"A Christmas Romance" of 1961 or 1962 is one of the business cards Joseph Brodsky; he did not stop reading this poem even in exile.
Floats in inexplicable anguish
in the midst of a brick garden
night boat unquenchable
from Alexander Garden,
night flashlight unsociable,
like a yellow rose
over the heads of your loved ones,
at the feet of passers-by.
What is this flashlight? This, of course, is not Eternal flame, which was not yet in the Alexander Garden. Most likely the moon. The moon looks like a yellow rose, and the moon is shaped like the sail of a ship that sails in the Moscow night sky. Sleepwalkers are sleepwalkers, and the word "newlywed" suggests a honeymoon; "yellow staircase" is a staircase illuminated moonlight, and the moon also looks like a “night cake”.
But why does the moon appear in the Christmas poem and not the star? Because in the sky above the Alexander Garden there is already a star - the Kremlin one. And Brodsky resorts to a replacement, which becomes important trick in a poem. We remember that Brodsky is from Petersburg. The poem does not name, but constantly implies a river, yellow- this is the color of Dostoevsky's Petersburg, the poet calls the city the capital. There is also an Alexander Garden in St. Petersburg, near the Admiralty, on the spire of which there is a boat. Thus, there is one more doubling in the poem - these are two capitals: the real capital, Petersburg, and the illusory one - Moscow.
“And then it’s time to ask, perhaps the most main question Why does Brodsky need a chain of these doublings? The answer is actually very simple. The poem is called "Christmas romance", and in the finale the words "Your New Year in dark blue" appear. Here it is, the key doubling, the main doubling. Muscovites, modern Brodsky in 1962, Petersburgers, and everything in general Soviet people celebrated not the main, not a real holiday. According to Brodsky, the real holiday is Christmas. Instead, they celebrated a substitute holiday, they celebrated the New Year.
And in the light of this interpretation, let's carefully look again at the end of the poem:Your New Year in dark blue
wave amid the noise of the city
floats in an inexplicable longing,
like life starts again
as if there will be light and glory,
good day and plenty of bread,
as if life will swing to the right,
swinging to the left.In these final lines are collected motifs associated with Christ. “As if life would begin again” – resurrection. "Light and Glory" - motifs associated with Christian tradition with the figure of Jesus Christ. "Have a good day and plenty of bread" is famous story about five loaves. But all these images associated with Christ and Christmas are accompanied by a terrible and tragic “as if”. As if, because in this country this year, instead of Christmas, they celebrate the New Year.
CHRISTMAS ROMANCE
Evgeny Rein, with love
Floats in inexplicable anguish
in the midst of a brick garden
night boat unquenchable
from Alexander Garden,
night flashlight unsociable,
like a yellow rose
over the heads of your loved ones,
at the feet of passers-by.
Floats in inexplicable anguish
chorus of somnambulists, drunkards.
Photograph in the night capital
sadly made a foreigner,
and leaves for Ordynka
taxi with sick riders,
and the dead stand in an embrace
with mansions.
Floats in inexplicable anguish
sad singer in the capital,
stands at the kerosene shop
sad janitor chubby,
hurries down the street unprepossessing
lover old and handsome.
Midnight train newlywed
floats in an inexplicable longing.
Floating in the darkness of Zamoskvoretskaya
swimmer in misfortune random,
wandering pronunciation jewish
down the sad yellow stairs,
and from love to sadness
on New Year's Eve, on Sunday,
beauty note floats,
without explaining his anguish.
Floats in the eyes of a cold evening,
snowflakes tremble on the car,
frosty wind, pale wind
wraps red palms
and the honey of the evening lights pours,
and smells of sweet halva,
night cake carries christmas eve
over your head.
Your New Year in dark blue
wave amid the noise of the city
floats in an inexplicable longing,
like life starts again
as if there will be light and glory,
good day and plenty of bread,
as if life will swing to the right,
swinging to the left.
1962
In the first stanza of this poem, the reader is asked a riddle: about what kind of “ship” and at the same time “flashlight” in question? The obvious answer - about the moon - is confirmed several times when reading full text"Christmas Romance" The line "a bee choir of somnambulists, drunkards" (2nd stanza) provokes an attentive reader to recall sleepwalkers. The phrase "chubby janitor" (3rd stanza) ironically refers to the textbook Pushkin's likening of a round face "stupid<ой>moons<е>on the "stupid sky". And in the lines "the night cake carries Christmas Eve // over the head" (5th stanza) it is easy to recognize another disguised image of the moon, especially if one turns to Brodsky's 1964 poem with the "culinary" title " Slice honey months» . Let us also cite lines from Anna Akhmatova's Christmas poem "Bezhetsk" (1921): "And the celestial sickle is yellower than linden honey."
Note that the topic honeymoon , ascending to the image present behind the scenes of the poem moon, is being actively developed in the "Christmas Romance". Thus, the epithet "bee" is used in the second stanza of Brodsky's poem, partly as similar in sound to the epithet "sad", partly as continuing the theme of the honeymoon. In the previous stanza "honey" the theme was outlined by the image of the “yellow rose”; next will appear "train newlywed» ; and in the penultimate stanza of the "Christmas romance" we meet the metaphor " honey evening lights. picture of the imaginary wedding feast (“honey is pouring”, “it smells of sweet halva”) ends the 5th stanza of the poem, and “Christmas Eve”, like a waiter, "carries over his head" "night cake" of the moon (the association is reinforced by the previous lines of the 5th stanza, where the image of the waiter's white gloves appears: “frosty wind, pale wind / will fit red palms”).
Why is it the moon, and not the impending star, that is the secret "heroine" of Brodsky's Christmas poem? Because the neighbor of the moon, floating in the "Christmas Romance" "among the brick garden" of the Kremlin wall, is just a star, but the star is not the one Not christmas star . So the moon turns into a substitute, a double of the star in the poem.
Through allusions and omissions in object world"Christmas romance" introduces another image - the image of the river. It seems very likely that in Zamoskvorechye the poet, not in last turn, chose it because this area is grouped around the river and owes its name to it. By the way, in order to get from the Alexander Garden (described in the 1st stanza) to Ordynka (where the taxi leaves in the 2nd stanza) by the shortest route, you need to cross the Moscow River through the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge (in parentheses, we note that the Moscow Alexander Garden was laid out on the site of the Neglinka River enclosed in a pipe). Avoiding direct references to the Moscow River in his "Christmas Romance", the poet, on the other hand, uses "river" and "ship" images with might and main. The poem begins with a "ship" that "floats in inexplicable anguish". The poem ends with the dream that “life”, like a ship, “swings to the right, // swaying to the left,” the poem ends. In between these two ships, everything in the poem is also « floats" (a verb repeated 8 times in 6 stanzas) or, as in the fifth stanza, “pouring”. "Swimmer sad", "swimmer in misfortune" in the finale of the "Christmas Romance" the "New Year" itself appears, floating "on a dark blue // wave."
At the same time, Brodsky’s Moskva River is nothing more than a twin of another, native river, just like Moscow is nothing more than a twin of another, “real” capital. The very dedication of the "Christmas Romance" to a Leningrader with the name Eugene(and the "river" surname Rhine) , coupled with numerous "river" motifs of the poem, may refer the reader to the classic Petersburg poem " Bronze Horseman". And it seems quite obvious that Moscow at night as it appears in Brodsky's poem:
Floats in inexplicable anguish
chorus of somnambulists, drunkards...
extremely reminiscent of Petersburg, as it was described by the creators of the so-called "Petersburg text" - Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Andrei Bely ... The line about the "sad yellow staircase" from the fourth stanza of the "Christmas Romance" looks almost like a direct quote from Dostoevsky .
But even this is not enough. Turning again to the opening lines of our poem, let us recall that until 1918 (and since the end of 1991) the Admiralty Garden in the center of St. Petersburg was called "Alexandrovsky". So the “unburnable boat” floating in Brodsky’s poem over the Kremlin wall of Moscow is not only the moon, but also a gilded “ship” weather vane on the building of the Main Admiralty (one of the most common symbols of St. Petersburg / Leningrad is the emblem of Lenfilm).
The two capitals in the "Christmas Romance" are united by the motif of the "midnight train of the newlywed". As N.B. Ivanov, Brodsky is talking about the famous "Red Arrow" , which set off at midnight from the Leningradsky railway station in Moscow and from the Moscow railway station in Leningrad - two more "off-screen" counterparts of the Christmas Romance.
Now, armed with some, perhaps excessive, share of fantasy, let's try to restore the biographical basis of the plot of the "Christmas Romance". The Leningrad poet celebrates the holiday in Moscow, on Ordynka, perhaps with friends - the Ardovs. After drinking, he goes outside to sober up and wanders to the Alexander Garden across the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge. Everything floats and doubles in his eyes, the features of the old new one appear through the new old capital, the Admiralty boat through the moon near the walls of the Kremlin, he recalls that now the Red Arrow has set off, Moscow's "dead" houses are adjacent to those of St. Petersburg " mansions", a modern "taxi" flies by with old-fashioned "riders".
The main reason for all this ominous doubling is the following: in the Soviet Union, the celebration of Christmas was replaced by the celebration of the New Year. Therefore, instead of Joseph and Mary, their brutal counterparts appear in the poem - “an old and beautiful lover” and “a note beauty”. And in the finale of the “Christmas Romance”, hopeless “as if” is twice accompanied by lines that, with the help of a paraphrase, introduce the image and theme of Christ into the poem: the One whose “life will begin again”, Who is all “light and glory” Lekmanov O.A. A book about acmeism and other works. Tomsk, 2000; Sergeeva-Klyatis A.Yu., Lekmanov O.A."Christmas Poems" by Joseph Brodsky. Tver, 2002. See also the work written in polemic with us: Bogomolov N.A. About two "Christmas poems" by I. Brodsky // New Literary Review. No. 56. . For interesting thoughts on "A Christmas Romance", see the essay: Sedakova O.A. Music of the Deaf Time: (Russian Lyrics of the 70s) // Bulletin new literature. 1990. Issue. 2. S. 258.
The text of the "Christmas Romance" is given according to the edition: Brodsky I.A. Christmas verses. M., 1996. S. 5 - 6.
For similar motives in a completely different writer (Brodsky's antagonist in all respects), see: Chudakova M.O. The Star of Bethlehem and the Red Star by M. Bulgakov // Russie. Melanges offerts a G. Nival pour son soixantierne anniversaire. Geneve, 1995. P . 313 - 322.
Wed with a pun by Brodsky in his prose "Note for the Encyclopedia": "The main rivers flowing through the territory of Ufland are the Fontanka, the Rhine and the Pryazhka" ( Brodsky I.A. Note for the encyclopedia // Uflyand V.I. "If God sends readers to me..." SPb., 1999. S. 28).
But the realities of Moscow are not forgotten in The Christmas Romance either. Thus, the line “and it smells of sweet halva” is based on a very specific “olfactory” impression: not far from Zamoskvorechye is the Krasny Oktyabr confectionery factory. And the "Jewish accent" probably wanders near the open Soviet time synagogues near the metro station "Ploshchad Nogina". Probably, the very genre of Brodsky's poem - "romance" (and even "Christmas". Compare Moscow Rozhdestvensky Boulevard) should have been identified as "Moscow". We note, by the way, the undoubted reminiscence from the famous romance "Among a noisy ball, by chance ..." in the final stanza of the "Christmas Romance": "a wave amid the noise of the city."
"Christmas Romance" Joseph Brodsky
Evgeny Rein, with love
Floats in inexplicable anguish
in the midst of a brick garden
night boat unquenchable
from Alexander Garden,
night flashlight unsociable,
like a yellow rose
over the heads of your loved ones,
at the feet of passers-by.Floats in inexplicable anguish
bee move somnambulists, drunkards.
Photograph in the night capital
sadly made a foreigner,
and leaves for Ordynka
taxi with sick riders,
and the dead stand in an embrace
with mansions.Floats in inexplicable anguish
sad singer in the capital,
stands at the kerosene shop
sad janitor chubby,
hurries down the street unprepossessing
lover old and handsome.
Midnight train newlywed
floats in an inexplicable longing.Floats in the darkness of Zamoskvoretskaya,
swims in misfortune random,
wandering pronunciation jewish
on the sad yellow stairs,
and from love to sadness
on New Year's Eve, on Sunday,
beauty note floats,
without explaining your anguish.Floats in the eyes of a cold evening,
snowflakes tremble on the car,
frosty wind, pale wind
wraps red palms
and the honey of evening lights pours
and smells of sweet halva,
night cake carries christmas eve
over your head.Your New Year in dark blue
wave in the midst of the urban sea
floats in inexplicable anguish,
like life starts again
good day and plenty of bread,
as if life will swing to the right,
swinging to the left.
Analysis of Brodsky's poem "Christmas Romance"
Joseph Aleksandrovich Brodsky wrote his "Christmas Romance" on December 28, 1961. The poet dedicated this poem to his colleague in the "poetic workshop", Yevgeny Rein. Researchers of Brodsky's work write that the poet often read the work in exile, which gives reason to think that this poem was significant for him. What did the author put into the lines of this romance?
The poet acts as a narrator in the poem. He watches the streets, passers-by scurrying along them, looks at the buildings. The poet's gaze snatches out of the winter darkness various paintings, which are imprinted in the text with the help of expressive epithets and comparisons. For example, the author affectionately calls the moon "an unsociable night lantern, similar to a yellow rose."
Crowds of drunkards are moving before the gaze of Joseph Alexandrovich, singers, foreigners, lovers, city coquettes are wandering. However, all this motley people does not evoke a positive response from the poet. The New Year is coming, but the author does not have a joyful anticipation of the holiday. Even the seductive aromas that spill over do not cheer him up:
and the honey of evening lights pours
and smells of sweet halva,
Christmas Eve carries a night cake
over your head.
Why, then, that which pleases us so much today, did not inspire enthusiasm in Joseph Alexandrovich? Let's look at the date of the poem's creation. Recall that this is the time of the rule of the Communist Party, which sought to get rid of all the traditions and habits of the pre-revolutionary period. Therefore, the celebration of the New Year, and not Christmas, as was customary in tsarist Russia, was actively promoted.
It is the artificiality of this celebration that irritates the poet and causes despondency in him. Constantly in the poem there are anaphoras: “Floating in inexplicable anguish ...”
Epithets with the word “sad” are regularly found in the text: “sad singer”, “sad yellow stairs”, “sad chubby janitor”. It seems that all the people around the poet also feel his mood and are imbued with it.
The author cannot accept that a centuries-old tradition is being replaced by some kind of formal holiday. Indeed, during Christmas, people did not just celebrate the onset of the new season. They rejoiced at the birth of Christ, which symbolized spiritual renewal, the desire to lead a more respectable life. Therefore, in the text of the romance there are references to the Bible:
as if there will be light and glory,
good day and plenty of bread...
Here we see allusions to the miracle of feeding the people with five loaves and two fish. “Light and glory” refers to Jesus Christ himself.
The reader may notice that the poet does not share the hopes for a better future. The repeated “as if” reinforces the doubt that life will get better in the new year. On this pessimistic note, the poem ends, leaving the reader to ponder.
