home Fairy tales Ode to Derzhavin God summary. Ode "God" by Derzhavin: analysis of the poem

Ode to Derzhavin God summary. Ode "God" by Derzhavin: analysis of the poem

Before the mystery of being, horror in the face of death. But doubts and hesitations were not characteristic of the direct, whole nature of the poet, his believing heart. In the famous ode "God" (see its full text), we see the amazing depth of his philosophical thought, an inspired religious upsurge.

Portrait of Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin. Artist V. Borovikovsky, 1811

Ode "God" Derzhavin began to write in 1780, and finished only four years later. He himself said in his Notes that he wrote the first stanzas of this ode in a fit of inspiration, at night, returning home from Easter matins .. Having written the beginning, he could not finish his ode for a long time. Finally, already in 1784, the poet decided to retire in order to work on this work in silence. He left Petersburg for Narva and there, shutting himself away from everyone in his room, he worked for a whole week on the famous ode. He finished it, as he had begun, at night; in a dream Derzhavin saw an extraordinary light that shone on him. Waking up with the feeling of a divine revelation that visited him, he immediately, in tears of gratitude and love for God, wrote the final lines.

Derzhavin. Ode "God"

The first stanzas of the ode are devoted to praising the various properties of God: infinity, trinity, omnipresence, immeasurability, omnipotence, greatness. Almost every line of Derzhavin's ode could serve as the subject of an entire theological treatise. In lofty poetic language, Derzhavin sings praises to God:

"O You, infinite space,
Alive in the movement of matter,
Eternal with the passage of time,
Without faces, in the three Persons of the Divine.
The spirit is everywhere and one,
Who has no place and no reason
Whom no one could comprehend
Who fills everything
Embraces, builds, preserves,
Who do we call: - God.

Measure the ocean deep
Count the sands, the rays of the planets
Although the mind might be high,
You have no number and no measure!
Spirits cannot be enlightened
Born from your light
Explore your judgments:
Only the thought to ascend to You dares,
In your greatness disappears,
Like a passing moment in eternity.

Then Derzhavin speaks of the material world, created by the "single word" of God and broadcasting about His immeasurable greatness. With amazingly beautiful images, he depicts the creation of the luminaries:

“Like sparks, pouring, striving,
So the suns will be born from You;
As on a murky, clear day in winter:
Motes of hoarfrost sparkle,
Revolve, shake, shine:
So the stars in the abyss are under You.”

And yet, all these “millions of luminaries”, shedding their life-giving rays by the will of God” - before God - “like the night before the day”. How insignificant is the whole world in comparison with the greatness of God!

"Like a drop in the ocean,
All the firmament is before You,
But that the universe I see,
And what am I in front of You!

Here begins, as it were, the second part of the ode. Depicting, as far as possible, the greatness of God, Derzhavin recognizes the insignificance of man before God. “I am nothing before You,” he says.

"Nothing! But you shine in me
By the majesty of your goodness.
You portray yourself in me
Like the sun in a small drop of water."

This is the whole meaning of a human being: a person wears the image of God in everything, reflects the face of God in himself, “like the sun in a small drop of water.” This consciousness alone of our spiritual nature, of our existence, affirms in us an undoubted faith in the existence of God.

The poet boldly and proudly speaks of the significance that he, a man, has in the creation of the entire universe, speaks of the properties of human nature, combining the heavenly and earthly principles. Turning to God, he says that the Creator placed man "in the middle of nature", there:

“Where did you end the bodily creatures,
Where did you start the spirits of heaven,
And the chain of beings bound everyone by me.

I am the connection of the worlds everywhere,
I am the extreme degree of matter,
I am the center of the living
The trait of the initial Deity;
I'm rotting in the ashes,
I command the thunders with my mind,
I am a king, I am a slave; I am a worm, I am God.

But where did the amazing human being come from, commanding the thunders and daring, living “in the dust” on earth, to talk about the most exalted properties of God? "He (man) could not be himself." Derzhavin answers this question with words filled with love and gratitude to God:

“I am your creation, the Creator,
I am a creature of your wisdom,
Source of life, good Giver,
The soul of my soul and the King!
Your truth needed
To cross the abyss of death
My being is immortal;
So that my spirit is clothed in mortality
And so that through death I return,
Father! - into your immortality.

inexplicable, incomprehensible,
I know that my soul
Imaginations are powerless
And draw your shadow;
But if it is necessary to glorify,
That is impossible for weak mortals
Honor you with nothing else
How can they only rise to You,
Lost in the infinite difference
And grateful to shed tears.

These wonderful closing stanzas sound like a hymn of praise to God. In the ode "God" Derzhavin expressed his most sublime, innermost thoughts, all the best that was in his soul. In the whole work, one feels an extraordinary harmony, regularity and unity; it is hard to imagine that such an integral work was written with an interval of 4 years.

Ode "God" is the most famous of all Derzhavin's works. It has been translated into many foreign languages; there are 15 translations per French, eight in German; it has also been translated into: English, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Latin, New Greek and Japanese languages.

5. G.R. Derzhavin in the literary process of the 18th - early 19th centuries.

Derzhavin (1743-1816) - Russian poet of the Enlightenment, a representative of classicism, who significantly transformed him. Derzhavin develops the traditions of Russian classicism, being a successor to the traditions Lomonosov and Sumarokov.

Literary and public fame comes to Derzhavin in 1782, after writing the ode "Felitsa", which praises the Empress Catherine II. Derzhavin was appointed governor of the Olonets province, and from 1785 - of Tambov. In both cases, Derzhavin's attempts to restore order, the fight against corruption lead to conflicts with the local elite, and in 1789 he returned to the capital, where he occupied various high administrative positions. All this time, Derzhavin did not leave the literary field, creating the ode "God" (1784), "The thunder of victory, resound!" (1791, unofficial Russian anthem), "Velmozha" (1794), "Waterfall" (1798) and many others.

The ideological and artistic content of one. Derzhavin's odes are characterized by thematic and stylistic diversity. Among his works are laudatory, victorious, satirical and fsf odes. Derzhavin departs from the traditions of Lomonosov, creating a new type of ode, intermediate on the way to a narrative poem. If the odes of Lomonosov are conventional, and they are aimed at arousing the reader's interest in a certain idea, then in the works of Derzhavin the lyrical beginning is more pronounced, the thematic range is expanded. Derzhavin himself considered his poetry "talking painting": his odes often include landscape and portrait sketches, descriptions of historical events. Derzhavin ceases to describe individual saints. nature, his poetry rather gravitates towards a portrait image.

For him the purpose of the poet- glorification of great deeds and censure of bad ones. V ode "Felitsa" he glorifies the enlightened monarchy, which embodies the reign of Catherine II. Derzhavin develops the idea proposed by Catherine II herself in her "tale of Tsarevich Chlorine" (for the future heir). The smart, fair empress is opposed to the greedy and mercenary court nobles, and she is bred as a private person, this is a woman who loves walking, undemanding to food, and is fond of literary TV.

main object Derzhavin's poetics is a person as a unique individuality in all the richness of personal tastes and passions.

Many of his odes are philosophical in nature, they discuss the place and purpose of man on earth, the problems of life and death ( God ).

Before his death, Derzhavin begins to write Odu RUIN HOT from which only the beginning has come down to us.

Among heroic odes Derzhavin should be noted "to capture Ishmael" , "to take Warsaw", "on the transition of the Alpine mountains" . Derzhavin's favorite heroes are Suvorov and Rumyantsev. Derzhavin's victorious odes were close to Lomonosov's. On the unexpected death of Potemkin, Derzhavin writes ode "Waterfall".

Neodic poetry Derzhavin is also full of landscape sketches, portrait descriptions of historical figures. It was in the work of Derzhavin that the lyrics gained freedom from extraneous social and moral tasks and became an end in itself. In poetry 1779 outlined basic aesthetic principles of individual poetic manner Derzhavin: attraction to synthetic genre structures, contrast and concreteness of poetic figurative thinking, convergence of the categories of a historical event and the circumstances of private life in close connection with the poet's biography and his texts.

In "Monument" - the idea of the right of their authors to immortality. He recalls that the former abandoned the solemn high-flown style of od. By this, he clarified the idea of personal responsibility, which is very important for the further development of Russian literature, while his predecessors (Kantemir, Lomonosov, Sumorokov) believed that it was not the opinion of the poet that was important for the reader, but the universal evidence of his works.

Derzhavin creates a number of samples lyric poems in which the philosophical tension of his odes is combined with an emotional attitude to the events described. The poet gives historical portraits of outstanding commanders without a shadow of abstraction, which was St. Lomonosov. On the death of Suvorov, Derzhavin writes an article (not an ode!) "Bullfinch" (1800), where he mourns the death of Suvorov

His TV is characterized by a special autobiographical character (which Lomonosov also did not have), a synthesis of styles (high style and colloquial vocabulary coexist in one style), and a variety of verse metrics.

Let's go directly to the odes!

Solemn and satirical odes of Derzhavin.

In the ode "Felitsa" Derzhavin strictly adheres to the canon of the Lomonosov solemn ode: iambic four-foot, ten-line stanza. Against the background of this strict form, the novelty of the content and stylistic plans comes through more clearly. Thanks to the combination of ode and satire: the image of an enlightened monarch is opposed to the collective image of a vicious murza; half-jokingly, half-seriously, the merits of Felitsa are spoken of; the author laughs merrily at himself. The syllable of the poem represents the combination of the words of the highest with the lowest. In the ode, the poet combines praise for the empress with satire on her entourage, sharply violating the purity of the genre. Satire and ode merge into one genre, which can no longer be called either satire or ode. And the fact that Derzhavin's ode "Felitsa" continues to be traditionally called an ode should be attributed to the odic associations of the theme. In general, this is a lyrical poem, finally parting with the oratorical nature of a high solemn ode and only partially using some methods of satirical world modeling.

Civic poems Derzhavin are addressed to persons endowed with great political power: monarchs, nobles. Their pathos is not only laudatory, but also accusatory, as a result of which Belinsky calls some of them, namely “Velmozha”, satirical. Among them is the famous poem "To Rulers and Judges" (1787), it is characterized by an extremely clear composition. It consists of seven quatrains and is divided into two parts. In the first three stanzas, God angrily reminds kings and judges of their obligations to the people: they must strictly and honestly comply with the laws, protect orphans and widows, release debtors from prison. The fourth stanza sums up these exhortations sadly. Rulers and judges turned out to be deaf and blind to the suffering of the people. The poet only reminds the kings that they are just as mortal as their subjects, and, therefore, sooner or later they will face God's judgment. But the afterlife judgment seems too far away to the poet, and in the last quatrain he begs God to punish the guilty without waiting for their death. In the Bible, this motif of severe punishment of kings is absent. The final verses of the biblical psalm call on God to establish his own court instead of an unjust human court, while Derzhavin's last stanza contains a call for the merciless punishment of earthly rulers.

Civic poetry, clothed in biblical form, will pass from the 18th century into the 19th century. Following the poem "Lords and Judges" will appear Pushkin's and Lermontov's "Prophet", Griboedov's work "David", as well as transcriptions of psalms by Decembrist poets.

In the poem "The Grandee"(1774-1794) both beginnings, derived in the ode "Felitsa", are presented - laudatory and satirical. But if in “Felitsa” a positive beginning triumphed, and mockery of the nobles was distinguished by a playful character, then in the ode “Nobleman” the ratio of good and evil is completely different. The laudatory part occupies a very modest place. The center of gravity was transferred by Derzhavin to the satirical part of the ode, and the evil resulting from the indifference of the nobles to their duty is presented with such indignation, to which few works of the 18th century rose. The writer is outraged by the situation of the people, subjects suffering from the criminal indifference of the courtiers: a military leader, waiting for hours in the hallway for the release of a nobleman, a widow with a baby in her arms, a wounded soldier. This motif will be repeated in the 19th century. in "The Tale of Captain Kopeikin" by Gogol and in "Reflections at the Front Door" by Nekrasov.

Derzhavin's satire is full of angry feelings. Being introduced into the ode, it took on an odic artistic form. Satire was clothed here in iambic tetrameters, with which odes used to be written. She borrows from the ode and such a feature as repetitions, reinforcing her angry pathos.

Patriotic odes . belong to the large historical events: the era of Catherine, full of military victories and territorial gains. The names of the great commanders are Potemkin, Rumyantsev, Suvorov. The capture of Izmail, the siege of Ochakov, the annexation of the Crimea, the passage of the Russians through the Alps. Battle lyrics are different. "Autumn during the siege of Ochakov" (1788), "To the capture of Ishmael" (1790), "To the victory in Italy" (1799), "To the crossing of the Alpine mountains" (1799), "Field Marshal Suvorov" (1795), "Snigir » (1800).

Many odes echo those of Lomonosov.

Epigraph to the ode "On the Capture of Ishmael" directly taken from Lomonosov (and in some places echoes the "Ode on the Capture of Khotyn"), and the ode itself is full of images of a storm, a volcanic eruption and, in general, the end of the world.

The rest of the odes are generally similar. A long series of Derzhavin's poems about Suvorov add up to one big poem about the commander. Particularly noteworthy "Snigir", written on the death of a commander, in which Suvorov is compared with the common people: he "rides a horse, eats crackers, sleeps on straw" and in other ways approaches the soldiers. In general, a deeply popular image. Suvorov is merciless to enemies, but generous in Russian. In the odes, Derzhavin sings not only generals, but also ordinary warriors. One of the most frequently used words is "Ross", "Ross" is collective image patronymic son, patriot. Next to him is the image of a specific everyday person.

Odu "during the siege of Ochakov" wrote for the niece of Prince Potemkin - Golitsina, for the place of the anthem to Russian weapons, alternating pictures of war and peaceful life. It begins with a magnificent landscape, where there is a contrast between the peaceful silence of nature and the roar of a military storm - psychological and emotional. Conjugation of personality and history. Two types of personality in patriotic odes - a generalized collective image of Ross - the son of the fatherland, a patriot, an allegory of the national idea, the image of a specific everyday person.

Religious and philosophical odes of Derzhavin.

In the philosophical odes of Derzhavin, a person finds himself in the face of eternity. In late philosophical lyrics, the concept of eternity can be concretized through the idea of a deity and the picture of the universe, the cosmos as a whole (ode "God", 1780-1784), through the concepts of time and historical memory (ode "Waterfall", 1791-1794), finally, through the idea creativity and the posthumous eternal life of the human spirit in creation (ode "Monument", 1795, poem "Eugene. Life of Zvanskaya", 1807). And each time in these antitheses of man and eternity, man is involved in immortality.

The peculiarity of philosophical odes lies in the fact that a person is considered in them not in social, civic activity, but in deep connections with the eternal laws of nature. One of the most powerful among them, according to the poet, is the law of destruction - death. This is how an ode is born "On the death of Prince Meshchersky" (1779). The immediate reason for writing it was the death of Derzhavin's friend, the Epicurean Prince A. I. Meshchersky, who deeply struck the poet with its unexpectedness. On a biographical basis, the philosophical problems of the ode grow, which absorbed the enlightening ideas of the 18th century.

The theme of death is revealed by Derzhavin in the order of a gradual forcing of phenomena subject to the law of destruction: the poet himself is mortal, all people are mortal, "death is greedy swallowing the kingdoms." In the face of death, there is a kind of reassessment of social values. But recognizing the omnipotence of death, Derzhavin does not come to a pessimistic conclusion about the meaninglessness of human existence. On the contrary, the transience of life gives it a special significance, makes it higher to appreciate the unique joys of life.

Great popularity in the XVIII and even XIX century. enjoyed the ode "God" (1784). It speaks of a beginning opposed to death. God for Derzhavin is the "source of life", the root cause of everything on earth and in space, including man himself. Derzhavin's idea of a deity was influenced by the philosophical thought of the 18th century. This was pointed out by the poet himself in his "Explanations" to this ode. Derzhavin's god is not an incorporeal spirit that exists apart from nature, but a creative principle, embodied, dissolved in the material world he created ("alive in the movement of matter").

The next stage of its development, more concrete, can be observed in the great philosophical and allegorical ode "Waterfall". As always, Derzhavin goes in it from a visual impression, and in the first stanzas of the ode, the Kivach waterfall is depicted in magnificent verbal painting.

However, this landscape sketch immediately acquires the meaning of a symbol of human life - open and accessible to the eye in its earthly phase and lost in the darkness of eternity after the death of a person. The main part of the ode personifies this allegory by comparing the lifetime and posthumous fates of two great contemporaries of Derzhavin, the favorite of Catherine II, Prince Potemkin-Tauride, and the disgraced commander Rumyantsev.

In the evolution of the genre of Derzhavin's philosophical ode, there is a noticeable trendtion to concretization of its object: from general philosophical problems(“death in the ode “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky”) to the universal human aspects of personal existence (ode “God”). there comes a moment when the object of philosophical lyrics - a person in general, merges with its subject - the author of a philosophical ode and it is transformed into an aesthetic manifesto: the poet’s reflection on his personality and work, on his place in his historical temporality and on the posthumous life of the poetic spirit embodied in poetic texts (“My idol”, 1794; “Monument”, 1795; Swan, 1804 ; "Recognition", 1807; "Eugene. Life of Zvanskaya". 1807)

The time to sum up the results of poetic life was marked by the translation of Horace's ode "Exegi monumentum ...", which Derzhavin published in 1795 under the title "Monument". This work is not a translation in the exact sense of the word, it is a free imitation, the use of a common poetic motif filled with specific realities of his own poetic life, and along with poems that closely convey the thought of Horace. The same motive - poetic immortality in spirit and creativity - is developed in another free translation from Horace, a poem "Swan".

But Derzhavin would not have been Derzhavin if he had stopped at the level of a general abstract idea and symbolic-allegorical imagery.

One of the later masterpieces of the poet is the message "Eugene. Life Zvanskaya, which arose as a result of Derzhavin's acquaintance with Yevgeny Bolkhovitinov, the author of the Dictionary of Russian Secular Writers. In the message "Eugene. Life of Zvanskaya ”the motif of the daily routine comes to life, interpreted more broadly - as a reproduction of a lifestyle that, through a combination of household habits and daily activities, can form an idea of a person’s image. All the characteristic features of Derzhavin's poetic style organically fit into this general compositional frame: the specific plasticity of the world image, realized in landscape sketches and real still lifes; an empirical everyday image of an ordinary earthly inhabitant, not alien to the simple joys of life and contrasting with him with his spirituality the sublime image of a wise philosopher, a poet - an interlocutor of the gods at a feast of the spirit, a chronicler of the glorious historical achievements of his era.

Lyrica G.R. Derzhavin. Anacreon verses. Lyric hero.

Belinsky also noted that “the main, distinctive feature of Derzhavin’s poems is nationality, nationality, which consists not in the selection of peasant words or forced forgery in the tune of songs and fairy tales, but in the fold of the Russian mind, in the Russian way of looking at things.” At the empirical level of the world image, it is associated with the material signs of national life: it is no accident that Derzhavin's characteristic still lifes depicting a laid table rigorously evoke the epithet "Russian", which applies equally to dinner and to the image of the poet; like in a poem An invitation to dinner "(1795).

It is probably not deeply accidental that national self-consciousness, organically characteristic of Derzhavin's empirical worldview from the very beginning, acquires the meaning of an aesthetic category in the translation-imitative poetry of the late period of creativity, when he writes poems, combined in a poetic collection of 1804. "Anacreontic Songs". In this collection, Derzhavin included not only his free translations of Anacreon's poems and classical ancient Anacreontic lyrics, but also his original texts, written in the spirit of light lyrics, glorifying the simple joys of earthly human life. The plasticity of the ancient worldview was deeply related to Derzhavin's plastic worldview - this led to his interest in the genre of the Anacreontic ode.

The general aesthetic trend of translations of Anacreontics is the obvious Russification of ancient texts. Translating Anacreon's poems, Derzhavin saturates his translations with numerous realities and historical signs of Russian life.

This is how one of Derzhavin's lyrical masterpieces arises, the poem "Russian girls”, which in its very rhythm conveys the melody and rhythm of folk dance, and through an appeal to folk art expresses the idea of a national character.

As Gukovsky G.A. noted: “Derzhavin’s lyrical hero is inseparable from the idea of a real author ... Before Derzhavin, the poet was not known as a figurative unity ... Derzhavin created a single image of a living, real person, surrounded by everyday life, having both a biography and an individual psychological warehouse, character ... The significance of this discovery by Derzhavin, the discovery of a living individual person for Russian poetry, was enormous both in artistic and directly ideological terms.

In translating Anacreon, Derzhavin Russified the ancient text, introduced omens, the realities of Russian life, and even historical facts. Translation of Anacreon's verse "To the lyre"(I was going to sing Rumyantsev / / I wanted to sing Suvorov / / Thunder from the lyre was heard / / And fire flew from the strings). Therefore, against the background of the "alien" one can feel the presence of one's native national.

Anacreontic Odes of Derzhavin. Anacreontic poetry appeared in Russia in 1794, when Lvov published a collection of translations of Anacreon. Belinsky noted the nationality of Derzhavin's poems, the poet's Russian view of things. "Invitation to Dinner" (1795). Derzhavin's still lifes of the laid table evoke a feeling of precisely Russianness. The national cuisine and hospitality of the owner are typical for Derzhavin, they combine in one lyrical emotion a mundane motif with a spiritual quality. Even in translations, Horace D. turned to Russian customs and mores, Russified the translation. Russification has a double, folklore-literary character (describing a peasant’s dinner, he gives an everyday sketch of the Russian proverb “a soup pot and a big one itself”, thereby referring to the 5th satire of Kantemir, who used the same proverb).

"God" was first published in the journal "Interlocutor", 1784, part 13; and was soon published separately (apparently in St. Petersburg), again as a separate edition came out around 1792 (in Moscow). It opens the Edition of 1798. This is the first work of Russian literature that has earned wide world fame. The ode has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Czech, Greek, Latin, Swedish, Japanese. There are at least 15 French translations and 8 German. Derzhavin conceived the ode "God" "in 1780, being in the palace at the Vespers on Bright Sunday", at the same time he began to write, but could not fulfill the plan due to employment. It was completed in Narva in February or March 1784.

Derzhavin. Ode "God"

God

O thou infinite space,
Alive in the movement of matter,
Eternal with the passage of time,
Without faces, in three faces of a deity!
The spirit is everywhere and one,
Who has no place and no reason
Whom no one could comprehend
Who fills everything
Embraces, builds, preserves,
Who do we call: God.

Measure the ocean deep
Count the sands, the rays of the planets
Although the mind might be high,
You have no number and no measure!
Enlightened spirits cannot
Born from your light
Explore your destinies:
Only the thought to ascend to you dares,
In your greatness disappears
Like a passing moment in eternity.

Chaos being premodern
From the abyss of eternity you called,
And eternity, before the age I was born,
In yourself you founded:
Compiling yourself
Shining from myself
You are the light from which the light came.
Creating everything with a single word,
Stretching into new creations,

You were, you are, you will be forever!
You contain a chain of beings,
You keep and live it;
You connect the end with the beginning
And you give life to death.
How sparks pour, strive,
So the suns will be born from you;
As on a murky, clear day in winter
Motes of hoarfrost sparkle,
Rotate, shake, shine,
So the stars in the abyss below you.

Lights ignited by millions
Flowing in immensity,
Yours they make laws
Life-giving rays pour.
But these lamps are fiery,
Ile masses of verdant crystals,
Ile waves of golden boiling host,
Or burning ethers
Or together all the luminous worlds
Before you is like the night before the day.

Like a drop dropped into the sea
All the firmament is before you.
But what is the universe I see?
And what am I in front of you?
In the ocean of air,
Worlds multiply by a million
A hundred times other worlds - and that,
When I dare to compare with you,
It will only be a single point;
And I'm nothing in front of you.

Nothing! But you shine in me
By the majesty of your kindness;
You portray yourself in me
Like the sun in a small drop of water.
Nothing! - But I feel life,
Some unsatisfied I fly
Always a lad in height;
My soul wants you to be
Delve into, think, reason:
I am - of course you are!

You are! - the rank of nature broadcasts,
My heart says to me
My mind assures me
You are - and I'm not nothing!
Part of the whole universe,
Delivered, it seems to me, in a venerable
In the middle of nature I am the one
Where did you end up bodily creatures,
Where did you start the spirits of heaven
And the chain of beings bound everyone by me.

I am the connection of worlds that exist everywhere,
I am the extreme degree of matter;
I am the center of the living
The trait of the initial deity;
I'm rotting in the ashes,
I command the thunders with my mind,
I am a king - I am a slave - I am a worm - I am a god!
But being so wonderful
Where did it happen? - unknown;
And I couldn't be myself.

I am your creation, the creator!
I am a creature of your wisdom,
Source of life, giver of blessings,
The soul of my soul and the king!
Your truth needed
To cross the abyss of death
My being is immortal;
So that my spirit is clothed in mortality
And so that through death I return,
Father! - to your immortality.

Inexplicable, incomprehensible!
I know that my soul
Imagination is powerless
And draw your shadow;
But if you must praise,
That is impossible for weak mortals
Honor you with nothing else
How can they only rise to you,
Lost in the infinite difference
And grateful tears to shed.

Without faces, in the three faces of the deity.“The author, in addition to the theological concept of our Orthodox faith, understood here three metaphysical persons, that is: infinite space, uninterrupted life in the movement of matter, and the endless flow of time, which God combines in himself,” Derzhavin himself pointed out.

nature chin- the order of nature, the laws of nature.

Creature- i.e. creation.

Ode "Felitsa" (1782) is the first poem that made the name of Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin famous, becoming an example of a new style in Russian poetry.

The ode got its name from the name of the heroine "Tales of Tsarevich Chlorine", the author of which was Catherine II herself. By this name, which in Latin means happiness, she is also named in Derzhavin's ode, which glorifies the empress and satirically characterizes her surroundings.

The history of this poem is very interesting and revealing. It was written a year before publication, but Derzhavin himself did not want to print it and even hid the authorship. And suddenly, in 1783, news spread around St. Petersburg: an anonymous ode “Felitsa” appeared, where the vices of famous nobles close to Catherine II, to whom the ode was dedicated, were deduced in a comic form. Petersburg residents were quite surprised by the courage of the unknown author. They tried to get the ode, read it, rewrite it. Princess Dashkova, close to the Empress, decided to publish an ode, and in the very magazine where Catherine II herself collaborated.

The next day, Dashkova found the Empress all in tears, and in her hands was a magazine with Derzhavin's ode. The Empress asked who wrote the poem, in which, as she herself said, she portrayed her so accurately that she was moved to tears. This is how Derzhavin tells this story.

Indeed, violating the traditions of the genre of laudatory ode, Derzhavin widely introduces colloquial vocabulary and even vernacular into it, but most importantly, he does not draw a ceremonial portrait of the empress, but depicts her human appearance. That is why everyday scenes, a still life turn out to be in the ode:

Not imitating your Murzas,

Often you walk

And the food is the simplest

It happens at your table.

Classicism forbade the combination of high ode and satire, which belonged to low genres, in one work. But Derzhavin does not even just combine them in the characterization of different persons, bred in the ode, he does something completely unprecedented for that time. The “God-like” Felitsa, like other characters in his ode, is also shown in an ordinary way (“You often walk on foot ...”). At the same time, such details do not reduce her image, but make her more real, humane, as if accurately written off from nature.

But not everyone liked this poem as much as the Empress. It puzzled and alarmed many of Derzhavin's contemporaries. What was so unusual and even dangerous about him?

On the one hand, in the ode "Felitsa" a completely traditional image of a "god-like princess" is created, which embodies the poet's idea of the ideal of the Right Reverend Monarch. Clearly idealizing the real Catherine II, Derzhavin at the same time believes in the image he painted:

Give, Felitsa, guidance:

How magnificently and truthfully to live,

How to tame passions excitement

And be happy in the world?

On the other hand, in the poet's verses, the thought sounds not only about the wisdom of power, but also about the negligence of performers who are concerned about their own benefit:

Everywhere temptation and flattery lives,

Luxury oppresses all pashas.

Where does virtue live?

Where does a rose without thorns grow?

In itself, this idea was not new, but behind the images of the nobles drawn in the ode, the features of real people clearly appeared:

I circle my thought in chimeras:

Then I steal captivity from the Persians,

I turn arrows to the Turks;

That, having dreamed that I am a sultan,

I frighten the universe with a look;

Then suddenly, seduced by the outfit,

I'm going to the tailor on the caftan.

In these images, the poet's contemporaries easily recognized the favorite of the Empress Potemkin, her close associates Alexei Orlov, Panin, Naryshkin. Drawing their vividly satirical portraits, Derzhavin showed great courage - after all, any of the nobles offended by him could do away with the author for this. Only the favorable attitude of Catherine saved Derzhavin.

But even to the empress, he dares to give advice: to follow the law, which is subject to both kings and their subjects:

You alone are only decent,

Princess, create light from darkness;

Dividing Chaos into spheres harmoniously,

Strengthen their integrity with a union;

From disagreement to agreement

And from ferocious passions happiness

You can only create.

This favorite idea of Derzhavin sounded bold and was expressed in simple and understandable language.

The poem ends with the traditional praise of the Empress and wishing her all the best:

Heavenly I ask for strength,

Yes, their outstretched safir wings,

Invisibly you are kept

From all diseases, evils and boredom;

Yes, your deeds in the offspring sounds,

Like stars in the sky, they will shine.

Thus, in Felitsa, Derzhavin acted as a bold innovator, combining the style of a laudatory ode with the individualization of characters and satire, introducing elements of low styles into the high genre of the ode. Subsequently, the poet himself defined the genre of "Felitsa" as a "mixed ode". Derzhavin argued that, in contrast to the traditional ode for classicism, where statesmen, military leaders were praised, a solemn event was sung, in a "mixed ode", "a poet can talk about everything."

Reading the poem "Felitsa", you are convinced that Derzhavin really managed to introduce into poetry the individual characters of real people boldly taken from life or created by the imagination, shown against the background of a colorfully depicted everyday environment. This makes his poems vivid, memorable and understandable not only for people of his time. And now we can read with interest the poems of this remarkable poet, separated from us by a huge distance of two and a half centuries.

Section of the website:

Verse Ode "God" Derzhavin Gavriil Romanovich.

Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) was an 18th-century Russian poet and predecessor of Pushkin. One of his most significant works, the ode "God" was written by him at the moment of spiritual enlightenment.

Text of the verse below the video.

Time: 8 minutes 26 seconds. Performed by: Konstantin Denisov.

O Thou infinite space,
Alive in the movement of matter,
The passage of time eternal,
Without faces, in the Three Persons of the Divine!

Measure the ocean deep
Count the sands, the rays of the planets
Although a lofty mind could, -
You have no number and no measure!
Enlightened spirits cannot
Born from your light
Explore your judgments:
Only the thought to ascend to You dares,
In your greatness disappears,
Like a passing moment in eternity.

Chaos being premodern
From the abyss you called eternity,
And eternity, before the age I was born,
In Yourself You founded:
Compiling yourself,
Shining from Yourself,
You are the Light from where the light came.
Creating everything with a single word,
Stretching into new creations,
You were, You are, You will be forever!

You contain a chain of beings in Yourself,
You keep and live it;
You connect the end with the beginning
And you give life to death.
How sparks pour, strive,
So the suns will be born from You;
As on a murky, clear day in winter
Motes of hoarfrost sparkle,
Rotate, shake, shine,
So the stars in the abyss are under You.

Like a drop dropped into the sea
All the firmament is before You.
But what is the universe I see?
And what am I in front of You?
In the ocean of air,
Worlds multiply by a million
A hundred times other worlds - and that,
When I dare to compare with You,
There will only be one point:
And I am nothing before You.

Nothing! - But you shine in me
By the majesty of your goodness;
You portray yourself in me
Like the sun in a small drop of water.
Nothing! But I feel life
Some unsatisfied I fly
Always a lad in height;
My soul wants you to be
Delve into, think, reason:
I am - of course you are!

You are! - nature rank broadcasts,
My heart says to me
My mind assures me
You are - and I'm not nothing!
Part of the whole universe,
Delivered, it seems to me, in a venerable
In the middle of nature I am the one
Where did you end the bodily creatures,
Where did you start the spirits of heaven
And the chain of beings bound everyone by me.

I am the connection of worlds that exist everywhere,
I am the extreme degree of matter;
I am the center of the living
The trait of the initial Deity;
I'm rotting in the ashes,
I command the thunders with my mind,
I am a king - I am a slave - I am a worm - I am a god!
But being so wonderful
Where did it happen? - unknown;
And I couldn't be myself.

I am your creation, Creator!
I am a creature of your wisdom,
Source of life, good Giver,
The soul of my soul and the King!
Your truth needed
To cross the abyss of death
My being is immortal;
So that my spirit is clothed in mortality
And so that through death I return,
Father! - into your immortality.

Inexplicable, Incomprehensible!
I know that my soul
Imagination is powerless
And draw your shadow;
But if you must praise,
That is impossible for weak mortals
Honor you with nothing else
How can they only rise to You,
Lost in the infinite difference
And grateful tears to shed.

Source: Works of Derzhavin. T. I. M., 1798.

This "Confession" was written in 1807, when Derzhavin was almost 65 years old. Deep old age for those times, but how lively and frank poetry. Approaches to spiritual lyrics permeate his whole life - as well as a humble awareness of himself as God. He liked to remember that, according to a family legend, the first word that the Kazan boy Ganyushka Derzhavin uttered was the word God.

On the anniversary days, one could recall many episodes public service Derzhavin - a soldier, a tenacious manager, a fighter against bribery or, as we would say today, corruption. An adherent of a conservative ideology, a monarchist who resisted the republican reforms of the times of the "days of Alexander's beginning", which Derzhavin did not think was wonderful. But we will talk about two poems that have remained unsurpassed masterpieces of Russian spiritual lyrics.

This was during the first takeoff of Derzhavin's career. Catherine liked his mocking and at the same time complimentary stanzas addressed to Felitsa. He borrowed Felitsa and other heroes of that ode from a fairy tale that the Empress herself composed. Everyone understood who the poet meant by "the god-like princess of the Kirghiz-Kaisatsky horde."

He left the service in the Senate, with the captious Prosecutor General Vyazemsky, and was waiting for a new - honorary - appointment. The poet received almost three months of free life - such happiness rarely fell to him. He left his St. Petersburg house to tour the estates (at that time Derzhavin had few of them) with a kind of economic inspection. But it turned out differently: during this time he did not correct his financial affairs, but he tuned the lyre in an impeccable way.

Derzhavin did not cultivate an ecstatic attitude towards creativity - "scribbling poetry", as a rule, did not become a sacred rite for him. But in those days, the ode "God" appeared to him.

And this topic demanded solitude and peace, and perhaps not peace at all, but a rare flight of the soul. Derzhavin gained fame as an amusing poet. But spiritual lyrics are the highest manifestation of poetry. Lomonosov and Sumarokov left examples worthy of it, but their transcriptions of the psalms still seemed cold to Derzhavin.

Derzhavin firmly remembered the history of the creation of this - cherished - ode: “The author received his first inspiration, or idea, for writing this ode in 1780, being in the palace at the Vespers on Bright Sunday, and then, having arrived home, put the first lines on paper; but, being busy with a position and various secular bustles, no matter how accepted, he could not finish it, writing, however, in different times a few couplets. Then, in 1784, having received a resignation from the service, he was about to finish, but he also could not in city life; however, he was constantly impelled by an inner feeling, and in order to satisfy it, having told his first wife that he was going to his Polish villages to inspect them, he went and, having arrived in Narva, left his wagon and people at the inn, hired a little peace in the town with an old German woman so that she would cook for him; where, shutting himself up, he composed it for several days, but without finishing the last verse of this ode, which was already at night, he fell asleep before the light; sees in a dream that light shines in his eyes, woke up, and in fact, his imagination was so heated that it seemed to him that light was running around the walls, and with it, streams of tears poured from his eyes; he got up and at that very moment, with an illuminating lamp, he wrote this last stanza, ending with the fact that he actually shed grateful tears for the concepts that were entrusted to him.

So - with conspiracy, with visions, he managed to retire and at least for a few days, without a trace, indulge in writing ...

This powerful poem has several endings - when the reader needs to take a breath. Reading:

I am your creation, Creator!

I am a creature of your wisdom,

Source of life, giver of blessings,

The soul of my soul and the King!

Your truth needed

To cross the abyss of death

My being is immortal;

So that my spirit is clothed in mortality

And so that through death I return,

Father! — into your immortality.

Yes, this is the final climax! This is where the shocked reader should think about the Majesty of God. "Father! - into your immortality. Where is higher? All the words have been said, it seems impossible to continue. But Derzhavin again turns the huge frigate of the ode and directs it forward - further, further, along the waves and against the current:

Inexplicable, Incomprehensible!

I know that my soul

Imagination is powerless

And draw your shadow;

But if you must praise,

That is impossible for weak mortals

Honor you with nothing else

How can they only rise to You,

Lost in the infinite difference

And grateful tears to shed.

After reading the ode, putting the book down, we physically feel: here the poet gave everything, drained his emotions to the bottom and, exhausted, collapsed to his knees.

One modern poet, who loves and understands Derzhavin, convinced me that the very last stanza here is superfluous. Everything has already been said, she only smears the finale. Yes, Derzhavin often allowed "passing" stanzas - out of love for large-scale canvases. More authentic means more fundamental, and such an immense topic is certainly worthy of a long, lengthy ode. But here the final stanza was the key for Derzhavin! He honored her with an extremely heartfelt comment - about shed tears, which alone can complete such an ode.

Infrequently, Derzhavin, in explanations to poetry, let slip about the innermost. He was embarrassed by fits of inspiration, he was afraid to seem like a holy fool or a helix. And then he suddenly started talking about the high, about the divine. It turns out that prayer resonates in the heart with the same music, which a little later everyone meaningfully began to call inspiration. Derzhavin had less piitistic pride than the nightingales of the era of literary centrism.

The ode "God" is sometimes called the beginning of classical Russian literature. Grotto reports about "the first Russian work that became the property of the whole world" It is difficult to talk about the massive international success of a Russian poem in the 18th century. But translations of the "divine" ode were composed everywhere. Mostly, they appeared at the initiative of the Russian side ...

“The ode “God” was considered the best not only of the odes of spiritual and moral content, but in general the best of all the odes of Derzhavin. The poet himself was of the same opinion. What mystical respect this ode enjoyed in the old days can serve as proof of the ridiculous tale that each of us heard in childhood, as if the ode "God" was even translated into Chinese and, embroidered with silk on a shield, placed over the bed of the bogdykhan,” says Belinsky.

Vasily Mikhailovich Golovin published notes “On Adventures in Japanese Captivity” with exotic confirmation of Derzhavin’s fame: “Once, scientists asked me to write them some poems by one of our best poets. I wrote Derzhavin's ode "God", and when I read it to them, they distinguished rhymes and found pleasantness in sounds; but Japanese curiosity could not be satisfied with one reading: they wanted to have a translation of this ode; much labor and time cost me to explain to them the thoughts contained in it; however, in the end, they understood the whole ode, except for the verse:

Without faces in the three faces of the Godhead? —

which was left without interpretation, about the explanation of which they did not insist too much when I told them that in order to understand this verse, one must be a true Christian.

The Japanese really liked that part of this ode, where the poet, turning to God, says among other things: “And you connected the chain of creatures with me.”

... Derzhavin's attempt to explain the essence of the Trinity was not only the Japanese could not understand.

Eternal with the passage of time,

Without faces, in the three faces of the Divine!

Many considered this formula seditious, and Derzhavin hinted that one Orthodox canon was not enough here. “The author, in addition to the theological concept of our Orthodox faith, understood here three metaphysical persons; that is: infinite space, uninterrupted life in the movement of matter, and the endless flow of time, which God combines in himself. Allusions to the existence of many worlds and suns also puzzled the zealots of the canon. But nevertheless, the ode received recognition in church circles: prayerful sincerity conquered.

In Derzhavin, many either unconscious or thoughtful borrowings from German poetry are found. It is impossible to deny the roll call - here we recall Haller's "Eternity", and Klopstock's "Messiah", and Herder's "God", and Brokes's "Majesty of God". “Derzhavin's dependence on Western models generally seemed to go further than is generally thought,” A. Veselovsky believed. One thing is clear: German poetry pushed Derzhavin to a bold idea: to show the connection between God and man in nature, in thoughts, even at the everyday level. The most famous stanza of the Ode screams about this - perfect in form and depth of thought:

I am the connection of worlds that exist everywhere,

I am the extreme degree of matter;

I am the center of the living

The trait of the initial Deity;

I'm rotting in the ashes,

I command the thunders with my mind,

I am a king - I am a slave - I am a worm - I am God!

But being so wonderful

Where did it happen? - unknown;

And I couldn't be myself.

... Here, as in novels and screenplays, many years have passed. The great empress died, the emperor Paul died. French battalions trampled Russian soil. And Gavrila Romanovich began to visit the church more often, to take communion.

In his old age, he again turned to spiritual lyrics - and even during the days of the war with foreign invaders he worked on the lengthy ode "Christ". The Russian regiments were already fighting in France, the driven Napoleon fought from last strength throwing boys into battle. Then the winners - monarchs and diplomats - decided the future of mankind in the Austrian capital. It would seem that Derzhavin had to delve into the weaving of political calculations, but he wrote:

Who are you? And how to portray

Your greatness and insignificance

Incorruptibility to agree with decay,

Merge with impossibility opportunity?

You are God - but You suffered from torment!

You are a man - but you were a stranger to revenge!

You are mortal - but the scepter of death is gone!

You are eternal, but Your spirit is gone!

The result was a huge theological ode about Christ, an agitated reflection on the God-man, written at the limit of the outgoing forces. In those years, Derzhavin corresponded with the future Metropolitan Filaret, the then rector of the Metropolitan Theological Academy. He became an intermediary between the poet and strict spiritual censorship in the publication of the ode "Christ". Derzhavin replied to cavils: “No mortal can explain the fate and mysteries of God. In this case, it would be most useful to captivate only the mind with blind faith, and neither theologians nor philosophers should preach or write anything about the essence of God and His Providence; - but as they wrote, they write and they will write, and this is not repugnant Holy Scripture which says: For you are all sons of light, and every scripture is inspired by God for teaching; then I think that even this work will not cause discord in our Orthodoxy, all the more so if, in doubtful places, it will be honored with brief remarks by the holy fathers, as it should be understood theologically.

This is the last major work of Derzhavin, this is a dying appeal to Christ. He failed to rise to the heights of the ingenious formulations of "God" a second time. But how expensive is this impulse of weakening hands and a sick heart ... With such verses, Derzhavin passed away into eternity:

Hear me, O God of love!
Father of generosity and mercy!
Do not despise the bowed head
And the heart is sinful boldness
Don't blame me for mine
What did I try to explain to you ...

Vladimir Borovikovsky. Portrait of Gavrila Derzhavin.

G.R. Derzhavin. Portrait by S. Tonchi. 1805