Brodsky is floating in inexplicable melancholy. I look forward to your comments, comments, etc.
BORODINO
Tell me, uncle, it’s not for nothing
Moscow, burned by fire,
Given to the Frenchman?
After all, there were battles,
Yes, they say, even more!
No wonder all of Russia remembers
About Borodin Day!
Yes, there were people in our time
Not like the current tribe:
The heroes are not you!
They got a bad lot:
Few returned from the field...
If it weren't God's will,
They wouldn't give up Moscow!
We retreated silently for a long time,
It was a shame, we were waiting for a fight,
The old people grumbled:
“What are we? for winter apartments?
Don't you dare, commanders?
Aliens tear up their uniforms
About Russian bayonets?
And then we found a large field:
There is somewhere to go for a walk in the wild!
They built a redoubt.
Our ears are on top!
A little morning the guns lit up
And the forests have blue tops -
The French are right there.
I jammed the charge into the gun tightly
And I thought: I’ll treat my friend!
Wait a minute, brother monsieur!
What is there to be cunning about, perhaps for a fight;
We'll go and break the wall,
Let's stand with our heads
For your homeland!
We were in a firefight for two days.
What's the use of such a trifle?
We waited for the third day.
Speeches began to be heard everywhere:
“Time to get to the buckshot!”
And here on the field of a terrible battle
The shadow of the night fell.
I lay down to take a nap by the gun carriage,
And it was heard until dawn,
How the Frenchman rejoiced.
But our open bivouac was quiet:
Who cleaned the shako, all battered,
Who sharpened the bayonet, grumbling angrily,
Biting a long mustache.
And only the sky lit up,
Everything suddenly began to move noisily,
The formation flashed behind the formation.
Our colonel was born with a grip:
Servant to the king, father to the soldiers...
Yes, I feel sorry for him: he was struck down by damask steel,
He sleeps in damp ground.
And he said, his eyes sparkling:
"Guys! Isn't Moscow behind us?
We'll die near Moscow,
How our brothers died!
And we promised to die
And they kept the oath of allegiance
We are at the Battle of Borodino.
Well, it was a day! Through the flying smoke
The French moved like clouds
And everything is at our redoubt.
Lancers with colorful badges,
Dragoons with ponytails
Everyone flashed before us,
Everyone has been here.
You will never see such battles!
Banners were worn like shadows,
The fire sparkled in the smoke,
Damask steel sounded, buckshot screamed,
The soldiers' hands are tired of stabbing,
And prevented the cannonballs from flying
A mountain of bloody bodies.
The enemy experienced a lot that day,
What does Russian fighting mean?
Our hand-to-hand combat!..
The earth shook - like our breasts;
Horses and people mixed together,
And volleys of a thousand guns
Merged into a long howl...
It's getting dark. Were everyone ready
Start a new fight tomorrow morning
And stand until the end...
The drums began to crack -
Yes, there were people in our time
Mighty, dashing tribe:
The heroes are not you.
They got a bad lot:
Few returned from the field.
If it weren't for God's will,
They wouldn't give up Moscow!
Mikhail Lermontov
If your home is dear to you,
Where were you raised Russian?
Under the log ceiling
Where were you, rocking in a cradle, floating;
If there are roads in the house
Walls, stove and corners for you,
Grandfather, great-grandfather and father
It has well-worn floors;
If the poor garden is dear to you
With May flowers, with the buzzing of bees
And under the linden tree a hundred years ago
A table dug into the ground by grandfather;
If you don't want the floor
A fascist trampled in your house,
So that he sits at his grandfather's table
And he broke the trees in the garden...
If your mother is dear to you -
The breast that fed you,
Where there has been no milk for a long time,
You can just press your cheek;
If you can't bear it,
So that the fascist, standing next to her,
He hit the wrinkled cheeks,
I wrapped the braids around my hand;
So that the same hands of hers
That they carried you to the cradle,
We washed the bastard's underwear
And they made his bed...
If you haven't forgotten your father,
Who rocked you in his arms,
That he was a good soldier
And disappeared in the Carpathian snows,
Who died for the Volga, for the Don,
For your fatherland's fate;
If you don't want him
Rolling over in his grave
So that a soldier's portrait in crosses
The fascist took it and tore it to the floor
And in front of my mother's eyes
Stepped on his face...
If you don't want to give
The one with whom I went together,
The one that takes a long time to kiss
You didn’t dare - you loved her so much -
So that the fascists live
They took me by force, pinned me in the corner,
And the three of them crucified her,
Nude, on the floor;
So that these three dogs get it
In groans, in hatred, in blood
Everything that you cherish sacredly
With all the power of a man's love...
If you are a fascist with a gun
You don't want to give it away forever
The house where you lived, your wife and mother,
Everything that we call homeland -
Know: no one will save her,
If you don't save her;
Know: no one will kill him,
If you don't kill him.
And until he was killed,
Keep quiet about your love
The land where you grew up and the house where you lived,
Don't call it your homeland.
Let your brother kill the fascist,
Let a neighbor kill a fascist, -
This is your brother and neighbor taking revenge,
And you have no excuse.
They don’t sit behind someone else’s back,
You don't take revenge with someone else's rifle.
Since your brother killed a fascist, -
It is he, not you, who is the soldier.
So kill the fascist so that he
And it wasn’t you who was lying on the ground,
Not in your house to moan,
And in it stood on the dead.
That’s what he wanted, it’s his fault, -
Let his house burn, not yours,
And even if it’s not your wife,
And let him be a widow.
Let it not be yours to cry,
And his mother who gave birth,
Not yours, but his family
Let him wait in vain.
So kill at least one!
So kill him quickly!
How many times will you see him?
Kill him so many times!
Konstantin Simonov
TO THE SLANDERERS OF RUSSIA
What are you making noise about, people?
Why are you threatening Russia with anathema?
What angered you? unrest in Lithuania?
Leave it alone: this is a dispute between the Slavs,
A domestic, old dispute, already weighed by fate,
A question that you cannot resolve.
For a long time now
These tribes are at enmity;
More than once I bowed down under a thunderstorm
Either their side or our side.
Who can stand in an unequal dispute:
Puffy Pole, or faithful Ross?
Will Slavic streams merge into the Russian sea?
Will it run out? here's the question.
Leave us: you didn't read
These bloody tablets;
You don’t understand, it’s alien to you
This family feud;
The Kremlin and Prague are silent for you;
Senselessly seduces you
Fighting desperate courage -
And you hate us...
Why? be responsible: for whether,
What's on the ruins of burning Moscow
We did not recognize the arrogant will
The one under whom you trembled?
Because they fell into the abyss
We are the idol that gravitates over the kingdoms
And redeemed with our blood
Europe freedom, honor and peace?..
You are formidable in words - try it in deeds!
Or an old hero, deceased on his bed,
Unable to screw in your Izmail bayonet?
Or is the word of the Russian Tsar already powerless?
Or is it new for us to argue with Europe?
Or is the Russian unaccustomed to victories?
Are there not enough of us? Or from Perm to Taurida,
From the Finnish cold rocks to the fiery Colchis,
From the shocked Kremlin
To the walls of motionless China,
Sparkling with steel bristles,
The Russian land will not rise?..
So send it to us, Vitiia,
His embittered sons:
There is a place for them in the fields of Russia,
Among the coffins alien to them.
Alexander Pushkin
The sower went out to sow his seeds.
Desert sower of freedom,
I left early, before the star;
With a clean and innocent hand
Into the enslaved reins
Threw a life-giving seed -
But I only lost time
Good thoughts and works...
Graze, peaceful peoples!
The cry of honor will not wake you up.
Why do the herds need the gifts of freedom?
They should be cut or trimmed.
Their inheritance from generation to generation
A yoke with rattles and a whip.
Alexander Pushkin
Italian
Black cross on the chest of an Italian,
No carving, no pattern, no gloss, -
Kept by a poor family
And worn by his only son...
Young native of Naples!
What did you leave on the field in Russia?
Why couldn't you be happy
Above the famous native bay?
I, who killed you near Mozdok,
I dreamed so much about a distant volcano!
How I dreamed in the Volga region
Take a ride in a gondola at least once!
But I didn't come with a gun
Taking away the Italian summer
But my bullets didn’t whistle
Over the sacred land of Raphael!
Here I shot! Here where I was born
Where I was proud of myself and my friends,
Where are the epics about our peoples
They never appear in translations.
Is the middle Don bend
Has it been studied by foreign scientists?
Our land - Russia, Russia -
Have you plowed and sowed?
No! They brought you in a train
To capture distant colonies,
To cross from a family casket
Grew to the size of a grave...
I won't let my homeland be taken away
For the vastness of foreign seas!
I shoot - and there is no justice
Fairer than my bullet!
You have never lived or been here!..
But scattered in the snowy fields
Italian blue sky
Glazed in dead eyes...
Mikhail Svetlov
There are soldiers who die in war and there are leaders, politicians who send soldiers to die in war.
They will never change their places.
They are different from the start.
Both were born by mothers.
But, apparently, their mothers were different.
Dedicated to our veterans of the Great Patriotic War, our grandparents, internationalist wars, all our guys, and ordinary civilians who died in Syria, Donbass, Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Afghanistan... and other hot spots of the former USSR!
Chief Rabbi of Russia
Rabbi Pinchos Berl Lazar was born on May 19 (8 Sivan 5724) 1964 in Italy in the family of a rabbi of the Jewish community of Milan. In 1978, after graduating from a comprehensive Jewish school, he entered the Rabbinical College of New Jersey (USA). Then, in 1982, he continued his studies at the Tomchei Tmimim yeshiva (theological academy) in New York and graduated in 1988 with a rabbinical diploma with the rank of dayan, a religious judge.
Rabbi Berel Lazar first visited Russia in 1988. A year later, the leader of the movement "Chabad-Lubavitch" The Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson blessed him to work to revive Jewish religious life in the USSR, and in 1989 Rabbi Lazar came to Moscow. In 1990, he became the rabbi of the Moscow synagogue in Maryina Roshcha. Since 1995, he has also held the post of Chairman of the Association of CIS Rabbis, and in 1999 he was elected Chief Rabbi of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.
In 2000, Rabbi Berel Lazar received Russian citizenship. That same year, at the congress of Russian Jewish communities, he was elected chief rabbi of Russia. According to the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation V. Putin, in 2001, Rabbi Berel Lazar became a member of the Council for Interaction with Religious Associations under the President of the Russian Federation.
On July 2, 2002, at the founding congress of the World Congress of Russian-Speaking Jewry in Moscow, Rabbi Berl Lazar was elected chairman of the Rabbinical Council of this international organization. One of his responsibilities in this position is to regularly and objectively inform the international community about the situation of the Jewish community in our country and the counteraction of government authorities to manifestations of anti-Semitism.
Currently, under the spiritual guardianship of Rabbi Berl Lazar, Jewish communities have been revived in more than 350 cities in Russia and the CIS, national schools and kindergartens operate, rabbis work in dozens of cities, synagogues and charitable organizations operate.
By decree of the President of the Russian Federation of March 30, 2004 (8 Nissan 5764) “for services in the development of spiritual culture and strengthening friendship between peoples,” Rabbi Berel Lazar was awarded the Order of Friendship.
By Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated April 30, 2014 (Nisan 30, 5774) “for achieved labor success, significant contribution to the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation, merits in the humanitarian sphere, strengthening law and order, many years of conscientious work, active legislative and social activities” Rabbi Berel Lazar was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree.
Rabbi Berel Lazar is fluent in Italian, English, Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish.
Rabbi Berel Lazar is married and has 13 children.
CHRISTMAS ROMANCE
Evgeniy Reina, with love
Floating in inexplicable melancholy
among the brick overhang
night boat inextinguishable
from the Alexander Garden,
unsociable night flashlight,
looks like a yellow rose,
over the heads of your loved ones,
at the feet of passers-by.
Floating in inexplicable melancholy
a bee choir of somnambulists and drunkards.
Photograph in the night capital
the foreigner did sadly,
and leaves for Ordynka
taxis with sick passengers,
and the dead stand in an embrace
with mansions.
Floating in inexplicable melancholy
sad singer in the capital,
standing at the kerosene shop
sad chubby janitor,
hurries along a nondescript street
lover is old and handsome.
Midnight Train Newlywed
floating in inexplicable melancholy.
Floating in the darkness of Zamoskvoretskaya
an accidental swimmer in misfortune,
wanders Jewish reprimand
along the sad yellow stairs,
and from love to sadness
on New Year's Eve, on Sunday,
the beauty is floating,
without explaining my melancholy.
A cold evening floats in my eyes,
snowflakes tremble on the carriage,
frosty wind, pale wind
will cover red palms,
and the honey of the evening lights flows,
and smells like sweet halva,
night pie brings christmas eve
over your head.
Your New Year in dark blue
wave amid the noise of the city
floating in inexplicable melancholy,
as if life would start again,
as if there will be light and glory,
have a good day and plenty of bread,
as if life will swing to the right,
swinging to the left.
1962
In the first stanza of this poem, the reader is asked a riddle: what kind of “ship” and at the same time “flashlight” are we talking about? The obvious answer - about the moon - is confirmed several times when reading the full text of “A Christmas Romance”. The line “bee chorus of sleepwalkers, drunkards” (2nd stanza) provokes the attentive reader to remember sleepwalking. The phrase “round-faced janitor” (3rd stanza) ironically refers to Pushkin’s textbook likening of a round face to “stupid”<ой>moon<е>"on the "stupid horizon." And in the lines “the night pie carries Christmas Eve // over its head” (5th stanza) It’s easy to identify another disguised image of the moon, especially if you look at Brodsky’s 1964 poem with the “culinary” title “ Slice honey months". Let us also quote lines from Anna Akhmatova’s Christmas poem “Bezhetsk” (1921): “And the sickle of heaven is yellower than linden honey.”
Note that the topic honeymoon, going back to the image present behind the scenes of the poem moon, is actively being developed in “A Christmas Romance.” Thus, the epithet “bee” is used in the second stanza of Brodsky’s poem partly as similar in sound to the epithet “sad”, partly as continuing the theme of the honeymoon. In the previous stanza “honey” the theme was outlined by the image of a “yellow rose”; in the next one there will be a “train” newlywed" ; and in the penultimate stanza of “The Christmas Romance” we encounter the metaphor “ honey evening lights." A picture of the imaginary wedding feast (“honey is flowing”, “smells of sweet halva”) ends the 5th stanza of the poem, and “Christmas Eve”, like a waiter, "carries over his head" "night pie" the moon (the association is reinforced by the previous lines of the 5th stanza, where the image of the waiter’s white gloves appears: “a frosty wind, a pale wind // will cover red palms”).
Why is the secret “heroine” of Brodsky’s Christmas poem precisely the moon, and not the obvious star? Because the neighbor of the moon floating in the “Christmas Romance” “among the brick superstructure” of the Kremlin wall turns out to be just a star, but the star is not the same Not christmas star . So the moon turns into a substitute, a twin of the star in the poem.
Through hints and omissions, another image is introduced into the objective world of “The Christmas Romance” - the image of a river. It seems very likely that the poet chose Zamoskvorechye, not least because this area is grouped around the river and owes its name to it. By the way, in order to get the shortest route from the Alexander Garden (described in the 1st stanza) to Ordynka (where the taxi leaves in the 2nd stanza), you need to cross the Moscow River through the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge (in parentheses, we note that the Moscow Alexander Garden was laid out on the site of the piped Neglinka River). Avoiding direct references to the Moscow River in his “Christmas Romance,” the poet makes full use of “river” and “ship” images. The poem begins with a “ship” that “sails in inexplicable melancholy.” The poem ends with the dream that “life,” like a ship, “will swing to the right, // swinging to the left.” In between these two ships everything in the poem is also « floats" (a verb repeated 8 times in 6 stanzas) or, as in the fifth stanza, “flows.” “A sad swimmer”, “a swimmer in misfortune” in the finale of “The Christmas Romance” the “New Year” itself appears, floating “on a dark blue // wave.”
At the same time, Brodsky’s Moscow River is nothing more than a double of another, native river, just as Moscow is nothing more than a double of another, “real” capital. The very dedication of “The Christmas Romance” to a Leningrader named Eugene(and “river” surname Rhine) , coupled with numerous “river” motifs of the poem, perhaps refers the reader to the classic St. Petersburg poem “The Bronze Horseman”. And it already seems completely obvious that Moscow at night as it appears in Brodsky’s poem:
Floating in inexplicable melancholy
bee choir of sleepwalkers, drunkards...
extremely reminiscent of St. Petersburg, as it was described by the creators of the so-called “Petersburg text” - Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Andrei Bely... The line about the “sad yellow staircase” from the fourth stanza of “A Christmas Romance” looks almost a direct quote from Dostoevsky. .
But this is not enough. Turning again to the opening lines of our poem, let us remember that until 1918 (and since the end of 1991) “Alexandrovsky” was the name given to the Admiralty Garden in the center of St. Petersburg. So the “inextinguishable ship” floating in Brodsky’s poem over the Kremlin wall of Moscow is not only the moon, but also the gilded weather vane “ship” on the building of the Main Admiralty (one of the most common symbols of St. Petersburg/Leningrad is the Lenfilm emblem).
The two capitals in “A Christmas Romance” are united by the motif of the “midnight train of the newlywed.” As N.B. suggested to us. Ivanov, Brodsky is talking about the famous “Red Arrow” , which set off at midnight from the Leningradsky railway station in Moscow and from the Moskovsky railway station in Leningrad - two more “off-screen” doubles of “The Christmas Romance”.
Now, armed with a certain, perhaps excessive, amount of imagination, let’s try to restore the biographical basis of the plot of “The Christmas Romance.” The Leningrad poet celebrates the holiday in Moscow, on Ordynka, perhaps with his friends, the Ardovs. After drinking, he goes outside to sober up and wanders towards the Alexander Garden across the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge. In his eyes, everything floats and doubles, the features of the old new appear through the new old capital, through the moon at the walls of the Kremlin - an Admiralty ship, he remembers that the “Red Arrow” has now set off, Moscow’s “dead” houses are adjacent to those of St. Petersburg “ mansions,” a modern “taxi” flies past with old-fashioned “riders.”
The main reason for all this ominous doubling is the following: in the Soviet Union, the celebration of Christmas was replaced by the celebration of the New Year. Therefore, instead of Joseph and Mary, their brutal counterparts appear in the poem - “an old and handsome lover” and “a beautiful woman.” And in the finale of “The Christmas Romance,” the hopeless “as if” is twice accompanied by lines that, with the help of paraphrases, introduce into the poem the image and theme of Christ: the One whose “life will begin again,” Who is all “light and glory” Lekmanov O.A. A book about Acmeism and other works. Tomsk, 2000; Sergeeva-Klyatis A.Yu., Lekmanov O.A."Christmas Poems" by Joseph Brodsky. Tver, 2002. See also the work written in controversy with us: Bogomolov N.A. About two “Christmas poems” by I. Brodsky // New Literary Review. No. 56. . For interesting thoughts on A Christmas Romance, see the essay: Sedakova O.A. Music of the dead time: (Russian lyrics of the 70s) // Bulletin of new literature. 1990. Vol. 2. P. 258.
The text of “A Christmas Romance” is given according to the edition: Brodsky I.A.. Christmas poems. M., 1996. S. 5 - 6.
For similar motives in a completely different writer (an antagonist of Brodsky in all respects), see: Chudakova M.O. The Star of Bethlehem and the Red Star by M. Bulgakov // Russie. Melanges offers a G. Nival pour son soixantierne anniversaire. Geneve, 1995. P . 313 - 322.
Wed. with a pun by Brodsky in his prose “Note for the Encyclopedia”: “The main rivers flowing through the territory of Ufland are the Fontanka, the Rhine and the Pryazhka” ( Brodsky I.A. Note for the encyclopedia // Uflyand V.I. “If God sends me readers...” St. Petersburg, 1999. P. 28).
But Moscow realities are not forgotten in “A Christmas Romance.” Thus, the line “and it smells like sweet halva” is based on a very specific “olfactory” impression: not far from Zamoskvorechye there is a confectionery factory “Red October”. And the “Jewish reprimand” is probably wandering around the synagogue that was opened in Soviet times near the Ploshchad Nogina metro station. Probably, the very genre of Brodsky’s poem - “romance” (and even “Rozhdestvensky”. Compare Moscow Rozhdestvensky Boulevard) should have been recognized as “Moscow”. Let us note, by the way, an undoubted reminiscence from the famous romance “In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...” in the final stanza of “The Christmas Romance”: “a wave amid the noise of the city.”
“A Christmas Romance” of 1961 or 1962 is one of Joseph Brodsky’s calling cards; He did not stop reading this poem even in exile.
Floating in inexplicable melancholy
among the brick overhang
night boat inextinguishable
from the Alexander Garden,
unsociable night flashlight,
looks like a yellow rose,
over the heads of your loved ones,
at the feet of passers-by.
What kind of flashlight is this? This, of course, is not the Eternal Flame, which has not yet been in the Alexander Garden. Most likely the moon. The moon looks like a yellow rose, and the month is shaped like the sail of a ship that sails in the night Moscow sky. Somnambulists are sleepwalkers, and the word “newlywed” brings to mind a honeymoon; The “yellow staircase” is a staircase illuminated by moonlight, and the moon also looks like the “night pie”.
But why does the moon appear in the Christmas poem and not the star? Because in the sky above the Alexander Garden there is already a star - the Kremlin one. And Brodsky resorts to substitution, which becomes an important device in the poem. We remember that Brodsky is from St. Petersburg. The river is not named in the poem, but the river is constantly implied, yellow is the color of Dostoevsky’s Petersburg, the poet calls the city the capital. There is also an Alexander Garden in St. Petersburg, near the Admiralty, on the spire of which there is a boat. Thus, there is another doubling in the poem - these are two capitals: the real capital, Petersburg, and the illusory one - Moscow.
“And then the time has come to ask, perhaps, the most important question - why does Brodsky need the chain of these doublings? The answer is actually very simple. The poem is called “Christmas Romance”, and at the end the words “Your New Year in dark blue” appear. Here it is, the key doubling, the main doubling. Muscovites contemporary with Brodsky in 1962, St. Petersburg residents, and all Soviet people in general were not celebrating the main, not the real holiday. According to Brodsky, the real holiday is Christmas. Instead, they celebrated a substitute holiday, they celebrated the New Year.
And in the light of this interpretation, let's take a close look again at the ending of the poem:Your New Year in dark blue
wave amid the noise of the city
floating in inexplicable melancholy,
as if life would start again,
as if there would be light and glory,
have a good day and plenty of bread,
as if life will swing to the right,
swinging to the left.These final lines contain motifs associated with Christ. “As if life would begin again” - resurrection. “Light and glory” are motifs associated in the Christian tradition with the figure of Jesus Christ. “A good day and plenty of bread” is the famous story about the five loaves. But all these images associated with Christ and Christmas are accompanied by a terrible and tragic “as if.” As if, because in this country this year they celebrate New Year instead of Christmas.”
"Christmas Romance" Joseph Brodsky
Evgeniy Reina, with love
Floating in inexplicable melancholy
among the brick overhang
night boat inextinguishable
from the Alexander Garden,
unsociable night flashlight,
looks like a yellow rose,
over the heads of your loved ones,
at the feet of passers-by.Floating in inexplicable melancholy
bee passage of sleepwalkers, drunkards.
Photograph in the night capital
the foreigner did sadly,
and leaves for Ordynka
taxis with sick passengers,
and the dead stand in an embrace
with mansions.Floating in inexplicable melancholy
sad singer in the capital,
standing at the kerosene shop
sad chubby janitor,
hurries along a nondescript street
lover is old and handsome.
Midnight Train Newlywed
floating in inexplicable melancholy.Floating in the darkness of Zamoskvoretskaya,
a random one floats into misfortune,
wanders Jewish reprimand
on the sad yellow stairs,
and from love to sadness
on New Year's Eve, on Sunday,
the beauty is floating,
without explaining my melancholy.A cold evening floats in my eyes,
snowflakes tremble on the carriage,
frosty wind, pale wind
will cover red palms,
and the honey of the evening lights flows
and smells like sweet halva,
night pie brings christmas eve
over your head.Your New Year in dark blue
wave in the middle of the urban sea
floating in inexplicable melancholy,
as if life would start again,
have a good day and plenty of bread,
as if life will swing to the right,
swinging to the left.
Analysis of Brodsky's poem "Christmas Romance"
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky wrote his “Christmas Romance” on December 28, 1961. The poet dedicated this poem to his colleague in the “poetry workshop,” Evgeniy Rein. Researchers of Brodsky's work write that the poet often read the work in exile, which gives reason to think that this poem was significant for him. What did the author put into the lines of this romance?
The poet acts as a narrator in the poem. He watches the streets, passers-by scurrying along them, and looks at the buildings. The poet's gaze snatches various pictures from the winter darkness, which are imprinted in the text with the help of expressive epithets and comparisons. For example, the author affectionately calls the moon “an unsociable night lantern that looks like a yellow rose.”
Before the gaze of Joseph Alexandrovich, crowds of drunkards move, singers, foreigners, lovers, city coquettes wander. However, all this colorful people does not evoke a positive response from the poet. The New Year is coming, but the author has no joyful anticipation of the holiday. Even the seductive aromas pouring out do not lift his mood:
and the honey of the evening lights flows
and smells like sweet halva,
Christmas Eve brings the night pie
over your head.
Why didn’t what makes us so happy today not inspire Joseph Alexandrovich? Let us turn to the date of creation of the poem. Let us remember that this was the time of rule of the Communist Party, which sought to eliminate all the traditions and habits of pre-revolutionary times. Therefore, the celebration of the New Year, and not Christmas, as was customary in Tsarist Russia, was actively promoted.
It is the artificiality of this celebration that irritates the poet and causes despondency in him. Anaphors are constantly heard in the poem: “Floats in inexplicable melancholy...”
The text regularly contains epithets with the word “sad”: “sad singer”, “up the sad yellow stairs”, “sad chubby janitor”. It seems that all the people around the poet also feel his mood and are imbued with it.
The author cannot accept that a centuries-old tradition is being replaced by some kind of formal holiday. After all, during Christmas, people did not just celebrate the onset of a new season. They rejoiced at the birth of Christ, which symbolized spiritual renewal and the desire to lead a more respectable life. Therefore, in the text of the romance there are references to the Bible:
as if there would be light and glory,
have a good day and plenty of bread...
Here we see allusions to the miracle of feeding the people with five loaves and two fish. “Light and glory” is a reference to Jesus Christ himself.
The reader may notice that the poet does not share hopes for a better future. The repeated “as if” reinforces the doubt that life will get better in the new year. The poem ends on this pessimistic note, leaving the reader in thought.
