Recently, here and there, one hears the lines “Woman, religion, everyone chooses the way for themselves ...”. Someone agrees with them, someone does not, but they do not leave anyone indifferent, and even for a minute, they make you think about your life. Are we on the right road, who are our fellow travelers, and what do we believe in when we say the words of prayer… So who is the author of these lines? Let's figure it out together.
Poet
He is a poet and our contemporary. Lines from his numerous poems are on everyone's lips. They are about loneliness, about the endless search for oneself in this vast world, about love and friendship and, of course, about the transience of everything that exists, except for hope. If you have not yet guessed who we are talking about, then let me introduce - Yuri Levitansky. It is he who is the author of the famous lines: "Everyone chooses for himself a woman, religion, road ...".
Years of experience
Yuri Levitansky went through the entire war. The Great Patriotic War has always been an unhealed wound for him. It couldn't be otherwise. A man of deep soul cannot see and immediately forget. He passes everything through himself, and much, if not all, remains with him forever. It hurts and aches, but at the same time it cleanses and gives the right to feel life more subtle and deeper. The poetic works of Y. Levitansky are a vivid confirmation of this. The poem “Woman, religion, everyone chooses their own way…” is no exception. Critics were surprised that his poetic works from year to year become more transparent, weightless, as if his soul continues to grow younger, without bowing to the continuous flow of time. Apparently she knew something...
Creation
In the poem “Woman, religion, everyone chooses their own way…” he does not condemn the reader for his chosen life path and says that “there are no complaints against anyone”. Yu. Levitansky only offers to once again step aside and take a look at ourselves and our lives from the outside: who do we serve - “the devil or the prophet”, what words of love do we know, what is actually concealed by our appeal to God - faith, humility or fear, and, finally, what role do we play, what do we change into - in “shield and armor” or take “staff and patches” with us. No one knows what is the truth, and why it happens one way or another. No one can say for sure what our choice depends on, whether it is right or wrong, and whether it exists in the world. The poet does not isolate himself either, and admits that "I also choose - as best I can." But at the same time, he warns that ignorance or unwillingness to know does not exempt from responsibility, punishment will knock on the door in any case, and what it will be - the "measure of final retribution" - we again choose for ourselves.
The poem “Woman, religion, everyone chooses the way for themselves ...” is, first of all, a reflection. It is strict, but not loud. It is principled, but understanding and not judgmental. It is simple but wise. However, like all the work of the poet, like himself.
And it seems like silence. And what snow. And that quiet guitar picking. And - the same quiet voices:
- What is happening in the world? - It's just winter.
- Just winter, you think? - I guess.
After all, I myself, as best I can, lay traces
in your houses that fell asleep early at times.
Levitansky is one of those who himself experienced, survived, re-felt. A poet, a graduate of the famous IFLI, he ended the Patriotic War in Prague as a young lieutenant, even then he wrote poetry unlike any other.
“I am grateful to fate for having survived in that war and after it, for having survived to these days and to the present day,” he said in 1995, at the ceremony of presenting him with the State Prize of Russia.
About the war - most of his poems.
In 1996, in notes on the death of Levitansky, the poetess Olesya Nikolaeva, who had been friends with him for many years, wrote: “He had a precious love for sorrows - amor fati - which goes to poets as a cross and as a gift. A mourner and a mourner, our eternal Pierrot, a white crow among the sensible and comme il faut Moscow poets…”.
This "white crow" was born in the city of Kozelets, in the Chernihiv region, soon after her birth she moved to Kyiv, and then to Stalino, now Donetsk. How much sorrow would be in his poems today?
Love for sorrows, however, like the memory of the war years, Levitansky perfectly combined with amazing optimism ...
- What follows from this? - One should live,
sew sundresses and light dresses from chintz.
- Do you think all this will be worn?
- I believe that all this should be sewn.
For himself, this “sewing” was tantamount to “writing”.
And it seems like silence. And what snow. And what again - a quiet guitar strumming. And again - quiet voices, because Levitansky's poems sound best this way - quietly and intimately. It is absolutely impossible to imagine Yuri Davidovich reading them in front of a huge crowd at a stadium or in a huge concert hall, furiously chopping the air with his hands or playing theatrically with his voice. Its sound is completely different: not calling for feats, perhaps not stigmatizing and moralizing. But it's incredibly human. Personal for everyone.
Everyone chooses for himself
woman, religion, road.
Serve the devil or the prophet -
everyone chooses for himself.
Everyone chooses for themselves
a word for love and for prayer.
Dueling sword, battle sword
everyone chooses for themselves.
Everyone chooses for themselves.
Shield and armor, staff and patches,
measure of final retribution
everyone chooses for themselves.
Everyone chooses for himself.
I also choose as best I can.
I have no complaints against anyone.
Everyone chooses for himself.
Original post sunshine_5
Yuri Levitansky - poems about loneliness
I was the same somewhere, once:
The whistle of thin bullets, thunder roll
artillery fire,
And armor burns in flames,
And the trembling of the trembling earth...
But, so to speak, like Levitansky,
About your sacred civil duty,
Not many could say.Today, the article is devoted to the work of our contemporary, the poet, whose lines you know and maybe love. Poems by Yuri Levitansky are a little sad, written outside the canons and rules, so beautiful and wise - these are poems about loneliness, about finding oneself in this world, poems about friendship and friends, about the transience of our life. I begin the article with one of Levitansky's most famous poems.
Everyone chooses for himself
woman, religion, road.
Serve the devil or the prophet -
everyone chooses for himself.Everyone chooses for themselves
a word for love and for prayer.
Dueling sword, battle sword
everyone chooses for themselves.Everyone chooses for themselves.
Shield and armor. Staff and patches.
The measure of final retribution.
Everyone chooses for themselves.Everyone chooses for himself.
I also choose as best I can.
Everyone chooses for himself.You immediately remember Levitansky's poems, because they are musical, they have their own intonation, reading them you begin to breathe differently, to the beat, as if they were created from air.
After Pushkin, no one seemed to love verbs so much, no one rhymed so exquisitely, no one rolled along the line, like a wave rolls over pebbles, rustling and ringing. He rhymed them masterfully ...
E BershinMy music, words,
their declension, their conjugation,
their sudden approach
secret code, discovery
their unity and kinship...
my music, words,
autumn, ash, blue, tit,
is it shade, is it blue, is it a dream,
whether the dream will fall blue,
canopy, blue, blue -My music, words,
Yuri Levitansky - biography
Yuri Levitansky was born on January 22, 1922 in the Chernihiv region. His first poems appeared in the mid-30s in the newspapers of Donbass, when the boy was 13 years old. At the age of 16, Yuri arrives in Moscow and enters the famous Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History.
After 3 years, the war begins and the young man goes to the front as a volunteer, immediately after passing the exams for the 3rd year. The poet went from a soldier to an officer, was awarded numerous orders and medals. During the defense of Moscow in the forty-first, he lay in the snow, on the ice behind a machine gun next to his friend and poet Semyon Gudzenko.
I am an unidentified soldier.
I am an ordinary. I am a name.
I'm short of a bullet mark.
I'm bloody ice in January.
I am firmly soldered into this ice -
I'm in it like a fly in amber...But he was not a front-line poet, although he was a military photojournalist for some time. The war did not end for him in 1945; he still fought on the hills of Manchuria.
Yuri Levitansky wrote little about the war in his youth, perhaps because he wanted to forget the terrible moments, or perhaps he wanted to realize what the war had become for millions of people.
... Well, what if I was there.
I was a long time ago. I forgot everything...I consider it one of the best poems about the war. Listen! Without pathos, natural and sincere, but how strong!
The war for Levitansky has always been an unhealed wound. Until his death. And if in the future the poet wrote poems about the war, then from the height of his later spiritual experience.
…I slowly learned to live.
Teaching was difficult for me.
Moreover, it was often possible
Postpone the lesson for later...Captivity of Levitansky's verses
“Yuri Levitansky's manner of speaking with the reader is tactful, unobtrusive, but at the same time captivating and domineering. The verse takes you in full softly, imperceptibly - you don’t suddenly notice when, on what turn of the poetic spiral it happened that you can no longer leave the poem unfinished, you can’t leave the poet in the middle of the road he leads you, you can’t help but listen to him until end...
... And a fundamental variety of sizes, rhythms, unusual intonational beginnings and unexpected endings. And a long, endless line, like a flicker cord, stretching to a rhyme, which suddenly explodes when you no longer expect it, and illuminates the line, stanza, the whole poem with the light of a new meaning .. "
Yuri BoldyrevThey said - okay, be patient,
time - it will fly by quickly.Flew.
They said - nothing, it will pass,
will gradually heal.Healed.
Will gradually heal
overgrown with lush grass.Overgrown.
Time is better than any healer
time will heal your soul.Healed.
Well, okay, that's good,
look - and forgot at last.Not forgotten.
It remains in the memory - just in the gap,
like an animal, beat.
***
His rhyme is so free that it can appear and then suddenly disappear, but in Levitansky's poetry it captivates. .The first collections of poems by Yuri Levitansky.
In 1948, the first poetic collection of poems by Y. Levitansky "Soldier's Road" was published, and in 1963 his book "Earthly Sky" brought fame to the poet. The most popular book of poems "Cinema" was written when the poet was already 50.
“My life, cinema, black and white cinema!
Who wrote the script? What a strange dreamer
this equally brilliant and insane director?
How freely he mounts various pieces
exultation and despair, fun and melancholy!
He does not forgive an actor for a badly played role -
be it a comedian or a tragedian, be it a jester or a king.
Oh, how difficult, how beautifully acting, to be a person
in this drama, where there is only something between the beginning and the end
two hours, or even less, just one moment ... "He had everything later, late poems, late love, late children. Moreover, critics are surprised, his lyrics become more transparent with age, as if his soul did not grow old, but became younger. His poems are reflections, they are lines passed through the heart, subtle, lyrical and very personal. Poems about loneliness, about a place in this world. All poems are “my moments, my years, my dreams”.
Sometimes the poems are ironic, but somehow softly and shyly ironic. His poems are not loud, like himself. And this is a special charm. But at the same time, his friends note, for all his intelligence and gentleness, he could go to great lengths, defending his values, proving and convincing with all the ardor and unexpected passion.In the workshop of the sculptor Vadim Sidur, 1968. photo Gladkov (c)
Levitansky appeared in Moscow in the mid-fifties, where he lived until the end of his life, wrote poetry, worked as a translator, possessing an amazing linguistic instinct and hearing.
And we go into translations,
we go to the Kyrgyz and Kazakhs,
as the waters go under the sand,
how Don Juan becomes a monk.It is difficult to feed on your own poems, and Yuri Levitansky translates a lot from German, Czech, Portuguese, Polish and other languages. Colleagues loved Yuri Levitansky and chose poems for him to translate. They knew that good poems in the original in the translation of Levitansky become very good, he breathes his life into them ..
“I’m standing at the window, opening it wider,
And I wave with a white handkerchief, saying goodbye forever
With my poems that go to you"
Fernando Pessoa (translated from Portuguese by Y. Levitansky)Almost Portuguese Levitan)
Yuri Levitansky was distinguished by a rare susceptibility, which is probably why he was one of the best poetic parodists, and his book "The Plot with Variants", a book of parodies, was published literally at the request of his fellow writers, the heroes of these parodies. Some critics believe that Levitansky was the best parodist not only of his time, but of all time. He could parody not only plucked lines from poetry, but the very style and way of thinking of the person being parodied.
“And let my shadow be among you.”
“He had a precious love for sorrows - amor fati - which goes to poets as a cross and as a gift. A mourner and a mourner, our eternal Pierrot, a white crow among the sane and comme il faut Moscow poets ... "
O. NikolaevaYuri Levitansky has many poems about time, about passing time,
... Everything passes in this world, snow is replaced by rain,
everything passes, everything passes, we have come and we will go.
Everything comes and goes to nowhere from nothing.
Everything passes, but nothing passes without a trace ...The value of every moment..
.... We convince ourselves - well, what is there to be sad
in vain
but the shot bird bubbling and tearing
in the chest
this stifled exclamation - as after the departing
train -
about a moment, slow down,
hesitate,
wait,
wait a minute!…About the eternal vanity, the accelerating rush of our life
"There is no time to feel sorry for each other,
go crazy from misfortune from someone else.
Even listen to each other - on the run -
no time - will you come? - I can not!".About departing friends and loneliness.
....Something happened, everyone is leaving us.
Old friendships have fallen like leaves...His poetry is a search for goodness, beauty, truth, the meaning of life. His poems seek to stir up and awaken, and to remind that life is just a moment. And we need to be a little more sympathetic, a little kinder, a little more compassionate, a little more tender to each other. At least a little..
What is needed for that? Just look... peer into the face of a loved one, friend, just a passer-by..
All you need is to look, - my God,
everything and things that look closely -
and you won't leave, and there's nowhere to go
from those eyes, from their sudden depth...Many of Levitansky's poems became popular songs. Especially performed by Kamburova or the Nikitin duo, so beloved by student audiences. Remember "Dialogue at the New Year Tree" from "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" ("What's going on in the world? It's just winter") and other songs from this film? I really like the song performed by Elena Kamburova
“Someone will wake up in the morning and gasp,
and be surprised - how close the bird cherry smells,
smells of love, smells of love confession,
life ahead is like an unopened book…”Unfortunately, I couldn't find it on video. All the same poems about loneliness and hope
But below is one of the most famous and beloved by many song “All you need to look at” performed by the Nikitins duet.
He was not a rebel, he was a caring person who signed dozens of letters in defense of dissidents. During the years of the collapse of the USSR, he was completely immersed in events and "absorbed the waves of time, its misfortunes, horrors, disasters"
This society is like a piano, hopelessly
upset,
all broken, all mangled, all
mangled -
the performers have really worked hard on it
zealous,
broad-shouldered virtuosos, oh, brave drummers.As if unconscious, all these strings are steel and copper,
only yesterday, victorious marches expelled from themselves, -
that one barely rattles, that one, sagging, sways powerlessly,
There are separate sounds, but the music does not work.And still floats over the space of a huge country
the lingering sound of a broken string.In 1995, Yuri Levitansky was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation for the collection White Poems. During its presentation, the poet turned to Yeltsin with an appeal to stop the war in Chechnya. And on January 25, 1996, this issue was again raised at the "round table" of the Moscow intelligentsia in the mayor's office. He could not go - age, operated sick heart ... - but he could not go.
Everyone chooses for himself.
I choose as well as I can.
I have no complaints against anyone.
Everyone chooses for himself.... Levitansky's speech was so emotional that the poet's heart could not stand it ...
.... What is happening in the world? - It's just winter.
Just winter, you think? - I guess.
After all, I myself, as best I can, lay traces
in your houses that fell asleep early at times ....It happened on the 3rd day after his 74th birthday.
.... On this quicksand snow
I carefully put my foot
and little by little
trail is lost.In the white haze, nowhere
I stretch out my hands in silence -
goodbye my friends,
Goodbye,
bye……Levitansky's poems about loneliness, poems about friendship and friends,
about passing time and love.We didn't talk.
They gathered hastily, hugged affectionately,
They sang, joked, drank and smoked.
The day went by like it never happened.
We didn't talk.
We saw each other, we didn’t see each other, we were offended for nothing,
They reconciled, met, made a fuss.
A year has passed - as it was not.
We didn't talk.
So they lived - hastily, and made friends hastily,
Without sparing spent, not stinting, gave.
Life has passed - as it was not.We didn't talk...
One hundred friends
I didn’t save a hundred rubles - I didn’t know how.
He still didn't have a hundred friends.
Look what you want - a hundred friends!
A hundred friends is a whole museum!
One hundred, like the Bible, wise volumes.
One hundred minds.
One hundred high-rise buildings.
One hundred seas.
One hundred dense forests.
One hundred universes of tempting call:
say one word
and it
repeated by a hundred votes.
Ah, friends
you are wise like Socrates.
You are a hundred times wiser than Socrates.
Only I don't want to
so that a hundred of my hands - on the shoulder.
I don't want to seek sympathy.
I don't want to lose a hundred hopes.
... At the shop windows, at night stained-glass windows,
a hundred watchmen walk with guns,
and stands above the mountain ranges
loneliness in a hundred floors.Speed up attempt
I broke a winter branch, I brought it into the house
and put it in a glass jar.
I conjured over her, I poured warm water on her,
I forced her leaves to open.
And the green leaves unfurled
bewildered so they opened up,
so timid and so reluctant
and she was so pale and helpless this poor
December greens -
like a child woken up at night
rubbing eyes fearfully
among the bright light
like a shaggy funny old man,
smiling sadly
through tears.At night I woke up from a sharp cry of “Save me!”
At night I woke up from a sharp cry of "Save me!".
Sat down and listened. Quiet in the apartment and sleepy.
Sleep peacefully my young children,
dear children, my young daughters.What happened? No, nothing happened.
It's all right, my darlings. Sleep well.
May it not wake you up one day in the middle of the night
in vain, a father's voice pleading for help.May it not seem to you that you are to blame,
if sometimes my life was not easy,
if I've been so lonely in the world,
if I wanted to scream
from time to time.You live without feeling the chain
You live without feeling the chain,
you live - you run here and there.
You live - and grief does not matter. -
But in the evening
but in silence
but alone with myself
when the star is in the window,
like a secret spy
and the corridor whispers something,
as a usurer and lender,
and a persuasive intercessor...You live without feeling the chain,
and everything in the world is tryn-grass.
- How are you, old man? - Yes, old man!
Come on, old man, swing right! -
But in the evening
but in silence
but alone with myself
when the star is in the window,
like a secret spy...So - not feeling the chain,
among betrayals, among intrigues,
among the saints, among the banished,
you live - how you hold back the cry.
But in the evening
but in silence...How slowly I forgot you!
Couldn't forget you
but forgot.
Your face moved away from me
he seemed to melt
sailed away
crushed,
shrouded in mystery
and melted near the nearby shores -
and it was all like melting,
slow snowmelt.
Everything melted.
I started to forget
your face.
At first I couldn't
forget your eyes
but forgot
I whisper only one name with my lips.
We will no longer be in those meadows.
Our birch forest frowned and fell silent,
and the wind blew goodbye
over our sad oaks.
And something bitter smells from haystacks,
where the sound of my steps already subsides.
And a drop runs down my cheek...
Oh, the slow melting of the snow!I won't keep you
I won't delay you.
Yes, yes, I'm leaving.
Thank you all for everything.
Happy to stay.
Although, I must admit, I
and did not assume
what will happen to me
it's so hard to leave...The materials of the site http://levitansky.ru were used
Yuri Levitansky was a modest man, gave out poems sparingly, parted with them shyly and reluctantly. But all his creations are honed, endured, there is not a single gram of fuss in them. They are written as if for themselves, as a need to speak out. Levitansky's poems have their own rhymes, their own intonations, colors, and each poem has its own talent to think about life, to live and express it with exciting verses.
Everyone chooses for himself
woman, religion, road.
Serve the devil or the prophet -
everyone chooses for himself.
Everyone chooses for themselves
a word for love and for prayer.
Dueling sword, battle sword
everyone chooses for themselves.
Everyone chooses for themselves
shield and armor, staff and patches.
The measure of final retribution
everyone chooses for themselves.
Everyone chooses for himself...
I also choose as best I can.
I have no complaints against anyone.
Everyone chooses for himself.
<Юрий Левитанский>
And especially for lovers of poetry - a poem that helps to look at life in a different way.
Everyone chooses for themselves
Woman, religion, road.
Serve the devil or the prophet -
Everyone chooses for himself
A word for love and for prayer.
Dueling sword, battle sword
Everyone chooses for himself.
Shield and armor, staff and patches,
The measure of final retribution
Everyone chooses for himself ...
And we also choose - as we can.
We have no complaints against anyone.
Everyone chooses for himself!
Viktor Ratkovsky 01.01.2013 10:34:07
Review: positive
Oh, you touched on a difficult thing, madam,
about the choice, and who does not know it.
We choose something every day
and to sense, after all errors here and there.
And who said she! We are not her!
Tragic funny actress
who quietly spins in his corner,
and affectionately we call her kitty.
And if you deny fate, like this,
and who would tell us about this,
maybe the clairvoyants are now the sea,
so tell fortunes, exactly on a fiver.
You give me a pen, I see, I see, I see
you are already dizzy
and your words about claims,
to my own and to God I foresee.
Here you say, only for yourself,
Yes, they are ready to strangle for a child,
to the one who says sadly: Fate!,
in the face, without a duel, we are.
With a smile
Go to divination
Ekaterina (Siberian) 01/01/2013 20:10:47
what is so difficult about it???
for me, everything in this world fell into place .. I live, I believe, I love.
that person who does not understand, he fusses, searches ... does not understand, then.
*************************
You were born with authenticity. But soon your "I" was taken properly: you are a Christian, Catholic, white, German, a representative of God's chosen race, you should rule the world, and so on and so forth. You are being given a false idea of who you are. You are given a name, and around that name they build a mountain of ambition and conditioning.
No illusions - no disappointments.
****************
Some people get used to the real world as it really is. They continue to live in it, but they do not love it. They have no other choice, but they believe that the world will break out of the arms of the void and move forward.
Happy New Year.
Victor Ratkovsky 01.01.2013 22:27:59
Oh, are you talking in your place? No, by God, I'm happy for you,
but the choice is here, now, and it will succeed if you win,
the illusion that the truth is with you! Look, no fuss, are you in a hurry when choosing?
So you are wrong, and more than once. With a cool head, I heard it somewhere
analysis, calculations, fools, when love hit the "roof",
then what do brains think about?
And live, what life is without those illusions, do not drink, and do not smoke, and do not love,
but how to compare, all the illusiveness of allusions, to discard shame, and what else to forget?
Habitual words, unrealizable views, and fairy tales that from childhood for the time being,
they will wait, and we will give a fountain of fantasies to people, because they are needed.
And in constancy we are looking for adventures, and we are waiting for the gray everyday life,
what kind of inspirations will the ether give us with information?
With a smile
