Philosophical lyrics of N. Klyuev (on creative evolution of the poet)

N. Klyuev's creative heritage becomespopular in the post-Soviet period. The contemporary task is to describe the religious and philosophicalsearch of the New Peasant poets' leader. All experts recognise Klyuev's belonging to the SymbolistSchool. The disputable question is whether he overcame Blok's influence, whether the New Peasantpoetry is connected with post-symbolism.In the post-revolutionary period Klyuev used epos and metaphysical themes in his lyrics. TheSoviet Epoch researchers "blocked" him at the early stage of his work, thus closing the sphere ofphilosophical poetry for him. N. Klyuev's conceptual search reflected in his lyrics and poems attractedattention of researchers at the end of the 20th century, but this problem needs further considerationaccounting for the total collection of works and the issues of poet's outlook evolution and creativework stages.Numerous articles on Klyuev are full of sectarianism apology and gnosticism. Comparability ofGod and man is basic for early Klyuev (works of the pre-revolutionary period). God is naturalistic, andnatural world is spiritual. Klyuev deserved to be called a religious poet, but discussions on this topicare still held without due understanding and objective consideration. The mythological layer in his prerevolutionarypoems is vast. Klyuev's works of the 1910s-1920s are much contradictory. He is acommunist, an Old Believer, and a gnostic.The pathos of "ship canticles" is the return of a lost element to the heavenly "home of fathers".The core motif of several cycles is memories of the past belonging to a different world: when rejoicing"shipmen's" souls recollect their being in the empyrean world. In early collections the contrast isemphasised of the visible and the substantial in the hero's image. The lyrical hero is connected with theDivine power, he sees the other-being, he is a wanderer and expert of the real Rus. Symbolists sawthese features as relevant to their aesthetics. The poet-prophet's belonging to both words is realised inthe motif of transfiguration. The sky in early Klyuev's lyrics is home, Christ is a brother. Later non-Christian elements appeared: "I gave birth to Emmanuel, to Christ in the barn..."In the 1920s there was a change in the historiosophical consciousness of the poet. In the 1930stragic pathos dominated. The poet's transition from gnostic heresy to religious traditionalism has notbeen researched enough. This change is underestimated due to the hypnotic attraction of the Silver Agemythologem. Nikolay Klyuev is a writer of the third phase of life of the national culture (by K.Leontiev), the phase of total confusion and religious chimera. The epoch of neo-gnosticism in Russiapreceded social disaster. Some people made projects of world purifying, others dreamt to reconstructthe man. Klyuev seems to have colleted all trendy chimeras of the Silver Age.In Christian interpretation Klyuev's way is liberation from the gnostic project of worldimprovement. The leader of the Peasant direction in poetry, who experienced the influence of youngersymbolists and searched for God, worked on motifs and images of sectarian hymns, problems of neognosticicsm,but under conditions of the post-Revolutionary Russia he overcame his interest inheresies and returned to traditional Orthodoxy in the last years of his life. The pathos of Klyuev'spoems in the 1930s is penitence. He saw abandonment by God as punishment for temptations andpeople's loss of traditional faith. Many experts seriously doubt late Klyuev's loyalty to the ideas ofreligious utopia by N. Fyodorov, as the gnostic character of N. Fyodorov's school is obvious, as well asKlyuev's return to religious traditionalism.

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