Origin of Khodasevich

His paternal grandfather Ya. I. Khodasevich was a Polish nobleman who came from Lithuania and took part in the Polish uprising of 1830. For his participation in the uprising he was deprived of his nobility, land and property. Therefore, the poet’s father began his life, according to his son, “in a poor, poor family.” “A cheerful and poor artist,” he painted many “Polish and Russian churches,” and then, parting with his career as a painter, he opened photography, first in Tula, then in Moscow, where the family of the future poet moved in 1902. Khodasevich’s mother Sofia Yakovlevna was the daughter of the well-known publicist Ya. A. Brafman (a Jew by birth who converted from Judaism to Orthodoxy and published two books - “The Book of Kahal” and “Jewish Brotherhoods” - directed against Judaism, they helped him become member of the Imperial Geographical Society).

Influence of mother and nurse

The mother tried to introduce her son to Polish language and to the beginnings of the Catholic faith, but her son early felt Russian and forever retained deep devotion to the Russian language and culture. And although Khodasevich subsequently, as a translator, did a lot to introduce Russian readers of his time to the works of A. Mickiewicz, Z. Krasiński, K. Tetmaier, G. Sienkiewicz, K. Makuszynski, as well as to the poems of Jewish poets who wrote in Hebrew (S. Chernyakhovsky, X. Byalik, D. Shimanovich, Z. Shneur and others; along with poets of Finland, Latvia and Armenia, Khodasevich translated their poems interlinearly, without knowing Hebrew language), from the first years to the end of his life he felt himself to be a deeply Russian person, vitally connected with Russian national culture and its historical destinies.
Khodasevich expressed the feeling of the bright - and at the same time suffering, painful - love for Russia that inspired his life and poetry with particular force in a wonderful poem of 1917-1922, dedicated to his nurse - the Tula peasant woman Elena Alexandrovna Kuzina, who died when the poet was 14 years old (remembering her with the aim of forever erecting a poetic monument to her, Khodasevich undoubtedly drew a mental parallel between her role in his life and the role of Arina Rodionovna in the life of his beloved poet A.S. Pushkin, who remained his teacher for the rest of his life - along with Derzhavin, Baratynsky and Tyutchev - three poets whom Khodasevich, like Pushkin, felt were closest to himself in spirit and the properties of his poetic gift).

Khodasevich's childhood and youth

Khodasevich's childhood and the entire first half of his life until 1920 were connected with Moscow. Here, after an early passion for ballet and dramatic theater, his poetic development took place; he wrote his first poems at six years old, in the winter of 1892 - 1893, even before the gymnasium. Soon at the Third Moscow Gymnasium, where the future poet entered in 1896, he found himself in the same class with A. Ya. Bryusov, the brother of the “master” of Russian symbolism already known at that time. At the gymnasium, Khodasevich became close to V. Hoffmann (also a future symbolist poet) - they were connected by common poetic interests. Khodasevich’s note about himself dates back to 1903: “Poems forever.” At the same time, Khodasevich experienced his first serious love interest. His poetic idols of these years were K. D. Balmont and V. Ya. Bryusov (he met the latter in 1902, and in 1903 attended his report on Fet at the Moscow Literary and Artistic Circle).
After graduating from high school, Khodasevich began listening to lectures at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University in 1904. But soon, in 1905, he was transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology, then - due to lack of money - he left it. Later, in the fall of 1910, the young man made another attempt to re-enter the law faculty. But a year later he withdraws his documents from the university, deciding to finally choose the difficult life of a professional writer who lives on literary earnings as a poet, critic and translator.

First poems, “Youth”

In 1905, the first three poems by Khodasevich, approved by the publisher of the almanac, appeared in the symbolic almanac “Grif” (whose publisher was S.A. Sokolov-Krechetov). In the same year, Khodasevich married the Moscow beauty M. E. Ryndina, to whom his first youth book of poems “Youth” (1908) was dedicated. Even before her release, her marriage to M.E. Ryndina broke up.

Playing cards and love interests

In parallel with writing and publishing poetry, Khodasevich has been working intensively as a critic and reviewer since 1905. His life in these and subsequent years (1906-1910) is largely bohemian in nature: he drinks a lot and is passionate about playing cards. Subsequently, Khodasevich wrote about his passion for cards, which remained until the end of his life: “... gambling is completely similar to poetry, it requires both inspiration and skill.” Khodasevich also experiences a number of love interests: A. Tarnovskaya, N.I. Petrovskaya, E.V. Muratova, A.I. Grentsion ( younger sister poet G.I. Chulkov, who became the poet’s second wife and companion in 1911). A short friendship with V. Hoffmann gave way in 1907 to a rapprochement with Khodasevich’s dearest friend and literary comrade, S. V. Kissin (Mooney), whose early death (in 1916) the poet painfully experienced for many years.

"Happy House"

In 1914, with a dedication to A.I. Khodasevich, his second poetry collection, “Happy House,” was published. Both “Youth” and “Happy House” were published in small editions. Subsequently, Khodasevich considered both of these books immature, youthful and did not include them in the only edition of poems he compiled during his lifetime, published in 1927 in Paris. Nevertheless, the poet also made a certain distinction between them: the poems included in the collection “Youth” were never republished by him, while “Happy House” went through three editions during the author’s lifetime.

The first post-revolutionary years

Khodasevich experienced the events of the February and October revolutions in Moscow. At first, like Blok, he pinned serious hopes on the October Revolution. 1916 turned out to be a very bad year in the poet’s personal life: this year his friend Muni committed suicide, and he himself fell ill with spinal tuberculosis and had to put on a plaster corset for a while. In the following years, hunger and need befell Khodasevich - first in post-revolutionary Moscow, and then in Petrograd, where he moved with his wife at the beginning of 1921. In Moscow in 1918, Khodasevich worked in the theatrical and musical section of the Moscow Council, then in the theater department of the People's Commissariat for Education (TEO), gives lectures on Pushkin at the Moscow Proletkult. Together with P.P. Muratov, he started a writers’ bookstore, for sale in which Moscow writers (including Khodasevich himself) also produced handwritten collections of their works. From the end of the year (until the summer of 1920), the poet headed the Moscow branch of the World Literature publishing house founded by M. Gorky. This entire period of Khodasevich’s life is described in his later memoirs “The Legislator”, “Proletkult”, “Bookstore”, “White Corridor”, “Health Resort”, etc.

Moving to Petrograd

Having moved to Petrograd, Khodasevich settled in the “House of Arts”, where the Petrograd literary and artistic intelligentsia huddled in the first post-revolutionary years (the memoir essay “House of Art” and a number of other pages of his literary memoirs are dedicated to this period of the poet’s life). In February 1921, Khodasevich delivered (at the same evening with Blok) Pushkin’s famous speech “The Shaking Tripod,” full of gloomy forebodings about the fate of Russian literature in the conditions of the emerging new Soviet reality. He spends the end of the summer in the summer colony of the House of Arts "Velsky Uyezd" (in the Pskov province), created for the rest of the "exhausted and emaciated" (as he put it) from hunger and need of Petrograd writers.

Emigration to Berlin

On June 22, 1922, Khodasevich, together with the poetess Nina Berberova, who became his common-law wife, left Russia. They head to Berlin via Riga. As it later turned out, Khodasevich’s departure forestalled his impending expulsion: his name was included in the list of those prominent representatives of the pre-revolutionary Russian intelligentsia who were expelled from Russia in the fall of 1922. Back in 1916-1917, Khodasevich took part in collections of Russian translations of Armenian, Latvian and Finnish poets organized by V. Bryusov and M. Gorky.

Friendship with M. Gorky

In 1918, after the organization of “World Literature” in Petrograd, Khodasevich became personally acquainted with Gorky. After moving to Petrograd, their everyday and friendly ties strengthened, and since 1921, despite the “difference ... in literary opinions and ages,” their acquaintance turns into close friendship. The friendship between Gorky and the poet’s niece, artist V. M. Khodasevich, who since 1921 lived in Gorky’s densely populated apartment on Kronverksky Prospekt in Petrograd, played a role in the rapprochement of both writers. Once in Berlin, Khodasevich wrote to Gorky, who persuaded the poet to settle in the town of Saarov, where they lived in constant communication until mid-summer 1923. In November of the same year, they met again in Prague, from where they moved to Marienbad. In March 1924, Khodasevich and Berberova headed to Italy - to Venice, Rome and Turin, then in August they moved to Paris, and from there to London and Belfast (in Ireland). Finally, at the beginning of October of the same 1924, they returned to Italy and lived in Sorrento with Gorky in his villa “Il Sorito” until April 18, 1925, the day when Khodasevich and Gorky separated forever.
The period 1921 - 1925 was a time of constant communication and lively exchange of opinions between Gorky and Khodasevich. In 1923 - 1925 they, together with A. Bely, organized the magazine “Conversation” in Berlin, which, according to their plan, was supposed to unite writers from Soviet Russia and the West on its pages. But the magazine was not allowed to be distributed in the USSR, and after seven books were published, its publication had to be stopped. In letters from 1922-1925. Gorky repeatedly speaks highly of Khodasevich’s talent, calling him a “classical poet”, “the best poet modern Russia", who "writes absolutely amazing poetry."

Break with Gorky and Bely

1922 - 1923 - also the years of the apogee of friendship between Khodasevich and A. Bely, who at that time, like Khodasevich, belonged to the inhabitants of “Russian Berlin”. However, in 1923, a break occurred between the older and younger poet. And in 1925, a similar break crowned many years of closeness between Khodasevich and Gorky, who reproaches Khodasevich for being “unjustifiably angry” and “making a craft out of his anger.” Khodasevich spoke in detail about his friendship and break with Gorky and A. Bely and the reasons for this break in his memoirs about them, included in the book “Necropolis”. The main reason for the break was the return of A. Bely to Russia and Gorky’s reluctance to recognize his then actual position as an emigrant, his hopes, strengthened by E. P. Peshkova and M. Budberg, for a possible reconciliation with the official Soviet public, with which Khodasevich had completely broken by that time . Having accepted October in 1917 and relatively easily coming to terms with the hardships that befell him during the era of military communism, Khodasevich had a sharply negative attitude towards the NEP. Later, he keenly discerned the lies and hypocrisy of the Stalinist dictatorship.

Life in Paris

Since April 1925, Khodasevich and Berberova settled in Paris. The poet collaborates here in the newspapers “Days”, “ Last news" and "Renaissance", as well as in the magazine "Modern Notes", acting as a literary critic and reviewer. It is becoming increasingly difficult for him to write poetry. According to Berberova, even before leaving abroad, he told her that “he can only write in Russia, that he cannot be without Russia, and yet he can neither live nor write in Russia.” In 1927, Khodasevich published the final final collection of his poems, after which he almost exclusively turned to prose. In April 1932, two years after “Modern Notes” celebrated the 25th anniversary of Khodasevich’s literary activity, he separated from Berberova and in 1933 married the niece of the writer M. Aldanov O. B. Margolina (who died after the death of Khodasevich in a Nazi concentration camp).

Death of Khodasevich

IN last years Khodasevich is seriously ill during his life. He died of cancer at the age of 53, on June 14, 1939, in a Paris clinic. O. B. Margolina and N. N. Berberova were next to the poet in the last days of his illness. On June 16, his funeral service took place in Russian catholic church on Rue François Gerard. The poet was buried at the Biyancourt cemetery in Paris.

Khodasevich

His father came from a Polish noble family, his mother, the daughter of a Jew who converted from Judaism to Orthodoxy, was raised in a Polish family as a devout Catholic; Khodasevich was also baptized Catholic. As a child, he was fond of ballet, which he was forced to give up due to poor health. From 1903 he lived in the house of his brother, the famous lawyer M. F. Khodasevich, father of the artist Valentina Khodasevich

In 1904 he entered law school. Faculty of Moscow University, in 1905 he switched to philology. faculty, but did not complete the course. At the same time he visits the Moscow Literary and Arts Institute. a circle where V. Ya. Bryusov, A. Bely, K. D. Balmont, Vyach perform reading poetry and reports. Ivanov, - a live meeting with the symbolists, literary idols of Khodasevich’s generation. The influence of symbolism, its vocabulary, and general poetic clichés marked the first book, “Youth” (1908). “Happy Little House” (1914; republished in 1922 and 1923), which received friendly criticism, was written in a different key; dedicated to Khodasevich’s second wife since 1913, Anna Ivanovna, born. Chulkova, sister of G.I. Chulkova - the heroine of the collection’s poems (also contains a cycle associated with the poet’s passion for E.V. Muratova, the “princess” ex-wife P. P. Muratov, a friend of Khodasevich; with her he made a trip to Italy in 1911). In “Happy House,” Khodasevich opens the world of “simple” and “small” values, “the joy of simple love,” domestic serenity, “slow” life - that which will allow him to “live calmly and die wisely.” In this collection, which, like “Youth,” is not included in the Collection. poem. 1927, Khodasevich for the first time, breaking with the pomp of symbolism, turns to the poetics of Pushkin’s verse (“Elegy”, “To the Muse”).

In the 1910s, he also acted as a critic, whose opinion was listened to: in addition to responses to new publications by the masters of symbolism, he reviewed collections of literary youth, cautiously welcomed the first books of A. Akhmatova, O. E. Mandelstam; singles out, regardless of literary orientation, the poetry collections of 1912-13 by N. A. Klyuev, M. A. Kuzmin, Igor Severyanin - “for a sense of modernity,” however, he soon became disillusioned with it (“Russian Poetry,” 1914; “Igor Severyanin and Futurism", 1914; "Deceived Hopes", 1915; "On New Poems", 1916). Khodasevich opposes the programmatic statements of the Acmeists (noting the “vigilance” and “own appearance” of N.S. Gumilev’s “Alien Sky”, the authenticity of Akhmatova’s talent) and, especially, the Futurists. In polemics with them, the main points of Khodasevich’s historical and literary concept, dispersed across various jobs: tradition, continuity is the way of the very existence of culture, the mechanism for the transmission of cultural values; It is literary conservatism that provides the possibility of rebellion against the outdated, for the renewal of literary means, without destroying the cultural environment.

In the mid-1910s. the attitude towards Bryusov changes: in a 1916 review of his book “Seven Colors of the Rainbow” Khodasevich called him “the most deliberate person” who forcibly subordinated his real nature to the “ideal image”. A long-term (since 1904) relationship connects Khodasevich with Andrei Bely; he saw in him a man “marked ... by undoubted genius”; in 1915, through the poet B. A. Sadovsky, he became close to M. O. Gershenzon, his “teacher and friend” .

In 1916, his close friend Muni (S.V. Kissin), a failed poet, crushed by a simple life, seen without the usual symbolist doubling, committed suicide; Khodasevich would later write about this in his essay “Muni” (“Necropolis”). In 1915-17, he was most intensively engaged in translations: Polish (Z. Krasiński, A. Mickiewicz), Jewish (poems by S. Chernikhovsky, from ancient Jewish poetry), as well as Armenian and Finnish poets. His 1934 articles “Bialik” (Khodasevich noted in it the unity of “feeling and culture” and “national feeling”) and “Pan Tadeusz” are associated with translations. In 1916 he fell ill with spinal tuberculosis, spent the summers of 1916 and 1917 in Koktebel, living in the house of M. A. Voloshin.

Creatively brought up in an atmosphere of symbolism, but entering literature at its decline, Khodasevich, together with M. I. Tsvetaeva, as he wrote in his autobiographical book. in the essay “Infancy” (1933), “having come out of symbolism, they did not join anything or anyone, they remained forever alone, “wild.” Literary classifiers and compilers of anthologies don’t know where to put us.” The book “The Path of Grain”, published in 1920, is dedicated to the memory of S. Kissin), collected mainly in 1918 (republished in 1922) - evidence of Khodasevich’s literary independence and literary isolation. Starting from this collection, the main theme of his poetry will be overcoming disharmony, which is essentially irremovable. He introduces the prose of life into poetry - not depressingly expressive details, but a flow of life that overtakes and overwhelms the poet, giving birth in him, along with constant thoughts of death, a feeling of “bitter death.” The call for the transformation of this stream is obviously utopian in some poems (“Smolensk Market”), in others the poet succeeds in the “miracle of transformation” (“Noon”), but turns out to be a brief and temporary loss from “this life”; in the "Episode" it is achieved through the almost mystical separation of the soul from the corporeal shell. “The Path of Grain” includes poems written during the revolutionary years of 1917-1918: Khodasevich perceived the February and October revolution as an opportunity to renew the people’s and creative life, he believed in its humanity and anti-philistine pathos; it was this subtext that determined the epic tone (with internal tension) of the description of the scenes of devastation in “suffering, torn to pieces and fallen” Moscow (“November 2”, “House”, “Old Woman”).

After the revolution, Khodasevich tries to fit into a new life, gives lectures about Pushkin in the literary studio at the Moscow Proletkult (prose dialogue “Headless Pushkin”, 1917, - about the importance of enlightenment), works in the theater department of the People's Commissariat for Education, in the Gorky publishing house "World Literature", " Book Chamber". About the hungry, almost without means of subsistence, Moscow life of the post-revolutionary years, complicated long-term illnesses(Khodasevich suffered from furunculosis), but literary rich, he will tell, not without humor, in the memoir essays of Ser. 1920–30s: “White Corridor”, “Proletkult”, “Book Chamber”, etc.

Best of the day

At the end of 1920, Khodasevich moved to St. Petersburg, lived in the “House of Arts” (essay “Disk”, 1937), wrote poetry for “Heavy Lyre”. Speaks (together with A. A. Blok) at the celebration of Pushkin and I. F. Annensky with reports: “The Shaking Tripod” (1921) and “About Annensky” (1922), one of Khodasevich’s best literary critical essays, dedicated to the all-consuming Annensky's poetry is based on the theme of death: he reproaches the poet for his inability to undergo religious rebirth. By this time, Khodasevich had already written articles about Pushkin, “Pushkin’s Petersburg Stories” (1915) and “About the “Gavriiliad” (1918); together with “The Shaking Tripod”, the essayistic articles “Countess E. P. Rostopchina” (1908) and “Derzhavin” (1916) they will form a collection. “Articles about Russian. poetry" (1922).

Pushkin’s world and the biography of the poet will always attract Khodasevich: in the book. “The Poetic Economy of Pushkin” (L., 1924; published “in a distorted form” “without the participation of the author”; revised edition: “About Pushkin”, Berlin, 1937), addressing the most diverse aspects of his work - self-repetition, favorite sounds, rhymes “blasphemy” - he tries to catch the hidden biographical subtext in them, to unravel the way of translating biographical raw materials into a poetic plot and the very secret of the personality of Pushkin, the “miraculous genius” of Russia. Khodasevich was in constant spiritual communication with Pushkin, creatively removed from him.

In June 1922, Khodasevich, together with N.N. Berberova, who became his wife, left Russia, lived in Berlin, collaborated in Berlin newspapers and magazines; in 1923 there was a break with A. Bely, who in revenge gave a caustic, essentially parodic, portrait of Khodasevich in his book. “Between Two Revolutions” (1990); in 1923-25 ​​he helps A. M. Gorky edit the magazine “Conversation”, lives with him and Berberova in Sorrento (October 1924 - April 1925), later Khodasevich will devote several essays to him. In 1925 he moved to Paris, where he remained until the end of his life.

Back in 1922, “Heavy Lyre” was published, full of new tragedy. As in “The Path of the Grain,” overcoming and breakthrough are the main value imperatives of Khodasevich (“Step over, jump over, / Fly over, whatever you want”), but their disruption, their return to material reality is legitimized: “God knows what you’re muttering to yourself.” , / Looking for pince-nez or keys.” The soul and biographical self of the poet are stratified, they belong different worlds and when the first rushes into other worlds, I remains on this side - “screaming and fighting in your world” (“From the Diary”). In Khodasevich, the eternal conflict between the poet and the world takes the form of physical incompatibility; every sound of reality, the poet’s “quiet hell,” torments, deafens and wounds him.

Khodasevich becomes one of the leading critics of emigration, responds to all significant publications abroad and in Soviet Russia, including books by G. V. Ivanov, M. A. Aldanov, I. A. Bunin, V. V. Nabokov, Z. N. Gippius, M. M. Zoshchenko, M. A. Bulgakova, conducts polemics with Adamovich, strives to instill in young emigration poets the lessons of classical mastery. In Art. “Bloody Food” (1932) considers the history of Russian literature as “the history of the destruction of Russian writers,” coming to a paradoxical conclusion: writers are destroyed in Russia, just as prophets are stoned and thus resurrected for the future life. In the article “Literature in Exile” (1933), he analyzes all the dramatic aspects of the existence of emigrant literature, states the crisis of poetry in the article of the same name (1934), linking it with the “lack of worldview” and the general crisis of European culture (see also the review of the book by Veidle “ The Dying of Art", 1938).

The last period of creativity ended with the release of two prose books - a vivid artistic biography “Derzhavin” (Paris, 1931), written in the language of Pushkin’s prose, using the linguistic coloring of the era, and the memoir prose “Necropolis” (Brussels, 1939), compiled from essays from 1925-37 , published, like the chapters of Derzhavin, in periodicals. And Derzhavin (from whose prosaisms, as well as from the “terrible poems” of E. A. Baratynsky and F. I. Tyutchev, Khodasevich traced his genealogy), shown through the rough life of his time, and the heroes of “Necropolis”, from A. Bely and A A. Blok to Gorky, are seen not apart from, but through small everyday truths, in the “fullness of understanding.” Khodasevich turned to the ideological sources of symbolism, which take him beyond the limits of literary school and directions. The essentially non-aesthetic ambition of symbolism to limitlessly expand creativity, to live according to the criteria of art, to fuse life and creativity - determined the “truth” of symbolism (first of all, the inseparability of creativity from fate) and its vices: an ethically unlimited cult of personality, artificial tension, the pursuit of experiences (material of creativity), exotic emotions, destructive for fragile souls (“The End of Renata” - an essay about N.N. Petrovskaya, “Muni”). The break with the classical tradition, according to Khodasevich, occurs in the post-symbolist, not symbolist, era, hence the biased assessments of the Acmeists and Gumilyov. Despite his loyalty to many of the precepts of symbolism, Khodasevich the poet, with his “spiritual undressing” and renewal of poetics, belongs to the post-symbolist period of Russian poetry.

Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich(May 16 (28), 1886, Moscow - June 14, 1939, Paris) - Russian poet. He also acted as a critic, memoirist and literary historian (Pushkin scholar).

Khodasevich was born into the family of an artist-photographer. The poet's mother, Sofya Yakovlevna, was the daughter of the famous Jewish writer Ya. A. Brafman. Khodasevich felt his calling early, choosing literature as the main occupation of his life. Already at the age of six he composed his first poems.

He studied at the Third Moscow Gymnasium, where his classmate was the brother of the poet Valery Bryusov, and in the senior class Viktor Hoffman studied, who greatly influenced Khodasevich’s worldview. After graduating from high school in 1904, Khodasevich entered first the Faculty of Law at Moscow University, then the Faculty of History and Philology. Khodasevich began publishing in 1905, at the same time he married Marina Erastovna Ryndina. The marriage was unhappy - at the end of 1907 they separated. Some of the poems from Khodasevich’s first book of poems, “Youth” (1908), are dedicated specifically to his relationship with Marina Ryndina.

The collections “Youth” (1908) and the later “Happy House” (1914) were well received by readers and critics. The clarity of the verse, the purity of the language, the accuracy in the transmission of thought distinguished Khodasevich from a number of new poetic names and determined his special place in Russian poetry. In the six years that passed from writing “Youth” to “Happy House,” Khodasevich became a professional writer, earning a living from translations, reviews, feuilletons, etc. In 1914, Khodasevich’s first work about Pushkin (“Pushkin’s First Step”) was published, which opened a whole series of his “Pushkiniana”. Khodasevich studied the life and work of the great Russian poet all his life.

In 1917, Khodasevich enthusiastically accepted February revolution and initially agrees to cooperate with the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. In 1920, Khodasevich’s third collection “The Path of Grain” was published with the title poem of the same name, which contains the following lines about the year 1917: “And you, my country, and you, its people, // You will die and come to life, having passed through this year " This book put Khodasevich among the most significant poets of his time.

In 1922, a collection of Khodasevich’s poems, “Heavy Lyre,” was published, which became the last one published in Russia. On June 22 of the same year, Khodasevich, together with the poetess Nina Berberova, left Russia and arrived in Berlin through Riga. Abroad, Khodasevich collaborated for some time with M. Gorky, who invited him to jointly edit the magazine Beseda.

In 1925, Khodasevich and Berberova moved to Paris, where two years later Khodasevich released a cycle of poems, “European Night.” After this, the poet writes poetry less and less, paying more attention to criticism. He lives hard, is in need, gets sick a lot, but works hard and fruitfully. He increasingly appears as a prose writer, literary critic and memoirist: “Derzhavin. Biography" (1931), "About Pushkin" and "Necropolis. Memories" (1939).

In recent years, Khodasevich published reviews, articles, and essays in newspapers and magazines about outstanding contemporaries - Gorky, Blok, Bely and many others. He translated poetry and prose of Polish, French, Armenian and other writers.

Bibliography

• collection "Youth". The first book of poems. - M.: Grif Publishing House, 1908. - ??? With.
• collection "Happy House". Second book of poems. - M.: Alcyona, 1914. - 78 p.
• collection “From Jewish Poets”, 1918. - ??? With.
• collection “The Path of Grain”, 1920. - ??? With.
• collection “Happy House. Poetry". - St. Petersburg - Berlin: Z. I. Grzhebin Publishing House, 1922. - ??? With.
• collection "Heavy Lyre". The fourth book of poems 1920-1922. - M., Petrograd: State Publishing House. - 1922. - 60 p.
• cycle “European Night”, 1927. - ??? With.
• biography “Derzhavin”, 1931. - ??? With.
• collection of articles “About Pushkin”, 1937. - ??? With.
• book of memoirs “Necropolis”, 1939. - ??? With.

• Khodasevich V. F. Derzhavin. - M.: Book, 1988. - 384 p. (Writers about writers) Circulation 200,000 copies.
• Khodasevich V.F. Collection of poems. - M.: Young Guard, 1989. - 183 p.
• Khodasevich V. F. Poems. - L.: Sov. writer, 1989. - 464 p. (Poet's Library, Large Series, Third Edition) Circulation 100,000 copies.
• Khodasevich V. F. Poems. - L.: Art, 1989. - 95 p.
• Khodasevich V. F. Poems. (Library of the magazine "Poligraphy") - M.: Children's Book, 1990. - 126 p.
• Khodasevich V.F. Poems / Comp., intro. art., approx. V. P. Zverev. - M.: Young Guard, 1991. - 223 p.
• Khodasevich V. F. Necropolis. - M.: Sov. writer - Olympus, 1991. - 192 p. Circulation 100,000 copies.
• Khodasevich V.F. The oscillating tripod: Favorites. - M.: Soviet writer, 1991. - ??? With.
• Khodasevich V.F. Collection of poems. - M.: Centurion Interprax, 1992. - 448 p.
• Khodasevich V.F. Along the boulevards. Poems 1904-1937 Literary and historical articles. (From the poetic heritage.) / Editor-compiler I. A. Kuramzhina. - M.: Center-100, 1996. - 288 p.
• Khodasevich V.F. Collected works in 4 volumes - M.: Soglasie, 1996-1997.
• Khodasevich V. F. Necropolis. - M.: Vagrius, 2001. - 244 p.
• Khodasevich V.F. Poems / Compiled, prepared. text, intro. Art., note. J. Malmstad. - St. Petersburg: Academic Project, 2001. - 272 p. (New Poet's Library, Small Series)
• Khodasevich V.F. Poems / Comp. V. Zverev. - M.: Belfry-MG, 2003. - 320 p.
• Khodasevich V. F. Poems. - M.: Profizdat, 2007. - 208 p.

Khodasevich's biography is well known to all experts and lovers of literature. He is a popular Russian poet, memoirist, Pushkin scholar, literary historian, and critic. He had a great influence on Russian literature in the 20th century.

Poet's family

His family played an important role in Khodasevich’s biography. His father's name was Felician Ivanovich, he came from a greatly impoverished noble family of Polish origin. Their last name was Masla-Khodasevichi; it is interesting that the hero of our article himself often called his father a Lithuanian.

Felician was a graduate of the Academy of Arts, but all his attempts to become a successful and fashionable painter ended in failure. As a result, he chose the path of a photographer. He worked in Moscow and Tula, among his famous works there are photographs of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Having earned money for the initial capital, he opened a store in Moscow, where he began selling photographic accessories. The poet himself outlined his father’s life in detail in the poem “Dactyls,” noting that he had to become a merchant solely out of necessity, but he never grumbled about it.

Khodasevich's mother, Sofya Yakovlevna, was the daughter of the popular European writer Yakov Aleksandrovich Brafman. She was 12 years younger than her husband, and they died in the same year - in 1911. Sophia's father eventually converted to Orthodoxy, devoting the rest of his life to the reform of Jewish life, approaching this issue exclusively from a Christian position. At the same time, Sophia herself was given to a Polish family as a child, in which she was raised as a devout Catholic.

Vladislav Khodasevich had an older brother named Mikhail, who became a famous and successful lawyer. It is known that Mikhail’s daughter Valentina became an artist. It was she who painted the famous portrait of the poet, who was her uncle. Describing the biography of Vladislav Khodasevich, it is worth noting that the poet, while studying at the university, lived in his brother’s house, maintaining friendly and warm relations with him until his final departure from Russia.

The poet's youth

Khodasevich was born in 1886, he was born in Moscow. In the biography of Vladislav Khodasevich, a special place was occupied by educational establishments, in which he received the basics of knowledge. In 1904, the future poet graduated from the Third Moscow Gymnasium, going for higher education at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University.

But, after studying for only a year, he decided to abandon the legal profession and transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology. With several breaks, he studied there until the spring of 1910, but was never able to complete the course. This was largely prevented by the turbulent literary life in which he found himself at the center at that time. Khodasevich’s biography lists all the main events by date. The hero of our article at that time visited the so-called Teleshov Wednesdays, visited Valery Bryusov, at Zaitsev’s evenings, and constantly visited the literary and artistic circle. It was then that Khodasevich began to publish in domestic newspapers and magazines, in particular in the Golden Fleece and Libra.

Wedding

An important event in Khodasevich’s biography is his marriage to a spectacular and pretty blonde, as he himself called her, Marina Erastovna Ryndina. They get married in 1905. Those around and friends of the family noted that the poet’s wife was always distinguished by eccentric behavior, for example, she could appear at a party in Leda’s original costume with a live snake on her neck.

In the biography of the poet Khodasevich, this marriage became a bright, memorable, but short-lived episode. Already in 1907 he separated from his wife. Poems dedicated to Marina Ryndina have been preserved; most of them were included in a book called “Youth,” which was published in 1908.

Talking about the character and biography of Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich, at that time many of his acquaintances noted that he was a great dandy, for example, Don Aminado was remembered for his full-length student uniform, a shock of thick hair, cut at the back of his head, with a deliberately indifferent and cold look in his dark eyes .

Health problems

In 1910, a difficult time began in Khodasevich’s biography. The poet begins to suffer from lung disease, this becomes a significant reason for his trip with friends to Venice. Together with the hero of our article, Mikhail Osorgin, Pavel Muratov and his wife Evgenia are going to Italy. In Italy, Khodasevich’s physical condition is aggravated by mental suffering. First, he experiences a love drama with Ekaterina Muratova, and in 1911, the death of both parents with an interval of just a few months.

The hero of our article finds salvation in a relationship with the younger sister of the then popular poet Georgy Chulkov. They got married to Anna Chulkova-Grentsion, who was practically the same age as him, in 1917. Such facts about the biography and family of Khodasevich are known to modern researchers. The poet, to whom this article is dedicated, raised Chulkova’s son from his first marriage, the future famous film actor Edgar Garrick. He is known for his role as Charles XII in Vladimir Petrov's film epic "Peter the Great" and for the image of General Levitsky in the historical film "Heroes of Shipka" by Sergei Vasiliev.

The poet's second book

Even when briefly telling the biography of Khodasevich, it is necessary to mention his second book of poems, “Happy House,” which was published in 1914. In the six years that have passed since the release of the first collection "Youth", Khodasevich managed to become a professional writer who made his living by translating, writing feuilletons and all kinds of reviews.

When did the first one begin? World War, Khodasevich received a “white ticket”, due to health reasons he could not serve in the army, so he went to work for the periodicals “Morning of Russia”, “Russian Vedomosti”, in 1917 he collaborated with the newspaper " New life"At the same time, his health continued to plague him, the hero of our article suffered from spinal tuberculosis, so he was forced to spend the summer in 1916 and 1917 in Koktebel, in the house of his friend and also a famous poet

Years of revolution

Quite a lot interesting facts in the biography of Khodasevich. For example, it is known that he enthusiastically accepted the February Revolution, which took place in 1917. And after the October Revolution, at first he even agreed to cooperate with the Bolshevik government. However, he quickly came to the conclusion that under this government it was impossible to conduct free and independent literary activity. After this, he decided to withdraw from political issues and write exclusively for himself.

In 1918, his new book “The Jewish Anthology” was published, which he wrote in collaboration with Leib Yaffeon. This collection includes works by young Jewish poets. At the same time, he works as a secretary in the arbitration court, and conducts theoretical and practical classes in the literary studio of Proletkult.

Briefly describing Khodasevich’s biography, it should be mentioned that in 1918 he began collaborating in the theater department of the People’s Commissariat for Education, worked directly in the repertory section, then received a position as head of the Moscow department at the World Literature publishing house, which was founded by Maxim Gorky. Khodasevich also actively participates in the founding of a bookstore on shares; Muratov, Osorgin, Zaitsev and Griftsov are on duty at the counter in this shop in turn.

Moving to Petrograd

In the short biography of Vladislav Khodasevich, which is given in this article, it is necessary to note his move to Petrograd, which took place in November 1920. The poet was forced to do this because he developed an acute form of furunculosis. The disease emerged from the hunger and cold that raged in the country due to the Civil War.

In Petrograd, he was helped by Gorky, who helped him receive rations and two rooms in the writers' dormitory at the House of Arts. Khodasevich would later write an essay about this experience entitled “Disk.”

In 1920, his third collection of poetry was published, which, perhaps, becomes the most famous in his career. It's called the "Way of the Grain." It contains a poem of the same name, in which the poet describes the events of 1917. Khodasevich’s popularity has only grown since the release of this collection. The work of Khodasevich, whose biography we are now studying, for many is associated with the poems included in this collection.

New romantic relationships

At the very end of 1921, Khodasevich meets the poetess Nina Berberova, who turned out to be 15 years younger than him. He falls in love with her and in the summer of 1922 he leaves with his new muse for Berlin via Riga. Around the same time, Khodasevich’s fourth collection of poems, entitled “Heavy Lyre,” was published simultaneously in Berlin and St. Petersburg. Until 1923, the hero of our article lived in Berlin and communicated a lot with Andrei Bely.

Then for some time he neighbors with the family of Maxim Gorky, whose personality he himself values ​​very highly. It is interesting that at the same time they speak unflatteringly about him as a writer. Khodasevich claimed that he saw authority in Gorky, but did not consider him a guarantor of his even hypothetical return to his homeland. He considers the most vulnerable qualities of his character to be his confused attitude towards truth and lies, which had a decisive influence on both his life and his work.

At the same time, Khodasevich and Gorky collaborate fruitfully, despite obvious differences in views. Together they edit the magazine "Conversation" (Shklovsky also helps them in this work), a total of six issues of this publication are published. It mainly publishes beginning Soviet authors.

Assessing Khodasevich’s work, researchers note that it was extremely specific and concise. The poet himself was like that in life. The hero of our article loved hoaxes, constantly admiring a certain “non-writing writer.” He himself often used hoaxes as a literary device, independently exposing them after some time. For example, I once wrote several poems under someone else’s name, even inventing the 18th century Russian poet Vasily Travnikov for this purpose. Khodasevich himself wrote all of Travnikov’s poems, and then read them at literary evenings and even published a study about Travnikov in 1936. Many admired Khodasevich, who discovered one of the greatest poets of the century before last; no one even imagined that Travnikov simply did not exist in reality.

Life in exile

Speaking briefly about the biography and work of Khodasevich, it is necessary to mention that he finally understands that it is impossible to return to the USSR in 1925. At the same time, the hero of our article continues to publish in Soviet periodicals for some time; he writes feuilletons and articles about the activities of the GPU abroad. After the release of several high-profile notes on this topic, the Soviet authorities accuse him of “White Guardism.”

It came to the point that in the spring of 1925, the Soviet embassy in Rome refused to renew Khodasevich’s passport, inviting him to return to Moscow for this purpose. The poet refuses, finally cutting off all ties with the country.

Another thing happens that same year an important event in the biography of the Russian poet Khodasevich - together with Berberova he moves to Paris. The hero of our article is actively published in the emigrant newspapers "Last News" and "Days". True, he left the last edition, following advice. At the beginning of 1927, Khodasevich headed the literary department of the newspaper "Vozrozhdenie". In the same year, he released “Collected Poems,” which included a new cycle called “European Night.”

After this, Khodasevich almost completely stopped writing poetry, devoting most of his time to critical research. As a result, he becomes one of the leading critics of literature in Russian diaspora. In particular, he conducts polemics with Georgiy Ivanov and Georgiy Adamovich, discussing with them the tasks of Russian literature in emigration, as well as in general about the purpose of poetry and the crisis in which it finds itself.

Published together with his wife Berberova. They publish reviews of Soviet literature under the pseudonym Gulliver. Khodasevich and Berberova openly support the poetry group "Perekrestok" and are among the first to speak highly of the work of Vladimir Nabokov, who later becomes their close friend.

Memoirs of Khodasevich

In 1928, Khodasevich began to write his own memoirs, which are included in the book “Necropolis. Memoirs”, which was published in 1939. In them, he talks in detail about his acquaintance and relationships with Bely, Bryusov, Gumilyov, Yesenin, Gorky, Sologub, and the young poet Muni, with whom they were friends in their youth.

Khodasevich also writes a biographical book "Derzhavin". He is well known as a major and scrupulous researcher of Pushkin's work. The hero of our article, having completed work on Derzhavin’s biography, planned to compose a biography of the “sun of Russian poetry,” but his sharply deteriorating health did not allow him to do this. In 1932, he wrote in a letter to Berberova that he was giving up on this work, as well as on poetry, realizing that he had nothing else left in his life. In April 1932 they separated.

The following year Khodasevich married in Once again. His new chosen one is Olga Borisovna Margolina. She is four years younger than her husband, originally from St. Petersburg. The poet lives in exile with his new wife. His situation is difficult and difficult, he communicates little with his compatriots, and keeps himself apart. In June 1939, Khodasevich died in Paris after another operation, which was supposed to maintain his health. He was buried near the French capital, in the Boulogne-Billancourt cemetery, he was 53 years old.

His last wife, Olga Margolina, did not survive her husband much. During World War II she found herself in German captivity. In 1942 she died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

With whom they lived a long life together, in 1936 she entered into an official marriage with the painter Nikolai Makeev; she remained on friendly terms with Khodasevich until his death. She endured the war in German-occupied Paris and divorced in 1947. In 1954, already in the USA, she married the famous music teacher and pianist Georgy Kochevitsky, and five years later she managed to obtain American citizenship.

In the 80s, she divorced Kochevitsky, and in 1989 she even came to the Soviet Union at the age of 88. She died in Philadelphia in 1993.

Today we will find ourselves partly at the turn of the 10s and 20s, because the topic of our conversation will be the poetic work of Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich, who was born in 1886 and died in 1939. Generally speaking, we see that in terms of age he is quite suitable not even for junior, but for senior post-symbolists, i.e. he is approximately the same age as Nikolai Gumilyov, not many years younger than Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely.

But it so happened that Khodasevich revealed himself as a poet, as a poet of genius, quite late. He himself wrote about himself already at the end of his life poetic activity, in 1928 (and he finished writing poetry quite early and almost didn’t write them in recent years)... He wrote a poem that not all Russian poets can afford. Khodasevich was by this time already the main, leading poet of the Russian emigration, and he allowed himself such a poem. This poem is called "Monument" and it continues the Horatian tradition in Russian poetry. It's small, I'll read it.

The end is in me, the beginning is in me. What I have accomplished is so little! But I am still a strong link: This happiness has been given to me.

In Russia, new but great, My two-faced idol will be placed at the crossroads of two roads, Where time, wind and sand...

And in this poem, perhaps, two of perhaps the most important properties of Khodasevich’s poetic personality are noted. In general, in parentheses it must be said that this is one of the most analytical poets Silver Age, and his prose about this era is really... It’s not even clear what to call it. This is half a memoir, but to the same extent it can be called an analytical essay. It is not without reason that almost all researchers of this era refer to Khodasevich’s memoirs. So, in this poem, he spoke extremely accurately and soberly, well, with some self-deprecation, about his poetry.

I repeat once again, I would like to draw two points Special attention. Firstly, this is this: “What I have accomplished is so little!” Indeed, Khodasevich did not write very much, but if we take the best part his creativity, then very, very little. These are three books - “The Path of Grain”, “Heavy Lyre” and the large cycle “European Night”. But what he did was truly imprinted forever, forever preserved in Russian poetry. “But I’m still a strong link,” he says.

And here, perhaps, one thing needs to be said right away. That this self-awareness, self-description - “What I have accomplished is so little” - makes Khodasevich similar to another great poet, who, nevertheless, also often resorted to such self-deprecation in his poems. This is one of the main poets (but his name, we note, is remembered rather secondarily after the names of Pushkin, Tyutchev, Lermontov), ​​this is Evgeniy Abramovich Baratynsky, who said about himself: “My gift is poor and my voice is not loud.”

Weak child in a big family

Khodasevich really develops this theme in his poems: “What I have accomplished is so little,” he writes. And this was largely due, among other things, to some circumstances of Khodasevich’s biography. He was the last son, born very late, in a Polish-Jewish family. Let us note that Poles and Jews were two peoples who were oppressed in imperial Russia, and he had this feeling. And when there were Jewish pogroms in Poland, he said about himself: “It’s good that we Poles beat us Jews!” He joked like that.

He was an extremely sickly boy. At first he was preparing for ballet, but had no intention of becoming a poet, but his poor health did not allow him to do this. I suffered from every childhood disease possible. And they remember about his appearance that he was extremely ugly, sickly, and weak. Well, if you look at the photographs, this is also true. And so this theme of a weak, barely audible child in big family was really relevant to him. And when he read his poems, when not only readers, but also spectators saw his appearance, they easily superimposed his poetry on his physical component.

But at the same time, one more thing is important here: the lines from the second stanza are very important. “At the crossroads of two roads,” writes Khodasevich. And indeed, this is an extremely accurate and subtle assessment of one’s own place, because... Here it is necessary to say, in fact, what two roads, what are these two roads, at the crossroads of which this poetry arises, these poems arise? One of these roads is, of course, a symbolist road. And here Khodasevich again, both in his memoirs, and in articles, and in poetry, too, played this card of the latecomer, the last one, the last one.

Because, although he, I repeat once again, was the same age as Gumilyov, he did not join Acmeism, did not join Futurism, and all his life he felt like a poet who was too late to be born to symbolism. He was a classmate of Alexander Bryusov, the younger brother of Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, the main senior symbolist, and for a long time was under the influence of Bryusov so much that he, like Gumilyov, was even called a “sub-Bryusovik.”

He read the poems of Alexander Blok, and Andrei Bely, who for some time was his closest senior friend, had a huge influence on him. And for quite a long time, Khodasevich could not get out of the shadows of these authors. He made his debut in 1905, his first book, “Youth,” was published in 1908, and his second, “Happy House,” in 1914.

So, about his first books, if we read the reviews, if we read the responses of his contemporaries, then it will be written more softly than about Gumilyov, whom we already talked about in connection with this, but, in general, also similar words: cultural, smart, with a sense of words, a great eye for detail, but still not out of the shadows. Not leaving the shadow of Blok, not leaving the shadow of Bryusov, not leaving the shadow of Andrei Bely. A small poet.

Pushkin scholar

Note that he himself also plays this game. His second collection is called "Happy House". This is so idyllic... And here we need to say such a Pushkin definition. Because the second path “at the crossroads of two roads,” which Khodasevich also followed, was, relatively speaking, Pushkin’s path.

Khodasevich, as you know, was a great Pushkinist, a real Pushkinist, he wrote articles and studies related to Pushkin, was friends with one of the greatest philosophers who studied Pushkin - Mikhail Osipovich Gershenzon, was friends with Pushkinist Pavel Alekseevich Shchegolev and made several such serious discoveries in Pushkin studies . And he knew this era by heart, very well. But again, he compared himself, of course, not with Pushkin, although he did write “Monument,” but rather with the minor poets of Pushkin’s time. Or with those who were considered to be minor poets of Pushkin’s time.

This is Baratynsky, whom I have already mentioned, Delvig, Vyazemsky, Rostopchina, an amateur poetess, very interesting. Khodasevich also played this game. And at this crossroads - symbolism and poets of Pushkin’s time - in fact, his poetic world is located. On the one hand, of course, he took into account the discoveries of the modernists, the discoveries of the symbolists above all. On the other hand, he defended the Pushkin note and continued the Pushkin note in his poetic texts. And in his first two books this is all revealed very clearly.

"The Way of Grain"

However, Khodasevich became such a truly great poet in 1917. And there is also some paradox in this. Because Khodasevich, as I have already said, was an emigrant. Although he left with a Soviet passport and was planning to return for some time, in the end, when he, already abroad, understood what Bolshevism was, he still chose to stay and continued to write about the Bolsheviks and the communists always very harshly. Therefore, his poems returned to the Soviet reader rather late; they began to be published only in the late 1980s. But at the same time, it was the revolution that made him a great poet, it was the revolution that gave him a theme.

What topic? Let us try to understand this by examining in more detail Khodasevich’s key poem from his third book. His third book was published in its first edition in 1920, it was called “The Path of Grain.” And the first poem in this book was a poem also called “The Path of Grain.” Let us immediately pay attention to the date of this poem. The poem is dated December 23, 1917. What kind of poem is this? Let's try to read it in a little more detail.

By way of grain

The sower walks along even furrows. His father and grandfather followed the same paths.

The grain sparkles with gold in his hand, But it must fall into the black ground.

And where the blind worm makes its way, It will die and sprout at the promised time.

So my soul follows the path of grain: Having descended into darkness, it will die - and...