Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev - Russian poet XIX century, contemporary of Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov. A distinctive feature of his poetic worldview is the philosophical understanding of those artistic tasks, which the poet set for himself. He is rightfully considered a subtle lyricist, and his creative heritage must always be considered in connection with his philosophical worldview.
The theme of love in Tyutchev’s poems is presented in connection with such key concepts as “fate”, “rock”, “predestination”, “passion”. The feeling is born like a spring wind and captures lovers with charm. But Tyutchev more often refers not to the present tense, but to the past. The “past” worries the poet more. Poems written in his later years are conventionally combined by experts into one cycle, called Denisyevsky (after Denisyeva, to whom the poet dedicated many poems). The main theme of the cycle is self-sacrifice, love, the suffering of the Russian soul, “fatal passions.” The poet perceives the “past” as best years, “golden time”, warming the hero with its warmth even through the years. A special state is caused in the soul by the experience of meeting after a long separation with a woman with whom he was once in love. This “spiritual fullness” makes “life speak again” (“I met you, and all the past ...”).
In the poem “Predestination,” the poet defines love, according to legend, as a union of two souls that acquire kinship. Two souls combine, merge and must know true happiness, but then trouble awaits the two lovers. Tyutchev believes that hearts come into conflict and strike each other with “fatal passions”:
And who is in excess of sensations,
When the blood boils and freezes,
I didn’t know your temptations - Suicide and Love!
("Twins")
The fatal turning point in a love story occurs, of course, at the moment of separation of the lovers. Moreover, the poet often gives us the opportunity to think about the ending of a passionate feeling:
There is a high meaning in separation:
No matter how much you love, even one day, even a century,
Love is a dream, and a dream is one moment,
And whether it’s early or late to wake up,
And man must finally wake up...
(“There is a high meaning in separation...”)
Philosophical miniature became a special form of poetry precisely from Tyutchev; before him, quatrains with their concentration of meaning and economical form were used to compose satirical poems - epigrams. Such a high use of miniatures, like Tyutchev’s, that is, philosophical maxims, made the poet’s work unique in its kind. After all, it was Tyutchev who revealed the poetic potential of the quatrain.
Whoever you are, when you meet her,
With a pure or sinful soul
You suddenly feel more alive
That there is a better world, a spiritual world.
Thus, love between a man and a woman raises lovers to a new level of existence, where external manifestations fade into the background, and the souls of lovers lift the veil spiritual world.
Tyutchev’s image of the spiritual world as a whole resonates precisely with elemental entities - spirits, the elements of fire, wind, and the sea element. Tyutchev sees love precisely as an element that a person cannot control; he can only be attracted by this element. Such an attraction has two endings: “Is it too early or too late to wake up” or the heart “will finally wear out.”
And yet Tyutchev finds attraction in the direction of “fatal passions” inevitable and natural, like everything in nature. Comparing love with the warmth of spring, Tyutchev gives a positive assessment of this feeling: “Or is it spring bliss?.. Or is it women’s love?..” (“The earth still looks sad...”). The tenderness of the feeling evokes associations with spring, youth, and the awakening of life-giving currents inside plants and trees. In the same way, a person’s blood “boils.”
Let's consider the poem "Last Love", written by Tyutchev in the early 50s of the 19th century, that is, relating to the third period of the poet's work. The feeling of the tragedy of existence haunts the poet. In this poem, the lyrical hero exclaims: “Shine, shine, farewell light of last love, the dawn of evening!” The hero asks the evening day - the image of the last years of life - to slow down and prolong the charm. But the sky (the image of life itself) is covered by a shadow (the approach of death). Tyutchev calls the last love in his life bliss and hopelessness:
Let the blood in your veins run low,
But there is no shortage of tenderness in the heart...
The last period of creativity is characterized by a shaking of the foundations of Tyutchev’s worldview, the picture of the world of the modern poet is rapidly changing, the romantic direction in art is weakening. In fact, Fyodor Tyutchev ended the period of romanticism in Russian literature, worthy of representing it in the treasury of the world lyrical and philosophical heritage.
Composition
F. I. Tyutchev entered the history of Russian poetry, first of all, as an author philosophical lyrics, but he also wrote a number of wonderful works on the theme of love. The poet's love and philosophical poems are connected by the commonality of the lyrical hero, by cross-cutting motives; they are related by the intense drama of sound.
If in his philosophical poems the poet appears as a thinker, then in love lyrics he reveals himself as a psychologist and a sharp lyricist. Many of his poems about love have an autobiographical imprint.
Tyutchev was an enthusiastic, passionate person. Tyutchev's first serious passion was Amalia Lerchenfeld, whom he met in Munich in 1825. The poems “I Remember the Golden Time...” (1836) and “I Met You - and All the Past...” (1870) are dedicated to her. “Beautiful Amalia” married Tyutchev’s colleague, and a year later the poet fell passionately in love with Eleanor Peterson and entered into a marriage with her, which lasted until 1838, when she died. According to the testimony of those who knew the poet, he turned gray in a few hours after spending the night at his wife’s coffin. However, a year later Tyutchev married the beautiful Ernestina Derpberg.
Until the early 1850s, Tyutchev portrayed love mainly as a passion: “I love your eyes, my friend...” (1836); “With what bliss, with what longing in love...” (1837); “I am still tormented by the anguish of desires...” (1848). The poet not only conveys the shades of his own experiences, but also describes the emotional state of his beloved:
Suddenly, from an excess of feelings, from the fullness of the heart,
All trembling, all in tears, you fell
prostrate...
Tyutchev could be merciless and sober in his assessment of women:
You love, you know how to pretend, -
When, in a crowd, stealthily from people,
My foot touches yours -
You give me the answer and don’t blush!
If sincere, selfless female love illuminates life, “like a star in the sky,” then false and feigned love is destructive:
And there is no feeling in your eyes,
And there is no truth in your speeches,
And there is no soul in you.
Take courage, heart, to the end:
And there is no Creator in creation!
And there is no point in praying!
In the elegy “I sit, thoughtful and alone...” (1836), the poet laments the impossibility of reviving a faded feeling; turning to the image of his girlfriend with words of regret, guilt, sympathy, HE resorts to the romantic metaphor of a plucked flower:
...But you, my poor, pale color,
There is no rebirth for you,
You won't bloom!
The motifs of the transience of happiness, the perniciousness of love, and guilt before the woman one loves are especially characteristic of the poems from the so-called “Denisevsky cycle” (“In separation there is a high meaning...”, 1851; “Don’t say: he loves me, as before...” .”, 1851 or 1852; “She was sitting on the floor...”, 1858; “All day she lay in oblivion...”, 1864, and others).
Tyutchev became interested in E. A. Denisieva in 1850. This late, last passion continued until 1864, when the poet’s girlfriend died of consumption. For the sake of the woman he loves, Tyutchev almost breaks with his family, neglects the displeasure of the court, and forever ruins his very successful career. However, the brunt of public condemnation fell on Denisyeva: her father disowned her, and her network was forced to leave her place as inspector of the Smolny Institute, where Tyutchev’s two daughters studied.
These circumstances explain why most of the poems of the “Denisevsky cycle” are marked by a tragic sound, such as this:
Oh, how murderously we love,
As in the violent blindness of passions
We are most likely to destroy,
What is dear to our hearts!
How long ago, proud of my victory,
You said: she is mine...
A year has not passed - ask and find out,
What was left of her?
In the poem “Predestination” (1851), love is conceptualized as a “fatal duel” in the unequal struggle of “two hearts,” and in “Twins” (1852) - as a disastrous temptation, akin to the temptation of death:
And who is in excess of sensations,
When the blood boils and freezes,
I didn’t know your temptations -
Suicide and Love!
Until the end of his days, Tyutchev retained the ability to revere the “unsolved mystery” of female charm - in one of his later love poems he writes:
Is there an earthly charm in her,
Or unearthly grace?
My soul would like to pray to her,
And my heart is eager to adore...
Tyutchev's love poetry, represented by a relatively small number of works (the poet's creative legacy is generally small in volume), is a unique phenomenon in Russian literature. In terms of the depth of psychologism, many of his poems are comparable to the novels of F. M. Dostoevsky - by the way, who highly valued the poet’s work.
What is the reason for such a stunning success of the poet, why is he still remembered, why do his poems open the eyes of many people to reality and why are they relevant today? Perhaps the answer to this exciting question lies in the author’s biography, because, like any talented person, Fyodor Ivanovich began to write poems primarily about his life, and only then moved on to more serious topics, and only then learned to skillfully describe his living feelings.
Brief biography of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
Fyodor Tyutchev was born back in 1803 on the fifth of December in Bryansk district - here, in the family estate, he spent his early years and received his education at home - this is exactly what was customary in those days in decent and wealthy families. Even in his early years, Fyodor showed a craving and love for literature and versification, and his teacher and mentor, poet and translator, did everything possible to ensure that the young man’s gift did not go to waste - it was he who helped him study Latin, put him in translation, and Already at the age of twelve, Fyodor Ivanovich mastered the translation of Horace’s ode, which is truly an outstanding biographical fact and speaks of Tyutchev as a very developed person. In 1817, Fyodor Ivanovich decided to continue his education in a direction that was interesting to him and, as a volunteer, attended lectures at the Literature Department of Moscow University, where he did not go unnoticed and was accepted into the membership of the society of lovers of Russian literature long before his official enrollment as a student.
Tyutchev abroad
Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev already in 1821 received a certificate of graduation from an educational institution and almost immediately went to Munich as part of a delegation as an external attaché from Russia. It was here in 1826 that he met his beloved Eleanor Peterson, whom he soon married and the couple had three wonderful daughters, one of whom later connected the Tyutchev family with the no less honorable Aksakov family - Anna married Ivan Aksakov, and their marriage was blessed by parents on both sides.
Despite all the cloudless prospects and the real, great and sincere love in the family of Fyodor and Eleanor, quite unexpectedly a real tragedy burst into the life of the poet and his family. One day, while traveling on a ship from St. Petersburg to Turin, an unexpected wreck occurred and the ship began to sink. The family, of course, was saved, largely thanks to the efforts serendipity Ivan Turgenev, who found himself on the ship, however, this whole tragedy seriously affected the health of Eleonora Tyutcheva, and soon she became very ill and fell ill. The poet spent long hours at his wife’s bedside, tried not to leave her for a minute and was very worried about her fate, however, despite all the efforts of the best doctors whom the writer invited, the wife soon died. They say that the tragedy hit the young poet so hard that he literally turned gray in a few hours - he experienced the loss of his beloved so strongly and ardently.
However, despite all the suffering and experiences, literally a year after the death of his legal wife, Fyodor Ivanovich married the young Ernestina Dernberg, with whom, according to rumors, the writer had a relationship long before the death of his beloved wife. It is interesting that Ernestina was married at the same time that Fyodor Ivanovich was married - and it was her husband who introduced her to the poet at a ball a few days before his own sad death. Apparently, two lonely people who lost their lovers and spouses so early due to illness are simply obliged to be together by the will of fate - and this is exactly what happened for Fyodor Ivanovich and Ernestina.
In 1839, quite unexpectedly, Fyodor Ivanovich’s diplomatic career ended, which did not at all prevent him from living peacefully abroad for his own pleasure for another five years. It was during these years that Tyutchev, with the approval of the highest officials of Russia and the emperor himself, supported diplomatic relations between Russia and Europe, spoke publicly openly and independently, expressing his point of view on possible conflicts and successfully regulating all those arising between Russia and European countries questions.
Return to Russia
In 1844, Fyodor Ivanovich returned to his native state and re-entered the diplomatic service, which is not surprising either for himself or for his colleagues - nevertheless, the poet is well versed in politics and diplomacy, and his contribution was appreciated by his contemporaries , and by future generations who have the honor of understanding his biography.Tyutchev actively participates in public events and organizations, helping to develop diplomatic and political movements, educates compatriots about life abroad and describes his own image of “thousand-year Russia.” Even then, Tyutchev seemed to predict education Soviet Union- many years before the appearance of this, the poet declares that the creation of such a union would benefit not only Russia, but also all nearby Slavic states.
Tyutchev successfully worked as a current state councilor, and, despite numerous disagreements with the authorities and criticism directed at him, he served in this position for a full fifteen years. Until the end of his life, the poet was interested in the political situation not only in his native state, but also in Europe, which he had fallen in love with for several years. The poet died unexpectedly - at first he was taken away from left hand, partially hindering his activities, and later, while walking, the poet suffered a stroke that completely paralyzed the entire left half of his body.
The memory of the poet still lives. Unfortunately, his personal life has not been fully disclosed to this day, and only his works can tell about this in detail. of a loving nature, to which Tyutchev devoted a huge place in his life.
Any creative person, and, moreover, a poet is always a very sensitive and deeply experiencing person. It is from such people that the most heartfelt lyrical works are born, which often touch the very soul and heart of anyone who touches these priceless lines. Tyutchev, of course, was no exception, and love lyrics occupy a special, separate place in all of his creative activity.
The main themes in Tyutchev’s works are:
Description of the situation in the beloved country;
The surrounding reality and nature around;
Sincere love lyrics.
Despite the fact that most of Tyutchev’s works fit perfectly into the format of short odes, it was the love lyrics in his poems that were revealed in as much detail as possible and described in such a way that it touches the soul even of those who took the book for the first time.
Tyutchev's love lyrics, as it is not surprising, are characterized by bitterness and tragedy - the emotions here are so acute that you can feel them from the very first lines. Experts often connect Tyutchev’s lyrics into one cycle called “Denisyevsky” - this happened because the poet dedicated most of his love works to E. Denisyeva. Of course, she was not the only one honored to be immortalized in the works of an outstanding author - and Fyodor Ivanovich’s wife, just as brightly and warmly, but with the tragedy inherent in the poet’s lyrics, is described in his lines.
In their lyrical works Fyodor Ivanovich is completely open and honest with each of his lovers - he is not shy about his feelings even despite the fact that they are not always mutual. He sings of his every love and expresses sincere gratitude to the ladies for the opportunity to feel in love like a boy - probably this is what speaks about the poet’s subtle mental organization, probably this is what opens the depths of his soul and fully explains what motivated a truly brilliant man in his endeavors and what helped him achieve such stunning success.
Of course, today Tyutchev is immortalized both in monuments and in street names, entire museums have been created in his honor, but the most important and reliable memory of the poet, who gave his entire life not only to his native state and politics, but also to the thin, as if lace, literature . It is precisely those lines that the poet skillfully and masterfully wove during his lifetime that have reached our time, and these works will be relevant for many years to come. And as for the lyrics - it is in the works of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev that everyone is able to find what is dear and close to themselves, open new horizons of their feelings and overestimate their attitude towards others, and at the same time feel for themselves how purely and sincerely our ancestors loved in the past - and so loved not only by poets, but it was the poets of that time who were able to convey this pure and true love before us.
Throughout his entire career, F.I. Tyutchev created magnificent poetry about love. In my opinion, the reason for the table is strong emotional overtones love lyrics the poet lies in her autobiographical nature. Tyutchev's love lyrics can be read as a kind of intimate diary, which reflects his whirlwind romances with Ernestina Dernberg and E.A. Deniseva. However, this is a special kind of autobiography: in the poems there are no direct references to the names of the poet’s lovers.
For Tyutchev, love is almost always a drama, a fatal duel of unequal human forces. This feeling is incomprehensible, mysterious, full of magic. But the happiness of love is short-lived, doomed not to endure fatal blows fate. Moreover, love itself can be interpreted as a sentence of fate:
Fate's terrible sentence
Your love was for her.
Love is thus associated with suffering, longing, heartache, tears. The poet appears before us as a passionate, enthusiastic personality, a man with an ardent, with a loving heart. He persistently repeats the epithet “fatal passion”, “fatal meeting”, “fatal merger”, “fatal duel”. In the poem, part of the famous “Denisyev cycle,” love is called “murderous.” It is in the poems dedicated to Elena Alexandrovna Denisyeva that the poet’s “blissfully fatal” love is revealed.
In the poem “Oh, how murderously we love...” the technique of a ring composition emphasizes the idea of the murderous power of love. Two identical stanzas enhance the feeling of the personal tragedy of the lyrical hero; in the words of the poet there is a terrible prediction - about the death of a loved one. Inside the form of the poem, imbued with the pathos of hopelessness and doom, there is a narrative about the consequences of the “violent blindness of passions.” The lines that create the frame have become an aphorism. They exist outside the poem because they contain a deep, sad, emotional thought, expressed with incredible force:
Oh, how murderously we love,
As in the violent blindness of passions
We are most likely to destroy,
What is dear to our hearts!
The exclamation mark at the end of the stanza is not only a means of expression, it also indicates the inevitability of the death of deep, selfless, passionate love. Inevitable separation adds tragedy to love; the thought of inevitable separation is embedded in the very foundation of this lofty and unearthly feeling. Lyrical hero suffers incredibly, because he, unwittingly, becomes the cause of a spiritual tragedy, the death of his beloved woman. Rhetorical questions and exclamations - bright artistic medium, capable of conveying the strongest changes that occurred with a woman who managed to love so selflessly, to love to the point of complete self-denial:
Where did the roses go?
The smile of the lips and the sparkle of the eyes?
The lyrical hero admires the beauty of a woman and the power of her passion. The rhetorical exclamation “A life of renunciation, a life of suffering!” contains the idea of the fatal fate of a woman in love to the point of oblivion. These lines also became popular; they contain a deep, general meaning. Also in the poem, Tyutchev uses his favorite technique of opposition. On the one hand, we see a “crowd” that is capable of trampling the most beautiful emotional movements. In this case, the crowd is a symbol of cruelty public opinion, based on the condemnation of any manifestation of human behavior outside the boundaries accepted by the morality of this society. It is such a “crowd,” hostile to the natural manifestation of strong emotions, that pronounces a “terrible verdict,” invades the sacred, brands him with “undeserved shame” and condemns a person to incredible mental torment. The word “pain” is repeated several times in the poem; it is this that defines the state of the beloved woman, from which she can no longer escape, which will always accompany her in a state of love:
Pain, the evil pain of bitterness,
Pain without joy and without tears!
The lyrical hero experiences an unabating sense of guilt in front of his beloved for the “fatal meeting” that took place, for the fact that he unwittingly became the executioner of his beloved, a blind instrument of fate. Dramatic story love in this work became not only a reflection privacy Tyutcheva. The poetic gift of the lyricist expanded the boundaries of the love story. Subtle psychologism and deep emotions made this poem a property of Tyutchev’s love lyrics, reflected in inner life every reader.
In the last years of his life, Tyutchev’s lyrics affirmed the idea that love, even tragic, is a symbol of genuine human existence, without which life is unthinkable. Tyutchev's love lyrics reveal the complex life of the heart. According to Tyutchev, only through love can one be saved “in deep old age,” only in love lies the meaning of human existence.
Tyutchev's love lyrics
For poets" pure art"characteristic high culture, admiration for perfect examples of classical sculpture, painting, music, increased interest in art Ancient Greece and Rome, a romantic craving for the ideal of beauty, the desire to join the “other”, sublime world.
Let's consider how Tyutchev's artistic attitude was reflected in Tyutchev's lyrics.
Love lyrics are permeated with a powerful dramatic, tragic sound, which is associated with the circumstances of his personal life. He survived the death of his beloved woman, which left an unhealed wound in his soul. Tyutchev's masterpieces of love poetry were born from genuine pain, suffering, a feeling of irreparable loss, a sense of guilt and repentance.
The highest achievement of F. I. Tyutchev’s love lyrics is the so-called “Denisevsky cycle”, dedicated to love, experienced by the poet “in his declining years” to Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva. This amazing lyrical romance lasted 14 years, ending with Denisyeva’s death from consumption in 1864. But in the eyes of society it was a “lawless”, shameful relationship. Therefore, even after the death of his beloved woman, Tyutchev continued to blame himself for her suffering, for failing to protect her from “human judgment.”
Poems about the poet’s last love have no equal in Russian literature in terms of the depth of psychological disclosure of the topic:
Oh, how in our declining years
We love more tenderly and more superstitiously...
Shine, shine, farewell light
Last love, dawn of evening!
The enormous power of impact on the reader of these lines is rooted in the sincerity and artlessness of expressing a deep, hard-won thought about the transience of enormous, unique happiness, which can no longer be returned. Love in Tyutchev’s view is a mystery, highest gift fate. It's exciting, whimsical and out of control. A vague attraction lurking in the depths of the soul suddenly breaks through with an explosion of passion. Tenderness and self-sacrifice can unexpectedly turn into a “fatal duel”:
Love love -
the legend says -
Union of the soul with the dear soul -
Their connection, combination,
And their fatal merger,
And... the fatal duel...
However, such a metamorphosis is still not capable of killing love; moreover, a suffering person does not want to get rid of the torments of love, because it gives him a fullness and acuteness of perception of the world.
With the death of a beloved woman, life, dreams, desires went away, her previously bright colors faded. A painfully accurate comparison that likens a person to a bird with broken wings conveys a feeling of shock from bereavement, emptiness, and powerlessness:
You loved, and the way you love -
No, no one succeeded!
"Denisevsky cycle" in the life of Tyutchev
About Elena Alexandrovna Deniseva, the last, ardent, secret and painful love F.I. Tyutchev, a poet and a brilliant wit - a diplomat, almost nothing is known... and too much is known!
She is the addressee of more than fifteen of his poems, which became the most precious masterpieces of Russian poetry of the second half of the nineteenth century. This is a lot for a Woman who loved selflessly. And - too little for a heart that has torn itself with this Love. For almost two hundred years now we have been reading lines dedicated to her, admiring the painful and burning power of Tyutchev’s feeling for her, in general, a very secretive person who despises all “sentimental nonsense”, we are thinking about whether such a sinful passion was justified, Is she a sinner at all? We ask ourselves these questions, we try lines familiar from school to our own lives, but we extremely rarely think about who this Woman was, what She was and how She could bewitch, attract, “bewitch” for 14 long years. "to oneself such a fickle nature, thirsting for novelty and change of impressions, a harsh nature, quickly disillusioned, draining itself with sharp and often fruitless, merciless, endless introspection?: Let's try to leaf through the pages of a few memories, half-forgotten letters, yellowed sheets of other people's diaries: carefully, unobtrusively .
Let's try to recreate the hitherto hidden outline of the short, painfully bright life of what the Poet called “my living soul.”
Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva was born in 1826, in an ancient, but very impoverished noble family. She lost her mother early, and her relationship with her father, Alexander Dmitrievich Denisyev, an honored military man, and his second wife did not work out almost immediately. Rebellious and hot-tempered for the new “mother”, Elena was hastily sent to the capital, St. Petersburg, to be raised by her aunt, her father’s sister, Anna Dmitrievna Denisyeva, the senior inspector of the Smolny Institute.
The privileged position occupied by the oldest of the teachers, Anna Dmitrievna, in this educational institution, famous throughout Russia, allowed her to raise her half-orphan niece on a common basis with the rest of the “Smolyans”: the girl acquired impeccable manners, slender posture, excellent French-German accent, full a jumble of science and mathematics courses in his head, a solid knowledge of home economics and cooking, and an inordinate ardor of imagination, developed by reading sentimental novels and poetry at night, on the sly from classy ladies and pepinieres.
Anna Dmitrievna, overly strict and dry with her subordinates and pupils, became passionately attached to her niece, spoiled her in her own way, that is, early on she began buying her outfits, jewelry, ladies' trinkets and taking her out into the world, where she was seen as an elegant, graceful brunette, with an extremely expressive, characteristic face, lively brown eyes and very good manners - both experienced womanizers and ardent “archive youths” (students of the history and archival faculties of St. Petersburg and Moscow universities, representatives of ancient noble, often impoverished, families) quickly drew attention.
Elena Alexandrovna, with her natural intelligence, charm, deep thoughtfulness, seriousness - after all, the life of an orphan, whatever you say, leaves an imprint on the soul and heart - and very refined, elegant manners, she could count on a very good arrangement of her destiny: Smolny Institute was under tireless guardianship of the Imperial Family, and the niece, almost an adopted daughter, of the honored teacher was going to be appointed a maid of honor of the Court upon graduation!
And then a marriage, quite appropriate for her years and upbringing, would await Helen with a well-deserved reward, and the old auntie could indulge with pleasure (in the shadow of her niece’s family hearth) in the game of piquet that she so loved, with some impeccably mannered and extremely amiable a guest from a huge number of secular acquaintances!
Naturally, at first Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev also belonged to such “completely secular” acquaintances.
His eldest daughters from his first marriage, Anna and Ekaterina Tyutchev, graduated from Smolny’s graduating class together with Elena. They were even very friendly with each other, and at first mlle Denisyeva gladly accepted an invitation to a cup of tea in the hospitable, but a little strange house Tyutchev. Strange because everyone in it lived their own life, despite reading aloud in the evenings in a brightly lit living room, frequent tea parties together, noisy family trips to theaters or balls.
Internally, everyone in this brilliantly intelligent, deeply aristocratic - in spirit, views, worldview - family was closed and carefully hidden in their own shell of deep experiences and even “lost” in them.
A certain inner coolness always reigned in the house and the flame of love, hidden under the cover of restraint and aristocratic coldness, never flared up in full force.
Particularly confused and restless in this “half-icy atmosphere” seemed to Elena the wife of the most kind, always slightly selfishly absent-minded, Fyodor Ivanovich, the delicate, very reserved Ernestina Feodorovna, whose maiden name was Baroness Pfefel, a native of Dresden.
She always tried to be inconspicuous, winced when they paid too much attention to her, in her opinion, but the thin, graceful features of her face, huge brown eyes, always seemed to “chill” from the spiritual “draft” that reigned in the house, begging for the extra a glance or a warm word fleetingly addressed to her. She immensely adored her Theodora and even encouraged his passion for the graceful and lively friend of her adopted but sincerely beloved daughters, which greatly surprised Elena at first.
True, then, much later, she unraveled Ernestina Feodorovna’s skillful “secret” - she simply did not take her seriously!
Wise with brilliant social experience, Mrs. Tyutcheva thought that the ardent romance - her “piitish” husband’s infatuation with the naive young beauty - the Smolenskaya girl, although stormy, would be short-lived, and that it was much safer than all the previous reckless “whirlwinds of passions” of her Theodora and high society aristocrats - beauties. Any of these hobbies threatened to develop into loud scandal, and could have cost her husband his court and diplomatic career.
And this could not be allowed to happen! But if only the wife of a diplomat and poet, experienced in high-society “customs,” could only imagine what kind of fire would “ignite” from a small spark of ordinary secular flirtation!
The novel developed frighteningly - rapidly! Elena Alexandrovna was twenty-five years old at that time, Tyutchev was forty-seven. Their stormy relationship soon became known to the manager of the Smolny Institute, who got on the trail of an apartment rented nearby by Tyutchev for secret meetings with Elena Alexandrovna. The scandal broke out in March 1851, almost before graduation and court appointments. At that time, Smolyanka Denisyeva was already expecting a child from the poet-chamberlain! Eldest daughter Elena Denisyeva from Tyutchev was born on May 20, 1851 - author. All hopes for her career as a maid of honor of the Court, and for Aunt Anna Dmitrievna as a cavalry lady, of course, were immediately forgotten!
Anna Dmitrievna was hastily escorted out of the institute, albeit with an honorary pension - three thousand rubles annually, and poor Lelya was “abandoned by everyone.” She has almost no friends or acquaintances left in the world. Her on new apartment, where she lived with her aunt and newborn daughter, also Elena, - only two or three friends visited, the most devoted of them: Varvara Arsentievna Belorukova, a classy lady of Smolny, who took care of the children and elderly aunt after Elena’s death, and a few relatives.
Alexander Georgievsky wrote about Elena Alexandrovna and her fate like this: “It was the most difficult time in her life, her father cursed her and did not want to see her anymore, forbidding all other relatives to see her.
Only her deep religiosity, only prayer, acts of charity, donations to the icon saved her from complete despair. Mother of God in the cathedral of all educational institutions near the Smolny Monastery, for which all the few decorations she had were used."
It seems that Alexander Ivanovich Georgievsky is somewhat mistaken in his memoirs, speaking about the only consolation of the unlucky woman (in the secular sense) - Elena: God and Orthodox prayers! She had another “God” - Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev and one more consolation: his Love and affection for her! She called him that: “My God.” She forgave him absolutely everything: frequent absences, permanent living with two families, he did not intend to, and could not, leave the devoted and all-knowing Ernestina Feodorovna and her ladies-in-waiting - daughters, his service as a diplomat and chamberlain - author) selfishness, hot temper, frequent, absent-minded inattention to her, and in the end - even half-coldness - and even the fact that she often had to lie to the children, and to all their questions:
“Where is dad and why does he only have lunch with us once a week?” - answer hesitantly that he is at work and very busy.
Free from sidelong glances, contemptuous pity, alienation, and everything that accompanied her false position of half-wife - half-lover, Elena Alexandrovna was spared only by a short stay with Tyutchev abroad - several months a year, and even then - not every summer. There she did not need to hide from anyone, there she freely and proudly called herself: Madame Tyutcheva, in the hotel registration books, without hesitation, with a firm hand, in response to the polite question of the receptionist, she wrote down: Tyutchev with his family.
But - only there!
For the circle in which Elena Aleksandrovna Denisyeva lived in Russia, until the end of her life she was a “pariah,” an outcast, a stumbler.
Of course, Elena Alexandrovna, very smart, sensitive and understanding of everything, knew perfectly well that she was engaged in self-deception, but her torn, too ardent heart carefully built her own “theory”, thanks to which she lived all the difficult and at the same time, selfless, his long fourteen years.
But sometimes this restrained, quiet and deeply religious nature still could not withstand the cross of “humility and submission to God’s will”, the temperament, bright and stormy, but suppressed by the bitter circumstances of life, from time to time “boiled” in her, and then in the Tyutchev family - Denisyev, scenes similar to the one described by Al took place. Georgievsky in his unpublished memoirs:
“Before the birth of his third child, Feodor Ivanovich tried to dissuade Lelya from this risky step, and quite rightly, because he knew for sure that illegitimate children did not have any rights of fortune and would be equal to peasant rights. Feodor Ivanovich had a lot of trouble later, after the death of his beloved, to beat the doorsteps , and raised a whole crowd of high-society acquaintances to their feet, before he managed to place orphan children in the nobles educational establishments; Documents preserved in the archives of the Muranovo estate speak about this! But she, this loving, kind, and generally adored Lelya, flew into such a frenzy that she grabbed from the desk the first bronze dog on malachite that came into her hand and threw it with all her might at Feodor Ivanovich, but, fortunately, did not hit into it, and into the corner of the stove, and knocked off a large piece of tile in it: there was no end to Lelya’s repentance, tears and sobs after that.
However, the author of the memoirs so often cited here is mistaken again! And the quietest stream can, at least for a while, become rushing river. Over time, the crack, the breakdown in the relationship between Tyutchev and Denisyeva intensified, and it is unknown how their fifteen-year suffering would have ended if not for the sudden death of Elena Alexandrovna from transient consumption in August 1864, at the age of 37 years!
Vladimir Veidle, a historian and publicist who was very involved in researching both Tyutchev’s creativity and biography, wrote in his brilliant psychological essays - sketches analyzing the lyrical world of poetry and the very soul of the Poet:
“Tyutchev was not a “possessor,” but he could not be possessed either. Elena Alexandrovna told him: “You are my own,” but probably precisely because he was neither hers nor anyone else’s, and by his very nature It couldn’t be. Hence that captivating, but also that “terrible and restless” thing that was in him: in passion itself there is an unlost spirituality, and in tenderness itself there is still something like the absence of a soul.”
As if to confirm what Veidle said, in the poem “Don’t believe, don’t believe the poet!”, written back in the thirties, we read:
Your shrine will not be violated
The poet's clean hand
But inadvertently life will strangle
Or it will carry you beyond the clouds.
Some distance must always be felt, some alienation, isolation. And at the same time, Tyutchev himself had a huge need for love, but the need was not so much to love as to be loved. Without love there is no life; but to love for him is to recognize, to find himself in someone else’s love. In the poem of the 30th year “This day, I remember, for me was the morning of the day of life...” the poet sees a new world, for him it begins new life not because he fell in love, as for Dante the beginning of a new life, but because
Golden declaration of love
It burst out of her chest.
That is, the world was transformed the minute the poet found out that he was loved. With such an experience of love, it is not surprising that those who loved Tyutchev remained dissatisfied with his love; It is also not surprising that for him there was fidelity, which did not exclude betrayal, and betrayal, which did not exclude fidelity. The theme of unfaithful loyalty and the love of others for him runs through his entire life and is reflected in his poetry. In Veidl "Tyutchev's Last Love". But the crisis of the Poet’s relationship with his last Love is best illustrated in Tyutchev’s bitter confession to the same A.I. Georgievsky, sent a few months after the death of Elena Alexandrovna:
“You know how, with all her highly poetic nature, or, better to say, thanks to it, she did not value poetry, even mine, and only those of them she liked, where my love for her was expressed, expressed publicly and for all to hear . That's what she treasured to the whole world I found out what she [was] for me: this was her highest not only pleasure, but a spiritual demand, the vital condition of her soul... I remember once in Baden, while walking, she started talking about her desire that I seriously began the secondary edition of my poems, and so sweetly, with such love, I confessed that how gratifying it would be for her if her name were at the head of this publication. So, will you believe this? - instead of gratitude, instead of love and adoration, I, I don’t know why, expressed some kind of disagreement, dislike to her, it somehow seemed to me that such a demand on her part was not entirely generous, that, knowing to what extent I was all her (“You are my own,” as she said), she had nothing, there was no need to wish for other printed statements that could upset or offend other individuals.
So fourteen years passed. Towards the end, Elena Alexandrovna was ill a lot (she had tuberculosis). Her letters to her sister dating back to the last year and a half of her life have been preserved. In them she calls Tyutchev “my God,” and in them she compares him to the unentertained French king. It is also clear from them that in last summer In her life, her daughter, Lelya, went with her father to ride on the Islands almost every evening. He treated her to ice cream; they returned home late. This both pleased and saddened Elena Alexandrovna: she remained in a stuffy room alone or in the company of some compassionate lady who volunteered to visit her. That summer Tyutchev especially wanted to go abroad and was burdened by St. Petersburg; We know this from his letters to his wife. But then the blow befell him, from which he never recovered until his death.
During Elena Alexandrovna's life, she was the victim of their love; after her death, Tyutchev became the victim. Perhaps he loved her too little, but he could not live without her love. We definitely hear him say: “Your love is yours, not mine, but without this yours there is no life, there is no me.”
And two months after her death, in a letter to Georgievsky, he gave the key to his entire fate: “Only with her and for her was I a person, only in her love “...” did I recognize myself.”
Elena Alexandrovna died in St. Petersburg or at a dacha near St. Petersburg on August 4, 1864. She was buried at the Volkov cemetery. On her grave stood a cross, now broken, with an inscription consisting of the dates of birth and death and the words: “Elena - I believe, Lord, and I confess.” The poems speak about her dying days and hours and Tyutchev’s despair:
All day she lay in oblivion -
And shadows covered it all -
The warm summer rain was pouring - its streams
The leaves sounded cheerful.
And slowly she came to her senses -
And I started listening to the noise,
And I listened for a long time - captivated,
Immersed in conscious thought...
And so, as if talking to myself,
She said consciously:
(I was with her, killed but alive)
“Oh, how I loved all this!”
You loved, and the way you love -
no one has ever succeeded -
Oh Lord!.. and survive this...
And my heart didn't break into pieces...
At the beginning of October, from Geneva, Tyutchev wrote to Georgievsky: “...The memory of her is that feeling of hunger in the hungry, insatiably hungry. I can’t live, my friend Alexander Ivanovich, I can’t live... The wound festers, it doesn’t heal. Only with to her and for her I was a person, only in her love, her boundless love for me, did I recognize myself... Now I am something meaninglessly living, some kind of living, painful nonentity.
One day, returning home from a sermon by Bishop Mermillot, he dictated verses to his youngest daughter, Maria, to whose diary we owe information about Tyutchev’s time abroad:
The biz has calmed down... He can breathe easier
The azure host of Geneva's waters -
And the boat floats on them again,
And again the swan rocks them.
All day long, like in summer, the sun warms,
The trees shine with diversity -
And the air is a gentle wave
Their splendor cherishes the old.
And there, in solemn peace,
Unmasked in the morning, -
The White Mountain shines,
Like an unearthly revelation.
Here the heart would forget everything,
I would forget all my flour,
Whenever there - in native land -
There was one less grave...
At the end of November or December the following poems were written:
Oh, this south, oh, this Nice!..
Oh, how their brilliance alarms me!
Life is like a shot bird
He wants to get up, but he can’t...
There is no flight, no scope -
Broken wings hang -
And all of her, clinging to the dust,
Trembling from pain and powerlessness...
Then he wrote to Polonsky in response to his poems:
There is a dead night in me and there is no morning for it...
And soon it will fly away - unnoticed in the darkness -
The last, meager smoke from the extinguished fire.
True, a week after these lines a madrigal poem was written dedicated to N.S. Akinfieva, but it only testifies to the need for society, especially for women, which Tyutchev never left. Under this cover of tenderness, sociability, and talkativeness, complete emptiness continued to gape, which received its deepest expression in the verses “There is also in my suffering stagnation...”. The deadness of the soul, dull melancholy, the inability to realize oneself are contrasted in them with burning but living suffering, just as during Elena Alexandrovna’s life the power of her love was contrasted with the inability to love that the poet experienced when he recognized himself as “a lifeless idol of your living soul.” .
At the end of June he writes to M.A. Georgievskaya: “I must admit that since then there has not been a single day that I did not begin without some amazement at how a person continues to live, although his head was cut off and his heart was torn out.” He commemorated two anniversaries that summer with mournful verses: on July 15 in St. Petersburg he wrote “Today, friend, fifteen years have passed...”, and on August 3 in Ovstug:
Here I am wandering along the high road
In the quiet light of the fading day,
It’s hard for me, my legs are freezing...
My dear friend, do you see me?
It's getting darker, darker above the ground -
The last light of the day has flown away...
This is the world where you and I lived,
My angel, can you see me?
Tomorrow is a day of prayer and sorrow,
Tomorrow is the memory of the fateful day...
My angel, wherever souls hover,
My angel, can you see me?
This month was especially difficult for Tyutchev. Those close to him noted his irritability: he wanted them to show more participation to his grief. On August 16 he writes to M.A. Georgievskaya: “My vile nerves are so upset that I can’t hold a pen in my hands...”, and at the end of September she from St. Petersburg: “A pitiful and vile creation is a man with his ability to survive everything,” but he himself six months later in verses to gr. Bludova will say that “to survive does not mean to live.” “There is not a day when the soul does not ache...” written in the same year in late autumn. The following spring, Tyutchev did not want to go abroad and wrote to the Georgievskys: “It’s even emptier there. I’ve already experienced this in practice.” In the summer of the same year, he complained from Tsarskoye to his wife: “I am becoming more and more unbearable every day, my usual irritation is contributed in no small part by the fatigue that I experience in pursuit of all means to have fun and not see the terrible emptiness in front of me.”
Of course, time, as they say, “did its job.” Another year has passed. The mention of Elena Alexandrovna in correspondence disappears. But it is known that in the fall of this year, at one of the meetings of the Council of the Main Directorate for Press Affairs, of which he was a member, Tyutchev was very upset and drew or wrote something with a pencil on a piece of paper lying in front of him on the table. After the meeting, he went off into thought, leaving the piece of paper behind. One of his colleagues, Count Kapnist, noticed that instead of business notes there were poetic lines. He took the piece of paper and kept it as a memory of Tyutchev:
No matter how hard the last hour is -
The one incomprehensible to us
The languor of mortal suffering, -
But it’s even worse for the soul
Watch how they die out in it
All the best memories.
Another St. Petersburg winter passed, then spring... In June Tyutchev wrote:
Again I stand over the Neva,
And again, like in years past,
I look, as if alive,
To these slumbering waters.
There are no sparks in the blue sky,
Everything calmed down in pale charm,
Only along the pensive Neva
A pale glow flows.
Am I dreaming about all this in a dream?
Or am I really looking
Why, under the same moon?
Did we see you alive?
This should be taken literally. He didn't have enough life, and he didn't have long to live. He died in July 1873 (In the essay about Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, I erroneously indicated: April 1873 - author!)
Even in his latest hobbies: romantic letters to Baroness Elena Karlovna Uslar-Bogdanova, madrigals to Nadezhda Akinfieva-Gorchakova, half-joking poetic lines Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna lies only a “glimmer”, easy breath Tyutchev's last Love, its flashes and shadows: This is just an attempt to fill the heartfelt void that formed in the Poet's soul after the departure of his Beloved Woman. This is so natural for the Poet... So understandable. But it’s so bitter!
It is painful to realize that the Muse, who inspired the poet for 14 years, is gone. Humanly, I feel sorry for Tyutchev: he lost his beloved woman, to whom he dedicated many of his poems. This love was both strange and incomprehensible, but it was there! in the life of a poet. It is difficult for me to judge the depth of their feelings, and I also have no right to condemn their illegal union. One can only imagine how hard it was for both of them, especially Deniseva, because the world always blames the woman in such cases and justifies the man. But the result of this love is Tyutchev’s beautiful lines.
Tyutchev's "Denisevsky cycle" became miraculous monument his beloved. She, like Dante's Beatrice or Petrarch's Laura, gained immortality. Now these verses exist separately from tragic stories love, but they became the pinnacle of world love poetry because they were nourished by living life.
