entering the hut - the last hope! —
And I heard, shaking off the snow:
- Here's a stove for you... And warm clothes... -
Then the hostess listened to me,
But there was little life in the dim look,
And, sitting motionless by the fire,
She seemed to have completely dozed off...How many yellow photographs are there in Rus'?
In such a simple and careful frame!
And suddenly he opened up to me and amazed me
The orphan meaning of family photos!
The earth is full of fire and hostility,
And the soul will not forget everyone’s loved ones...
- Tell me, dear, will there be a war?
And I said:
- Probably won't.
- God willing, God willing... you can’t please everyone,
But no good will come from discord... -
And suddenly again: “It won’t happen, you say?”
“No,” I say, “probably won’t happen!”
- God forbid, God forbid...
And long on me
She looked like a deaf-mute
And, without raising his gray head,
Again she sat quietly by the fire.
What did she dream about? All this white light
Perhaps he stood before her at that moment?
But I am the dull jingle of coins
Interrupted her ancient visions.
- The Lord is with you! We don't take money.
“Well,” I say, “I wish you health!”
For all the good we will pay with good,
Let's pay for all the love with love...Thank you, humble Russian light,
Because you are in an anxious premonition
You burn for those who are in the roadless field
Desperately far from all my friends,
For being friends with good faith,
Among great anxieties and robbery
You burn, you burn like a kind soul,
You are burning in the darkness, and you have no peace...
Analysis of Rubtsov’s poem “Russian Light”
It is no secret that the “Khrushchev Thaw,” which lasted only a few years, gave many residents of the USSR hope for a more joyful future. Stalin's cult of personality was debunked, but democracy in the country was still quite far away. But it was precisely on this wave that a whole galaxy of wonderful young poets appeared, who put their sincerity in opposition to the situation and tried to get to the bottom of the truth by any means. Nikolai Rubtsov, who dreamed of becoming a poet and brutally paid for every samizdat collection he published, counted himself among such innovators. He was bullied at the institute and forced to abandon his literary experiments. But the stubbornness of his character, tempered in the orphanage, allowed Rubtsov to achieve what he so strived for.
The poet did not try to adapt to the existing reality, so some of his works today look quite naive and pseudo-patriotic. So, in 1964, the author published a ballad called “Russian Light”, in which he touched on the topic of relationships between people. While many dissidents were shouting about the lack of freedom and glorifying the West, Rubtsov made a sketch from his own life, showing that no government system is able to regulate such concepts as kindness, responsiveness, openness and lack of vanity. The author is silent about how and why he ended up on the outskirts of an ordinary Russian village in the middle of the night. However, in the hope of an overnight stay, the poet knocked on the last hut, where he was received with purely Slavic cordiality and hospitality.
He was met by an ordinary rural woman who, not afraid of a stranger, simply and friendlyly answered: “Here is a stove for you and warm clothes.” But this was not the only thing that struck Rubtsov in the village woman’s behavior. After her overnight guest warmed up, the woman asked him if there would be a war. 20 years after its completion, this topic still resonated with pain in the soul of the mistress of the house, and very soon the poet understood why. On the walls of a rural hut he saw photographs of numerous men from a once large and friendly family. They all died in the war, which this inexperienced rural woman was now so afraid of. After all, she still remembered the pain of loss and understood that the next military action would bring new victims. It would seem, why does she care about the suffering of others? But the mysterious Russian soul is famous for its ability to sympathize with others, its generosity and amazing kindness.
The hostess refused to take money from the poet for lodging. The best reward for her was Rubtsov’s words of good health. Indeed, in Rus' from time immemorial it has been customary to pay for good with good.
Today it is difficult to believe that once upon a time a stranger could calmly enter any rural house and ask for an overnight stay. But half a century ago this was considered the norm and was even welcomed. After all, in return the owners received much more than money, the cult of which today has been elevated to an absolute. Nikolai Rubtsov reveals the secret of such relationships, noting: “We will pay for all love with love...”. It would seem that. There is nothing surprising or extraordinary in this phrase. Nevertheless, it is she who is the core on which relations between ordinary people have always been built. Hospitality, the desire to come to the aid of someone who needs it, wisdom in communication and amazing goodwill - all these qualities struck the poet so strongly that he realized the meaninglessness and pettiness of his previous relationships with people. After this unexpected meeting, the poet admits that his friends have moved away, and the meaning of life has become those ideals that are always held in high esteem by our ancestors, who know how to love people sincerely and do not demand anything in return.