Alexander Blok: An Experiment On Myself With A Sad Ending - Great And Terrible

Anna Akhmatova called Alexander Blok “the tragic tenor of the era”. How is the poet's genius, unique creativity related to the peculiarities of his psyche?

How did the parents influence the son?

It is easier to "unravel" a person's personality by studying his heredity. Blok's inheritance is truly tragic.

The paternal grandfather died in a psychiatric hospital. The father "was unfit for family life because of some atavistic, abnormal cruelty, probably inherited from his mother's ancestors." “He kept his wife from hand to mouth, beat her; this was the reason for their divorce a year after the wedding. At the same time, he was an outstanding musician and subtle stylist, "the researchers note.

We meet with a rare and paradoxical combination: "A brilliant lawyer and musician, he was a clinical sadist who ended his days as a lonely, unkempt, mentally ill."

Blok's mother “had oddities that manifested themselves at the age of fourteen. In 1896, a gloomy mood took on rampant proportions, showing all the signs of a nervous breakdown, seizures of an epileptic nature began to be made. Eternal anxiety, melancholy, reaching the mania of suicide, and a tendency to a tragic perception of all the phenomena of life - this is a picture of her then state. She attempted three times on her life, but for various reasons she did not succeed,”contemporaries testify.

Boy with a face without facial expressions

From childhood, Sasha showed increased nervousness and irritability, was easily aroused, and just as suddenly became withdrawn.

There were emotional disturbances that are characteristic of many children, but not all of them are expressed to such a strong degree.

In their memoirs, almost all contemporaries note "the immobility of his face." Alexander Blok had a "face without facial expressions."

This hypomimia is a sign of some mental disorders. Biographers believe that Blok had an epileptic seizure at the age of sixteen. But the strangeness of the formed personality was very multifaceted without this attack.

Supporter of "white love"

The poet's marriage in 1903 to Lyuba Mendeleeva, the daughter of the famous chemist, did not interfere with his connections with other women. Immediately after the wedding, Blok began to talk about the fact that he and his wife "do not need physical intimacy."

Perhaps such a strange decision was due to the presence of a sexually transmitted disease, which aggravated the course of those diseases that he already suffered: scurvy, furunculosis, heart disease.

Starting "with the philosophical denial of sexual relations in the name of 'white love', the marriage of Blocks naturally boiled down to a series of mutual betrayal and subsequent conflicts."

Waiting for a miracle, the poet refuses medicine

The instability of the emotional background became more noticeable with age. Spouse Lyubov Dmitrievna noted "changes in mood - from childish, carefree fun to gloomy, dejected pessimism, non-resistance, never, nothing bad, outbursts of irritation with the beating of furniture and dishes."

Alexander Blok believed that the "miracle healer Rasputin" could heal him of all diseases. But the meeting with him did not take place. And after the murder of "Elder Gregory", the poet practically refused medical treatment, relying on fate

The desire for creativity decreased, there was not enough money to live, he often went hungry.

But neither mood disorders nor drunkenness, which often accompanied other poets, up to a certain point, did not interfere with the brilliant work of Alexander Blok. Only in 1917, professor of psychiatry Yu. V. Kannabikh diagnosed Blok with neurasthenia and, of course, offered treatment, but the poet refused to appoint a psychiatrist.

Since 1918, Blok's work has practically been cut off. The poet becomes withdrawn, he is more and more seized by melancholy and gloom. From April 1921 he was already seriously ill and lonely.

How did the peculiarities of the psyche affect creativity?

The mental illness of Alexander Blok, inherited by him from his parents and manifested in mysticism, depression, a split personality, delirium of persecution, not only did not prevent him from creating, but also inextricably merged with his poetry, enriched it with peculiar motives.

Psychiatrist Ya. V. Mints believed that "Blok suffered from epilepsy, mainly in the form of psychoepilepsy."

The schizoid element of personality, noted since childhood, towards the end of life manifested itself more clearly. In recent years, Blok has become withdrawn, apathetic and sullen. These schizoid traits were reflected in the symbolic nature of the poet's work

Psychiatrists refer to the epileptic character traits as increased pedantry and accuracy.

In this respect, an observation that Korney Chukovsky wrote in his diary in 1919 is interesting: “Blok is neat to the point of pain. He has several notebooks crammed into his pockets, and he neatly writes down everything he needs in all the books; he reads all the decrees, those that at least indirectly relate to him, cuts out - sorts, wears in a jacket. Blok is a pathologically tidy person. This does not at all fit with the poetry of madness and death that he does so well."

Writers Konstantin Erberg (Sunnerberg), Fyodor Sologub, Alexander Blok, Georgy Chulkov. 1908

Disease without treatment beats the mind

Over the years, Blok's mental and somatic state only worsened. His illnesses progressed. The irritability increased, the depressive conditions worsened. Oddities in behavior, "blackouts, confusion in chronology" appeared.

Blok “almost didn’t allow anyone to see him except his wife. His usual nervousness, sudden mood swings, and outbursts of irritation intensified sharply. Vials with medicines were flying to the floor, shattered on the wall. Blok was suddenly driven into a frenzy by things. He broke several chairs into chips, smashed the bust of Apollo on the cabinet with a poker.

The artist Yuri Annenkov recalls how at the end of July 1921 the writer S. M. Alyansky “came running” to him and said “that Blok was losing his mind and that his position was hopeless”

Art critic Erich Hollerbach sums up: “It was clear that Blok was sick not only physically, but also mentally, there was something especially terrible about his illness. The disease of a genius is more terrible than the disease of a mere mortal."

Considering the duration - almost throughout the entire conscious life - of mental ailments, they could not but affect the poet's work. Blok's optimistic poems can be counted on one hand

The poet's portrait remains vague

At first glance, it seems paradoxical that the more details in the portrait of Alexander Blok, the more vague the image is.

One brushstroke reveals subtle love lyrics, but the other reveals a ridiculous love life. One more smear - and we see an intellectual, an aristocrat of the spirit, but another one follows - and before us is a neurotic and drunken alcoholic. The next smear is the chairman of the Petrograd branch of the All-Russian Union of Poets, the other is a mentally ill person.

However, this is quite a common combination of different, sometimes opposite sides of talented personalities

Presumptive diagnoses:

Various neurotic (neurasthenia, hypochondria) and affective (dysthymia) disorders. Consequences of subacute septic endocarditis and (possibly) syphilitic brain damage.

Sources

• Annenkov Yu. P. Diary of my meetings. The cycle of tragedies. In 2 volumes. M.: Fiction, 1991.
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