Initially, Derzhavin wanted to write a poem On Perishability, which would talk about the frailty of this world, but he was unable to realize his own plan, since frailty called him. Therefore, only the beginning remained of the conceived verse, which was inherited by descendants under the name River of Times... - according to the first line. Derzhavin wrote the poem almost just before leaving the world, and this fact makes the poem more valuable, since it speaks of the author’s sensitive premonition and understanding of his own situation and the essence of the world.
The River of Times... represents, as they say, the author's swan song, and even the understatement that is there (if you know about the general plan) is also a very symbolic element. The poet, as if on the verge of death, talks about the frailty of the entire universe and breaks off mid-sentence, leaving his own body, which just recently breathed, wanted and wrote poetry.
However, even if one considers this unfinished poem, there is much to gain and reflect on. Noteworthy is the acrostic, which was created thanks to the first lines of the text. The content includes two words: ruin honor.
Derzhavin probably wanted to continue this verse, but even from these words the general motive is clear. It is about understanding the temporality of all existence. Kingdoms and kings become ruins, they turn into nothing.
Of course, there is always the hope of immortalizing oneself in history thanks to such instruments as the sounds of the lyre and trumpet, that is, thanks to art, fame, and the memory of descendants. However, such eternity is only a convention in the face of real eternity, which will still absorb any evidence, any remnants of memory and glory. Before time, a person remains powerless; he can practically do nothing to oppose this devouring factor, which will absorb both the wise poet and the stupid beggar, the beauty and the beast, good and disgusting deeds.
The poet uses appropriate comparisons in order to emphasize this fact - “will be devoured by the mouth of eternity”, “drown into the abyss of oblivion”. Derzhavin, describing such a reality, not only does not entertain himself with illusions, but also does not lose heart about the current situation. Let us remember that he wrote the poem on the verge of his own death, but at the same time he looked quite calmly at the river of times and simply felt part of this common fate.
Option 3
The work is one of the last creations of the poet, related to his philosophical lyrics, and has literary incompleteness, since it remains an excerpt of an unfinished poem, the title of which was planned by the author in the form of “On Perishability.”
The compositional structure of the poem seems brief and consists of an eight-line poem, created under the impression of the painting “River of Times,” depicting world history in the form of eternity and time, the images of which are depicted in poetry.
The main theme of the work is the depiction of the power of time, manifested in transience and bending countries, peoples and each individual into the abyss of oblivion.
The author's intention of the work reveals the value of every moment of life, investing in it a special philosophical meaning, since any person in a certain period of time finds himself before entering eternity. The poet compares time to the flow of water, emphasizing the image of time as its strength and irreversibility.
The poet expresses the powerful influence of time on a person’s life through the use of means of artistic expression in the form of numerous metaphors of personification, as well as the use of imperfective verbs to enhance the duration and repeatability of the time process.
The meter of the poem is tetrameter trochee combined with cross rhyme, expressing the tension and expression of the work, written in a state of gloomy and menacing fatalism, demonstrating the pessimistic mood of the poet on the eve of his own death.
The images of eternity and time in the poem are identified by the poet with the lack of harmony and the presence of a certain irreversible, incomprehensible process. At the same time, the author does not give a detailed description of the image of eternity, positioning it as the only sign - an all-consuming vent, an abyss, while the image of time is presented by the poet in detail, in the form of a certain interconnected chain.
Anticipating the approach of death, the poem conveys the painful state of mind of the author, who has lost hope of immortality.
Analysis The river of times in its rush
This poem by the wonderful poet Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin was written by him in 1816 on July 6. The poet wrote the poem while at that time on his estate in the Novgorod province. The poem with the philosophical title “River of Times” was not completed; what is presented to the reader is only a few initial lines. Death ruined the poet's plans and his work was not destined to be completed.
Not only the title of the poem refers to philosophical science, but also its content. Gabriel Derzhavin was a fairly multifaceted personality; initially his priority was his career, but in the end he came to the conclusion that it was creativity that would give him a memory in the minds of people. Consequently, towards the end of his life, Derzhavin paid more attention to some ideas and thoughts. The poem was written after some reflection, when, due to his age, the poet realized what was hidden before him in his youth. This is exactly what he wanted to put into his creation. Even if it is not finished, it still contains the main idea and very catchy, catchy words that are incredibly chosen. Thanks to the vocabulary of the poem, it has an all-consuming, large-scale meaning.
“The river of times, in its rush, carries away all the affairs of people,” this is how Derzhavin’s poem begins. In this line, the reader is first confronted with the idea that time has no limits, it is fleeting and everything that people do, no matter how grandiose it may be, does not matter. The poet emphasizes the power of time with the help of the precise connection of several words. “Drowns peoples, kingdoms and kings into the abyss of oblivion.” How skillfully the words were chosen: drowning is a catchy verb that gives the meaning of strength, the abyss of oblivion - hopelessness, its enormity. How great is time and how pitiful is everything before it, because it “drowns” entire nations, states, everything that seems great to people.
Next, Derzhavin tells the reader that if something remains, something that could pass through time “through the sounds of the lyre and trumpet,” that is, which became famous, important for people, incredible in time, then eternity will be merciless. In eternity everything will be crushed and will not escape from its intended, common fate.
This poem, although it is an unfinished work, clearly fulfilled Gabriel Derzhavin’s dream to remain in people’s memory. From the concept, its transmission, to the vocabulary, everything is wonderful in “River of Time.” The most important thing that you can understand for yourself from the poem is that no one is capable and nothing is capable of resisting eternity, and time, its soul, can carry away a lot in the course of its river.
Very often, when analyzing Mandelstam's poems, writers do not take into account the fact that the poet suffered from angina and asthma. Possible sudden death kept him in constant fear
The work is one of the poems included in the poetic cycle called “Secrets of the Craft,” which reveals the theme of the relationship between the creative process and the poet.
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov is a poet for whom children's poetry was a new milestone in his work. The poet understood perfectly well what a huge role children’s reading plays in the development of a child’s personality and personal qualities.
River of times. July 20, 2016 marks exactly 200 years since the day Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin passed away into eternity
Text: Arseny Zamostyanov
Collage Year of Literature.RF
We remember Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin most often thanks to Pushkin’s not too respectful, although certainly benevolent lines about the old man who blessed him as he went to his grave. Meanwhile, before his meeting with the young genius at the Lyceum in 1815, which went down in history, the 72-year-old (at that time) poet and statesman managed to gain lasting fame and admiration for himself - both from his contemporaries and descendants.
Arseniy Zamostyanov, a poet who defended a dissertation on Derzhavin’s work and wrote a book about him ZhZL, talks about this “Year of Literature”, and since last year has been the editor-compiler of Derzhavin’s 10-volume book published by the publishing house “Narodnoye Obrazovanie”. It’s hard to believe, but this is the first multi-volume collection of Derzhavin’s works since the 19th century (it was published quite well in the Soviet years, but in single volumes). The first five volumes have already been published, the sixth volume is in the printing house.The river of times in its rush
Takes away all people's affairs
And drowns in the abyss of oblivion
Nations, kingdoms and kings...
This is how the poem begins, which Gavriil Romanovich wrote on a slate board in his bedroom three days before his death. Having written eight lines, the poet did not have time to finish it. And this is symbolic: the “river of times” of Gabriel Derzhavin flows into eternity.
In the role of the river of times - of course, Volkhov. A better candidate cannot be found. The last river in the life of the actual privy councilor and holder of many orders, retired minister of justice Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin. He was born on Kazan soil, was interested in Bulgar and Horde antiquities, but fell in love with the North. I fell in love with the region, which is reasonably considered the cradle of Russian statehood. He settled on Novgorod soil and spent the best days of his retired life on Zvanka - in an estate on the banks of the Volkhov. He died there two hundred years ago. According to leaf calendars, this is a significant date.
I immediately remember 1937, the 100th anniversary of the duel and death of Pushkin, which turned into the largest multi-part literary festival. I had to hear that this was the diabolical plan of Stalin, who hated humanity so much that he celebrated the date of Pushkin’s assassination. Well, Stalin, as we know, is responsible for everything. But in this case, he only took advantage of an ancient tradition. The date of birth of our distant ancestors was not of interest. They often could not even accurately name the year of their own birth. And not unknown peasants, but aristocrats such as, for example, the Suvorovs. And the death of an outstanding person is always an event of national significance. It's memorable. This is truly a milestone in history. Therefore, twenty-five years since Derzhavin’s death, and fifty years in the literary world did not pass without a trace.
Derzhavin's death became... We have before us that rare case when the poet’s last poem is known to all initiates, although Gavrila Romanovich was not a suicide and died at an old age, in retirement, in his own estate:
I was a servant of Mars, Themis,
And now a retired poet...
In Derzhavin’s Zvan office there hung a table map, famous in those days. "The River of Times, or an Emblematic Image of World History from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighth Century". This map was compiled by the German scientist Frederick Strass. He schematically depicted the history of civilizations in the form of river flows. Derzhavin peered at this new product and indulged in thought...
The retired Privy Councilor remained an amazing poet in his old age.
The history of Russian poetry is rich - the spring has been flowing for three and a half centuries. But which of the sixty-year-old and seventy-year-old poets can compare with Derzhavin? And his last poem - unfinished, perhaps a rough draft - cannot be deleted from any Russian anthology.
I am old and young in spirit due to my sins...
The river of times... The mysterious eight-line is perhaps the beginning of the lengthy ode “On Corruption” conceived by Derzhavin. Although the first lines written do not always become the beginning of a poem. Derzhavin’s poetry contains many optimistic assessments of his own posthumous fate: “And I drink and will not die.” Not without reason, he hoped to remain on earth and serve for the good of justice. And then suddenly he fell into sadness, almost reaching black despondency. It is easiest to assume that in the following stanzas the poet would formulate the antithesis of despondency, turn to the Almighty and console himself in prayer. But the ode is called “On Corruption” - and only God knows where this topic would have led Derzhavin. In his old age, he again turned to spiritual lyrics - and even during the days of the war with foreign invaders he worked on the lengthy ode “Christ”. Russian regiments fought in France, the driven Napoleon fought with his last strength, throwing boys into battle. Then the winners - monarchs and diplomats - decided the future of humanity in the Austrian capital. It would seem that Derzhavin should have delved deeper into the weaving of political calculations, but he wrote:
Who are you? And how to portray
Your greatness and insignificance,
Corruption agrees with corruption,
Merging possibility with impossibility?
You are God - but You suffered from torment!
You are a man - but you were alien to revenge!
You are mortal - but you have worn out the scepter of death!
You are eternal, but Your spirit is gone!
The result was a huge theological ode about Christ, an excited reflection on the God-man, written at the limit of his waning strength. And now - the river of times in its aspiration...
This stream devours everything - both bad and good. And Napoleon and Suvorov. Batyev and Maratov - and the great martyrs. An eternal mill - like those that can be found in Zvanka and in Arakcheevo Gruzin.
Everything passes, “everything will be devoured by the mouth of eternity”, but are our efforts in vain? Optimists and lovers of life often fall into misanthropy in their old age. Is it really Derzhavin?
An unfinished sketch - or a polished fresco? Derzhavin skeptically assessed his capabilities in a short poetic form. Epigrams, inscriptions - how strong Sumarokov was in these laconic genres! Perhaps Derzhavin underestimated himself: “For the bird,” the inscriptions to the portrait of Lomonosov and the character of Emperor Paul - aren’t these victories for the poet?
And the eight lines of the unwritten ode “On Perishability” made up a mysterious but complete poem. By and large, a continuation was not required. And the comforting antithesis, even if implied, remains in the subtext.
Eight lines - and not a single random or dubious word. “Sounds of the lyre and trumpet” - is it really possible to define Derzhavin’s poetry, and the poetry of the 18th century in general, more clearly and clearly? The trumpet is a Homeric line, heroics. Lyra is Derzhavin's anacreontics and his philosophical reflections in verse. The very concept of “River of Times” is connected, as was often the case with Derzhavin, with a visible object. In 1816, these eight lines were published in the magazine “Son of the Fatherland.” First publication! There was also a short note: “Three days before his death, looking at the famous historical map “River of Times” hanging in his office, he began the poem “On Perishability” and managed to write the first verse.”
Which route did the old poet intend to take the ship of the philosophical ode?
This secret will never be revealed. The poet died.
There are eight lines left on the slate - no more, no less. And no consolation. “Everything will be devoured by the mouth of eternity”. And this is the life-loving, full-blooded Derzhavin. Not even warm, but hot in any poem, in any remark. This is probably for the better - the poem has become more bitter, stronger, there is not a single extra, random word in it. We know these eight lines by heart. And Murza already has a lot of life-affirming lines (Derzhavin loved to call himself this Tatar title) ...
One may get a deceptive impression: what if Derzhavin, at the end of his days, became disillusioned and fell into despondency, so unusual for him in his mature years? This happens to strong people: losing their health, they panic and become sour. But this is not about Derzhavin!
In his old age, despite his illnesses, he wrote perhaps the best poems - at least these last eight lines...
He always lived with new poems, happy moments when you feel the power over the word, when flight takes your breath away - and inspiration (let's call it that) did not leave him until the end.
After the capture of Paris, Derzhavin decided to write a word of praise to Emperor Alexander. In the summer of 1814, he asked his niece, Praskovya Nikolaevna Lvova, to read aloud panegyrics to him for various historical figures. Some of them made him sleepy, but the old man liked Antoine Thomas’s words of praise to Marcus Aurelius. But in the end Derzhavin interrupted the reading: “I’ve written a lot in my time, but now I’m old. My literary career is over, now let the young people sing!”. The following entry was preserved in his archive:
And yet he wrote even in the last summer - and how he wrote! And Zvanskaya’s life dragged on slowly. Only childless old people fall in love with dogs as much as Derzhavin does with his Taika. He always wore it in his bosom, stroking it... We know about those days from the notes of Praskovya Lvova.
I’m standing bowing my forehead...
One damp evening, while playing solitaire, he felt sick, he hunched over and began rubbing his chest. The doctor was called. Derzhavin groaned and even screamed in pain. But he still fell asleep in the office, on the sofa. When I woke up, I felt happier. They tried to persuade him to go to St. Petersburg to see the doctors - the old man just chuckled. Jokes, cards, readings of Voltaire began again... A few days later, on July 8, at breakfast he announced: “Thank God, I feel better.” Tame birds flew around the room, amusing him. I had to give up lunch: doctors recommended abstinence from food. But for dinner he ordered fish soup - and ate three plates. It was then that he felt ill. The doctor prescribed sage, Lvova advised her to drink tea with rum. “Oh, it’s hard! Oh, it's sickening. Lord, help me, a sinner... I didn’t know it would be so hard. That's how it should be. That's how it should be. God help me…"
Late in the evening the pain dulled. He asked everyone for forgiveness for the disturbance: “Without me they would have slept long ago.” And he gave his word to Daria the next morning to go to St. Petersburg. And suddenly he stood up a little, took a deep breath - and everything became quiet. The doctor looked at Lvova in confusion. The room was filled with women's sobs. July 8th - according to the new style, this is exactly the 20th. 
On the slate board there were eight lines written in chalk - the same ones.
His body was covered with simple muslin to ward off flies. The neighbor, Tyrkov, kept babbling: “We need to tell the sovereign. The Emperor loved him so much, he will certainly want to say goodbye.” The emperor was indeed nearby - in Gruzin near Arakcheev, this is a neighboring estate. But no... The sons of Kapnist and Lvov stood at the coffin, but Felitsa’s grandson was absent, and he did not find out in time about Derzhavin’s death. The servants got drunk in those days - one must think, from sorrowful thoughts. On July 11th it was time for the last service. The priests gathered around the coffin. “What impatience he had to do good!” said Praskovya Lvova. Accompanied by funeral singing, the coffin was transferred to a boat, and the funeral procession headed to the Khutynsky Monastery.
And I drink and will not die...
Those letters on the slate board have long been erased - they, of course, managed to be rewritten, which is why “Derzhavin’s last poem” appeared in our anthologies. After all, our poetic anthology does not begin with Pushkin. In the 18th century, an entire anthology was created, which the poets of Pushkin’s Golden Age read carefully and with passion.
The weakness of the poetry of the 18th century is that, following the principles of classicism (and even sentimentalism!), poets become predictable. But Derzhavin broke all the canons. He is a poet, extremely “wrong” and biased. It was not for nothing that Derzhavin suppressed all attempts by his friends to edit his powerful but wild talent. And Derzhavin’s ode is always a mixture of panegyric and satire, reality and fantasy, delight and self-irony. By the way, this is precisely why Catherine fell in love with him. After all, “Felitsa” is not a solemn ode, it’s just a smart and witty conversation at the level of poetic images. And this seemed funny to the empress - in contrast to Vasily Petrov’s boring, pompous odes.
That is why he turned out to be necessary for Baratynsky, Sluchevsky, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, Brodsky. And this list can go on for a long time. Poets have always found gold nuggets in the piles of Derzhavin’s tongue-tiedness. And when Pushkin’s harmony became boring, they turned to Derzhavin’s chaos.
Although between Pushkin and Derzhavin there is much more kinship than divisiveness. Without “Felitsa” with its “funny Russian style”, in which irony was easily intertwined with pathos, “Eugene Onegin” would hardly have happened.
Now the balalaika is dear to me
Yes, the drunken tramp of a trepak
In front of the threshold of the tavern.
My ideal now is a mistress,
My desires are peace,
Yes, a pot of cabbage soup, and a big one. —
This is from Onegin. And this was clearly overheard by Derzhavin. And to your health! And in “Poltava” Pushkin could not do without the rhythms and rattle of Derzhavin’s battle odes - such as “The Capture of Izmail”.
In “Felitsa” we find that liberated tone in which irony and self-irony become more important than satire. In this case, for example,
in the genre of spiritual lyrics, Derzhavin remains unsurpassed. After all, it is also surprisingly diverse. When he was thrown into religious fervor, he created miraculous formulas of “God” and angrily preached in “To Rulers and Judges.”
At the same time, he had a “funny Russian style” and did not disdain low topics. And he didn’t keep them in the closet of the poetry kitchen. Sometimes he expressed the main thoughts in the most “amusing” verses!
And how many catchphrases he gave us even before Krylov and Griboyedov. “It’s never too late to learn”, “Fatherland smoke is sweet and pleasant to us”, “Where there was a table of food, there is a coffin”, “A donkey will remain a donkey, although you shower him with stars”, “Moderation is the best feast”, “Excessive praise - mockery! or - let's listen! - “Life is an instant gift from heaven”...
Well, the most important thing and universally recognized is that Derzhavin was the first to leave a psychological self-portrait. He showed his life in detail, cheerfully, without hidden rooms. He did not hide his own weaknesses and vices. And I found poetic charm in such down-to-earth frankness: “There are two sips of coffee; I’ll snore for about five minutes” Well, Derzhavin’s detailed and luxurious gastronomic descriptions are memorable to many. Sometimes they are quoted without naming the author. I would like to compare this kind of poetry with painting—and excellent one at that:
Sheksninsk golden sterlet,
Kaymak and borscht are already standing;
In a glass of wine, punch, sparkling
Now with ice, now with sparks, they beckon;
Incense flows from the incense burners,
The fruits among the baskets are laughing,
The servants do not dare to breathe,
There's a table around waiting for you;
The hostess is stately and young
Ready to lend a hand.
The taste of these dinners has not worn out. Perhaps he was the first of the Russian poets to become simply a pleasant and useful interlocutor - sharp, emotional, to whom you listen, because he does not shout or stand on stilts. It is no coincidence that success came to him after the publication of “Felitsa” in the magazine “Sobesednik”.
However, Derzhavin could shout and charm for a sweet soul. But he distinguished himself from his contemporaries by his humanity. Earthly charm! Life-loving poetry:
In a word: I burned love if there was a flame,
I fell, I got up in my time.
Come on, sage! on my coffin there is a stone,
If you're not human.
“The River of Times in Its Aspiration” is a poem by Derzhavin, which was written on July 6, 1816. Three days later the poet died. This is only part of the work, since the author did not finish it.
The recording was discovered on the board where the poet wrote drafts. He created the passage while looking at the painting “River of Times.” It was historical in nature and it was a depiction of world history.
The poet's poem shows the power of time. It is so fleeting that no one can resist. Kings and kingdoms, entire peoples and nations bow before time. Everything plunges into the abyss of oblivion. No matter how many achievements there are, how much is done, everything will eventually be lost.
The meaning of the work is that you need to value time, and the main idea of the verse is that world history is constantly repeating itself.
Again and again new eras come, new kingdoms that make the same mistakes. This cycle will be eternal, so we can only put up with it.
The full poem was supposed to be called “On Perishability,” but since it was not written in full, the passage was named after the first line.
“The river of times in its aspiration...” Gabriel Derzhavin
The river of times in its rush
Takes away all people's affairs
And drowns in the abyss of oblivion
Nations, kingdoms and kings.
And if anything remains
Through the sounds of the lyre and trumpet,
Then it will be devoured by the mouth of eternity
And the common fate will not go away.
Analysis of Derzhavin’s poem “The River of Times in its Aspiration...”
“The River of Times in its Aspiration...” was written by Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin (1743 – 1816) on July 6, 1816, that is, literally before the poet’s death. This poem is a rebus, the first letters of the lines form the expression “Honor the ruin.” This technique is called acrostic. Perhaps the phrase would have been continued, since it is known that the two stanzas that made up this work were the beginning of the poem “On Perishability.” However, the reader will never be able to find out what the author really intended.
In the magazine “Son of the Fatherland” in issue No. 10 for 1816, “The River of Times in its Aspiration...” was published under the title “Derzhavin’s Last Poems.” The note accompanying the text of the poem included a mention of how the lines were found. The author of the article reported that, due to his habit of writing down a draft version with chalk on a slate board, Derzhavin did the same with this work. Therefore, unfortunately, it will not be possible to find any diaries or notebooks containing the poet’s sketches.
The theme of the smooth but inexorable passage of time is often found in the works of Gabriel Romanovich. The reader can trace the development of this idea in the ode “”, “Monument”, “” and in other works. The idea of the inevitability of death is also connected with it. These thoughts have already been revealed by the poet in the poems “Cloud”, “Time”, etc. But in “River of Times...” this motive sounds especially menacing.
Let us pay attention to the images that the poet uses in the eight-line. Comparing time with flowing water, the author emphasizes its strength and irreversibility. “The river does not flow backward”, “water wears away stones” - such sayings about the power of a water flow immediately come to mind. Derzhavin’s element of water is not creative good energy, but taking away, indifferent:
Takes away all people's affairs
And drowns in the abyss of oblivion
Nations, kingdoms and kings.
The way the water behaves in the poem is reminiscent of Lethe, the river of oblivion, which, according to ancient Greek myths, flows in the kingdom of death.
There are other images that speak of destruction. “The abyss”, the dull empty “eternity” - all this will be destroyed. It is not for nothing that the first word “ruin”, formed by the lines, also indicates death.
In anticipation of his death, Gabriel Romanovich even questions the hope of immortality in his creations, which he sang in “”:
And if anything remains
Through the sounds of the lyre and trumpet,
Then it will be devoured by the mouth of eternity
And the common fate will not go away.
This work, filled with gloomy fatalism, makes a painful impression. Unlike other verses, it does not contain a lesson, instruction or consolation. It is difficult to imagine in what situation one can turn to these lines, but they help to understand the state and feelings of the poet in his fateful hour.
On July 6, 1816, in Zvanka, his estate near Novgorod, seventy-three-year-old Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin wrote down these lines on a black slate board (his usual draft).
Eight lines that, according to relatives, were apparently supposed to be followed by others. However, a day later, on July 8, " He lay down in bed at half past one, sighed more than usual, and with that sigh died"... The inscription on the gravestone immortalized" actual privy councilor and various orders of knight"(not a word about the poet)...
The slate board with the draft of the last poem was delivered to the Imperial Library at the request of its director, A.N. Olenin, and fifty years later academician Y.K. Grot, an outstanding researcher of Derzhavin’s work, testified: “ Everyone can see (the board) on the wall, in the department of Russian books; but almost nothing remains of the lines inscribed on it".
There, in the manuscript department of the State Public Library of the USSR named after M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in Leningrad, you can still see it today, under glass in a lacquered wood frame. In good lighting, individual letters, words can be discerned...
However, the “river of times” has not yet overcome these lines. Copied onto paper immediately after the poet's death, they were soon published in Son of the Fatherland, one of the most famous literary magazines.
We are well acquainted with the elderly Derzhavin from Pushkin’s story about the Lyceum exam on January 8, 1815: “ He sat with his head on his hand. His face was meaningless; eyes are cloudy; lips droop; his portrait, where he is shown in a cap and robe, is very similar...", however, "he dozed until the exam in Russian literature began. Here he perked up, his eyes sparkled; he was completely transformed"The last time Derzhavin took up the slate was exactly a year and a half after that lyceum visit, and we can easily imagine how he revived and transformed again on July 6, 1816...
Let's go through Derzhavin's last lines, probably not yet brought to complete perfection, but, without a doubt, brilliant.
There is no title. But, according to people close to Derzhavin, the poet was going to call the poems “On Perishability.”
"The river of times in its aspiration..."
Since ancient times, the image of “river of life”, “river of time” has been constantly used; In Derzhavin’s office there hung a peculiar painting-table “The River of Times, or an Emblematic Image of World History.”
The long strip is a “map” of the past five thousand years; from top to bottom there are branches of an endless river with names: “Egypt”, “Babylon”, “Greece”; then almost all of them merge in "Rome". From “Rome” various “European streams” originate - French, English, German... next to Russian. At the right edge of the “map” is the most direct flow: the achievements of science, literature, art. Here are the names of Homer and Newton, and the largest discoveries are listed. At the bottom edge of the map, where the year is 1800 (and time has not yet passed for the publisher), the latest names and events of the cultural world. Smallpox vaccination; Lavoisier; discovery of Ceres (asteroid); Derzhavin...
It was while looking at this picture-table that the poet composed his last lines. And at the same time, they contain an echo of one of the early poems that brought the thirty-seven-year-old poet great fame:
“The verb of times” is the striking of the clock, which echoes in the same line: “metal ringing.”
In the last verses there is a different, more majestic, calm image, “the river of times”; it does not require instant rhyme and, without haste, moves “in” its aspiration...
Fourteen years after the death of Derzhavin, Pushkin, arrested in Boldin due to cholera, will have to fulfill the request of a visiting neighbor, retired second lieutenant Dmitry Alekseevich Ostafiev, to write something in an album. It is impossible to refuse, especially since not long before Ostafyev received an autograph from the poet’s uncle, Vasily Lvovich; and Alexander Sergeevich does what he often did in such cases: he puts into the album a poem that is not his own, but especially appropriate among cholera, which tends to carry away many “in its aspirations.” Not having Derzhavin’s works at hand, Pushkin wrote from memory and made two mistakes, both of which were interesting. The second case will be discussed ahead; Boldin’s owner wrote down the first line: “The river of times in its course.”
Pushkin, with his craving for simplicity and precision, prefers a clear and realistic “flow” to a more abstract, vague “aspiration.” When young Pushkin recited Zhukovsky’s poems from memory and forgot or involuntarily changed a word, Zhukovsky understood that this place was unsuccessful and needed to be remade. However, Derzhavin is Derzhavin. According to Pushkin, “flow” is better; but Derzhavin is a poet of the 18th century, prone to high, measured style, and here “aspiration” is more appropriate. Moreover, thanks to this word, the rumbling combination " re": re ka in re men...st re mlenye... This, of course, is not without reason, what will become clear later (although we will immediately say that it is unlikely that Derzhavin recalculated the number " re" and consciously constructed such sound combinations - this is how the verse went, intuition prompted).
Leaving the first line, let us note in parting that the river corresponded to the ancient concepts of the speed of time: it is true that the 18th century was in a great hurry towards the end, but still could not change that sense of the pace of events that was familiar to Derzhavin from the young seventeen fifties, sixties, seventies...
The river of times, and yet in 1818 the same young poet, whom the old man Derzhavin managed to bless as he went to his grave, will write (about another poet, Batyushkov):
Admired by Pushkin’s poems, Vyazemsky wrote to Zhukovsky: "In the smoke of centuries!" This expression is a city. I would give everything for him, movable and immovable. What a beast! We need to put him in the yellow house: otherwise this mad brat will eat us all, us and our fathers. Do you know that Derzhavin would be afraid of the “smoke of centuries”? Nothing to say about the others".
For us today, at the end of the 20th century, Vyazemsky’s admiration is somewhat strange: “smoke of centuries” and other similar definitions of quickly rushing time have become quite familiar, even stereotyped. However, almost every template probably has a very noble origin: it was once a fresh image, which has become somewhat worn out from frequent use... At the beginning of the 19th century, Derzhavin’s idea of slow, majestically flowing time, which cannot be compared with quickly dissipating time, was clearly distinguished smoke (Derzhavin “would have been frightened”), and Pushkin’s view of time rushing quickly, furiously, ghostly like smoke, a look that no longer gravitates towards the 18th century. but rather, to our 20th century.
The river of times, the smoke of centuries - two “concepts of time”...
An active privy councilor, former secretary of the empress, governor, minister of justice and holder of many Russian orders, Derzhavin knew a lot about kingdoms and kings. In addition, he was interested in history, although in his era it was much smaller and “cozier” than now.
If you had asked the old man who was drawing signs on a slate board, how great is the past, what is the abyss of oblivion, eternity “behind his shoulders,” the poet would have said approximately as eighteen-year-old Alexander Gorchakov, one of the boys who looked at Derzhavin during the Lyceum, wrote down at that time exam: " History is the time of civilized human affairs, embracing the last five thousand years"The wise Buffon had recently calculated that it took eighty thousand years for the hot globe to cool down...
The words “million years” have not yet been spoken, Egyptian hieroglyphs have not yet been read (this will be done six years after Derzhavin’s death). For several more decades on earth, no one will know anything about the Hittites - a great centuries-old civilization that played a significant role in the prehistory of our culture. The Indian culture of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, the ancient Sumerian cities, the Cretan-Mycenaean world and many other countries and eras absolutely unknown to Derzhavin still lie in the “abyss of oblivion”, the exact depth of which is not clear how to measure.
But what about kings and kingdoms! Derzhavin, although a courtier and a minister, never gave a high price for them. In the 1780s, he translated Psalm 81 into modern verses so much that the “biblical text” was strictly prohibited by censorship:
Now, in 1816, he repeated a long-loved idea in a new way.
Here again you can hear those “rolls” that already sounded in the first line; again a lot" R": through, lyres, pipes...
It is curious that in that Boldino album, where Derzhavin’s poems were copied, Pushkin made a mistake for the second time, writing: “through the sounds of the lyre or the trumpet.” According to Pushkin, it turned out that something remains thanks to poetry (lyre) or fame, historical memory (trumpet). Derzhavin, perhaps, wanted to say that if anything remains in the world, it is only thanks to art, because the lyre and trumpet are musical instruments, subject only to poets, storytellers, and bards.
It seems that Pushkin sensed a certain inaccuracy and vagueness of Derzhavin’s image here and involuntarily corrected or started an argument with the deceased poet: in fact, what remains in the world and thanks to what?
A terrible sound explosion prepared by the former " R" And " re", in the first and sixth lines... Will be devoured by the muzzle - zher - zre: one root - devour, devour, priest, victim, muzzle. Derzhavin was a great master of such verse roar; in the poem “Bullfinch” (about the death of Suvorov) there is a line: “Northern thunder lies in the coffin” (however, how can we not remember that in the famous poems, especially from Tchaikovsky’s opera, “If only dear girls could fly like birds, and sat on the branches..." Derzhavin deliberately did not introduce any " R").
It remains only to say that in the last line of the last poem - “And the common fate will not go away” - “ R" disappears completely, but what howling vowels: oh-oh-oh! An echo, a sad rumble coming from the abyss, from the mouth of Dante's hell; Let us remember Pushkin’s similar sound writing: “The storm covers the sky with darkness” ( u-i-o-yu-eo-o-e).
If we are already talking about sounds, we need to touch on a question that is not completely clear: how to pronounce the last words of the fifth and seventh lines, with e or e: osta e tsya - devour e stay or stay e tsya - devour e tsya. According to some philologists, e it was less common at that time.
But there is no complete certainty - we don’t hear... The verses break off.
Their meaning is terrible and simple: the force that carries peoples, kingdoms and kings into the abyss cannot, at first (centuries, millennia), overcome what was created by the lyre and the trumpet, and yet in the end the mouth of eternity will swallow the highest creation human spirit. The abyss of oblivion, the mouth of eternity... Meanwhile, twenty-one years earlier, in 1795, Gavrila Romanovich seemed to have a different attitude:
Derzhavin of the last verses argues with Derzhavin of “Monument”!
The reader of this article, perhaps, expects our complete agreement not with the seventy-three-year-old, but with the fifty-two-year-old poet: everyone will be happy and calm down, exclaiming as usual: “ Manuscripts don't burn!"(This happy Bulgakov image is now repeated so often that sometimes you want to set fire to another manuscript: what if it really doesn’t burn!)
Let us, however, try to look at things without undue bias and calmly examine two theses: “Flight will not crush time...” and “It will be devoured by a mouth...” Derzhavin lived in an era when many discoveries were made that suggested the idea of “frailty.” and perishability." “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is a wonderful anonymous person who emerged from the “abyss” for just two decades, only to then disappear in the turmoil and flames of 1812; however, disappear, remaining; but the unknown author in the very first lines introduces his absolutely unknown predecessor, the teacher: “Boyan, brothers...”
More and more great creations - and next to them there is emptiness. The Bible - but it has long been understood that the most ancient copies of the sacred book are many centuries younger than the original text, and how many have disappeared, been eliminated along the way!.. Even what remains for descendants suddenly seems random, ephemeral...
The wise Marcus Aurelius appeared in modern times in only two handwritten copies, and one of them soon disappeared. A contemporary of Alexander the Great, Menander, whose name resounds for centuries, whose heroes in ancient times were household names, like in our time Tartuffe, Khlestakov... Menander is a playwright, luminary, the founder of the so-called Neo-Attic comedy, a master... More than a hundred of his plays , published and reprinted dozens of times, would occupy a significant place in any library today. But it was only in 1905 that a papyrus with the text (more or less complete) of five comedies was found. And already in our time, another play was discovered in Oxyrhynchus, the most famous garbage dump in the world, where unnecessary things were thrown in Ptolemaic Egypt... Finally, Titus Livius, the king of ancient Roman historians. Only 35 books out of 142, only 25 percent of his “History of Rome from the Foundation of the City” have reached our time. True, there was a rumor that in the library of Ivan the Terrible, inherited from the Byzantine emperors, there were all the volumes, but where is that library, where are those books and scrolls that, according to the authoritative opinion of Academician M.N. Tikhomirov, perhaps, dispersed from the palace assembly to remote monasteries? And what did a certain 18th-century apprentice really see “under the Kremlin”, shouting “Word and deed!” and severely beaten, since the books he supposedly discovered were not found later? Accident.
Marc Bloch, the excellent French historian killed by the Nazis, had reason to doubt that we really get “the main things” from the past; who can guarantee that we do not judge, for example, the literature of an entire era by secondary works, and material culture by more or less random remains?
Derzhavin, one might say, is a pessimist: “And if anything remains...” We, optimists, can, it seems, make only one respectful objection to Gavrila Romanovich: the river of time does not flow easily, the main flow, of course, is from the past to the future, but no matter how strong this current is, there is also a certain “countercurrent” - back to that Yesterday, which is inseparable from Today and Tomorrow. The author of the next “Monument” after Derzhavin knew all this well:
As long as there is at least one poet in the world, he by nature revives the past, and how can he not resurrect Pushkin and Derzhavin!
Immortality, like infinity, has two directions.
However, let's return to our eighth line again. After all, the essay is not finished, and we can even assume that Derzhavin was going to write more... If the river of times carries away peoples, kingdoms and kings, if even the sounds of the lyre and trumpet devour eternity, then we need to create a small, cozy hearth in the “deserts of time” , gathering family and friends around him, rejoicing in a little:
In these poems, composed several years before his death, Derzhavin admires the singing of birds, the shepherd's horn, home conversations, morning coffee, playing lapta, hunting... But finally, in the same essay ("Eugene. The Life of Zvan"), motifs suddenly arise death and eternity: life is a moment, man is dust, and, perhaps, only Clia (Clio), the muse of history, will preserve the memory of the poet, however, most likely, only as an echo, a spirit in the lands where he lived:
The “trumpet” in this quatrain is, of course, the predecessor of the “lyre and trumpet” of the last verses.
July 6, 1816 Derzhavin most likely wanted to express in a new way what had already been said about death as a source of special quiet joy in life. I wanted to, but I didn’t have time or didn’t want to have time...
There are masters who are amazingly able to not finish their compositions. This was the case, for example. Pushkin, who has many wonderful poetic and prose passages, either completed or slyly abandoned and retaining the charm of a half-finished stone, an unfinished statue. There is even a special term - style non-finita, when the master, as it were, acts in collaboration with the imperfect, when absence is a harmonious complement to presence.
However, there are other cases. Sometimes the author does not finish his work because he does not have time. And then his co-author is death. I saw a painting by an artist where wrestlers were depicted; the artist died before he could finish painting their eyes, but this made the work much stronger: powerful, intertwined, eyeless figures and, moreover, the very fact of the artist’s death. All this gave the image a new, special meaning.
If, after the death of a person, as A. A. Akhmatova noted, all his portraits change, then, of course, the poems also change. Death poems - especially. On July 6, 1816, Gavrila Romanovich, one might say, co-authored death and eternity. On July 8, death passed through the eight-line “by the hand of a master” and gave it a meaning that Derzhavin did not anticipate (but who knows, maybe he foresaw?). And what?
Let's re-read the last verses again and again: it would seem that nothing could be sadder - death, the abyss of oblivion, the devouring crater... All this again and again brings us back to what has already been remembered: "the verb of the times! The sound of metal..." Comes to memory and Alexander Blok:
These lines sound Derzhavin-esque, although Blok hardly thought about it: a coffin, a slab - and that same pipe!
The most important word is “solemn”. The funeral lines are solemn. Derzhavin's last poems are undoubtedly also solemn; In addition to the usual lamentation about the transience of existence, they contain a secret and solemnity.
We do not dare to impose our opinion, but we note that for the author of this article and several friends he interviewed, in the last lines of Derzhavin there is also some strange joy, no, more precisely, not joy, but a certain light, communion with eternity.
What's the secret? Maybe it’s like this: brilliant poems, even on the saddest topic, always contain a way out, “immortality, perhaps a guarantee.” If such poems are created in the world, not all is lost. And Derzhavin explains: everything passes, is carried away, rubbed away, but if a poet, a person is able to embrace and understand all this, then by this very understanding he is already, as it were, eternal, immortal. And isn’t that what the then Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin already said thirty-two years before his death:
These are the thoughts that came to mind when reading those poems that, under very special circumstances, were written on a slate board by the great poet Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin on July 6, 1816.
