A.A. Fet is a sophisticated lyricist, endowed with an exceptional sense of beauty and genius. The main mood of Fet's poetry is a mood of elation. Intoxication with nature, love, art, memories, dreams is the main emotional content of his poems.
The love theme is especially significant for Fet. The feeling for a woman becomes all-consuming for the lyrical hero. Love makes it possible to experience inexpressible delight. However, the originality and strength of Fet’s love lyrics lies not in the psychological portrait, not in individual characteristics. The poet does not seek to recreate the image of his beloved woman. He is not interested in people themselves, but in their experiences. The poems give only moments of feeling, there is no development of it. The poet captures moments love story. In the poem “What a Night! The transparent air is constrained..." the lyrical hero at the hour of the meeting was only tormented by the consciousness that he was loved, but he did not love:
You waited, you longed for recognition -
I was silent: I didn’t love you.
But since the last date everything has changed:
But now, when I tremble and cry
And, like a slave, I catch your every glance,
I'm not lying when I call you mine
And swearing that I love you!
Fet does not try to explain this sudden change, to trace how the feeling changed, he only compares two contrasting experiences.
Fet's main cycle of love poems is dedicated to Maria Lazic. Their romance ended in separation, which was soon followed by the death of the girl. Memories of this tragic love did not lose their poignancy for Fet over time. Therefore, in most of his love poems, verbs are used in the past tense. The lyrical hero lives in the past, in memories, “it was tenderness.” In the poem “No, I haven’t changed. Until deep old age...” he admits:
And the old poison of chains, joyful and cruel,
It still burns in my blood.
The feeling for the untimely departed beloved woman continues to give inspiration:
And, shuddering, I sing.
Like all true poetry, Fet's poetry summarizes what the poet himself experienced. His poems about love reveal Big world experiences that are common to every person. Thus, the poem “The Night Was Shining...” is not only about Fet’s feelings for the sweet young T. Kuzminskaya, but about high human love in general. In terms of meaning, this lyrical play can be divided into two parts. The first two stanzas are memories of the intensity of the love feeling of the lyrical hero. The third and fourth stanzas are about his new meeting with his beloved and the return of lost happiness. The poem “The Night Was Shining...” gives birth to vivid pictures in the imagination. I vividly imagine a darkened living room, outside its windows is a garden full of night freshness and moonlight. Magical music and a wonderful voice sounds:
The piano was all open, and the strings in it were trembling,
Just like our hearts are for your song.
The poetic story of a love story amazes with its liveliness and emotionality. It is no coincidence that the poet uses many verbs in the poem. In the first part they are used in the past tense, but in the second part they are used in the present tense. This gives the lyrical narrative dynamics, the poems accelerate, the emotional tension increases and reaches its climax:
That there are no insults from fate and burning torment in the heart,
But there is no end to life, and there is no other goal,
As soon as you believe in the sobbing sounds,
To love you, hug you and cry over you...
The last four lines are the musical, emotional, and semantic completion of the poem. This is the last and highest point of the lyrical plot. For Fet, “crying sounds”, love, and a woman exist together. All these are phenomena of beauty. Believing in beauty and singing it is the poet’s high happiness and the highest goal of his work.
Another famous poem Feta about love - “Whisper, timid breathing..." This miniature is about the beauty of night nature, about love, the most subtle, inexpressibly strong feeling. There is no image of a lyrical hero in the work. This technique helps create the feeling that this is a poetic story about the love of the eternal Romeo and Juliet. The poem is built on nominative sentences alone. There is not a single verb in it. A peculiar chain of objects and phenomena appears before us, which are named one after another: whispering - timid breathing - nightingale trills, etc. But this work still cannot be called objective and material. Objects in Fet's poem do not exist on their own, but as signs of feelings and states. And these peculiar symbols evoke certain associations in the reader. So, roses, the singing of a nightingale, night light - all these are attributes of a romantic date for lovers. Gradually, from the sounds, the breath of the night, the reflections of the stream, a “sweet face” appears in its “magical changes.” A date with your beloved is fraught with happiness and sweet suffering: “And kisses, and tears...” A long, all-night meeting and heartfelt intimacy ends with inexpressible delight: “And the dawn, the dawn!..” the last words sound not among the others, but stand out . Dawn is not just another phenomenon, but a “strong” metaphor and a “strong” ending. In the context of the poem, dawn is the highest expression of feeling, the light of love. “Whisper, timid breathing...” is a very beautiful and reverent work. It is one of the best examples of Fet's love lyrics.
Fet's best poems are about the beauty of a woman, love, reciprocity, and what fills the soul with happiness. These works were included in the golden fund of Russian poetry. They amaze with their emotionality, light sadness and joy, and a unique transmission of the subtlest shades of spiritual life.
This essay was written by teachers and was included in the “cheat sheet 2003 from BOBYCH.SPB.RU” for the final exam in literature.
The theme of love is one of the components of the theory of pure art, most widely reflected in Russian literature in the poems of Fet and Tyutchev. This eternal theme poetry nevertheless found its new refraction here and sounded somewhat new. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote in the 70s that now no one will dare to sing the praises of nightingales and roses. For Fet, the theme of love, on the contrary, was fundamental to all of his work until the end of his life.
The creation of beautiful poems about love is explained not only by the divine gift and special talent of the poet. In the case of Fet, it also has a real autobiographical background. Fet's inspiration was the love of his youth - the daughter of a Serbian landowner, Maria Lazic. Their love was as high and unquenchable as it was tragic. Lazic knew that Fet would never marry her, nevertheless, her last words before her death were the exclamation: “It’s not he who is to blame, but me!” The circumstances of her death have not been clarified, as have the circumstances of Fet’s birth, but there is reason to believe that it was suicide. The consciousness of indirect guilt and the severity of the loss weighed on Fet throughout his life, and the result of this was a dual world, something akin to the dual world of Zhukovsky. Contemporaries noted Fet's coldness, prudence and even some cruelty in Everyday life. But what a contrast this makes with Fet’s other world - the world of his lyrical experiences, embodied in his poems. All his life Zhukovsky believed in connecting with Masha Protasova in another world, he lived with these memories. Fet is also immersed in his own world, because only in it is unity with his beloved possible. Fet feels himself and his beloved (his “second self”) inseparably merged in another existence, which actually continues in the world of poetry: “And although I am destined to drag out life without you, we are together with you, we cannot be separated.” (“Alter ego.”) The poet constantly feels spiritual closeness with his beloved. The poems “You have suffered, I still suffer...”, “In the silence and darkness of a mysterious night...” are about this. He makes a solemn promise to his beloved: “I will carry your light through earthly life: it is mine - and with it a double existence” (“Wearisomely inviting and in vain...”).
The poet speaks directly about “double existence”, that his earthly life will only help him endure the “immortality” of his beloved, that she is alive in his soul. Indeed, for the poet, the image of his beloved woman throughout his life was not only a beautiful and long-gone ideal of another world, but also a moral judge of his earthly life. In the poem "Dream", also dedicated to Maria Lazic, this is felt especially clearly. The poem has an autobiographical basis; Lieutenant Losev is easily recognizable as Fet himself, and medieval house, where he stopped, also has its prototype in Dorpat. The comic description of the “club of devils” gives way to a certain moralizing aspect: the lieutenant hesitates in his choice, and he is reminded of a completely different image - the image of his long-dead beloved. He turns to her for advice: “Oh, what would you say, I dare not name who with these sinful thoughts.”
The literary critic Blagoy, in his research, points out the correspondence of these lines to the words of Virgil to Dante that “as a pagan, he cannot accompany him to heaven, and Beatrice is given to him as a companion.” The image of Maria Lazic (and this is undoubtedly her) for Fet is a moral ideal; the poet’s whole life is a desire for an ideal and hope for reunification.
But Fet’s love lyrics are filled not only with a feeling of hope and hope. She is also deeply tragic. The feeling of love is very contradictory; it is not only joy, but also torment and suffering. In poems there are often such combinations as joy - suffering, “the bliss of suffering”, “the sweetness of secret torment”. The poem "Don't wake her up at dawn" is filled with such a double meaning. At first glance, we see a serene picture of a girl’s morning sleep. But already the second quatrain conveys some kind of tension and destroys this serenity: “And her pillow is hot, and her weary sleep is hot.” The appearance of “strange” epithets, such as “tiring sleep,” no longer indicates serenity, but some kind of painful state close to delirium. The reason for this state is further explained, the poem reaches its climax: “She became paler and paler, her heart beat more and more painfully.” The tension grows, and suddenly the last quatrain completely changes the picture, leaving the reader in bewilderment: “Don’t wake her, don’t wake her, at dawn she sleeps so sweetly.” These lines provide a contrast with the middle of the poem and return us to the harmony of the first lines, but on a new turn. The call “don’t wake her up” sounds almost hysterical, like a cry from the soul. The same impulse of passion is felt in the poem “The night was shining, the garden was full of the moon...”, dedicated to Tatyana Bers. The tension is emphasized by the refrain: “Love you, hug you and cry over you.” In this poem, the quiet picture of the night garden gives way to and contrasts with the storm in the poet’s soul: “The piano was all open and the strings in it trembled, just like our hearts behind your song.”
The “languorous and boring” life is contrasted with the “burning torment of the heart”; the purpose of life is concentrated in a single impulse of the soul, even if in it it burns to the ground. For Fet, love is a fire, just like poetry is a flame in which the soul burns. “Didn’t anything whisper to you at that time: a man was burned there!” - Fet exclaims in the poem “When you read the painful lines...”. It seems to me that Fet could have said the same thing about the torment of love experiences. But once “burned out”, that is, survived true love Fet, however, is not devastated, and all his life he retained in his memory the freshness of these feelings and the image of his beloved.
Once Fet was asked how, at his age, he could write about love so youthfully? He answered: from memory. Blagoy says that “Fet is distinguished by an exceptionally strong poetic memory,” and cites the example of the poem “On the Swing,” the impetus for writing which was a memory 40 years ago (the poem was written in 1890). “Forty years ago I was swinging on a swing with a girl, standing on a board, and her dress was flapping in the wind,” Fet writes in a letter to Polonsky. Such a “sound detail” (Blagoy), like a dress that “crackled in the wind,” is most memorable for the poet-musician. All of Fet's poetry is built on sounds, modulations and sound images. Turgenev said about Fet that he expected a poem from him, the last lines of which would have to be conveyed only by the silent movement of his lips. A striking example is the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”, which is built on only nouns and adjectives, without a single verb. Commas and Exclamation point They also convey the splendor and tension of the moment with realistic specificity. This poem creates a point image, which, when viewed closely, gives chaos, “a series of magical” “changes” that are elusive to the human eye, and in the distance - an accurate picture. Fet, as an impressionist, bases his poetry, and in particular the description of love experiences and memories, on the direct recording of his subjective observations and impressions. Condensation, but not mixing of colorful strokes, as in Monet’s paintings, gives the description of love experiences a culmination and extreme clarity to the image of the beloved. What is she like?
“I know your passion for hair,” Grigoriev tells Fet about his story “Cactus.” This passion is manifested more than once in Fetov’s poems: “I love to look at your long lock of hair,” “golden fleece of curls,” “braids running in a heavy knot,” “a strand of fluffy hair,” and “braids with a ribbon on both sides.” Although these descriptions are somewhat general character, nevertheless, a fairly clear image of a beautiful girl is created. Fet describes her eyes a little differently. Either this is a “radiant gaze”, or “motionless eyes, crazy eyes” (similar to Tyutchev’s poem “I knew my eyes, oh these eyes”). “Your gaze is open and fearless,” Fet writes, and in the same poem he talks about “ fine lines ideal." For Fet, his beloved is a moral judge and ideal. She has great power over the poet throughout his life, although already in 1850, shortly after the death of Lazic, Fet writes: "My ideal world was destroyed long ago." The influence of his beloved woman on the poet is also felt in the poem “For a long time I dreamed of the cries of your sobs.” The poet calls himself “an unfortunate executioner,” he acutely feels his guilt for the death of his beloved, and the punishment for this was “two drops of tears” and “cold trembling”, which he “I endured sleepless nights forever.” This poem is painted in Tyutchev’s tones and incorporates Tyutchev’s dramatism.
The biographies of these two poets are similar in many ways - they both experienced the death of their beloved woman, and the immense longing for what was lost provided food for the creation of beautiful love poems. In the case of Fet, this fact seems most strange - how can you first ruin a girl, and then write sublime poems about her all your life? It seems to me that the loss made such a deep impression on Fet that the poet experienced a kind of catharsis, and the result of this suffering was Fet’s genius - he was admitted to the high sphere of poetry, his entire description of his favorite experiences and the feeling of the tragedy of love affects the reader so strongly because that Fet himself experienced them, and his creative genius put these experiences into poetic form. Only the power of poetry was able to convey them, following Tyutchev’s saying: a thought expressed is a lie. Fet himself repeatedly speaks about the power of poetry: “How rich I am in crazy verses.”
Fet's love lyrics make it possible to penetrate deeper into his general philosophical and, accordingly, aesthetic views, as Blagoy says, “into his solution to the fundamental question of the relationship between art and reality.” Love, like poetry, according to Fet, refers to another, other world, which is dear and close to Fet. In his poems about love, Fet acted “not as a militant preacher of pure art in opposition to the sixties, but created his own and self-valuable world” (Blagoy). And this world is filled with true experiences, the poet’s spiritual aspirations and a deep sense of hope, reflected in the poet’s love lyrics.
Poetry is a form of love. It is difficult to disagree with the above statement, especially when we are talking about the love lyrics of such a classic of Russian literature as Afanasy Fet. Poems about love were his companions not only in his youth, but also in his old age. What prompted the poet to create lines that are now known to many and how do Fet’s works stand out among others?
Fet's love lyrics: background
It is unlikely that anyone will argue with the fact that love is the most powerful catalyst of poetry. Not a single poetic masterpiece was written from scratch. The authors were motivated by both fleeting love and a feeling carried throughout their lives. In the life of Afanasy Fet, both the first and the second were present. But the key role in Fet’s love poems still belongs to Maria Lazic. One of the poet’s most famous works, “Whisper, Timid Breath,” is dedicated to her.
Fet fell in love more than once, but only the feeling for Maria Lazic was always with him. He dedicated poems to this woman both during the relationship and when there was no longer any hope of seeing her. Fet met Maria while serving in the garrison near Kherson. The girl was from the family of an impoverished retired military man. Maria was then 22, and Fet was 28. Lazic was considered an educated young lady and, even before meeting the poet, she was well acquainted with his work. Maria was not one of the dazzling beauties, but soon after meeting Fet recognized her as a kindred spirit. However, lack of funds for both prevented the reunion.
The correspondence continued for some time, but in the end, Fet initiated a complete break. In 1850, the poet was struck by terrible news: Maria died. The girl's dress accidentally caught fire. She died from her injuries a few days later. It is difficult to say whether it was suicide or an absurd accident, but Maria died with the words: “He is not to blame...”.
Love in the works of Afanasy Fet
The story described above left a significant mark on Fet’s love poems. Moreover, without knowledge of this background it is difficult to understand the full depth of his works. So, in addition to the feeling of hope and hope, there is a fair amount of tragedy in them. To please circumstances, Fet gave up love, but his works clearly show that in fact the feeling for the one and only one did not leave him even in his old age. This is clearly evidenced by the famous “Evening Lights,” collections written by Fet, who was already in his declining years.
Poems about love, written by the classic, are full of love-experience, fused with the image of nature. Moreover, many works are the embodied memory of Mary. The motives of punishment and guilt give this lyric a tragic tone. Emphasizing the latter, Fet sometimes calls his lyrical hero “executioner.” The only way to atone is death. It is not without reason that in one of the questionnaires the poet admitted that he would like to live “as long as possible.”
Besides, love poetry Fet is characterized by a persistent motif of burning, which undoubtedly has some connection with the circumstances of Lazic’s death. For example, the poem “Don’t wake her up at dawn” begins with a description of a girl’s quiet and peaceful sleep, but at the end there are terrible words: “Here a man has burned!”
As a result, in Fet’s lyrics the opposition of images – the lyrical heroine and the hero – is clearly visible. The first died long ago, but lives in the memory of the hero and his poems, the second is alive, but dead in the soul. The image of Lazic became a moral ideal for the poet, and his life turned into a pursuit of this ideal, in the hope of being reunited with it. Therefore, in the works of Fet earthly life often painted in dark colors, while the heavenly one is dazzlingly bright. For him, female beauty is like nature, and contemplation of a beloved woman is comparable to admiring nature.
According to many researchers, Fet's love poems are the only area of his work where the life impressions of this master of words were fully reflected. That is why these works are so different from the others. They lack that incredible feeling of happiness in life and joy that can be seen in landscape lyrics classic. The cycle of works dedicated to Lazic spans almost 4 decades. It included many poetic miniatures: “An Irresistible Image”, “You suffered...”, “Old letters”, “I dreamed of screams for a long time...”, “No, I haven’t changed...”, etc.
Fet belongs to that amazing category of poets who, by telling about their experiences, awaken in readers their love and their memories. His poems can be compared to a bow that awakens the music of thoughts and feelings.
AFANASY FET AND MARIA LAZIC The tragic romance with Maria Lazic left a deep mark on Fetov’s poetry. She was the daughter of a retired general, a small landowner, a Russified Serb. Fet was 28 when he met her, she was 24. In March 1849, Fet wrote to a childhood friend that he had met a creature who loved and deeply respected, “the ideal of possible happiness for me and reconciliation with disgusting reality. But she has nothing and nothing for me..." The love of a dowryless woman and an officer without a fortune could only aggravate the situation of two poor people. This would mean for him to bury his future forever in a wretched garrison existence with a bunch of children and a prematurely withered wife. And Fet’s love gave way to prosaic calculation. Later he would write an autobiographical poem, “The Dream of Lieutenant Losev,” in which his romance with Lazic is depicted with realistic specificity. At first, the comically presented question “to take or not to take the devil’s ducats?” - turns into the most important question in choosing further life path. What Lieutenant Losev did remains unknown in the poem. But we know what Lieutenant Fet did. In his memoirs, he writes: “In order to burn the ships of our mutual hopes at once, I gathered my courage and loudly expressed my thoughts regarding how impossible and selfish I considered marriage to be.” She replied: “I love to talk with you without any infringement on your freedom.” Maria understood everything and did not condemn Fet. She loved him for who he was, she loved him unselfishly, recklessly and selflessly. Love was everything for her, while he prudently and persistently walked towards his goal: obtaining nobility, achieving material well-being... In order not to compromise the girl, Fet had to break up with her. “I will not marry Lazic,” he writes to a friend, “and she knows this, and yet she begs not to interrupt our relationship. She's in front of me cleaner than snow..." "This unfortunate Gordian knot of love, or whatever you want to call it, which the more I unravel, the tighter I tighten, but I don’t have the spirit or strength to cut with a sword.” Life was cut short. Soon the regiment was transferred to another place and in May Fet departed for maneuvers , and in the fall, under the already ripened fruits, regimental adjutant Fet, in response to his question about Mary, heard an astonished expression: “How! You don’t know anything?!" The interlocutor, the poet writes, looked at him with a wild look. And, after a pause, seeing his stagnant bewilderment, he added: "But she’s not there! She died! And, my God, how terrible!" It’s really hard to imagine a more terrible death: a young woman burned. Alive... It was like that. The father, an old general, did not allow his daughters to smoke, and Maria did it on the sly, being alone. "So , V last time She lay down in a white muslin dress and, lighting a cigarette, threw, concentrating on the book, on the floor a match that she thought had gone out. But the match, which continued to burn, ignited the dress that had fallen to the floor, and the girl only noticed that it was burning when the entire right side was on fire. Confused, she rushed through the rooms to the balcony door, and the burning pieces of her dress came off and fell onto the parquet floor. Thinking of finding relief on clean air, Maria ran out onto the balcony, but a stream of wind fanned the flames even more, which rose above her head..." Fet listened without interruption, without bleeding on his face. 40 years later, he will reproduce this word for word scary story, essentially completing their memories with them. But there is another version of what happened. Soon after the fatal explanation with Fet, Maria, wearing White dress- his favorite, - she lit a hundred candles in the room. The room glowed with light, like Easter Church . Crossing herself, the girl dropped a burning match onto her dress. She was ready to become a mistress, a live-in partner, a dishwasher - anything! - just not to part with Fet. But he resolutely declared that he would never marry a dowryless woman. As the poet admitted, he “did not take into account female nature.” “It is assumed that it was suicide,” E. Vinokurov wrote already in the 20th century. Was it suicide? If so, then she killed herself in such a way as not to complicate the life of her beloved, so as not to burden his conscience in any way - so that the lit match might seem accidental. Burning, Maria shouted: “In the name of heaven, take care of the letters!” and died with the words: “It’s not his fault, it’s my fault.” The letters that she begged to keep were Fetov’s letters, the most precious thing she had... The letters were not preserved. Fet's poems have been preserved, which immortalized their love better than any letters. Your pure ray burned in front of me, languidly invitingly and in vain, it aroused mute delight autocratically, but it did not overcome the darkness around me. Let them curse, worrying and arguing, let them say: this is the delirium of a sick soul, but I walk on the shaky foam of the sea with a brave, unsinking foot. I will carry your light through earthly life, it is mine - and with it you have given a double existence, and I - I triumph, at least for a moment, your immortality. What he lost - Fet realized much later, then he only paid tribute to grief - the guard was shining for him, other worries and goals loomed before him... But the time will come - and the sorrowful shadow will powerfully take everything that was denied to the living Maria Lazich. For a long time I dreamed of the cries of your suffering - there was a voice of resentment, a cry of powerlessness; For a long, long time I dreamed of that joyful moment when I, the unfortunate executioner, begged you. Years passed, we knew how to love, a smile blossomed, sadness became sad; The years flew by, and I had to leave: I was carried away into an unknown distance. You gave me your hand and asked: “Are you coming?” I noticed two drops of tears in my eyes; I carried those sparkles in my eyes and cold trembling into sleepless nights forever. Forty years after these events, a sick, choking old man on a sleepless night thinks about what that calm farewell cost a 20-year-old girl: “You gave me your hand. in his ears. A vision flashes again and again: a flaming figure is running, lights up with a torch and melts out lines that are to be included in textbooks: Didn’t anything whisper to you at that time: a man burned there? And these, who struck Tolstoy: “Get away, this a dream - there are too many tears in it... “And further, brilliant: “It’s not life that’s sorry for its languid breathing, it’s life and death! and it’s a pity that fire..." And these, like a “rocket”, reaching us: I’m flying to death following a dream. To know, my destiny is to cherish dreams and there, with a sigh, scatter fiery tears in the heights. So the love that once- then, in the wilderness of Kherson, the life of a practical army officer burned. You suffered, I still suffer. I am destined to breathe with doubt. And I tremble, and with my heart I avoid looking for what cannot be understood. And it was dawn! I remember, I remember the language of love, flowers, night rays - how can the all-seeing May not bloom in the reflection of the dear ones of such eyes! There are no such eyes - and I am not afraid of coffins, I am envious of your silence. And, without judging either stupidity or malice, quickly, quickly, into your oblivion! Maria Lazich dedicated to the most piercing lines of the famous "Evening Lights", this swan song of A. Fet. And I dream that you rose from the coffin, the same as you flew from the earth. And I dream, I dream: we are both young, and you looked at how before looking.As for the letters that disappeared without a trace, Fet, as we know, knew how to return what fate had taken away: he regained his name, fortune, and returned the lost letters. For what, if not letters to a girl from the Kherson steppes, these poetic messages written in her declining years? The sun's ray between the linden trees was both burning and high, in front of the bench you drew shiny sand, I completely gave myself up to golden dreams - you didn't answer me at all. I guessed a long time ago that we are relatives at heart, that you gave up your happiness for me, I was eager, I insisted that it was not our fault, but you didn’t answer me at all. I begged and repeated that we couldn’t love, that days gone by we must forget that in the future all the rights of beauty will bloom,” you didn’t answer me. I was unable to take my eyes off the deceased; I wanted to read the whole extinguished secret. And did the features of your face forgive me? - Nothing, you didn’t answer anything! The strength of feelings is such that the poet does not believe in death, does not believe in separation, he talks like Dante with his Beatrice, as if she were alive. Sorry! in the darkness of memory all evening I remember only you, alone in the silence and your blazing fireplace. Looking into the fire, I forgot myself, the magic circle tormented me, and the excess of happiness and strength resonated with something bitter. What kind of thinking does the target have? Where did the madness take you? In what wilds and snowstorms did I take your warmth? Where are you? Is it really possible that, stunned, not seeing anything around, frozen, whitened by a blizzard, I am knocking at your heart?.. From his pen came words of love, repentance, longing, often striking in their fearless frankness. Long forgotten, under a light layer of dust, cherished features, you are again in front of me, and in the hour of mental anguish you instantly resurrected everything that had long been lost by the soul. Burning with the fire of shame, my eyes again meet only trust, hope and love, and the faded patterns of sincere words drive blood from my heart to my cheeks. I am condemned by you, witnesses of the silent spring of my soul and the gloomy winter. You are the same bright, holy, young as in that terrible hour when we said goodbye. All his life, until the end of his days, Fet could not forget her. The image of Maria Lazic in an aura of trusting love and tragic fate inspired him until his death. The drama of life from within, like an underground spring, fed his lyrics, gave his poems that pressure, sharpness and drama that were not there before. His poems are monologues to the deceased, passionate, sobbing, filled with remorse and mental confusion. The dear fingers again opened the dear pages, I am again touched and ready to tremble, so that the wind or someone else’s hand does not drop the dried flowers, known only to me. Oh, how insignificant everything is! From the sacrifice of a whole life, from these ardent sacrifices and deeds of saints, there is only a secret longing in an orphaned soul and pale shadows on dry petals. But my memories treasure them; without them the whole past is one cruel delirium, without them there is only reproach, without them there is only torment, and there is no forgiveness, and there is no reconciliation! After the death of M. Lazic Fet writes to her sister’s husband Borisov: “So, my ideal world is destroyed. I’m looking for a hostess with whom we can live without understanding each other.” And one was soon found. In 1857, Fet took a year’s leave, using his accumulated literary fees to travel around Europe, and there in Paris he married the daughter of the richest Moscow tea merchant V.P. Botkin, Maria Petrovna. As often happens when love does not interfere in a marriage, their union turned out to be long and, if not happy, then successful. Fet, with his wife's dowry, became a large landowner and satisfied his class claims through economic means. But there was no particular joy in this for him. In vain! Wherever I look, I meet failure everywhere, And it is painful to my heart that I am obliged to lie all the time; I smile at you, but inside I cry bitterly, in vain. Parting! The human soul endures what torment! And often sound is enough to hint at them. I’m standing there like crazy, I haven’t yet comprehended the expression: Separation. Date! Break this cup: there is a drop of hope hidden in it. She will prolong and she will intensify the suffering, And in a foggy life everything will deceptively dream of a date. We are not the ones who have experienced the powerlessness of words to express desires. Silent torment has been felt by people for centuries, But it’s our turn, and the series of trials will end Not with us. But it hurts that the lot of life is hostile to holy motives; In a person's chest it would be quite easy to reach them... No! snatch and throw; those ulcers may be healing, but they hurt.
Fet and Maria Lazic
The greatest love of Fet's life was Maria Lazich - the daughter of a poor Kherson landowner, a girl without a dowry (the girl's real name /Serbian origin/ became known only in the 20th century: in his memoirs Fet calls her Elena everywhere).
Fet met Maria Lazich in the fall of 1848, when he was in military service and quartered with his regiment in the Kherson province. The love was mutual, and the relationship lasted for several years. However, Fet, citing Maria’s poverty and his own financial insecurity, refuses marriage, believing that marriage will become an obstacle to his career. “I will not marry Lazic, and she knows it, but meanwhile she begs us not to interrupt our relationship...
This is the Gordian knot of love... which the more I tighten, the tighter I tighten it, but I don’t have the spirit or strength to cut it with a sword...” (from a letter).
Maria Lazic had extraordinary musical abilities: the famous Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt heard her play while in Russia and, as a sign of approval, wrote a farewell musical phrase of extraordinary beauty in Maria Lazic’s album.
Maria Lazich became the heroine of Afanasy Fet's love lyrics. When Fet met Lazic, she was 24 years old and he was 28. Fet saw in Maria Lazich not only an attractive girl, but also an extremely cultured person, musically and literary educated.
Fet is also guided by calculation in his relationship with his beloved Maria Lazich - having fallen in love with Maria Lazic, Fet, however, broke up with his beloved. Reason won, he did not dare to throw in his lot with the poor girl without a dowry. Here such a peculiarity of Fet was manifested: in everyday life his practical reason prevailed over feeling, but in poetry feeling, spontaneity, involuntariness prevailed over reason.
Maria Lazic turned out to be close to Fet in spirit - not only in heart. But she was as poor as Fet. And he, devoid of fortune and solid social basis, did not decide to link his fate with her. Fet convinced Maria Lazic that they needed to break up. Lazic agreed verbally, but could not break off the relationship. Neither could Fet. They continued to meet. Soon Fet had to leave for a while due to official needs. When he returned, terrible news awaited him: Maria Lazic was no longer alive.
Lazic died tragically under mysterious circumstances. Since then, her image will be included in his poetry, giving love poems a confessional, tragic quality. From now on, Fet will remember this love all his life: he will create a cycle of confessional poems dedicated to Lazic.
As they told Fet, at that tragic hour she was lying in a white muslin dress, reading a book. She lit a cigarette and threw the match on the floor. The match continued to burn. She set her muslin dress on fire. A few moments later the girl was all on fire. It was not possible to save her. Her last words were: “Save the letters!” And she also asked not to blame the one she loved for anything...
After the tragic death of Maria Lazic, Fet comes to the full realization of love. Unique and unique love. Now all his life he will remember, talk, and sing about this love - in lofty, beautiful, amazing verses.
...That grass that is far away on your grave,
here in the heart, the older it is, the fresher it is...
This misfortune left an indelible imprint on the poet’s life and work. Poems in which “she” is present are filled with tragedy and melancholy. Together with Maria Lazic, his ideal, which now sounded only in poetry - memories of her, also died.
From now on, his love lyrics will be fueled by dreams and memories (Alter Ego, etc.). In these verses there is no psychological portraits, nor individuality - Fet is interested in the experiences of people, but not the people themselves (“What happiness: both the night and we are alone!..”, “What a night! The transparent air is bound...”, “I won’t tell you anything.. ." and etc.).
Poem “No, I haven’t changed. Until deep old age...” does not describe or show the person to whom it is addressed. But from the lines of the poem we understand that it is dedicated to Maria Lazic.
No, I haven't changed it. Until old age
I am the same devotee, I am a slave of your love.
We see that until the end of his life, Maria Lazic remained his only love.
Fet’s masterpieces of love poetry, dating from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, are dedicated to her memory. (“Irresistible image”, “Old letters”, “In the silence and darkness of a mysterious night”, “You suffered, I still suffer”, “For a long time I dreamed of the cries of your sobs”, “No, I did not change. Until deep old age...” and others).
December 5 marks the 195th anniversary of Fet’s birth. The date is quiet. Nearby is a completely inconspicuous anniversary: 165 years since the death of the poet’s muse, Maria Kozminichna Lazich.
In Fet's biography, the love story for Maria Lazic usually occupies two or three lines. Only now are researchers realizing that the meeting with this amazing, out-of-this-world girl is the main thing in Fet’s life. The death of Maria in 1850 crossed out the poet’s entire previous life and gave a tragic sound to all his poems, even the most joyful and bright ones.
It seems that the first who wrote deeply and convincingly about this was the monk Lazar, in the world Viktor Vasilyevich Afanasyev - a literary critic who devoted his entire life to the study of Russian poetry of the 19th century. Here is one of our last conversations, recorded last winter.
How did the meeting of Athanasius and Mary take place?
It was like this: after university, Fet entered the military service. He ended up in a garrison near Kherson and met a girl on a neighboring estate, the daughter of an impoverished retired general. Maria was then twenty-two years old. She was a very sensitive and cultured young lady.
Did Maria know that the young officer was a talented poet?
Certainly! She loved Fet's poems since childhood - after all, he had been publishing them in periodicals for ten years, and he already had a book. Maria knew both Russian and world poetry very well.
Fet's most famous poem is considered "Whisper, timid breathing..." Does it have anything to do with Lazic?
The most direct. It is written in better days their relationship. Fet then wrote to his friend: “I was waiting for a woman who would understand me, and I waited for her.” That's how they fell in love. But Fet did not dare to marry. He exhausted both Maria and himself with his indecision.
The situation is quite modern. Now young people justify themselves by the need to “get on their feet”: to save up for an apartment, to make a career. What was Fet's excuse?
About the same. He was really poor, and Lazic was not rich. And so Fet made a complete break. If only he knew what despair he had brought Maria to! She felt that her whole life was slipping away from her. She begged a lot, begged him not to break off the correspondence, and finally realized that it was all over. And in the fall of 1850, Fet was struck by terrible news: Maria died.
What happened?
Her muslin dress accidentally caught fire. Maria, all on fire, ran through the suite of rooms and opened balcony door- from fresh air the fire flared up even stronger and engulfed his head. She covered her face with her hands and shouted to her sister: “For Heaven’s sake, save the letters!” Maria had Fet’s letters in mind, since pieces of the dress that had fallen off were burning everywhere. The girl rushed up the steps into the garden and fell there. Hearing her sister’s screams, people came running and carried Maria, all burnt, into the bedroom. Four days later, in incredible agony, she died with the words: “It’s not his fault, but I...”
Alleged portrait of Maria Lazic.
What happened to Fet after this news?
This was a completely different Fet. He realized that he had lost the woman he loved with all the strength of his soul. I lost the happiness of my life. Then he acquired everything: he became a rich landowner, a local nobleman, and a chamberlain of the imperial court. But Maria could not be returned. And Fet spent the rest of his life tormented by the fact that he left her, blaming himself for the girl’s death.
This story, it seems to me, belongs not only and not so much to the history of literature. It contains an eternal reminder to us of how fragile the first feeling is, how generally fragile and tender the vessel of life is...
Fet reverently preserved in his soul everything that was connected with Maria Lazic. In another poem, it seems, it is not there, but it only seems so. Everything is there - the music of words, the colors of nature, and the feeling of a poet - everything is about her. The poems dedicated to Lazic are not invented, not “composed”, no, the poet pays with his life for the memory of his heart. "Where are you? Am I really stunned,//Seeing nothing around,//Frozen, whitened by the blizzard,//Knocking at your heart?.." Fet was confessed, all open...
But not everyone felt and understood this.
Who could then understand what it was, what it was about and why? Even Fet's friends did not understand why he, being in his old age, continued to write about love. Konstantin Leontyev, writer and philosopher, was on friendly terms with Fet. He read “Evening Lights” and became so angry that he decided to write a letter to Fet “with friendly advice about love to be silent.” Elder Ambrose, Leontyev’s confessor, learned about this intention and forbade him to write such a letter.
Did the elder know Fet?
Only based on Leontyev’s stories or Fet’s poems. But this was enough for him. Elder Ambrose had a pervasive intuition. So he said: “No need.” He realized that Leontyev had the wrong opinion about Fet.
The soul of Maria Lazic did not leave Fet all his life: the last poem dedicated to her was written in 1892, the year of the poet’s death...
Regarding the poem “On the Swing,” Burenin maligned: “Imagine a seventy-year-old old man and his “dear” “throwing each other” on a shaky board... How can one not worry that their game may end unfavorably for the old men who have played out! This is how disgusting the criticism reached.
Fet couldn’t understand how people came up with this idea.
After all, for the pure, everything is pure.
That's it! Afanasy Afanasyevich wrote to Polonsky about this poem - only twelve lines! - and the rising newspaper persecution: “Forty years ago I was swinging on a swing with a girl, standing on the board, and her dress was cracking in the wind, and forty years later she ended up in a poem, and the fools are reproaching me...”
But still, “Evening Lights” brought Fet fame...
Fame? "Evening Lights" was printed in 700-800 copies and was not sold out for many years.
It turns out that Fet cannot be understood without the tragic story of his love?
Fet cannot be understood without Maria Lazic. Earthly immortality does not exist, but as long as by the grace of God our world stands, as long as people read poetry, the memory of Maria Lazic will live on earth. The image of a young sufferer, who has suffered a lot for her love, flies like an angel over the Russian fields. Without her, there would not have been that Fet who remained forever in Russian poetry.
But someone will ask: why didn’t he go to church with his repentance?
Fet was in church. When he lived in Moscow on Plyushchikha, he attended services at the Novodevichy Convent. But after forty years he developed asthma; they did not know how to treat it then. Afanasy Afanasyevich lived in his Vorobyovka in the summer, often not having the strength to even go out onto the terrace. He could barely breathe.
In general, I must say: he was too self-absorbed. Answering a home questionnaire in the Tolstoys’ house to the question: “How long would you like to live?”, he writes: “Least long.”
Friends did not understand why he wrote poems about love in his old age
In many memoirs of contemporaries one can find caustic and mocking reviews of Fet as a stingy and rude old man.
Yes, until his old age he struggled with the sins of his poor youth: ambition and love of money. But these sins did not kill the poet in Fet, nor did they destroy the enormous gift of love. And that our human courts... After all, not everything about Fet is revealed to us.