Yu p Kuznetsov biography. Biography Yuri Polikarpovich Kuznetsov is a contemporary poet. No one else will pay for us

Andrey Platonov and even more so Kenzaburo Oe - authors from the reading circle of the "Soviet poet-soil"? Did Anatoly Poperechny ever quote Vaginov, Felix Chuev - Cortazar and Borges, and Valentin Sorokin gracefully wove lines from Mallarmé into his poems?

If we divide all poets into "poets with a biography" and "poets without a biography", Yuri Kuznetsov, perhaps, is "a poet without a biography." Although the milestones of his life seem to be known ...

Official version

Yuri Polikarpovich Kuznetsov was born on February 11, 1941 in the Kuban, in the family of a red border guard commander. Yuri Kuznetsov's father went to the front in the first days of the war, and his family and mother moved to the village of Aleksandrovskoye, Stavropol Territory.

The village survived the Nazi occupation. In 1942, by an amazing coincidence, among the Soviet soldiers who liberated the village and saved the Kuznetsov family from being shot by the Nazis, was the poet's father. In 1944 he died on the battlefield in the Crimea.

Yuri Kuznetsov began to write poems early, his first poem was written at the age of twelve and is dedicated to the Kuban town of Tikhoretsk, where the young poet lived.

In 1960, Kuznetsov left Tikhoretsk and entered the Krasnodar Pedagogical Institute at the Faculty of History and Philology. After studying for one year and quarreling with the teacher, Yuri Kuznetsov dropped out of school.

Such a step in those days was inevitably followed by service in the army. She was not slow to wait. “And I went into the army as if into the unknown. I ended up in Chita, in the Air Force, in communications. Then they served in the ground troops for three years. He served in Chita for a year, then - Cuba, just the Caribbean crisis ... "- this is how Kuznetsov himself will say about this period in his autobiographical article "God gives the poet a spark."

After the army, Yura Kuznetsov worked for nine months as a literary employee in the culture department of the regional youth newspaper.

The first collection by Yu. Kuznetsov - "Thunderstorm" - was published in Krasnodar in 1966. In the same year, the poet moved to Moscow and entered the Literary Institute; Kuznetsov graduated from it in 1970. The former head of his creative seminar at the Literary Institute, Sergei Narovchatov, helped Kuznetsov register in Moscow.

Kuznetsov got a job at the Sovremennik publishing house. His creative fate at that time was unfavorable - the peculiar style of Kuznetsov's poetry was not perceived by Soviet editors. In fact, the poet wrote to the table.

Yuri Kuznetsov waited: his star rose in the 70s. Kuznetsov was not widely known in non-literary circles. But in literary circles, he became extremely popular. The situation in the Soviet poetry of the 70s is marked by Yuri Kuznetsov.

Literary critics argue about Kuznetsov's work, it becomes the subject of discussion in Literaturnaya Gazeta and other prestigious publications.

Strange, mysterious, full of surreal images, obscure allegories, obscure allusions, the poet's poems attract readers.

Interest in Yu. Kuznetsov is fueled by his numerous scandalous statements: shocking the Soviet literary public, the poet speaks negatively and sharply about K. Simonov, E. Bagritsky, B. Pasternak, A. Blok, A. Akhmatova, about "women's poetry" in general, finally, about Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin himself.

In a fierce ideological dispute between the "liberals" and "conservatives" of the late 80s, Kuznetsov chose the side of the latter. He linked his fate with the political camp of the "conservatives" ("patriots", "pochvennikov").

Literary publications of a "liberal orientation" for a long time ignored the work of Yu. Kuznetsov (and in fact continue to do so).

Behind the scenes

This dull "legend" Yuri Kuznetsov methodically voiced.

No, this information is not false. She is true to every word.

It's just that Kuznetsov willingly highlighted certain facts of his own biography (for example, the death of his father at the front or the notorious fall from the window of the hostel of the Literary Institute) and skillfully kept others in partial shade.

Do we know, for example, that his brother and sister on the father’s side (from his first marriage) were far from “soil” names - Vladilen and Avieta? ..

In general, Yuri Kuznetsov was an incredibly secretive person.

He almost never advertised what he read. In his poetry, a huge number of quotations from the literature (and culture) of all times and peoples are found. For the most part, these citations have not yet been identified; although some of them were inappropriately identified in Soviet times.

I recall the then scandal: in Kuznetsov’s poem “Mountain Stones”, critics found a quote from Andrei Platonov’s “Takyr” and accused the poet of plagiarism (“He stole a plane tree with mountain stones from Platonov ...”).

The same unpleasant story happened with the poem "Whaler", where connoisseurs found direct reminiscences from the Japanese prose writer Kenzaburo Oe.

In a revealing rage, they did not bother to ask a simple question ...

Andrey Platonov, and even more so Kenzaburo Oe, are these authors from the reading circle of the “Soviet poet-soiler of the 70s”? Did Anatoly Poperechny ever quote Vaginov, Felix Chuev - Cortazar and Borges, and Valentin Sorokin gracefully wove lines from Mallarmé into his poems?

Then is it any wonder that in the middle of Kuznetsov's poem "Snakes on the Lighthouse" (1977), the ending of Joseph Brodsky's "Autumn Cry of the Hawk" written two years earlier is wittily reversed?

Don't believe?

White snow drifted across the bay
Here and there, happy laughter rang out.
Substituting your white hands,
Caught childhood snow ... Catch, catch,
Until your head turns white
And tryn-grass will not touch the sky ...
But it wasn't snowing at all. Above the lighthouse
Fluff, acquired by the old man, swirled.
It flickered in the air and on the floor,
And the old man himself was sitting in an empty corner
And he muttered through the fluff: "They fly."
- In three hours, - the lieutenant cursed, -
He ripped open the bed ... (and so on. - K.A.).

Suppose that Kuznetsov was silent about his acquaintance with Brodsky's poetry because this poetry was banned in the USSR. But Kenzaburo Oe and Emily Dickinson did not seem to be among the banned authors, and Plato's "Takyr" was published freely ...

Why did Yuri Kuznetsov behave like Stirlitz? Why didn’t he give live information about himself, demonstrating to everyone his deadly double mask - either everyday (“Soviet poet-soil from the plow”), then highly mythical and almost Balmontov (“Poet, Prophet, Master of the Elements”). What exactly Kuznetsov wanted to hide?

Certainly not "dark moments of the biography."

By the way, there were none: the biography of Yuri Kuznetsov is optimal by Soviet standards (the son of a deceased in the war, from a simple family, a Russian provincial; even the surname and that “average” one is just right for a Martian to take).

To some extent, Yuri Polikarpovich Kuznetsov was a "Martian". Of course, not in the sense that he came from another planet, but in the sense that his personality, perhaps, is related to the sphere of science fiction stories.

Guest from the future

It seems that Yuri Kuznetsov was born before his time by about five decades.

Yuri Kuznetsov amazingly, catastrophically did not look like the Soviet people of the 60-70-80s (actually, he hid it in himself, like Stirlitz).

Yuri Kuznetsov - man of our time according to personality.

Our time is not too familiar with Yuri Kuznetsov, with his poems and with his personality. But it would have understood him perfectly.

Our contemporary reads Pelevin and fantasy, plays computer fantasy games, absorbs the latest news about Wahhabis and sectarians, watches the TV series "Volkodav" on TV, then switches to the comedian Zadornov, who broadcasts about the "secrets of antiquity", interprets all the events of the past and present from the point of view of conspiracy theories. The life of our contemporary is a myth, a myth, and again a myth.

The late Soviet era was home to unafraid rationalist humanists.

Soviet people were carefully protected from all non-Soviet myths. Soviet people lived in a sealed flask with a vacuum.

The Soviet people did not understand Yuri Kuznetsov. They thought this guy was just dressed up- clever, manners, original.

“Snakes under the bed”, “dead men in the toilet bowl”, “I drank from my father’s skull”, “a stump or a wolf or Pushkin flashed”, “enough devilry, Yuri, cast a shadow on a clear day” ... Alexander Shchuplov wrote that Kuznetsov “frightens fictional horrors of impressionable bookstore saleswomen", Stanislav Rassadin compared Kuznetsov with metal rockers ("the last poet of hard rock")...

But Yuri Kuznetsov did not show off: he simply realized that a person is not Danko and Pavka Korchagin, not the Okudzhava "paper soldier", not the Galich "Decembrist" and not Belovsky Afrikanych; man is a puppet, a half-machine, completely controlled, zombified myths, "the centuries-old heritage of the ancestors."

And he himself, Yuri Polikarpovich Kuznetsov, also (like everyone else) lunatically follows the steady magnetic orbits of myths.

Myths tore this person (mytho-medium) apart, burned from the inside. And he could throw them out only through an inspired and vague "hut sur".

After all, he was not Eliot, not Pound, not even a "Leningrad philological boy", he was just a provincial Kuban named Kuznetsov.

And he understood: what can be allowed to a bohemian whip will never be allowed to a provincial named Kuznetsov (not allowed either by others or by himself).

With what inhuman effort of will he kept, retained his personality! ..

Tracer

During the heyday of Yuri Kuznetsov, there were many good poets.

David Samoilov and Nikolai Rubtsov are wonderful poets. Now both of them are on the golden shelf of poetic classics. As well as Vladimir Sokolov, Levitansky, Vinokurov, Mezhirov.

I think that only two poets of that time are not now classics - these are Joseph Brodsky and Yuri Kuznetsov.

You can't put them on any shelf, because they are alive for us.

(A living person is always a strangeness, an inconvenience and an obstacle.)

Kuznetsov can be put on any shelf, you can interpret him in every way.

It is possible to comprehend Kuznetsov as a belated representative of the European mytho-avant-garde of the 20th century, a full-fledged heir to Yeats, Eliot, Trakl and Lorca (I, for example, understand Kuznetsov in this way).

Or, on the contrary, you can see in him a dubious provincial half-mad Samodelkin, entangled in myths (this version is insulting to Kuznetsov's memory, but it has some grounds).

Another line: in the last decades of his life, Yuri Kuznetsov worked with Christian discourse - he wrote a poem triptych about Christ, the poem "Descent into Hell". You can consider Kuznetsov outside the literary field - as an Orthodox teacher, a prophet. Recently, this trend is gaining momentum (I personally am skeptical about it).

I don't know how, with what publications the Kuznets jubilee will be greeted by the Russian literary community.

I have no doubt that there will be a sea of ​​anniversary publications in Literaturnaya Rossiya, in The Day of Literature, and in Nashe Sovremennik; of course, Literaturnaya Gazeta will write about Kuznetsov.

But will this anniversary overcome the closed limits of "purely patriotic circles", will the "liberal media" respond to it? Will Russian television give Kuznetsov at least five minutes? Will there be texts in Izvestiya, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Kultura, Kommersant?

And one more thing: won't anti-Kuznetsov's attacks go in "patriotic circles"? Like "they overfed this bookish, head Kuznetsov and completely hush up the juicy-original poets Sinepupov and Perepetuikin."

Finally, how will Yury Kuznetsov's vision develop in the light of what Dmitry Medvedev called for "to develop modern Russian folklore"?

By the way, this really exists - not only in the humorous mode, but also in the lyrical and heroic modes. After all, modern Russian folklore is not export-parody balalaikas-matryoshkas-squats, modern Russian folklore is mythological thinking of modern Russian people.

But after all, Yuri Kuznetsov has been engaged in “modern Russian folklore” all his life ...

All transformations of the image of Yuri Kuznetsov in the current perception are the most important indicators of the processes taking place in Russian (and Russian) socioculture.

Therefore, Yuri Kuznetsov is like a "labeled atom".

And for all that, for me he is also a soul, a personality, a living impulse ...

Brother! I will open the door at dawn.
Did you forget? We were friends.
You look at the door: "It's the wind!"
You're wrong, brother. It's me!

Yuri Polikarpovich Kuznetsov (1941-2003) was born on February 11, 1941 in the village of Leningradskaya, located in the Krasnodar Territory. His father was a regular military man, and his mother taught at a school.

Father was taken to the front in 1941, after which the family moved to his homeland, in the Stavropol Territory, to the village of Aleksandrovskoye, and some time later, settled in Tikhoretsk. Here, in the house of grandparents, Kuznetsov spent his childhood and early years of his youth. In 1944, his father died in the Crimea, and memories of him and the war years, according to Kuznetsov himself, were the most important motivation for his poetry, the first manifestations of which took place at the age of nine.

After graduating from school, Kuznetsov served in the army from 1961 to 1964. Then he worked in the police as an inspector of the children's room (1964-65). Then there was work in the editorial office of the newspaper Komsomolets Kuban (1965-1966). There was one year of study at the Kuban University in Krasnodar.

He entered the Literary Institute named after Maxim Gorky in 1965, and graduated in 1970. He took part in the Narovchatov poetry seminar. After a short stay in his native places, Kuznetsov returned to Moscow, where he worked at the Sovremennik publishing house as an editor (1971-1976). On the onset of 1974, he joined the Writers' Union of the USSR, and in 1975 became a member of the Party.

In the same period, Kuznetsov's poetics changed dramatically. Most likely, the feeling of an approaching universal catastrophe for the first time began to manifest itself during the Caribbean crisis, when from 1963 to 1963, Yuri Polikarpovich was part of the Soviet contingent of troops in Cuba, about which he spoke in his own poem, which was dated October 25, 1962 . This poem speaks of the horror of consciousness associated with possible hostilities and the catastrophe that followed them.

Meanwhile, the eschatological motivation will begin to appear somewhat later. Early poems, which were collected in the book "Prose", published in Krasnodar (1966), have a weak expressiveness and do not have any individual coloring. In poetics, the demolition occurs in the seventies of the last century. Poems and poems, combined into single collections "Around the first corner - the end of the world" (1976), "Far - and near, and in me" (1974), began to attract the attention of critics and readers.

Working within the themes that were allowed for a Soviet poet (childhood and war memories, lyrics of landscapes, etc.), Kuznetsov forms the world of poetry, endowed with a complex topology. Spatio-temporal indicators remain unchanged, but the categories of characters and objects become such that they provide an undeniable opportunity to be where these criteria are rendered invalid.

Among the poetic images of Kuznetsov, the most important is the image of "failure" into the unknown, "gap", "gaping", "hole". Its cosmos is formed by a living mass, regardless of whether we have animals or representatives of humanity in front of us. Under the influence of unlimited forces, they are formed from the unknown, identical to a tornado, representing a certain spontaneity of the action.

There was a certain opinion that as an impulse for the development of the newly-minted poetics, acquaintance with the work on the mythology of the Slavs by A. N. Afanasyev or V. F. Miller acted as an impulse. In any case, the considered world of poetry exists on the basis of pre-Christian laws. Here, special attention is paid to the main categories of family relations and kinship in general, the foundation of which is considered a trivial triangle, at the head of which are the son, mother and father.

It is worth noting that these angles, as well as relationships, are very unequal. The father himself and his deeds do not undergo discussion, being elevated in the family hierarchy to an unattainable height, while the departure of the father to the front and his subsequent death is a modification of the same motive. The attitude towards the father of the mother is unquestioning acceptance, inseparable subordination and sacrifice of following her fate, which is a projection of the fate of the father. On this basis, the phrases of the lyrical character get the meaning of the curse, in reality they simply state the true state of concepts and things, and the whole scene is filled with tragedy: “I cry, Father, you didn’t bring us happiness, and my mother covers my mouth in horror.”

In this triad, the fate of the son turns out to be quite dramatic. He will have to replace his father, but such a replacement will not be able to alleviate the maternal share. He must grow identically to the ear on the ground that was sprinkled with his father's blood. The predetermined and inevitable usurpation of the father's power splits the nature of the son, giving rise to loneliness and bitterness in him, which cannot but affect the conflicts of love. The son, who has now matured, will develop relationships with a woman that are devoid of happiness and rather tense. Exceptionally in this light, the noted duality of the lyrical character can be considered by critics - complete detachment and desire for human communication. This is justified by the fact that the unity of the clan and its integrity cannot be replaced by any, even the strongest friendship, or common thoughts. It is in this way that it is worth interpreting the declared lines openly: "I drank from the skull of my father ...".

A very fierce controversy erupted around these poems. Front-line poet M.A. Sobol even made a rebuke-poem "The Heir", demonstrating that in order to interpret the world of the poet Kuznetsov, cultural schemes and categories of morality that are alien to him are often used. In this mythopoetic space, the dead are not irrevocably and definitively dead, and “incomplete death” can be traced here. The enemy and their soldiers, who died in battles on the tops of the mountains, "lie like a living", "watch and wait." One gets the feeling that by resorting to incredible efforts, you can make them talk and move, or you can bring them from the remote places where they live to the thresholds of their homes. This is included in the list of human capabilities. It is not for nothing that Kuznetsov's lyrical character often acts as an intermediary link between the worlds of the dead and the living. Items, which in this case is allocated a leading value, are part of the mystical arsenal. This shadow, thickening and increasing, along which feet, nails and footprints calmly walk, as if on a board or a bridge. The poet in his works makes appeals to such layers of human consciousness, before which the fairy tale is irreparably modern and on this basis it becomes relative, on the basis of which it is worthy of debunking in an ironic manner. Told in a modern way, the tale is undeniably monstrous - Ivanushka, after finding a frog across the three seas on the basis of the flight of an arrow, decided to set up a simple experiment, for which he opened the body of a reptile and passed electricity through it (“Atomic Tale”).

In this case, there is an opposition of knowledge not to inducing bliss, but to the knowledge of antiquity. The very title of the work identically directs to the scientific delights of the 20th century and to the atomism of antiquity, but in reality, most likely, the poet did not assume either one or the other. Recoding from an allegorical pagan system into a Christianized symbolism, due to the mismatch of the systems themselves, leads to the generation of disharmony. Such oppositions as "light - darkness", "heaven - earth" definitely serve to express the opposition of different principles, and are not categories of evaluation. These extremes are inseparable.

Visually perceived by the mind, but consistently recreated, the constructions of literature turned out best with Kuznetsov. The opposites of reason, and were the fundamental elements of the model of arts he developed, since in this world it is the mechanisms and devices of the technical plan that occupy a significant place - steam locomotives, goggles, etc. - the direct result of the activity of the mind. For this poetics, simple euphony and musicality are simply alien, and modest rhymes serve to embody a sound rather than a semantic harmony.

Non-observance of structural balance, most often found in love poems, transforms into banality and melodramatism. Those poetic works were not particularly successful, where there is a variation of motivations, which, according to tradition, is associated with Yesenin's poetry: “Aquarius” is a story about returning to your city; "The Last Horses" - thoughts about already lost daring. As identically failed, small poems can be considered - “The Seventh”, “Aphrodite”, “Marriage”, “House”, “Snakes at the Lighthouse”, where not the plot component is considered as the leader, but a rush of lyrics and a certain sequence of images. It makes sense to attribute to the most significant successes verses of a sharply satirical content, often macabre, among which are: “The Nose”, “Conversation of the Deaf”, “Parrot”, “Hump Straightener”.

Of no small importance in the poetic work of Kuznetsov was given to an open predisposition to provocation, playing with quotations from Russian classical poetry and verbal cliches. It would seem that the lengthy names of Kuznetsov's collections were considered by critics as purposefully devoid of unambiguity or completely impossible to interpret complete constructions, which to a certain extent is true. Meanwhile, in the titles themselves there is an opportunity to see a storyline that is unique in its kind, not entirely built up - the wandering of the soul, which is free in the nooks and crannies of an anisotropic world. It is quite enough to revise the titles themselves, but without disregarding the fact that this meta-plot is endowed with a rather serious inversion: “The soul is faithful to unknown limits” (1986), “I will set my soul free” (1981). In the somewhat protracted discussion of the ideology of the 70s and 80s, the name of Kuznetsov, a gifted person who with impressive activity develops some unique form of the "Slavic myth", appeared as a serious argument. On one side, the poet was praised, but on the other side, he was completely debunked.

On the onset of 1990, Kuznetsov joined the board of the Writers' Union of the RSFSR, and then was a member of the leadership of the Moscow Writers' Organization. For such a collection as "The soul is faithful to unknown limits", in 1990 he was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR. Among other awards, there is the Order of the Badge of Honor, a diploma from the Ministry of Education. In 1997, in the month of September, Kuznetsov was elected an academician to the Russian Academy of Literature. From 1987 until his death, he held poetry seminars at the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute.

During the life of the poet, more than fifteen collections of poetry were published. Also Kuznetsov was engaged in poetic translations (Schiller, J. Pilarzh, A. Atabaev). Some translations found their home in Transplanted Flowers, published in 1990. Yu. P. Kuznetsov died in Moscow on November 17, 2003.

We draw your attention to the fact that the biography of Yury Polikarpovich Kuznetsov presents the most basic moments from life. Some minor life events may be omitted from this biography.

Yuri Kuznetsov (1941-2003)

After studying this chapter, the student should:

know

• three stages in the development of Yu. P. Kuznetsov's creativity:
• the main features of the artistic and philosophical world of Yu. P. Kuznetsov;
• communication poetry YU. II. Kuznetsov with the traditions of Russian and Western European mytho-modernism;
• the peculiarity of the use of ΙΟ. P. Kuznetsov intertextual inclusions for polemics with them;
• about the influence of Yu. P. Kuznetsov's work on contemporary poets;

be able to

• to show the connection between mytho-reality and everyday reality in the work of Yu. P. Kuznetsov and connect it with the cosmogonic picture in the poet's artistic world;
• analyze mythopoetic lyrics K). P. Kuznetsova;
• to analyze allegorical texts on political themes in the late works of Yu. P. Kuznetsov;

own

• the concepts of "mytho-modernism", "tragic attitude"; "intertextuality", "modernism" and "traditionalism";
• skills of literary analysis of a poetic text.
• TO). P. Kuznetsov is a poet, translator, essayist, prose writer, who (along with I. A. Brodsky and N. M. Rubtsov) determined the main ways of development of Russian poetry in the second half of the 20th century. The work of Yu. P. Kuznetsov paradoxically combined and synthesized modernism and traditionalism, combined folklore and mythological images, trends in Russian philosophical poetry of the 19th century. and the tragic worldview of the newest "atomic age".

Creative biography of Yu. P. Kuznetsov

Yuri Polikarpovich Kuznetsov was born on February 11, 1941 in the Kuban, in the family of a border guard officer. The father of the future poet went to the front in the very first days of the war, and Kuznetsov and his mother moved to Stavropol and survived the Nazi occupation. In 1944, Yury Kuznetsov's father died on the battlefield in the Crimea. This tragic event turned out to be one of the main ones in the fate of the poet. The image of the deceased father, whom the future poet managed to see only once in his life, will become a key in the work of Kuznetsov.

There was a father, there was a father unharmed

Through a minefield.

Turned into swirling smoke -

No grave, no pain.

("Return").

Yury Kuznetsov started writing poetry at the age of 12. The first published poem appeared in 1957 in the local newspaper. In 1960, Kuznetsov left Tikhoretsk and entered the Krasnodar Pedagogical Institute at the Faculty of History and Philology. After studying for one year and quarreling with the teacher, Kuznetsov dropped out and was drafted into the army. "He served in Chita for a year, then - Cuba, just the Caribbean crisis ..." Latin American exoticism shocked the young soul of the Kuban provincial: the contrast between the Kuban and Cuba had a significant impact on the creative world of Kuznetsov, because the black tropical nights hid not only a secret, but also death. The poet was in close proximity to death, and it was this circumstance that caused a special "existentialist" shade of his poems.

After the army, Kuznetsov worked for nine months as a literary employee in the regional youth newspaper. First compilation "Storm" was published in Krasnodar in 1966. In the same year, the poet moved to Moscow and entered the Literary Institute, from which he graduated in 1970. Kuznetsov went to work at the Sovremennik publishing house. His creative fate at that time was not going well: the peculiar style of Kuznetsov's poetry was not perceived by Soviet editors and leading literary workers. His time came in the 1970s. The first "Moscow" book ( "In me and near - distance"), was published in 1974. After that, Kuznetsov released a number of poetry collections: "The end of the world - around the first corner" (1976), "Going out onto the road, the soul looked back" (1978), "Let my soul go free" (1981), "Russian knot" (1983), "Neither early nor late" (1985), "The soul is true to unknown limits" (1986).

The situation in Soviet poetry in the 1970s. passes under the sign of Yuri Kuznetsov. His work becomes the subject of discussion in the "Literary Gazette", in the almanacs "Poetry" and "Day of Poetry". Strange, mysterious poems of the poet, full of surrealistic images, obscure allegories, obscure allusions attract readers. Interest in Kuznetsov is fueled by his numerous scandalous statements: the poet speaks negatively and sharply about K. M. Simonov, E. G. Bagritsky, B. L. Pasternak, A. A. Blok, A. A. Akhmatova, about "women's poetry" in general, finally, about Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin himself. Attacks against Pushkin appear in Kuznetsov's poems and poems: "A stump, or a wolf, or did Pushkin flash?" ("Going out onto the road, the soul looked back ..."), "Pushkin died. Chaadaev became isolated, bored.<...>// Pushkin is forgotten. You don't need to remember Chaadaev" ("Sofa"), "Where Pushkin took a sip, but spilled more" (poem "Golden Mountain").

In the era of perestroika, Kuznetsov experienced a certain crisis: the hermetic figurative world of his poetry collapsed under the influence of powerful social changes. Kuznetsov's work was extremely politicized ("Revelation of the Everyman", "Burial in the Kremlin Wall"). In the bitter ideological dispute of the late 1980s. between liberals and conservatives, Kuznetsov chose the side of the latter. Only after the death of the poet in November 2003 did Yuri Kuznetsov's literary heritage begin to be perceived as a significant cultural value, regardless of its ideological orientation.

The work of Yuri Kuznetsov can be chronologically divided into three periods: 1) 1957–1966; 2) 1967–1984; 3) from 1985 until the death of the poet.

• Kuznetsov Yu.P. God gives the poet a spark // Lit. Russia. 1991. 22 Feb. S. 21.

YURI KUZNETSOV (February 11, 1941, the village of Leningradskaya, Krasnodar Territory - November 17, 2003, Moscow) - Soviet and Russian poet, laureate of the State Prize of the RSFSR (1990), professor at the Literary Institute, was the editor of the poetry department in the journal Our Contemporary, a member of the Union writers of Russia, academician of the Academy of Russian Literature (since 1996).

Until the end of his life, he led poetry seminars at the Literary Institute and at the Higher Literary Courses. He published about twenty books of poetry. Author of numerous poetic translations of both poets from national republics and foreign ones (J. Byron, J. Keats, A. Rimbaud, A. Mitskevich, V. Nezval, etc.), also translated Schiller's Maid of Orleans

In 1998, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', he translated Metropolitan Hilarion's "Sermon on Law and Grace" into modern Russian and put it into verse, for which he was awarded a literary prize.

Born in the Kuban in the village of Leningradskaya, Krasnodar Territory, on February 11, 1941, in the family of a military man and a teacher. The poet's father, the head of intelligence of the corps, died on Sapun Mountain in 1944 in the battle for the liberation of Sevastopol. This death later had a great influence on the work of Yuri Kuznetsov. Through the village where the poet lived in early childhood, the war thundered.

The poet's adolescence passed in Tikhoretsk, and his youth - in Krasnodar. After leaving school, Kuznetsov studied for one year at Kuban University, from where he joined the army. He served as a signalman in Cuba during the height of the Caribbean crisis in 1962, when the world was on the brink of nuclear war. After the army, he worked in the police for some time. In 1970 he graduated with honors from the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky.

He wrote his first poem at the age of nine. The first publication was published in the regional newspaper in 1957. For the first time Kuznetsov declared himself as a poet, being a student at the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky, with the poem "Atomic Tale", which was a weighty argument in the so-called dispute between "physicists and lyricists".

The name of Yuri Kuznetsov was constantly present in the criticism of the 1970s-1980s, causing a lot of controversy and reader interest (for example, a dispute about the morality or immorality of the line "I drank from my father's skull"). This short poem about the skull has become the most vivid expression of the grief and pain of the poet about the cruelty of the war, which deprived a whole generation of the opportunity to sit at the table with their fathers; the sons were left only with what lies in the graves: instead of a “fairy tale face” - only skulls ...

A significant place in the work of Yuri Kuznetsov is occupied by military lyrics, poems about the Great Patriotic War. According to the poet, memories of the war became the most important motifs in his poetry. According to some critics, the poem from the military lyrics "Return" occupies a special place in the poet's work, making a vivid emotional impression on the reader. The work of Yuri Kuznetsov serves as inspiration for writing musical works. So, the composer Viktor Gavrilovich Zakharchenko set to music about 30 poems of the poet, including “Return”, “When I don’t cry, when I don’t cry”, etc. They are performed by the State Academic Kuban Cossack Choir.

The key words of the poetic world of Yuri Kuznetsov are symbol and myth, rupture and connection. In his work, Yuri Kuznetsov often refers to the eternal problems of good and evil, divine and human, philosophy, mythology and civil lyrics are intertwined in his poems. An example of this are the broadly conceived poems on biblical subjects ("The Way of Christ", "The Descent into Hell"), which he wrote in recent years. The titles of Yuri Kuznetsov's books, he admits, are a kind of poetic manifesto.

Kuznetsov died in Moscow on November 17, 2003 from a heart attack. He wrote his last poem "Prayer" nine days before his death. This is the testament of the poet, who was called "the twilight angel of Russian poetry", "the most tragic poet of Russia." He was treated differently. Apologists deified him, for opponents he was a "ghoul". One thing is indisputable: Yuri Kuznetsov became one of the most striking phenomena in the poetry of the era of the so-called "stagnation".

From the book of fate. YU riy Kuznetsov was born on February 11, 1941 in the village of Leningradskaya, Krasnodar Territory. His father is a military man, his mother is a school teacher.

In the same forty-first, Polikarp Kuznetsov went to the front, and the family went to his small homeland - to the village of Aleksandrovskoye, Stavropol Territory, and a little later moved to the Kuban town of Tikhoretsk. There, in the house of his grandfather and grandmother, the future poet spent his childhood and early youth. Yuri's father died in the Crimea - in 1944, and memories of him, as well as the echoes of the war, according to Kuznetsov, became important motivating motives for his poetry (the first verses of YUKwrote at the age of nine).

After graduating from school, Kuznetsov served in the army (1961-1964), worked as an inspector of the police children's room (1964-1965), in the editorial office of the Komsomolets Kuban newspaper (1965-1966). One year he studied at the Kuban University (Krasnodar).

In 1965 he entered the Literary Institute named after A.M. Gorky, who graduated in 1970 (he studied at the poetic seminar of S.S. Narovchatov). After a short stay at home in the same year he returned to Moscow. He worked as an editor at the Sovremennik publishing house (1971-1976). In 1974 he joined the Union of Writers of the USSR, and in 1975 - in the CPSU ...

Critics believe that the feeling of an impending universal Apocalypse, so characteristic of Kuznetsov's poetics, first appeared to him during the Caribbean crisis (from 1961 to 1963 he was in Cuba). The poet spoke about this in a poem dated October 25, 1962: I remember the night with continental rockets, / When every step was an event of the soul, / When we slept, by order, undressed / And the horror of space thundered in our ears ...

His early poems were included in the book "Thunderstorm", published in Krasnodar in 1996. However, the name of the poet became known to a wide range of readers after the appearance of the collections “In me and next to me - the distance” (1974), “The end of the world is around the first corner” (1976), “Going out onto the road, the soul looked back” (1978).

Creativity Researchers UKexpressed an interesting idea. The impulse to create a special poetic world, a special linguistic manner and a vivid metaphorical language was Yuri Polikarpovich's acquaintance with the works of A.N. Afanasyev and V.F. Miller, dedicated to Slavic mythology. In any case, such a poetic world exists according to pre-Christian laws. Hence the special attention to the categories of kinship and family ties, the basis of which is the triangle "father - mother - son" ...

Almost all the works of the poet are interesting and unique. Among which, however, critics most often recall the lines "I drank from my father's skull ...", which at one time caused fierce controversy. Among the undoubted successes of the South Caucasushis friends always attributed both the short parable "Atomic Tale" and such multidimensional creations as "Eternal Snow", "Four Hundred", "Golden Mountain", "House", "Marriage", "Snakes on the Lighthouse", "Aphrodite", "Seventh"…

Yuri Kuznetsov is also known for his sharply satirical poems - “Hump Straightener”, “Parrot”, “Conversation of the Deaf”, “Nose” ...

In the stormy ideological controversy of the seventies and eighties, the name of the poet, who was actively developing a kind of "Slavic myth", was taken up by one side and exalted, while the other, on the contrary, belittled and debunked.

In the period from 1981 to 1986, he published three books at once - “Let my soul go free”, “Neither sooner nor later”, “The soul is faithful to unknown limits”.

In 1990, Yuri Kuznetsov became a member of the board of the Union of Writers of the RSFSR, then one of the leaders of the Moscow Writers' Organization.

The collection "The Soul is Faithful to Unknown Limits" was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR (1990). Among the awards that the poet cherished are the Order of the Badge of Honor (1984) and ... Certificate of Honor from the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation (2002). In September 1997, he was elected an academician of the Academy of Russian Literature.

From 1987 until the last days of their UKled a poetic seminar at the Literary Institute named after A.M. Gorky (full-time and correspondence departments, Higher Literary Courses).

Yuri Kuznetsov was also engaged in poetic translations (among the authors whose texts he worked with were A. Atabaev, J. Pilarzh, F. Schiller). Selected UK translationscollected in Transplanted Flowers (1990).

Evgeny Peremyslev

One of my acquaintances, who reads a lot and has written a lot himself, once remarked: half of today's poets write "under Joseph Brodsky", the other half imitates Yuri Kuznetsov.

Perhaps the statement is somewhat generalized and categorical, but there is truth in it: for the last thirty years, the influence of Kuznetsov's poetry on the literary process is undeniable. His intonation is invisibly, if not clearly, present in the work of Viktor Lapshin, Oleg Kochetkov, Nikolai Zinoviev, Igor Tyulenev, Evgeny Semichev, Vladimir Shemshuchenko, Svetlana Syrneva, Diana Kan, Marina Strukova and other poets, mostly representing the Russian hinterland today , perhaps the most interesting, continuing the traditions of Russian poetic classics.

Yuri Kuznetsov also influenced what the author of these lines wrote and writes, which I do not hide and in no way am I ashamed of: without relying on the work of his predecessors, a more or less significant author cannot appear. After all, Yuri Kuznetsov skillfully used the wealth of literature and not only Russian. Derzhavin, Pushkin, Tyutchev, Lermontov, Boratynsky, Nekrasov, Blok, Yesenin and other poets, Christian mythology, ancient literature, folk epos, philosophy, history - all this and much more was absorbed by his poems. And, of course, they contain the natural talent of the poet himself, with whom fate brought me together more than once.

In the middle of the 70s, it seems, in the Literaturnaya Gazeta, I read a review of the collection of the poet Yuri Kuznetsov, unknown to me until then, “In me and next to me - the distance”, published by the Sovremennik publishing house. I don’t remember what was written in it: probably, as usual, the author was praised for something, scolded for something, but the poem “Return” was quoted in the publication, which was remembered after the first reading:

There was a father, there was a father unharmed

Through a minefield.

Turned into swirling smoke -

No grave, no pain.

Mom, mom, the war will not return ...

Don't look at the road.

A column of swirling dust is coming

Through the field to the threshold.

Like a hand waving from the dust,

Living eyes shine.

Postcards are moving at the bottom of the chest

Frontline.

Whenever his mother is waiting for him, -

Through field and arable land

A column of swirling dust wanders, -

Lonely and scary.

Now this poem has become a classic, and once again, rereading it, I again and again experience, if not shock, then emotional excitement: so piercingly and accurately convey the tragedy that the war brought, and also the pain from loneliness, from fatherlessness - formed in the fate of emptiness, gaps. My father did not die in that war, but my “one-wingedness” is its consequence, a wound that still hurts.

Somewhat later, I became the owner of the collection "In me and next to me - the distance." It happened like this.

Once (at that time I lived in the Far East), being on a journalistic business trip, I was sitting in the waiting room of the railway station. Nearby on the bench - a guy, a soldier, apparently just retired, leafing through a collection of poems. I was curious: who was the author, and involuntarily envied the owner of the book, because those were poems by Yuri Kuznetsov. We started talking. It turned out that the guy after the service was going to his homeland, to Moscow, and a friend sent him a book to the army. And the former soldier also complained that he could not take the train for the second day and that in the morning in the buffet the last “troyak” was exchanged.

I have something crunchy in my pocket. We had a friendly lunch at the railway station restaurant, talked about poetry and poets. And when parting, the guy gave me "In me and next to me - the distance." After reading the book, and then re-reading it several times, I realized that a poet had appeared who would become for me like an older brother, like a teacher.

Many lines, stanzas, verses were immediately imprinted in my memory: “But there will be fingers to scratch. And the lips will remain screaming”, “A chair in my jacket Will fit the phone, Say: - He left. All came out. I don’t know when it will come!”, “Father,” I shout. - You didn’t bring us happiness! .. - My mother closes my mouth in horror, ”“ And you want to stroke your dear face - Hands slide through the air ”,“ I came. And with my eyes You will look at the earth now. And you will cry with my tears - And there will be no mercy for you”, “But the Russian heart is lonely everywhere ... And the field is wide, and the sky is high” and so on. They are poetic aphorisms that have entered the minds and hearts of readers of poetry and are gradually entering the speech circulation even of those who are indifferent to poetry.

Vladimir Soloukhin wrote that memorability is one of the main features of true poetry. I agree with him. I refer to my own experience. At one time, I read a lot, for example, Andrei Voznesensky, Joseph Brodsky, but in my memory from the poems of these authors almost nothing "hooked". And the lines of Yuri Kuznetsov, read more than thirty years ago, live in me and, probably, will live until the end of my days.

Unfortunately, I did not save the collection “In me and next to me - the distance”. In the late 70s, I took this book to the construction of BAM, where I worked for a newspaper for some time. He lived in a hostel with an engineer from Moscow. I had to go on a business trip, but not a ruble in my pocket. I borrowed a “quarter” from a Muscovite, and when I returned two weeks later, I found a note: “When you send the debt, I will return the books.” I looked at what my creditor took. It turned out that the collections of Bunin, Yesenin, Pasternak, Akhmatova, and also Rubtsov and Kuznetsov. Yes, the engineer had a literary taste. I sent him a “Thursday”, but the books never arrived.

But the collection of Yuri Kuznetsov "The End of the World - Around the First Corner" (1976) is still with me. Having acquired this book at the same time as Nikolai Rubtsov's Plantains, there is something symbolic, symbolic in this.

In the early 80s, I moved to Belgorod and began to visit Moscow, where I met with the front-line poet Viktor Kochetkov. In the early 70s, Viktor Ivanovich was the head of the seminar for young writers of the Far East in Khabarovsk, later he published my poems in the Moscow magazine, and when my collection Sky and Field came out in Blagoveshchensk, he wrote a preface to it. During our meetings in the capital, he talked about Yuri Kuznetsov, with whom he was friends, and naturally I listened with attention, but I could not imagine that Yuri Polikarpovich would play a significant role in my literary destiny.

In 1989, my third book of poems "The Commandment" was published in Voronezh, I applied for admission to the Writers' Union of the USSR. In Belgorod I passed, however, not without difficulties between the "hammer and the anvil", and my "papers" were sent to Moscow. I called Viktor Ivanovich, who was a member of the admissions committee of the Writers' Union. He said, “Don't worry. I will try to have Kuznetsov as your reviewer.” But, really, I got even more excited, because I knew from Viktor Ivanovich how seriously Yuri Polikarpovich took poetry. He told about his worries to the Belgorod prose writer Nikolai Ryzhykh, he was familiar with the poet from his studies at the Literary Institute, to which he, with his characteristic temperament and optimism, said: “Everything will be fine: Yura don’t drown Russian poets. Be that as it may, in March 1991 I was admitted to the Writers' Union, there were only two or three votes against my candidacy.

In September of the same year, I met Yuri Polikarpovich. It happened in the writer's house of creativity in Makeevka, where I arrived. A regular meeting of the admission board of the Writers' Union was held here, and Viktor Ivanovich Kochetkov introduced me to Kuznetsov. The three of us sat, of course, I listened more than I spoke. At the same time, Kuznetsov signed for me his "Favorites", published by the publishing house "Young Guard". Only two words "For a good memory" (the poet in general, as far as I know, left laconic autographs on books), but they are prohibitively dear to me. A few days later we were already in a larger and noisier company in the Central House of Writers, and then for the first time I dared to read a few of my poems. Then the poet Vladimir Andreev, who participated in a friendly feast, said: "Kuznetsov liked your poems." I don't know how true that was, but I really enjoyed it.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Victory, I held a literary competition on the pages of the Belgorod newspaper Smena. As a reward for the winners, I decided to ask Yuri Kuznetsov to send autographed books. I wrote a letter, not really hoping for a response. And suddenly the writer Nikolai Ryzhykh, who visited Moscow in the magazine Our Contemporary, brought several copies of Kuznetsov's Chosen One, which was published by the Khudozhestvennaya Literatura publishing house. One was signed: "Valery Cherkesov." This is how the second book signed by Yuri Kuznetsov appeared in my library.

When I presented the "Favorites" to the winners of the literary competition, I was happy for them: such a gift! Alas, they hardly understood it ...

Yuri Kuznetsov came to the Belgorod region several times - to the presentation of the magazine "Our Contemporary", to the days of poetry, we shook hands, talked. I won’t say that there were long conversations on literary topics, rather, non-committal communication, and at the same time, Yuri Polikarpovich, it seems to me, did not like empty chatter and joking, he was laconic, often thoughtful, by this he seemed to move away from everything that was insignificant to him.

Once, at the Day of Poetry in the city park, he did not have a very good performance. He arrived by train early in the morning, apparently tired on the road, and even - a warm meeting. The poet began to read some kind of poem, lost his way, fell silent, and began to read again. After Yuri Polikarpovich, apparently somewhat annoyed and dissatisfied with his performance, came up to me and said: "Let's go to the hotel." We sat in the room together for an hour until our fellow poets returned from the park. I remember that he spoke about the coming ravenous time, when society is degrading mentally and spiritually in pursuit of material wealth, that poets and poetry should take on the mission of spiritual guides, that the golden and silver age of literature has passed, but its revival will certainly be. And also - about Russia, Rus', which will endure and endure everything, the guarantee of this is our great culture. Maybe he didn't speak as pompously as I convey, but that was the gist of it.

A somewhat amusing incident also comes to mind. In Prokhorovka there was a gubernatorial reception, so to speak, in a narrow circle. On the tables there is food and drink - whatever the womb desires. Yuri Polikarpovich looked around the table before the meal, went up to the waiter and suddenly asked: “Is there a buffet here?” He was clearly taken aback by such an unexpected question, often blinking his eyes, wondering what else the Moscow guest wants? The waiter was rescued by the host of the reception - the Belgorod governor Yevgeny Savchenko, asking: "Yuri Polikarpovich, do you need something?" The poet calmly said: “Yes, cigarettes. I've run out." The waiter smiled with relief and brought different brands of cigarettes. Which poet chose, I do not remember.

When the first part of Yury Kuznetsov's poem "The Way of Christ" - "The Childhood of Christ" was published in Our Contemporary, I gave it to my son to read: from a young age he is interested in Christianity. Kolya said: “I wish I could get such a book!” Having dared, I stated this request in a letter to Yuri Polikarpovich, and after some time a package arrived. It contained the first edition of The Way of Christ (Soviet Writer, 2001) with the following inscription: “God help Kolya Cherkesov. Yuri Kuznetsov.

At the end of October, and perhaps at the beginning of November 2003, I went to the Belgorod Writers' Organization. We talked with the organization's chairman, poet Vladimir Molchanov, about the forthcoming issue of the Belgorod issue of Nashe Sovremennik. Volodya said something like this: “I talked on the phone with Kuznetsov about the selection of poetry that will be in the room. And he remarked with irony, they say, I select the poems, and the cones will fall, Molchanov, on you.

In this half-joking remark - Kuznetsov's attitude to poetry. As far as I know, he did not really recognize authorities and big names, and when selecting poems for the journal, he was guided only by the talent of the author and the originality of the text. Thus, large collections of Sergei Tashkov, Yuri Shumov, Dmitry Mamatov and some other Belgorod poets appeared in Our Contemporary, with whom we did not really take into account. From the heap of poems that I sent, he selected a few, but printed quite often. Sometimes I was perplexed when I saw my publication: why did these lines appear, and not others that I considered the best? But some time passed, and I understood Kuznetsov was right: he subtly felt the secondary and banality that provincial and metropolitan poets sin, therefore, under him, poetry in Our Contemporary was truly selected.

And just a few days after that conversation in the writers' organization about Yuri Kuznetsov - the tragic news that stunned, struck, saddened. And when I learned that he said goodbye to this light in a dream, I remembered the final lines of The Way of Christ:

Dissuaded by my golden poem,

Everything else is blind and deaf and dumb.

God! I cry and drive away death with my hand.

Give me great old age and wise peace!

As a true poet, Yuri Kuznetsov turned out to be a prophet in predetermining his fate and his poetry.

The issue of "Our Contemporary" with poems and prose of Belgorod residents was published in January 2004. It also contains a large selection of materials “Under the sign of conscience”, dedicated to the memory of Yuri Kuznetsov: memories of the poet, his poems and the article “View”, which became his spiritual testament: “A person in my poems is equal to the people”, “...But the main thing is Russian myth, and this myth is a poet. The rest is legend."

Lines from his preface to the Young Guard's The Chosen One often come to mind to me: “My poetry is a sinner's question. And I will answer for her not on earth.

Russian saints have always considered themselves sinners.

Illustrations:

portraits of Yuri Kuznetsov of different years;

poet's autograph on the book "The Way of Christ".