From the search for the "quiet girl" in N. Gumilev's poetry

Porol' Polina Vadimovna ORCID: 0000-0001-6706-4533 PhD in Philology Senior Lecturer, Department of Russian Language and General Educational Disciplines, Orenburg State University 13 Pobedy Ave., Orenburg, 117198, Russia olgaporol@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Porol' Ol'ga Anatolevna ORCID: 0000-0001-9145-3336 Doctor of Philology Associate Professor, Department of Russian Philology and Methods of Teaching the Russian Language, Orenburg State University 46000, Russia, Orenburg, Pobedy ave., 13 olgaporol@mail.ru

The theme of the East, China, his art and teachings is one of the main themes of N. Gumilev's work, which interested him throughout his life, starting from one of the earliest poems "On the Transformations of the Buddha" ^{[2, VII, p. 22]}, written at the age of twelve, and ending with the unfinished and became the poet's fateful "Poem of the Beginning" (1921). China is represented in N. Gumilev's poetry in quite a variety of ways – it is an aesthetic admiration for the details of Chinese life, and images of mythology, and an appeal to the poets of China, etc. Previously, the topic of China was considered by us in the work "China in the reception of poets of the Silver Age (poetics and aesthetics)" ^[9], as well as in a number of subsequent studies, complementing it ^{[4, 8, 10]}. The purpose of this article is to analyze the image of a Chinese girl in the poet's poems, to reveal the semantics of this image in the author's perception.

In 1909, N. Gumilev created the poem "The Tsaritsa" (A. Akhmatova believed that the poem "The Tsaritsa" was dedicated to her), which combines images of the feminine principle of Russia and China (Tibet). Let's turn to a separate vocabulary and expressions of the poem that create a portrait of the queen:

- the forehead in the curls of the bronze tide

- like steel, the eyes are sharp

- she is as bright as the ancient Lilith

- features of a diamond face

- a mouth cut out strictly

- I saw God in you

She smiled lazily

It is important to note that in the early work "The Queen" a distinctive feature of N. Gumilev's entire poetics appeared – an understanding of modernity with an indispensable appeal to antiquity, the coexistence of the past and the present. The poet describes a statue of an oriental goddess ("To you pensive bonzes / Bonfires were set in Tibet"), which comes to life at the end of the poem ("And you smiled lazily / S. L. Slobodnyuk notes the discrepancy between the details of the poem and reality: "For Tibet, the figure of a lama is still more familiar, not a bonze, although both are Eastern monks <...> And if we talk about the "ancient Lilith", which, according to Gumilev's definition, is "bright", then the question arises: "Does the mother of giants and countless evil spirits, a night ghost haunting children, deserve such an epithet? (Let's add that Lilith in Hebrew means "night"). The real attributes of earthly reality create the illusion of authenticity of the myth created by the poet <...> "Light Lilith" is not a sophisticated oxymoron, but a figure embodying one of the forms of being good and evil in the poet's world" ^{[11, pp. 175-176]}.

An appeal to the Chinese image of the queen, serene, detached, indifferent to both life and death ("And you smiled lazily / The Executioner's Steel Axe") It corresponds to the canons of the image of Nothingness, nothingness and emptiness, its Chinese origins in Russian poetry of the Silver Age.

In the poem "I believed, I thought..." (1911), the image of a Chinese girl becomes central, conveying, like the image of a porcelain bell, all the drama of the poet's state of mind, his loneliness in the world:

And so I dreamed that my heart did not hurt,

It is a porcelain bell in yellow China

On the mottled pagoda... it hangs and rings cheerfully,

There are crane flocks teasing in the enamel sky.

And the quiet girl in the red silk dress,

Where wasps, flowers and dragons are embroidered in gold,

With her legs tucked up, she looks without thoughts or dreams,

Listening attentively to the light, light chimes.

("I believed, I thought...") ^{[2, II, p. 92]}.

"A quiet girl in a red silk dress" is depicted by the poet as indifferent ("without thoughts and dreams"), able to listen attentively to the "light, light bells" of a heart tired of pain. The theme of non-existence, well-known in the poetry of the Silver Age, developed in the works of V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, V. Khlebnikov and others, the theme of detachment (without thoughts and dreams), the theme of Nothingness, partly taken from Taoism, sounds again.

It is noteworthy that the image of a Chinese girl appears in the last stanza of the poem, where the poet sums up the existence of man in a world without God, without being in its highest sense. Being retreats before the material world, the focus narrows, leaving only one figure of a girl, detailing even the embroidery pattern of a dress – there is a victory of life over being: The creator – I am a poet, a magician, the Ruler of the universe – is a sitting girl with "tucked legs" "in a dress <...> where wasps, flowers and dragons are embroidered in gold."

The poem "I believed, I thought..." was dedicated to Sergei Makovsky, poet, art critic, editor of the Apollo magazine, a close friend who left valuable memories of N. Gumilev.

In the cycle "Porcelain Pavilion" (1918), the image of a Chinese girl is found nine times. For the first time, the poem "Moon on the Sea" mentions "Bogdyhan wives":

It depends on how the light clouds pass

Through the moon column that is reflected in the sea,

Some of them dreamily find,

That this is a train of Bogdyhan wives...

("The moon on the sea") ^{[3, p. 273]}.

The dictionary of S.I. Ozhegov and N.Y. Shvedova gives the following definition of the name "bogdyhan": "the unofficial name of the Chinese emperor among Russians in the 16th and 17th centuries" ^{[6, p. 50]}. This naming can be found quite often in the Russian literature of the XX century (K. Balmont, V. Khlebnikov, F. Sologub, B. Pilnyak and others). In "Moon on the Sea", as in the subsequent poems of the cycle ("Connection", "Poet", "House"), N. Gumilev adheres to the Chinese tradition, comparing a woman with the moon (the myth of Chang'e). The comparison in the text of the poem is interesting:

Clouds – Bogdyhan wives

Clouds are the shadows of pious people

clouds – caravans of swans

Intentionally or intuitively, the poet seemed to combine the traditional ideas of Russia and China: Bogdyhan wives are caravans of swans, in China the swan does not symbolize the feminine principle, as it is known in Russian culture (for example, the Swan Princess in the famous fairy tale by A.S. Pushkin).

In the fifth poem of the cycle "Porcelain Pavilion", "The Road", there is an image of "sweet", which "When she was born, legs / They put her in irons." Russian Russian poetry Despite the fact that the above image obviously goes back to the historical reality of bandaging the feet of girls in China, the poem is imbued with native Russian images and it is dedicated to a Russian girl - Maria Kuzmina–Karavaeva. Maria was N. Gumilev's great-niece, and the young people were united by a bright feeling. However, Maria informed the poet that she was seriously ill, so she had no right to love anyone, and indeed, she died soon after in Italy, where she went for treatment. This event can be traced in the last lines of the poem:

When she was born, the heart

She was shackled in iron,

And the one I love,

It will never be mine

("The Road") ^{[3, p. 275]}.

It is interesting to note that the poem "The Girl" (1912) is also dedicated to Maria Kuzmina-Karavaeva, where Chinese motifs are also traced:

And that mad hunter is a stranger to you,

What, climbing a naked rock,

In drunken happiness, in unaccountable longing

He shoots an arrow straight at the sun.

("The Girl") ^{[2, II, p. 56]}.

Researchers find in these lines a reference to the Old Testament, at the same time they are building to identify another possible semantic layer – the poem may go back to the Chinese myth of the arrow Hou Yi, who "shot" nine suns and, thereby, saved people from the deadly heat.

The next poem in the cycle "Porcelain Pavilion" is "Three Mandarin Wives", somewhat ironic, explaining the "relationship" in the family, the historical features of Chinese family ties. The poem is constructed in the form of a descending gradation: A legitimate wife – Concubine – Servant. 

A legitimate wife

There is also wine in a deep cup,

And there are swallow's nests on the dish,

From the beginning of the world respects

A Mandarin is a legitimate spouse.

Concubine

There is also wine in a deep cup,

And the goose on the platter is big and fat.

If the mandarin has no children,

The mandarin turns on the concubine.

The maid

There is also wine in a deep cup,

And there are different jams on the dish.

What are you both mandarin for,

He wants a new one every night.

Mandarin

There is no more wine in the deep cup,

And there's only red pepper on the dish.

Shut up, you silly chatterboxes,

And don't laugh at the poor old man.

("The Three Wives of the Mandarin", 1918) ^{[3, pp. 275-276]}.

Each female image in the poem is characterized by one or another "dish". Describing a "legitimate spouse", the poet resorts to mentioning a traditional Chinese delicacy – "swallow's nest". The image of a concubine is already associated with more everyday and less aesthetic food – "the goose is big and fat." The maid in the poem is associated with "different jam". If we recall what special attention the Chinese people pay to cooking and a variety of dishes, such parallels – the description of the hero with the help of food – seem quite natural and N. Gumilev subtly notices this.

 In light of all that has been said, it remains to be noted that the image of a Chinese girl in N. Gumilev's poetry contains the following semantic content:

- serenity, detachment, indifference to life and death, which corresponds to the canons of the image of Nothingness, nothingness and emptiness in Russian poetry of the Silver Age ("Tsaritsa");

- indifference to the dramatic state of mind of the lyrical hero, to his loneliness in the world ("I believed, I thought...");

- oblivion, oblivion, "a quiet girl ... without thoughts and dreams" ("I believed, I thought...");

- identification with the moon, which corresponds to the Chinese tradition ("Moon on the sea", "Connection", "Poet", "House");

- the combination of Russian and Chinese traits ("The Road");

- identification with Chinese dishes ("Three wives of a mandarin").

The topic we have considered would probably not have been fully developed if we had ignored the fact that the "quiet girl" in N. Gumilev's poem "I believed, I thought ..." is very different from the quiet image of Pushkin's heroines, which contradicts the centuries-old Russian literary tradition. The category of peace traditionally belongs to the supramundane, unearthly, high: "Everything is quiet, it was just in her"; "A long silence passes, / And finally she is quiet: ,, Enough; stand up. I must..." ("Eugene Onegin"), "But the young princess, / Quietly blossoming, / Meanwhile grew, grew, / Rose and blossomed" ("The Tale of the dead princess and the Seven Heroes"), "... she <Marya Ivanovna> returned, pouring silent silent tears"; ",, Goodbye, Pyotr Andreevich!?" she said in a low voice ("Captain's daughter"), etc. ^{[7, p. 82]}.

The expression "quiet girl" in N. Gumilev's poem means first of all emptiness, sleep, oblivion and destruction of all previous hopes and dreams.