There is a black poplar tree and a light in the window. “It’s night in my huge city...” M. Tsvetaeva. "You, walking past me..."

“It’s night in my huge city...” Marina Tsvetaeva

It’s night in my huge city.
From home I'm walking sleepy- away
And people think: wife, daughter, -
But I remembered one thing: night.

The July wind sweeps me - the way,
And somewhere there is music in the window - a little.
Ah, now the wind will blow until dawn
Through the walls of thin breasts - into the chest.

There is a black poplar, and there is light in the window,
And the ringing on the tower, and the color in the hand,
And this step follows no one,
And there’s this shadow, but there’s no me.

The lights are like strings of golden beads,
Night leaf in the mouth - taste.
Free from the bonds of the day,
Friends, understand that you are dreaming of me.

Analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem “In my huge city there is night...”

In the spring of 1916, Marina Tsvetaeva begins work on a cycle of works called “Insomnia,” which includes the poem “In my huge city there is night...”. It is a reflection of the poetess’s state of mind, who has a very difficult relationship with her husband. The thing is that several years earlier Tsvetaeva met Sofia Parnok and fell in love with this woman so much that she decided to leave the family. But the novel ends, and the poetess returns to Sergei Efron. However, her family life has already cracked, and Tsvetaeva understands this very well. She wants to return to the past in which she was happy, but this is no longer possible. Insomnia becomes the poetess's constant companion, and warm summer nights she walks around the city, thinking about her own life and not finding answers to many questions.

It is on one of these nights that the poem “In my huge city is night...” is born, the chopped phrases of which resemble the sounds of footsteps along deserted streets. “I’m walking away from my sleepy house,” writes Tsvetaeva, without planning her travel route in advance. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t care where she walks. The main thing is to stay alone with your thoughts and feelings to try to put them in order. Random passers-by see her as someone's wife and daughter, but the poetess herself does not perceive herself in such a role. For her, the image of an ethereal shadow that wanders through the night city and disappears with the first ray is closer rising sun. “And there’s this shadow, but there’s no me,” notes Tsvetaeva. The life impasse in which the poetess finds herself forces her to mentally put an end to both the past and the future. But the poetess understands that this is unlikely to solve her problems. Turning to her friends, she asks them: “Free me from the bonds of the day.” This phrase once again emphasizes that the world with all its temptations does not seem to exist for Tsvetaeva, and she herself does not live, but only dreams of those who are nearby. The poetess does not yet know that fate is preparing difficult trials for her, against the background of which unrequited feelings and family problems will seem like mere trifles. No more than a year will pass, and Tsvetaeva will realize that family is the only support in life, something for which it is worth taking risks, doing crazy things and even betraying her homeland, which from a mother overnight turned into a stepmother, evil and aggressive, alien and devoid of any sentiment.

Series “Best Poetry. Silver Age"

Compilation and introductory article by Victoria Gorpinko

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva(1892–1941) – outstanding Russian poetess Silver Age, novelist, translator. She wrote poetry from early childhood, and began her career in literature under the influence of the Moscow Symbolists. Her first collection of poetry, “Evening Album” (1910), published at her own expense, received favorable reviews. Maximilian Voloshin believed that before Tsvetaeva, no one had ever been able to write “about childhood from childhood” with such documentary persuasiveness, and noted that the young author “masters not only poetry, but also the clear appearance of internal observation, the impressionistic ability to consolidate the current moment.”

After the revolution, in order to feed herself and her two daughters, for the first and last time in her life, Tsvetaeva served in a number of government agencies. She performed poetry readings and began writing prose and dramatic works. In 1922, the last lifetime collection in Russia, “Versty,” was published. Soon Tsvetaeva and her eldest daughter Alya (the youngest, Irina, died in a shelter from hunger and illness) left for Prague to reunite with her husband, Sergei Efron. Three years later she moved with her family to Paris. She maintained an active correspondence (in particular, with Boris Pasternak and Rainer Maria Rilke), and collaborated in the magazine “Versty”. Most of the new works remained unpublished, although the prose, mainly in the genre of memoir essays, enjoyed some success among the emigrants.

However, in emigration, as well as in Soviet Russia, Tsvetaeva’s poetry did not find understanding. She was “not with those, not with these, not with the third, not with the hundredth... with no one, alone, all her life, without books, without readers... without a circle, without an environment, without any protection, involvement, worse than a dog... "(from a letter to Yuri Ivask, 1933). After several years of poverty, instability and lack of readers, Tsvetaeva, following her husband, who, at the instigation of the NKVD, was involved in a contracted political murder, returned to the USSR. She wrote almost no poetry, she made money from translations. After the start of the Great Patriotic War(her husband and daughter had already been arrested by this time) went with her sixteen-year-old son Georgiy to evacuate.

On August 31, 1941, Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide. The exact location of the burial in the cemetery in Elabuga (Tatarstan) is unknown.

Tsvetaeva's real return to the reader began in the 1960s and 1970s. Tsvetaeva’s confessionalism, emotional intensity and figurative, impetuous, meaningful language turned out to be in tune with the new era - in the last quarter of the 20th century, finally, “the turn came” for her poems. Tsvetaeva’s original, largely innovative poetics are distinguished by enormous intonation and rhythmic diversity (including the use of folklore motifs), lexical contrasts (from vernacular to biblical imagery), and unusual syntax (abundance of the “dash” sign, often omitted words).

Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky noted: “Tsvetaeva masterfully masters rhythm, this is her soul, this is not just a form, but active agent incarnations inner essence verse. Tsvetaeva’s “invincible rhythms,” as Andrei Bely defined them, fascinate and captivate. They are unique and therefore unforgettable!”

“Don’t laugh at the younger generation!”

Don't laugh at the younger generation!

You will never understand

How can one live by one aspiration,

Only a thirst for will and goodness...

You won't understand how it burns

With courage the warrior's chest is scolded,

How holy the boy dies,

True to the motto to the end!

So don't call them home

And don’t interfere with their aspirations, -

After all, each of the fighters is a hero!

Be proud of the younger generation!

Houses are up to the stars, and the sky is lower,

The land is close to him.

In big and joyful Paris

Still the same secret melancholy.

The evening boulevards are noisy,

The last ray of dawn has faded,

Everywhere, everywhere all the couples, couples,

Trembling lips and daring eyes.

I'm alone here. To the chestnut trunk

It's so sweet to snuggle your head!

And Rostand's verse cries in my heart

How is it there, in abandoned Moscow?

Paris at night is alien and pitiful to me,

The old nonsense is dearer to the heart!

I'm going home, there's the sadness of violets

And someone's affectionate portrait.

There is someone's gaze there, sad and brotherly.

There's a delicate profile on the wall.

Rostand and Martyr of Reichstadt

And Sarah - everyone will come in a dream!

In big and joyful Paris

And the pain is as deep as ever.

Paris, June 1909

Christ and God! I long for a miracle

Now, now, at the beginning of the day!

Oh let me die, bye

All life is like a book for me.

You are wise, you will not say strictly:

- “Be patient, the time is not over yet.”

You yourself gave me too much!

I crave all the roads at once!

I want everything: with the soul of a gypsy

Go to robbery while listening to songs,

To suffer for everyone to the sound of an organ

It’s night in my huge city.
I'm leaving the sleepy house - away
And people think: wife, daughter, -
But I remembered one thing: night.

The July wind sweeps my way,
And somewhere there is music in the window - a little.
Ah, today the wind blows until dawn
Through the walls of thin breasts - into the chest.

There is a black poplar, and there is light in the window,
And the ringing on the tower, and the color in your hand,
And this step follows no one,
And there’s this shadow, but there’s no me.

The lights are like strings of golden beads,
Night leaf in the mouth - taste.
Free from the bonds of the day,
Friends, understand that you are dreaming of me.

Analysis of the poem “In my huge city there is night” by Tsvetaeva

In the work of M. Tsvetaeva there was a whole cycle of poems dedicated to insomnia. She began creating it after a stormy but short-lived affair with her friend S. Parnok. The poetess returned to her husband, but she was haunted by painful memories. One of the works of the “Insomnia” cycle is the poem “In my huge city there is night...” (1916).

The lyrical heroine just can’t sleep. He leaves the “sleepy house” and goes for a night walk. For Tsvetaeva, who was prone to mysticism, the night had great value. This borderline state between dream and reality. Sleeping people are carried away to other worlds created by the imagination. A person who is awake at night is immersed in a special state.

Tsvetaeva already had an innate dislike for Everyday life. She preferred to be carried away in her dreams away from reality. Although insomnia causes her suffering, it allows her to look at things completely differently. the world, experience new sensations. The lyrical heroine's senses are heightened. She hears the faint sounds of music, “the ringing of the tower.” Only they maintain the heroine’s fragile connection with the real world. In the night city only her shadow remains. The poetess dissolves in the darkness and, turning to the readers, claims that she is becoming their dream. She herself chose this path, so she asks to be spared “from the bonds of the day.”

The lyrical heroine is absolutely indifferent to where to go. The “July wind” shows her the way, which at the same time penetrates “through the walls of thin breasts.” She has a presentiment that the night walk will continue until the morning. The first rays of the sun will destroy the illusory world and force you to return to your disgusting everyday life.

Insomnia emphasizes the loneliness of the lyrical heroine. She is simultaneously in the illusory and real worlds, but does not see support or sympathy in either one.

Tsvetaeva’s special technique is the repeated use of dashes. With its help, the poetess “cuts off” each line, highlights the most meaningful words. The emphasis on these words rhyming with each other creates a feeling of bright flashes.

The work “In my huge city there is night...” testifies to the difficult spiritual crisis Tsvetaeva. The poetess is deeply disappointed in her life. Looking for a way out deadlock she seeks to break all ties with the real world. During the day she only exists, chained hand and foot. The night brings her freedom and the opportunity to get rid of her tight physical shell. Tsvetaeva is sure that the ideal state for her is to feel like someone’s dream.