The search for a certain synthetic style of new art brought the Silver Age - a phenomenon of Russian culture at the turn of the century, which was experiencing its Renaissance at that time - to the solution of the historiosophical problem of East and West. The categories of "East and West" seem to be completely understandable, but at the same time they are so relative that they are difficult to define. European civilization ("the West") is a greater unity, as it emerged on the basis of a single ancient and partly Byzantine culture. "East", although called by one word, goes back to different sources: Indian, Chinese, ancient Iranian and, later, Arab-Muslim civilization.

The concept of "East "in the consciousness of the" West " underwent numerous, often radical transformations, was included in a variety of different and even mutually exclusive systems of views and representations. This also leads to a blurring of the boundaries of the very definition of "East", which has become one of the archetypes of Western consciousness. The Silver Age rushes back to the beginning, to antiquity, recalling the Indo-Iranian roots of Russian culture. In this regard, the example of Nicholas Roerich, who went from Slavic archaism to India, is significant. Persia, the ancestral home of the Aryans, becomes one of the poles of attraction during this period.

The Silver Age turned to the East under the great influence of the fashion for orientalism in European Art Nouveau, but on Russian soil, the aspiration to the East became not just an exotically piquant seasoning, style, and subtle fantasy of art. The peculiarities of the Russian soul, "sensitive to mystical trends "(N. Berdyaev), led to the fact that the culture of the Silver Age turned from stylistically formal techniques, refinements and correspondences to such depths of the spirit that its experiments in the field of aesthetic approach to reality soon turned into a search for a single religious and mystical worldview. Turning to the East meant abandoning Eurocentrism, radically changing the renaissance paradigm in culture, and Russia's awareness of its civilizational mission.

Turning to the ancient Iranian tradition after Nietzsche was a sign of good taste. Aphorisms from his most popular book, Thus Spake Zarathustra, were heard in every literary salon and even immortalized in stone. "When you build yourself a house, you realize that you have learned something "-such a quote from Zarathustra appeared on the pediment of the Metropol Hotel, an architectural monument of Moscow Art Nouveau.

The main philosophical problems: questions of life and death, the emergence of being from non - existence-the Silver Age compared with the traditions of the ancients and revealed in them those features that suddenly, after thousands of years, were again in demand. Zoroastrianism perceived space and time as infinity, dividing all space into two regions - the region of infinite light, Good and Ahuramazda, and the region of infinite darkness, Evil, which is ruled by Ahriman. The existence of two opposite principles is the content of the existence of the world. At the intersection of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness is the realm of life.

page 56
The Silver Age, sensing global changes, was aware of itself as an"axial time". European civilization, having reached the impasse of individualism, which proves its authority by force, was rapidly approaching world bloodshed at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. In this era, a new understanding of the world and the person in it is being formed, a new mythology is being created. A new worldview, in an attempt to determine when a mistake was made, returns to its origins and, removing the civilizational layer, discovers Indo-European roots.

So, Balmont in the poem "Fire" (1904?) confessed:

I used to be a fire-worshipper once,
I will always remain a fire-worshipper.
My Indian mindset is rich
A variety of sunrise and sunset views,
I am a shooting star among mortals.

[Balmont, 1983, p. 215]

Back at the dawn of the 19th century, the great Goethe, based on the German translation of Hafiz's Divan, published the poetry cycle West-East Divan. He noted that the Persians recognized only seven poets as true classics in five centuries, and named Firdousi, Nizami, Enveri, Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz and Jami. Goethe's assessment fueled the interest of Europeans in Persian poetry and the Orient, and every poet who claimed the memory of posterity considered it his duty to enter into a poetic competition with the immortals. So, A. S. Pushkin wrote the cycle "Imitation of the Koran" from nine works, Hafiz and Saadi were "familiar names" to him. Lermontov also addressed the eastern theme, writing the poem " Three Palm Trees. The Eastern Legend", which is close in size and stanza to the ninth poem of the Pushkin cycle.

Persian poetry gave examples not only of new forms, but also of principles of a different understanding of creativity: if the Western rationalistic consciousness strictly followed the logical connection of the internal links of the poem, then the aesthetic experience of Eastern artists was based on the kaleidoscopic nature of associative images, the montage of thoughts and emotions addressed not so much to consciousness as to subconsciousness. The search for a single synthetic art style was at the same time an attempt to gain a new consciousness.

Persia became the Mecca of classical poetry for the poets of the Silver Age, who felt in their hearts that they were already ready to compete with immortal models in terms of poetic skill.

KONSTANTIN BALMONT. SINGER OF FIRE AND SUN

K. Balmont in his poetry collection "The Calls of Antiquity" (1909) refers to the ancient Iranian holy book "Avesta". A complete translation of the Avesta into Russian still does not exist, there are only some fragments. All the more valuable is the work of K. Balmont, a brilliant expert in many languages, who at the beginning of the XX century gave the Russian public the opportunity to get acquainted with the poetic translations of this ancient monument. In the cycle dedicated to Iran, the Zend-Avesta is designated by nine works ("Aguramazda"; "Morning Prayer"; "Evening Prayer"; "Veneration"; "Grain"; "Dog"; "Hymn to Vayu"; "Hymn to Veretragna"; "After Death").

In the introduction to his translations from the Zend-Avesta, Balmont speaks (of course, in a poetic vein) about the common features and differences of Indian and Iranian cultures that have a single past: "Two fraternal peoples, having developed to the full each, their unique and unique face, both touched the edge, the pole. India, being alive, has comprehended what is connected with the Pole of Death. Iran, more devoted to the mundane, embodied the charm of Life in its religious and poetic works. But both India and Iran pray to the Fire and the Sun, the thoughts of the Parsis and the thoughts of the Hindus are fulfilled

page 57
radiance, the spicy smell of flowers and the fresh smell of field cereals. Only in the refined poetic and philosophical perception of the Hindus is the drunken smell of flowers more felt, or the pain of the heart in which intoxication has ended, and in the full masculinity of the Parsi life-building, lovers of the Earth, one feels all the beauty of a cultivated field, the poetry of a heavy sheaf. But just as the Hindus have soma, so the Parsis have gaoma; the spiritual color of both leads to bright ecstatic states and introduces them to a harmonious World-knowledge "[Balmont, 1909, p. 206.]. Balmont's poem" Sunday "is dedicated to the life-affirming philosophy of the Avesta, where the answer to Zarathustra's question about opportunities to defeat death, Aguramazda responds:

There is always a future.
In the present and in the past
Not from the past I said
The present of moments,
I didn't take it out of the former one
Blue enamel riding, -
Emeralds of all blades of grass
And rubies of all colors
From the nonexistent I
have willed a creative dream.
............................
The flame likes to be fun,
Life lives, and there is no death.

[Balmont, 1983, p. 393] (emphasis added)

"DREAMS OF HUMANITY" BY VALERY BRYUSOV

V. Bryusov was inclined, following K. Balmont, to look for the origin of all things in the East, or rather, in Iran. In his poem "In Baku" (1916), he exclaims::

Greetings to you, far and wonderful Iran,
You, the forefather of the world...

And elsewhere:

There are roses of Shiraz, there is the Shah-nameh garden,
Ghazals of Gafiz...
And dreams of the past shine in the mind,
Like a motley robe

[Bryusov, vol. 2, 1973, p. 243]

In his project, originally called "Mirror of Shadows" (1909), and later called "Dreams of Humanity", V. Bryusov decides to demonstrate "all the forms that lyrics have taken in all peoples at all times", and even try to "adopt the very manner of poets". He sets himself the task of "reincarnating" as the creators of the past and notes that the implementation of this plan requires a lot of knowledge, which, however, he had. In addition to his knowledge of many European languages, Bryusov, in his own words, "had an understanding" of Sanskrit (which he studied at university), Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Serbian; "looked into the grammars of languages: Hebrew, ancient Egyptian, ancient Arabic, Persian, Japanese, and although he did not have the leisure to study them, still I could have formed some idea about them" [Bryusov 1973, pp. 460-461].

Linguistic erudition was a characteristic feature of the culture of representatives of the Silver Age, but even against this background, Bryusov's knowledge looks very impressive. It should be noted that among the linguistic interests of the epoch, Eastern languages are becoming increasingly important. -

page 58
In one of his letters, he admitted that he was a translator of 1 languages and started his literary career as a translator: "...I would really like to learn Arabic and Egyptian for real. Also Chinese and Japanese. It will be true in the new incarnation" [quoted in: Azadovsky and Diakonova, 1991, p. 6].

S. A. Polyakov, co-owner of the Znamenskaya Manufactory and patron of the arts, at whose expense the Scorpion publishing house and the Libra magazine existed, spoke 15 languages, including "exotic" ones: Turkish, Persian, Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, and Japanese. Bryusov spoke of him as an excellent linguist, "who gave me precious information about the versification of Persian and Japanese", he stated: "Several Persian gazelles, read and translated to me by S. A. Polyakov, gave me immeasurably more ideas about Persian poetry than whole volumes of research on Persian literature" [Bryusov, vol. 2, 1973, p. 461].

In the detailed plan for "Dreams of Humanity" in the section "Middle Ages" Bryusov writes: "The Land of roses. Persia. - And then outlines for himself the milestones of poetic reincarnation points. - 1. The legend of Aguramazd and Angromanyu (Ormuzd and Ahriman). 2. Zarathustra's speech. 3, 4. In the spirit of Ferdowsi. 5. In the spirit of Nizami. 6, 7, 8. In the spirit of Hafiz. 9, 10. In the spirit of Omar Khayam. 11, 12, 13. From the Persian anthology. 14. In the manner of Jami" [Bryusov, vol. 2, 1973, p. 464]. He managed to accomplish little, but" in the spirit of Omar Khayyam "and" in the spirit of Hafiz " his lyre was set up first. The life-loving philosophy of Omar Khayyam is recognized in Bryusov's Persian Quatrains (1911), and the experiment with one of the types of the lyrical poem ghazals characteristic of the East (1913) is a clear tribute to Hafiz. Bryusov notes that the essence of "a gazelle (more correctly, a gazelle) is the repetition of the final words of the first verse at the end of the second verse and at the end of each couplet; everything else is decoration, which is optional for this form" [Bryusov, 1918, p.194].

NIKOLAI GUMILEV. PASSION FOR PERSIA

Ancient Persian culture, as an unknown mystery, attracted the attention of not only poets, but also artists at the beginning of the XX century. N. Goncharov and M. Larionov did not escape the fascination with the art of the East, in particular Persia.2 Persian carpets, book miniatures, and objects of Oriental applied art are becoming popular collectibles. The poet N. Gumilev, the head of the "Poets ' Workshop" and the founder of Acmeism, dreamed of going to the Persian front to replenish the collection of Persian miniatures.

In Persian, cute miniatures
The greatness of real life.

the poet wrote in the poem "Pantum" (1917).

Admiration for the Persian miniature opens the world of Gafiz to Gumilev. In 1916, for the puppet theater of P. P. Sazonov and Yu. L. Slonimskaya, he wrote an Arabic fairy tale in 3 paintings "The Child of Allah". Here is a brief summary of its plot: Gafiz becomes the chosen one of Peri, and the other characters-a handsome man, a Bedouin and a caliph-turn out to be his unworthy rivals. The dramatic tale is full of quotes from Persian lyrics, and the climax is crowned with an exchange of ghazals between Hafiz and Peri. The main theme of the fairy tale is the worship of the great poet, who stands up to the greatness of the world.-

1 According to his wife, Ekaterina Andreeva-Balmont, he "spent his whole life learning a new language. He was proficient in French, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Lithuanian, Czech, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. Worse Georgian, a little Japanese, Sanskrit " [Andreeva-Balmont E. A., 1996, p. 348].

2 One of the patrons of the creative group "Donkey's Tail" created by M. Larionov was the Persian prince Medicien Saltane [Mary Chamot, p. 48].

page 59
a pilgrimage with a young handsome man, a desperate brave man and a powerful caliph. The poetic gift is divine - this is Gumilyov's peremptory verdict. The critic A. Levinson, one of the most attentive connoisseurs of Gumilev, noted:: "The Arabic fairy tale" Child of Allah " exalts the vocation of the poet in the form of a dramatized parable. Here the image of Hafiz is surrounded by a whole host of memories: the figures of "1001 nights", already refracted through the philosophical tales of Voltaire, the west wind, as it is sung in Goethe's Divan, arabesques and enamel coloring of Persian miniatures. All these odorous herbs were infused with the fragrant phial of Gumilev's fairy tale "(Sovremennye Zapiski, 1922, No. 9, p. 313).

Larisa Reisner in her letters to Gumilev (1916) called him "the great Hafiz", which certainly flattered the poet's ego. Gumilyov found another example to follow in Imruulkais, an Arab poet of the sixth century (Timenchik, 1987, p. 128-129). In 1917, in Paris, in the tragedy from Byzantine life "The Poisoned Tunic", written by him for Diaghilev's seasons, Gumilev put images of the famous Kasida Imruulkais into the mouth of the hero (again - the poet) [ibid.].

DREAMS OF SHIRAZ. SERGEY YESENIN

Persia, like a magnet, attracted Sergei Yesenin. Despite repeated attempts, he never managed to see the real landscapes of the cherished land. He needed a creative boost: "Understand, too," he urged Mrs. Benislavskaya, who dissuaded him from going to Persia, " understand that I am going to study. I want to go even to Shiraz and I think I will definitely go there. All the best Persian lyricists were born there 3. And it is not for nothing that Muslims say: if he does not sing, then he is not from Shushu, if he does not write, then he is not from Shiraz "[Yesenin, 1970, p. 291]. Yesenin read everything that was available to him at that moment, and, giving himself up to inspiration, was transported to the imaginary Persia of the Spirit (by analogy with Gumilev's India of the Spirit).

Three poets-Khayyam, Saadi and Firdousi-form the real component of Yesenin's Spirit of Persia, he constantly conducts an internal dialogue with them, so that it seems as if they are not his distant predecessors, but are directly present here and now. The poet is jealous of his beloved not for anyone, but for Saadi ("You said that Saadi only kissed his chest..."), enters into a poetic polemic with Khayyam and at parting, glancing at the landscapes of Persia, tries to keep in mind the main feature: "The blue homeland of Firdusi". Longing for an unfulfilled dream, willingness to make great sacrifices ("my honor is sold for a song", but what is the honor, "let my whole life be sold for a song"), "to see the distant blue land", where "roses burn like lamps", to smell "oleander and leuco", to hide under a chestnut tree from the heat, to drink red tea in a teahouse, to talk to a money changer in the bazaar, to tear off the veil from your beloved and disappear in her eyes without a trace - all this energy of unrealized desire was embodied in " Persian Motifs "(1925): "I have never been to the Bosphorus...", "I did not go to Baghdad I did not go to Baghdad". with the caravan, I did not carry silk there and henna..."- this repeated refrain of denial fascinates and hypnotizes, leads to a state of ecstasy ("And you will be charmed with bliss"). Persia of the Spirit is the poet's cherished, unfulfilled dream, which has remained an unattainable ideal for him forever:

You're good, Persia, I know.
................................
And in my wandering destiny
To people near and far me
I'll talk about you -
And I won't forget you forever.

[Yesenin, 1970, vol. 1, p. 233].

3 It is worth recalling that Zarathustra was also born in Shiraz.

page 60
The oriental background of" Persian Motifs " contributes to the disclosure of the main ideas of the cycle-the affirmation of love, beauty and harmony. The origins of reflections on eternal truths make it possible to comprehend those invisible connecting threads that arise between the soul of the medieval Persian, the Ryazan poet and the reader, to feel the unity of the world, past and present, East and West... The Yesenin cycle originated in the aesthetic atmosphere of the Silver Age culture, for which the East became a role model. The "Persian Motifs" were not without allusions from the Arabian Nights-references to the "pensive peri" from Khorossan, the flute of Hassan and the main character of Arab fairy tales: "Far, far away there is Baghdad, / Where Scheherazade lived and sang"

ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS OF THE SILVER AGE

Not only Sergey Yesenin was captivated by the image of a wonderful storyteller. The plots and images of the famous cycle of Arab fairy tales were received with incredible enthusiasm by representatives of the Silver Age. N. Gumilev enthusiastically wrote the script "Harun al-Rashid" (a film based on it was never made), even consulting for this purpose with the largest orientalist I. Yu. Krachkovsky. His poem "Dazzling" (1912)is dedicated to the fairy tales of the "Thousand and One Nights".:

You took the sailors away
To the caves of djinn and wolves,
Holding an ancient grudge,
And the suspension bridges
Through the dark red bushes
To the feast of Harun al-Rashid.

[Nikolai Gumilev. Alien Sky, 1912]

page 61
During Diaghilev's Russian seasons in France, the ballet Scheherazade was a resounding success in 1910. The Parisian audience flocked to the Grand Opera to enjoy the amazing spectacle created by a team of brilliant masters of their craft: choreography by M. Fokin, among the performers-V. Nijinsky (negro), I. Rubinstein (Zobeida), M. Bulgakov (shah), S. Grigoriev (eunuch). Parisian critics recognized Scheherazade as a masterpiece and the best work that Diaghilev has managed to produce so far [Apollon, 1910, No. 9, p.26].

The lion's share of success went to L. Bakst, the artist and author of the libretto. "Tell Bakst," Marcel Proust said in a letter, " that I feel a magical surprise at not knowing anything more beautiful than Scheherazade." by: Sergey Diaghilev and Russian Art, 1982, p. 189].

The idea of staging the ballet was born in Bakst not without the influence of the Sufi 4 feasts on the tower at Vyach. Ivanova street. The poet Mikhail Kuzmin regularly mentioned reading Arabic fairy tales in his 1907 diary, 5 and the three ghazals from his book Autumn Lakes are free transcriptions of verses from these tales. L. Bakst's sketches were immediately acquired by the Paris Museum of Decorative Arts. The performance gave rise to associations with revived paintings in a gold frame, the scenery was compared to a huge Persian carpet.6 During the intermission, French artists flocked backstage to get a closer look at the sets and costumes. A bright green curtain hung down from the top of the soft bed.-

4 See the chapter "Petersburg Hafizites" in Bogomolov, 1995, pp. 67-98.

5 "We read 2 fairy tales from "1001 nights", sat up to the light" - an entry from M. Kuzmin's diary of May 15 [cit. in: Bogomolov, 1995, p. 227].

6 On ancient Persian carpets, the background is called zeman, which means space, and the whole system of the pattern superimposed on it is called zemin, i.e. time. Thus, the ornament is not a formal interweaving of lines and patterns at the whim of the artist, but is a materialized formula for a physical picture of the world. This syncretism of ancient art reveals the true meaning of art that reflects the face of being: "Our world is a stream of metaphors and symbols, a pattern," wrote the great Omar Khayyam.

page 62
kimi folds onto the orange-red flatness of the carpeted floor. This carpet, a delicate red to enhance the heavy luxury of the harem, was painted by Bakst himself. The green of the drapery glittered with gold and black Persian ornaments, the depth of the stage was lost in the blue gloom, all the contours dissolved, shimmering and shimmering. The costumes of the performers complemented the main colors of the scenery with harmonious bright chords. The yellow-and-red suit of the chief eunuch was ablaze, and the orange trousers of the odalisques dancing before the Shah sparkled like sparks. In the orgy scene, pink Almeis in dark red and green veils, bronze Hindus, and swarthy Negroes in silver brocade garlanded with gold entwined bodies surrounded the Shah's wife, Zobeida, and her mulatto lover. After the triumph of the Scheherazade, low sofas with many pillows appeared in Paris salons, and socialites at receptions dressed in bloomers and put a turban on their heads. So Bakst's Russian Scheherazade dictated fashion to the French.

"I SAW THE BLUE GHOSTS OF THE MOUNTAINS OF PERSIA." KHLEBNIKOV IN IRAN

The imaginary journey to the East in the case of Yesenin is not an isolated event in the history of the Silver Age. In this series and "journey to China" in a drunken company with a meter of Rabelais by the same Gumilev ("Only in China we will drop anchor, / Even on the way and meet death!"), and Kuzmin's desire to" look at the Chinese dawn", and a cycle of paintings by M. Larionov from an unrealized trip to Turkey. If you do not put your lips to the source of the purest spirituality of the East, then at least in imagination you can escape to the reserved land (the composer Scriabin, for example, began experimenting with yogic psychotechnics of disembodied travel) [see: Bowers Faubion, 1969, vol. 2]. Maximilian Voloshin, who raved about the East, wrote in his diary for 1908 how a certain doctor of Arabic sciences predicted a trip to Persia on the basis of Kabbalistics [Voloshin, 1991, p.301], which unfortunately never came true.

Velimir Khlebnikov managed to realize the idea of a pilgrimage to the homeland of Zarathustra and the greatest poets.

In 1921, he served with the Red Army units sent to help the Iranian revolutionaries who had raised an uprising in Gilan. "I am an employee of a Russian weekly on the desert coast of Persia," he writes to his family from Shahsevar. "Life here is very boring, there is no business, the society is adventurers, adventurers of the gangs of Amerigo Vespuchi and Ferdinand Cortez" [Khlebnikov, 1933, vol. 5, p. 322]. He is listed as a lecturer at the Propaganda Council of the Persian Red Army and together with a group of revolutionary troops led by Ehsanullah Khan, the head of the revolutionary movement in Gilan, goes on a campaign against Tehran through the province of Mazandaran.

"The banner of the Presidents of the Globe follows me everywhere, and is now flying in Persia," he wrote to his sister. - 13 / IV I got the right to leave, 14 / IV on the " Kursk "(the transport ship on which Khlebnikov sailed. - E. Sh.) in calm weather, similar to the smile of the sky addressed to all mankind, sailed south to the blue shores of Persia. The snow-silvered peaks of the mountain looked like the prophet's eyes hidden in the brows of the clouds. The snow patterns of the peaks were like the work of a stern thought in the depths of God's eyes, the stern eyes of a stately thought. The blue wonder of Persia stood above the sea, hanging above the endless silk of red and yellow waves, reminding one of the eyes of fate of another world. The flowing golden south, like the finest silks spread before the feet of the Mahomet of the north, passed to the northward astern of the Kursk into a dim, dull blue silver, where the greener transparent glass of the waves whirled brighter than grass; and the snow snakes of foam bit themselves and writhed in the convulsions of the executed... I was bathed in hot sea water, dressed in underwear and fed, and affectionately called "little brother". I, an old hunter of foresight, am proud to accept this title of " little brother."-

page 63
the name of the vessel "Kursk" as its sea baptism. After the winter in Baku, which was like the Nerchinsk mines, when I finally achieved my goal: I found the great law of time, under which I subscribe with all my past and future, and for this I listed all the wars of the globe, which I believe in and will make others believe. (...) When I left Baku, I started studying Mirza Baba 7, the Persian prophet, and I will read about him here for Persians and Russians: "Mirza Bab and Jesus". Anzeli greeted me with a wonderful afternoon in Italy. The silver visions of the mountains stood like a blue ghost above the clouds, lifting up their snowy crowns... we rushed to see the narrow Japanese streets of Anzeli, the green-tiled baths, the mosques, the round towers of earlier centuries covered in green moss, and the golden shriveled apples in blue foliage. Autumn stood out like golden drops on the skin of these golden suns of Persia, for whom the green tree serves as the sky. This multi-eyed golden sun sky of the gardens rises above the stone wall of each garden, and chadras with deep black eyes wander nearby " 8 [Khlebnikov, 1933, vol. 5, pp. 319-320].

On the ancient earth, Khlebnikov feels like a "priest of flowers", a prophet whom the forerunners came running to meet. He, who threw a bridle on the Serpent of time, relates himself to "Razin topsy-turvy":

He robbed and burned, and I am the word of God.
Steamboat-wind farm
It came through my mouth.
Razin devu
I drowned him in the water.
What will I do? On the contrary? I'll save you!
Will see. Time doesn't like fishing rods.
And he won't open his mouth until then.

[Khlebnikov, 1987, p. 350]

Perhaps the maiden that the hero is going to save is the one mentioned in the poem by Gurriet el-Ain (Gorratolein)9, who received the nickname Tahireh (the purest) - a poetess, a disciple of Sayyid Kazem Rashti and an associate of his successor, Sayyid Ali-Mohammed, who went down in history under the name of Bab. She was the daughter of a mullah and received a good education, at the age of 14 she was married. She was prepared for a typical life of a mother of a family, she gave birth to three children, two sons and a daughter. But her passion for a new religious teaching led to a breakup with her husband, divorce and condemnation from the next of kin. Babism, which claims the right to be considered the only perfect religion of all-embracing love, lifted the prohibitions that allowed women to be considered a lower-order being, freed her from the veil and allowed her to spread the teaching, effectively taking on the mission of an apostle. Tahireh was a trans-

7 Persian preacher and philosopher. "Bab was born on October 5, 1819 in Shiraz. He began his sermon under Mahmed Shah" (from Khlebnikov's notes). Various dates of Sayyid Ali-Mohammad's life (1814-1844) or (1820-1850) are given. Such discrepancies are explained by the fact that the Shah's regime fought in every possible way against the dissemination of his teachings and all documents were destroyed. Sayyid Ali-Mohammad in Karbala, Iraq, became a disciple of Sayyid Kazem Rashti, who headed the Sheikhiye religious group, and after his death became the leader of this group. He is now considered the founder of the latest of the world's religions, the Baha'i faith. According to Arnold Toynbee, " Baha'iism is an independent religion on a par with Islam, Christianity, and other world religions "(Hatcher and Martin, 1995).

8 In a postscript to the letter, Khlebnikov added: "I told the Persians that I was a Russian prophet."

9 Gorratholhain is also a nickname meaning "light of the eyes", her real name was Zarrin-taj (1807-1847). Comparing the dates of Tahireh's and Bab's deaths, we can conclude that the Bab was executed in 1844, since Tahireh was arrested and executed for spreading his teachings after the religious leader's death. Khlebnikov proposed to erect a monument to her, which, according to his theory, should be located at the other end of the earth's axis from the place of birth. "In the shallow Channel, a monument to Guriet El Ain, a Persian woman who was burned at the stake, can be erected in the sea, coming out of the water. Let gulls land on it near a steamer full of Englishmen" [Khlebnikov, 1933, vol. 5, p. 160].

page 64
the first woman in the history of Iran to throw off her hijab. Sarah Bernhardt, the famous French actress, called Tahireh the Iranian Joan of Arc.

Gurriet El Ain,
Tahireh, sama
She tightened the ends of the ropes around her,
After asking the executioners, turning his head:
"Nothing else?" -
"Reins and tin
In the groom's chest!"
This is her dead body: snowy mountains.

[Khlebnikov, 1987, p. 351]

Khlebnikov draws a parallel between the revolt of Stenka Razin and the revolt led by Sayyid Ali-Mohammad Shirazi, who belonged to the Sheikhi sect, who saw the imperfection of outdated Sharia dogmas as the cause of all the misery of the people. In 1844. Sayyid Ali-Mohammed declared himself to be the Bab, i.e., the gateway through which God sent a new creed to mankind, and he declared that his main purpose was to prepare for the coming of the universal messiah, the savior, whose message would be brought to all nations. By order of the Shah, he was shot, and then his companion was executed.

The search for a single spiritual Absolute by the culture of the Silver Age occupied thinkers of various directions. Khlebnikov and Leo Tolstoy found in the Iranian rebel-reformer of Islam of the XIX century a desire to unite different cultures. The search for Unity was one of the central problems at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Real impressions and events in Khlebnikov's poem appear before us cinematically vividly and colorfully: here are exotic landscapes of Persia - "scarlet gardens", "white mountains", "seas turn blue beyond measure"; and ethnographic sketches of the eastern bazaar - "deposits of blue pitchers", "green chickens, red eggshells", skinheads merchants "with hemispheres as black as skulls", women in black chadors walking "with wine sealed with a white head over a black glass"... And the scene of the dedication of the newspaper employee Ali to the Presidency of the globe, and the feast "on the tablecloth of the shore" by a sleeping fish, and the overnight stay on the road, and the detention of a dozen soldiers, and the free boat crossing from Anzeli to Kazyan. Khlebnikov is surprised by the successful resolution of the most improbable situations and understands that his appearance as a prophet helps him:

Do I give you happiness? Why are they so willing to take me?
There is nothing more honorable in Persia -
Being a Ghul-mullah,
The treasurer of the ink of gold at the spring.

[Khlebnikov, 1987, p. 358]

"I'm in Persia," he writes to his family. "I saw the blue ghosts of the mountains of Persia, the yellow riverbed of Iran, on the banks of which, like the spears of a sleeping army, the panicles of sedge sway. He fired a gun at walleye spawning eggs, and in the evenings he frightened flocks of white herons that had finished the dense arbors of trees flooded with water with their S (es) of snow. The coast of Iran is covered with rotten walleye and catfish.

Anzeli consists of many tiled houses covered with carpets of green moss, cute red flowers. Golden narynchi and portakhalars line the tree branches. Dervishes with gnarled staffs like swirling snakes, the stern faces of prophets - their singing resounds in the streets. The dried-up faces of Persian women behind a black veil, the pampered faces of merchants, the whole of Persia gravitating towards France: they have two capitals Paris and Teheran, and the charming singing of chicals (jackals), now crying as a child, now laughing impudently and rudely at people-they are called redheads - by a thousand voices like people tied up in fox sacks, removing all the kinks of the human heart. A pheasant soaring up to the sky in a column, its plumage flashing with rotten water. Here are my impressions" [Khlebnikov, vol. 5, 1933, p. 321].

page 65
The majestic landscape of the country, "where all people are Adam," makes Khlebnikov think that " here, among the mountains, a person is aware that he is conceited." He feels the weight of an unrecognized genius:

I drag myself along, my training pressing down on my shoulders,
The sermon is silent, there are no students.

[Khlebnikov, 1987, p. 356]

In the village of Khalkhal, Khlebnikov talks to an interlocutor who can barely speak Russian, but tries to identify key figures of two cultures: on the one hand, he mentions Tolstoy, and on the other, he pronounces the name of the prophet - Zardeshta, the founder of the Zoroastrian religion, better known as Zarathustra or Zoroaster.

At one time, K. Balmont in the poem "Veneration" listed all the merits of Zarathustra before people:

We honor the holy soul of Zarathustra,
That the first in this world thought good,
And he spoke well, and did well;
He was the first Priest, the first Warrior,
The first Plowman, a block lifter;
There was the first one who knew and who taught;
For the first time possessed a Bull, and the Word,
And Holiness, and submission to the Word,
And power, all good things,
What is a good foundation for prosperity,
Mazda created ours; he took the first one in his hand
Spinning the wheel.
We honor Zarathustra, he is the leader, the master
The real universe; man
Primary law; the wisest
Of all beings, and the best known
The Holy Realm of Self-control,
A living force of power over oneself.

[Balmont, 1909, p. 114]. Perhaps Khlebnikov visited the Zoroastrian fire-worshipping temple of Ateshga, preserved in the vicinity of Baku, in order to get acquainted with the ancient Aryan testaments. In Persia, he feels himself present at the moment of the creation of the world, as in the "first days of mankind": there" in the green waters of Iran ""golden fish red to the point of fire swim", there "golden-eyed gardens everywhere", there "an oak tree raises centenary flowers with a cave for hermits", there " in the golden forests of Zarathustra", there is "Adam after Adam pass in a crowd".

One thing is certain: Khlebnikov relates himself to both the rebellious Bab and Zarathustra. He is also a prophet who discovered the laws of time. His super-message "Zangezi" is, like Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra", a prophetic book, where the commandments of the new teaching are written on the tablets of fate, as on the tablets of Moses. Having conceived the "Hammurabi of Time" (more precisely, "anti-Hammurabi", as the subtitle of his article "Duel with Hammurabi" appears [Khlebnikov, vol. 5, pp. 460-461]), he thought to bring the "Table of Fate" to humanity as a gift - a new historical code that would bring the chain of accidents into the system, previously referred to as "history". After deciphering the secret code, Khlebnikov believed, the sacralization of wars and states will disappear, and behind the transparent clarity of the equation, Non-existence will look out of Existence.

Khlebnikov's impressions of his stay in Iran were reflected in the poem "The Trumpet of Gul Mullah" [Khlebnikov, vol. 1, 1928, p. 233-245], which, in a later edition, on the basis of Belov's autograph of the beginning, received a different name - "Tyrant without Te" [Khlebnikov, 1987, p. 348 - 358] and the subtitle "Meeting". The tyrant is a clear philippic to the executioners Baba and Zarathustra, who did not recognize the prophets in their homeland, with whom, nevertheless, the poet met after overcoming the time gap. Tyrant without Te -this rebus means Iran, and Te, according to the star language of Khlebnikov, in one vari-

page 66
the ante corresponded to "stopping the movement", "destroying the ray of life" [Khlebnikov, vol. 5, 1933, pp. 208-209], in another ""T "means the direction where the fixed point created no movement among the set of movements in the same direction, the negative path and its direction behind the fixed point" [Khlebnikov, 1987, p. 622]. Both of these definitions highlight the same typological feature-stopping, no traffic, and even a negative path. It is this algorithm, which Khlebnikov highlighted using mathematical reasoning, that allows Iran to preserve its original features. At this crossroads of cultures, he establishes the "zero meridian" of civilizational movement. This is how Khlebnikov interprets the geographical position of Iran, which occupies a strategic position in the cross-cultural dialogue between the West and the East, and its contribution to the development of the human spirit in a unique and metaphorical way.

The Persian impressions were reflected in Khlebnikov's poems written during the trip: "Easter in Anzeli", "Novruz of Labor", "Kave the Blacksmith", "Iranian Song", "Oak of Persia". A copper statuette of a camel brought from Ispagani (Isfahan) brings Khlebnikov to mind that "earlier, camels used to carry sacred water in sheep's skins from the Ganges to splash on the leaden waters on the Volga, the river of savages" [Khlebnikov, vol. 3, p. 132]. After a trip to Persia, the poet felt a powerful influx of energy and new ideas. "Now I am stronger, I will soon become strong, powerful and will shake the universe," he wrote to his family, expressing his plans ... I will probably go to Persia again next summer..."[Khlebnikov, vol. 5, 1933, p. 323].

In his large-scale epic poem "Children of the Otter", which asserts Khlebnikov's cardinal idea of the unity of East and West, he used Persia "as a corner of the Russian and Macedonian straight lines" (Khlebnikov, 1998, p.5). In the 3rd chapter of the poem (in Khlebnikov's "The 3rd sail") he writes about the campaigns of Varangian and Slavic squads, Russ, along the Volga to the Volga "Bulgars, Khozars and the country of Berdai" on the Caspian Sea. When describing the battle between the Russians and the Berdai army, he used the content of a song from the Persian poet Nizami's Iskander-Nama. N. Stepanov noted that Khlebnikov used V. Grigoriev's book Russia and Asia (St. Petersburg, 1877), which, in particular, contains a retelling of part of Nizami's poem, which may have interested Khlebnikov [Stepanov, 1930, p. 311]. This song is called "Description of the campaign of the victorious Alexander for the liberation of Berdai and the battle of Rus". Clashes between the Slavic-Varangian world and the eastern world occurred in places that preserve the memory of the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Khlebnikov borrows from Nizami elements of the historical plot and facets of the characters ' characters, which contribute to the statement of the main problems of his poem. The main character is the Son of an Otter, a mythical figure who appears in different guises. He thinks of India on the Volga and says: "Now I am resting my heels on the Mongolian world and touching the stone curls of India with my hand" (Khlebnikov, 1987, p.433). The son of an Otter flies down from the clouds, saving Nushabe and her country from the Russ. Khlebnikov, exploring the laws of time, constantly draws analogies between different characters. Between the Son of an Otter and Iskander, you can put an equal sign just like between the poet-hero of the poem "Tyrant without Te" and Razin. The Nizami's rescue of Nushabe is due to Iskander. Alexander in Iskander-name acts as not only the liberator of the country of Berdai, but also the bearer of the idea of peace between East and West. The son of the Otter throughout the poem carries out the same ideas of unity of peoples that drive the heroes of the Lower Classes. It is no accident that in the" 3rd sail " of the poem, the image of a poet-historian watching the battle appears-essentially the image of Nizami himself ("Iskander-nama" in the mind of composing, he sang about the golden Russ").

Khlebnikov also refers to Nizami's work when creating his epic story Medlum and Leyli (1911), slightly changing the names of the characters (as you know, Nizami's poem is called Leyli and Majnun). Khlebnikov called Nizami's epic "the best story of the Arameans" (Khlebnikov, 1932, vol. 4, p. 58).-

page 67
vesti " Ka " [ibid.]. In the poem "Medlum and Leyli", the poet reinterprets the story of lovers: in Nizami's characters turned into angels and tasted bliss in paradise [Nizami, 1968, p.359], in Khlebnikov's they pray to God to turn them into stars - Leyli becomes a western star, and Medlum becomes an eastern star. The stars of East and West shine equally for all people. Sharing the beloved, Khlebnikov thinks about the unity of all mankind.

The Silver Age proved to be in tune with the sense of universal unity of the world, characteristic of Eastern culture. Khlebnikov paints a fantastic picture of the future, when humanity will finally realize its unity and make "a gradual surrender of power to the starry sky", and "let the Persian carpet of names and states be replaced by the ray of humanity" [Khlebnikov, vol. 5, 1933, p. 161].

Later, the great Russian scholar V. I. Vernadsky would write a whole selection of lines from Omar Khayyam, explaining the sense of unity of all living things that permeates the mystical poetry of the East:

This ray of gentle beauty
Now our eyes beckon.
Our ashes will be tender grass,
Whose pleasure will it be?
There is a green stalk in the meadow
Don't trample on it carelessly.
Know this: from the dust of tulip cheeks
It developed gently.

[Vernadsky, 1989, p. 78].

Vernadsky's words about the unity of all people as a law of nature sound like a sacred commandment. The idea of all-unity, so natural to the Eastern consciousness, is recognized and accepted by the Silver Age, receiving its further development in the teachings of Vernadsky. Khlebnikov, on the other hand, believed that time had already begun to count down the "new Kalpa"of December 10-25 of the new style of 1915"[Khlebnikov, vol.5, 1933, p. 162].

list of literature:

Azadovsky K. M., Dyakonova E. M. Balmont and Japan, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1991.

Andreeva-Balmont E. A. Memoirs, Moscow: Izd-vo im. Sabashnikov Publ., 1996.

Apollonian. 1910. N 9.

Balmont K. Zovy drevnosti [Calls of Antiquity]. Hymns, Songs and Designs of the Ancients, St. Petersburg, 1909.
Balmont K. Izbrannoe [Selected works], Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1983.

Bogomolov N. Mikhail Kuzmin, Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 1995.

Bryusov V. Experiments, Moscow: Helikon Publ., 1918.
Bryusov V. Sobr. soch. v 7-i T. T. 2. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1973.

Vernadsky V. I. Nachalo i vechnost ' zhizni [The beginning and eternity of life]. Russia, 1989.

Voloshin M. Autobiographical prose. Diaries, Moscow: Kniga Publ., 1991.
Yesenin S. A. Collected works in 3 volumes Vol. 3. Moscow: Pravda Publishing House, 1970.

Nizami. Five Poems, Moscow, 1968.
Sergey Diaghilev and Russian art // Articles, open letters, and interviews. Correspondence. Contemporaries about Diaghilev. In 2 volumes, vol. 2. Moscow: Izobrazhitel'noe iskusstvo, 1982.

Modern notes. Paris, 1922, No. 9.

Stepanov N. Notes to V. Khlebnikov's poem "Children of the Otter" / / Khlebnikov V. Collected works in 5 vols. Vol. 2. L., 1933.

Timenchik R. Nikolay Gumilev and the East / / Pamir, 1987. N 4.

Khlebnikov V. Svoyasi. Selected Works, St. Petersburg, 1998.
Khlebnikov V. Collected works in 5 volumes, 1928-1933.
Khlebnikov V. Creations, Moscow: Sovetskiy pisatel', 1987.
Hatcher, William S., Martin J. Douglas. New world religion. Vera Bahai, St. Petersburg: Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Russia, 1995.

Bowers Faubion. Scriabin, a biography of the Russian composer 1871 - 1915. Tokyo and Paleo Alto, Kodansha International Ltd, 1969. Vol. 2.

Chamot M. Goncharova. P.: La bibliotheque des arts, 1972.

10 Kalpa - a time period of one day of Brahma, or 4,320,000,000 years.

Permanent link to this publication: