What did the block do besides writing? Blok A.A

The boy was sent to the St. Petersburg Vvedenskaya Gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1898.

In 1898, Alexander Blok entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, but in 1901 he transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology, from which he graduated in 1906 in the Slavic-Russian department.

From the beginning of the 1900s, Alexander Blok became close to the symbolists Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius in St. Petersburg, and with Valery Bryusov and Andrei Bely in Moscow.

In 1903, the first selection of Blok’s poems, “From Dedications,” appeared in the magazine “New Way”, headed by the Merezhkovskys. In the same year, a cycle of poems was published in the almanac “Northern Flowers” ​​under the title “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” (the title was suggested by Bryusov).

The events of the revolution of 1905-1907 played a special role in shaping Blok’s worldview, revealing the spontaneous, catastrophic nature of existence. In the lyrics of this time, the theme of the “elements” became the leading one - images of a blizzard, blizzard, motifs of free people, vagrancy. The Beautiful Lady is replaced by the demonic Stranger, Snow Mask, and the schismatic gypsy Faina. Blok published in the symbolist magazines “Questions of Life”, “Scales”, “Pereval”, “Golden Fleece”, in the latter he led the critical department from 1907.

In 1907, Blok's collection "Unexpected Joy" was published in Moscow, in St. Petersburg - the cycle of poems "Snow Mask", in 1908 in Moscow - the third collection of poems "Earth in the Snow" and a translation of Grillparzer's tragedy "Foremother" with an introductory article and notes. In 1908, he turned to the theater and wrote “lyrical dramas” - “Balaganchik”, “King in the Square”, “Stranger”.

A trip to Italy in the spring and summer of 1909 became a period of “revaluation of values” for Blok. The impressions he gained from this journey were embodied in the cycle “Italian Poems”.

In 1909, having received an inheritance after the death of his father, he was freed for a long time from worries about literary earnings and focused on major artistic plans. In 1910, he began working on the great epic poem "Retribution" (which was not completed). In 1912-1913 he wrote the play "Rose and Cross". After the publication of the collection "Night Hours" in 1911, Blok revised his five books of poetry into a three-volume collection of poems (1911-1912). During the poet's lifetime, the three-volume set was republished in 1916 and in 1918-1921.

Since the autumn of 1914, Blok worked on the publication of “Poems by Apollo Grigoriev” (1916) as a compiler, author of the introductory article and commentator.

In July 1916, during the First World War, he was drafted into the army and served as a timekeeper of the 13th engineering and construction squad of the Zemsky and City Unions near Pinsk (now a city in Belarus).

After the February Revolution of 1917, Blok returned to Petrograd, where, as an editor of verbatim reports, he became a member of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission to investigate the crimes of the tsarist government. The materials of the investigation were summarized by him in the book “The Last Days of Imperial Power” (1921).

The October Revolution causes a new spiritual rise of the poet and civic activity. In January 1918, the poems “The Twelve” and “Scythians” were created.

After “The Twelve” and “Scythians”, Alexander Blok wrote comic poems “for the occasion”, prepared the last edition of the “lyrical trilogy”, but did not create new original poems until 1921. During this period, the poet made cultural and philosophical reports at meetings of the Volfila - Free Philosophical Association, at the School of Journalism, wrote lyrical fragments “Neither Dreams nor Reality” and “Confession of a Pagan”, feuilletons “Russian Dandies”, “Fellow Citizens”, “Answer to the Question of red seal."

A huge amount of what he wrote was related to Blok’s official activities: after the October Revolution of 1917, for the first time in his life he was forced to seek not only literary income, but also public service. In September 1917, he became a member of the Theater and Literary Commission, from the beginning of 1918 he collaborated with the Theater Department of the People's Commissariat for Education, and in April 1919 he moved to the Bolshoi Drama Theater. At the same time, he worked as a member of the editorial board of the publishing house "World Literature" under the leadership of Maxim Gorky, and from 1920 he was chairman of the Petrograd branch of the Union of Poets.

Initially, Blok's participation in cultural and educational institutions was motivated by beliefs about the duty of the intelligentsia to the people. But the discrepancy between the poet’s ideas about the “cleansing revolutionary element” and the bloody everyday life of the advancing regime led him to disappointment in what was happening. In his articles and diary entries, the motif of the catacomb existence of culture appeared. Blok’s thoughts about the indestructibility of true culture and the “secret freedom” of the artist were expressed in his speech “On the Appointment of a Poet” at an evening in memory of Alexander Pushkin and in the poem “To the Pushkin House” (February 1921), which became his artistic and human testament.

In the spring of 1921, Alexander Blok asked to be given an exit visa to Finland for treatment in a sanatorium. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), at whose meeting this issue was discussed, refused to allow Blok to leave.

In April 1921, the poet's growing depression turned into a mental disorder accompanied by heart disease. On August 7, 1921, Alexander Blok died in Petrograd. He was buried at the Smolensk cemetery; in 1944, the poet’s ashes were transferred to the Literary Bridge at the Volkovsky cemetery.

Since 1903, Alexander Blok was married to Lyubov Mendeleeva (1882-1939), the daughter of the famous chemist Dmitry Mendeleev, to whom the cycle “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” was dedicated. After the poet’s death, she became interested in classical ballet and taught the history of ballet at the Choreographic School at the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater (now the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet). She described her life with the poet in the book “Both true stories and fables about Blok and about herself.”

In 1980, in the house on Dekabristov Street, where the poet lived and died for the last nine years, the museum-apartment of Alexander Blok was opened.

In 1984, in the Shakhmatovo estate, where Blok spent his childhood and youth, as well as in the neighboring estates of Boblovo and Tarakanovo, Solnechnogorsk district, Moscow region, the State Museum-Reserve of D.I. Mendeleev and A.A. Blok.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Biography, life story of Alexander Alexandrovich Blok

The poet Blok was born in St. Petersburg in 1880 on November 16, he was the son of a law professor. Blok’s mother separated from her husband immediately after the birth of the boy. The child was raised in the family of his grandfather, who was the rector of St. Petersburg University, Beketov. Beketov Alexander Nikolaevich was a botanist by training. The mother married a second time, the family settled in the Grenadier barracks, since the stepfather was a guards officer. His last name was Kublitsky-Piottukh. Blok successfully graduated from high school and entered St. Petersburg University to study at the Faculty of Law. He soon realized that his interests were far from legal science and transferred to the Faculty of Philology, to the Slavic-Russian department. Alexander managed to study law for three years before becoming interested in philosophy and poetry.

The acquaintance with his future wife took place within the walls of the university; she was the daughter of the famous Mendeleev, a chemist. The young couple got married in 1903. Blok was in love with his wife. It was a feeling of rare strength, which is not given to everyone. Blok's first love also left a deep mark on his soul and poetry. The poet experienced his first love during his high school years at a resort in Baden-Baden, where the family vacationed in 1897. By 1901, the poet had already written many poems, these were lyrics about love, poems about nature. Blok's poetry was built on the idealistic ideas of Plato's philosophy; it was full of vague forebodings, hints and allegories. In poetry there was an unreal world of higher ideas; it was something sublime.

The relationship with his wife was contradictory and very difficult, since there was almost no physical intimacy between them. At this time, Blok became close to the Symbolists. There were two circles of symbolists - St. Petersburg and Moscow. In the first, Zinaida Gippius and Merezhkovsky reigned, in the second, in Moscow, the main figure was Bryusov. Alexander became close to the Moscow circle of admirers of the philosophy of Vl. Solovyov, Andrei Bely stood out among them. Bely was then an aspiring prose writer and poet, a theorist and connoisseur of new literature and new art. Andrei Bely's group greeted Blok's poems with delight. The Symbolist publishing house published the book “Poems about a Beautiful Lady.” Blok's wife became the object of Andrei Bely's crush, but he was rejected. However, family relationships became even more strained.

CONTINUED BELOW

There was more than one woman in Blok’s life who influenced his poetry. Every period of biography became poetry. The history of the appearance of the “Carmen” cycle is connected with the feeling for Love Alexandrovna Delmas. Delmas was her stage name, after her mother's last name. Her real name was Tishinskaya. She was a famous singer who graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. She sang romances to Blok's words at the Tenishevsky School, when everyone noticed that Blok and Delmas were strikingly suited to each other. Their feeling was “terribly serious.” She was a dazzling woman, but was she beautiful? Blok had a peculiar idea of ​​female beauty; in fact, she was no longer a young, overweight woman. The cycles “Carmen”, “Harp and Violin”, “Grey Morning”, and the poem “The Nightingale Garden”, which Blok completed in 1915, were dedicated to her.

Having made interesting trips abroad, Blok published a cycle of the best poems in Russian poetry about Italy and many other wonderful works.

In the summer of 1916, Blok was drafted into the army, where he found information about the February Revolution of 1917. When the poet returned to Petrograd, he began to take part in the investigation of the crimes of the tsarist regime as part of the Extraordinary Commission. His book about these investigations was published posthumously. The last short creative upsurge occurred in 1918, when the poems “The Twelve” and “Scythians” were published. No one accepted or understood the image of Christ; the poem was perceived in very different ways. The revolutionaries were more lenient, but opponents of the revolution declared a real boycott of the poet.

In 1919, Blok was accused of an anti-Soviet conspiracy. He was interrogated for a long time, but Lunacharsky stood up. The poet was released, he began to try to cooperate with the authorities. Soon Blok felt the onset of a crisis of creativity; he realized that he would not have a place in the new literature. His physical condition had deteriorated greatly, he was on the verge of exhaustion, on the verge of life and death. He recently abandoned creativity and died of inflammation of the heart valves on August 7, 1921.

The boy was sent to the St. Petersburg Vvedenskaya Gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1898.

In 1898, Alexander Blok entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, but in 1901 he transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology, from which he graduated in 1906 in the Slavic-Russian department.

From the beginning of the 1900s, Alexander Blok became close to the symbolists Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Zinaida Gippius in St. Petersburg, and with Valery Bryusov and Andrei Bely in Moscow.

In 1903, the first selection of Blok’s poems, “From Dedications,” appeared in the magazine “New Way”, headed by the Merezhkovskys. In the same year, a cycle of poems was published in the almanac “Northern Flowers” ​​under the title “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” (the title was suggested by Bryusov).

The events of the revolution of 1905-1907 played a special role in shaping Blok’s worldview, revealing the spontaneous, catastrophic nature of existence. In the lyrics of this time, the theme of the “elements” became the leading one - images of a blizzard, blizzard, motifs of free people, vagrancy. The Beautiful Lady is replaced by the demonic Stranger, Snow Mask, and the schismatic gypsy Faina. Blok published in the symbolist magazines “Questions of Life”, “Scales”, “Pereval”, “Golden Fleece”, in the latter he led the critical department from 1907.

In 1907, Blok's collection "Unexpected Joy" was published in Moscow, in St. Petersburg - the cycle of poems "Snow Mask", in 1908 in Moscow - the third collection of poems "Earth in the Snow" and a translation of Grillparzer's tragedy "Foremother" with an introductory article and notes. In 1908, he turned to the theater and wrote “lyrical dramas” - “Balaganchik”, “King in the Square”, “Stranger”.

A trip to Italy in the spring and summer of 1909 became a period of “revaluation of values” for Blok. The impressions he gained from this journey were embodied in the cycle “Italian Poems”.

In 1909, having received an inheritance after the death of his father, he was freed for a long time from worries about literary earnings and focused on major artistic plans. In 1910, he began working on the great epic poem "Retribution" (which was not completed). In 1912-1913 he wrote the play "Rose and Cross". After the publication of the collection "Night Hours" in 1911, Blok revised his five books of poetry into a three-volume collection of poems (1911-1912). During the poet's lifetime, the three-volume set was republished in 1916 and in 1918-1921.

Since the autumn of 1914, Blok worked on the publication of “Poems by Apollo Grigoriev” (1916) as a compiler, author of the introductory article and commentator.

In July 1916, during the First World War, he was drafted into the army and served as a timekeeper of the 13th engineering and construction squad of the Zemsky and City Unions near Pinsk (now a city in Belarus).

After the February Revolution of 1917, Blok returned to Petrograd, where, as an editor of verbatim reports, he became a member of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission to investigate the crimes of the tsarist government. The materials of the investigation were summarized by him in the book “The Last Days of Imperial Power” (1921).

The October Revolution causes a new spiritual rise of the poet and civic activity. In January 1918, the poems “The Twelve” and “Scythians” were created.

After “The Twelve” and “Scythians”, Alexander Blok wrote comic poems “for the occasion”, prepared the last edition of the “lyrical trilogy”, but did not create new original poems until 1921. During this period, the poet made cultural and philosophical reports at meetings of the Volfila - Free Philosophical Association, at the School of Journalism, wrote lyrical fragments “Neither Dreams nor Reality” and “Confession of a Pagan”, feuilletons “Russian Dandies”, “Fellow Citizens”, “Answer to the Question of red seal."

A huge amount of what he wrote was related to Blok’s official activities: after the October Revolution of 1917, for the first time in his life he was forced to seek not only literary income, but also public service. In September 1917, he became a member of the Theater and Literary Commission, from the beginning of 1918 he collaborated with the Theater Department of the People's Commissariat for Education, and in April 1919 he moved to the Bolshoi Drama Theater. At the same time, he worked as a member of the editorial board of the publishing house "World Literature" under the leadership of Maxim Gorky, and from 1920 he was chairman of the Petrograd branch of the Union of Poets.

Initially, Blok's participation in cultural and educational institutions was motivated by beliefs about the duty of the intelligentsia to the people. But the discrepancy between the poet’s ideas about the “cleansing revolutionary element” and the bloody everyday life of the advancing regime led him to disappointment in what was happening. In his articles and diary entries, the motif of the catacomb existence of culture appeared. Blok’s thoughts about the indestructibility of true culture and the “secret freedom” of the artist were expressed in his speech “On the Appointment of a Poet” at an evening in memory of Alexander Pushkin and in the poem “To the Pushkin House” (February 1921), which became his artistic and human testament.

In the spring of 1921, Alexander Blok asked to be given an exit visa to Finland for treatment in a sanatorium. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), at whose meeting this issue was discussed, refused to allow Blok to leave.

In April 1921, the poet's growing depression turned into a mental disorder accompanied by heart disease. On August 7, 1921, Alexander Blok died in Petrograd. He was buried at the Smolensk cemetery; in 1944, the poet’s ashes were transferred to the Literary Bridge at the Volkovsky cemetery.

Since 1903, Alexander Blok was married to Lyubov Mendeleeva (1882-1939), the daughter of the famous chemist Dmitry Mendeleev, to whom the cycle “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” was dedicated. After the poet’s death, she became interested in classical ballet and taught the history of ballet at the Choreographic School at the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater (now the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet). She described her life with the poet in the book “Both true stories and fables about Blok and about herself.”

In 1980, in the house on Dekabristov Street, where the poet lived and died for the last nine years, the museum-apartment of Alexander Blok was opened.

In 1984, in the Shakhmatovo estate, where Blok spent his childhood and youth, as well as in the neighboring estates of Boblovo and Tarakanovo, Solnechnogorsk district, Moscow region, the State Museum-Reserve of D.I. Mendeleev and A.A. Blok.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Blok Alexander Alexandrovich (1880─1921) - Russian poet and writer, playwright and publicist, literary critic and translator. His work belongs to the classics of Russian literature of the twentieth century.

Parents

The poet's father, Alexander Lvovich, had German roots in his family; he was a lawyer by training and worked as an assistant professor at the department of public law at the University of Warsaw.

The boy’s mother, translator Alexandra Andreevna, had purely Russian roots, she was the daughter of the famous academician, rector of St. Petersburg State University Beketov A. N. In the family her name was Asya and they loved her incredibly, firstly, because she was the youngest, and secondly, for kindness, affection and a very cheerful character. Most of all, Asya loved literature, especially poetry; perhaps this love was later passed on to the future poet at the genetic level.

Blok's parents met at a dance party. Asya made a strong impression on Alexander Lvovich, he fell in love and began to look for a meeting with the girl in every possible way, frequenting the Beketovs’ house, where receptions were held on Saturdays. The relationship between Asya and Alexander Lvovich developed quite quickly; at the beginning of 1879 they got married in the university church. The groom was 9 years older than the bride, and on the wedding day they immediately left for Warsaw.

Alexander Lvovich loved his wife madly, but in life he turned out to be a despot and a tyrant, his love alternated with torment and bullying. Their first child was stillborn. The woman was desperately grieving and dreamed of giving birth to a second baby as soon as possible.

When Asya was pregnant for the second time, she and her husband came to St. Petersburg to defend his dissertation. We immediately settled in her parents’ house. Having received another academic degree, Alexander Lvovich Blok returned to Warsaw alone. His wife's parents persuaded him to leave his wife with them, because in the eighth month of pregnancy it is unsafe to be afraid on trains.

Alexander Blok was born in the house of his grandfather Beketov. The boy was large and well-built; from the first day of his life he became the center of attention in the family. The father in Warsaw was immediately informed about the birth of his son. When he arrived in St. Petersburg for the Christmas holidays and stayed with the Beketovs, his whole despotic character was revealed to them. Everyone understood that Asya was hiding from her parents how she really lived with her husband.

Alexander Lvovich left alone again; it was decided that his wife, weakened by childbirth, and their tiny son would remain in their parents’ house until spring. But she never returned to her husband in Warsaw; her father insisted that her daughter and grandson remain in St. Petersburg.

The baby was restless and capricious; sometimes he could not be rocked to sleep for several hours. He fell asleep only in the arms of his grandfather, who walked with his grandson in his arms and at the same time prepared for lectures at the university.

Sashenka began to walk and talk late, but every summer spent in the village of Shakhmatovo improved his health. By the age of three, the boy was so handsome that passers-by could not pass by without looking back at the child.

The future poet inherited exactly half the traits of both his father and mother in his character. Through the Blok line, Alexander inherited intelligence, depth of feelings and strong temperament. But along with these harsh traits, there were also Beketian sides in him; Alexander Blok was very generous, kind and childishly trusting.

Childhood

The boy grew up playful and interesting, but very willful; it was almost impossible to dissuade him or teach him to do anything; his mother often had to punish Sasha.

Until he was three years old, they couldn’t find a suitable nanny for him. But then nanny Sonya appeared, who developed a special relationship with the child. Little Blok adored her; most of all, he liked it when the nanny read Pushkin’s fairy tales aloud to him.

He loved to play, and he absolutely did not need any companions; he was so keen on the game himself that he could run around the rooms all day long, pretending to be people, horses, or conductors. In addition to games and nanny's fairy tales, he had another strong passion - ships, he painted them in different forms and hung them throughout the house, this passion remained with him throughout his life.

In the fourth year of his life, the boy first traveled abroad with his mother and nanny, to Trieste and Florence, where he swam a lot in the sea and sunbathed.

From there we returned to his beloved village of Shakhmatovo. While still a child, Blok studied all the surroundings here; later he would depict this place in his poem “Retribution.” He knew where mushrooms were found, lilies of the valley and forget-me-nots bloomed, where he could pick a whole basket of wild strawberries.

Little Sasha was madly in love with animals; yard dogs, hedgehogs, even insects and earthworms aroused his admiration. At the age of five, he dedicated his first poems to a gray bunny and a domestic cat.

His own father, Alexander Lvovich, came to Russia for the holidays and visited his son, but did not evoke much sympathy from the boy. The elder Blok was more concerned about getting his wife back, but she persistently asked for a divorce. Until he himself decided to remarry in Warsaw, he refused to grant a divorce.

And already in 1889, when Alexander Blok was nine years old, my mother married for the second time the lieutenant of the grenadier regiment Kublitsky-Piottukh. She took her husband’s surname, and her son remained Blok.

They moved to the Bolshaya Nevka embankment, there was a new apartment in the regimental barracks, where they lived for 15 years. The stepfather did not have any special love for his stepson, but he did not offend him either. The boy made friends with the neighboring children, and together they skated when the Nevka was covered with thick ice. At home he occupied himself with drawing and sawing, and he especially enjoyed binding books.

Gymnasium and university

In 1889, Sasha entered the Vvedensky gymnasium to study. Studying could not be called smooth, arithmetic was the worst, and he was very fond of ancient languages.
As a high school student, he was unsociable, did not like unnecessary conversations, and often wrote poetry in solitude.

Already at the age of ten he wrote two issues of the magazine “Ship”. And in his final years at the gymnasium, he and his cousins ​​began publishing a handwritten magazine, Vestnik. Grandfather occasionally helped his grandchildren illustrate the magazine. This publication contained poetry and prose of the young Blok, puzzles and riddles, translations from French, and even a small play “A Trip to Italy.” In one of the issues a fairy tale was published, where the characters were beetles and ants. Blok mainly wrote humorous poems, but he also had a very touching poem dedicated to his mother.

Blok was not too keen on reading during his high school years, but he had favorite poets and writers:

• Zhukovsky and Pushkin;
• Jules Verne and Dickens;
• Cooper and Mine Reid.

In his senior year, Blok became interested in theater, recited Shakespeare, joined a theater club, and even had several roles in plays.

In 1897, Alexander, his mother and aunt, went to Germany, where his mother was undergoing treatment. This is where his first love happened. Ksenia Mikhailova Sadovskaya was a secular, beautiful and pampered lady of 37 years old, the mother of a family. The young man was immediately struck by her bottomless blue eyes; passion captured him and gave him poetic inspiration.

The beauty was the first to attract the inexperienced guy. Every morning he bought and gave her roses, they rode alone in a boat, and, of course, Blok dedicated to her his most touching poems that a young poet in love could write. He signed them “mysterious K. M. S.”

Returning to Russia, in 1898 Alexander graduated from high school. He immediately became a law student at St. Petersburg University. After three years of study, he transferred to the Faculty of History and Philology, choosing the Slavic-Russian department. In 1906, the poet graduated from the university.

Family life

In 1903, Alexander married Mendeleev’s daughter Lyubov.

They met a long time ago, during the summer holidays in the village where the Mendeleev estate was located next to Beketovskaya. He was 14 years old then, and Lyuba was 13, they walked and played together. Their second meeting took place when Blok had just graduated from high school; this time the young people made a completely different impression on each other.

While studying at the university, Blok often visited the Mendeleevs’ home, at which time his poems appeared, which were later included in the collection “Poems about a Beautiful Lady,” he dedicated them to his future wife Lyubov.

In the year of his marriage, another significant event took place in the poet’s life; his poems began to be published in the magazine “New Path” and in the almanac “Northern Flowers”. Blok’s creativity was quickly appreciated both in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

After the wedding, the young Blocks lived in his stepfather’s house, went to Moscow for a while, and in the summer they went to Shakhmatovo. Here they began to equip their family nest with their own hands. Alexander greatly respected physical labor, he even wrote in his poems about how he loved any work - “building a stove, writing poetry.” The blocks developed a luxurious garden, built a turf sofa in it, and often hosted guests. They were such a beautiful sunny couple among the wildflowers that they were even called the Princess and the Tsarevich.

They were each other's strongest loves of their lives. But their marriage turned out to be quite strange. Blok considered his wife the embodiment of Eternal femininity and did not admit that he could make carnal love with her. He had other women, Lyuba also had an affair with actor Konstantin Lavidovsky, from whom she became pregnant. Blok, who had been ill in his youth, could not have children, so he received the news of his wife’s pregnancy with joy that God would give them, free birds, a child. But this happiness was not destined to come true; the born boy died after living only eight days. Blok suffered this loss very hard and often visited the boy’s grave.

At the end of his life, the poet will say that there were two loves in his life - Lyuba and everyone else.

Creation

In 1904, the Grif publishing house published Blok’s first book, “Poems about a Beautiful Lady.”

The years 1906-1908 were marked by particular success and growth as a writer for Blok. He experienced all the events of the 1905 revolution through himself; he himself took part in demonstrations, which was reflected in a number of his works. His books come out one after another:

• "Unexpected joy";
• "Snow Mask";
• "Earth in the Snow";
• "Lyrical Dramas".

In 1909, the poet traveled through Germany and Italy, the result of this trip was the collection “Italian Poems”.

In 1912, he wrote the drama “Rose and Cross”, which was appreciated by V. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. Stanislavsky, but this play was never staged.

In 1916, Blok served in the active army; he was assigned to Belarus in the engineering units of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union. During his service, he learned about the completed revolution, which he initially perceived with mixed feelings, but did not emigrate from the country.

This period includes such famous collections of poems as “Night Hours”, “Poems about Russia”, “Beyond Past Days”, “Gray Morning”.

Since 1918, Alexander was recruited to serve in the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry, which investigated the illegal actions of officials. Here he worked as an editor.

Revolutionary events led to a deep creative crisis and depression for the poet. After the works “The Twelve” and “Scythians” he stopped writing poetry; in his words, “all sounds stopped.”

Illness and death

From 1918 to 1920, Blok worked a lot in various positions in committees and commissions. He was terribly tired, as the poet himself said, “I was drunk,” and his health began to decline sharply. Several diseases became worse at once: cardiovascular failure, asthma, scurvy, neurosis. On top of everything, the family had a difficult financial situation.

In the middle of the summer of 1921, the poet began to have problems with his mind: he either fell into unconsciousness or returned to life again. All this time, his wife Lyuba looked after him. Doctors suspected he had cerebral edema.

On August 7, 1921, the poet Alexander Blok died in the presence of his wife and mother. He was buried at the Smolensk cemetery, and in 1944 his ashes were reburied at the Volkovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg.

The Alexander Blok Museum-Reserve has been opened in Shakhmatovo, where a monument to the poet and his Beautiful Lady has been erected.