"Safety", Boris Pasternak - analysis, reviews and interesting facts

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

"Safety" is an autobiographical story by Boris Pasternak, which he completed in 1930. In it, he outlines his key views on creativity and art. The first chapters of this work were published in the Zvezda magazine back in 1929.

Features of the story

Writers began to allocate the "safety certificate" as soon as it appeared in print. Although many noted that in terms of its artistic merits, it is inferior to his previous works, especially the story "Childhood Luvers". But it wins in another way: as a noticeable literary and cultural monument of the era.

The very first parts of the text of the "Certificate of Conduct" are written in an intimate and biographical manner. They help to understand the personality of the author. But the third part is a unique document of its time.

The narration in Pasternak's Safe Conduct begins in 1912, when the author returns to Moscow from abroad. In his own way, hetalks about events that serve only as a background for describing the main thing - the world of inner experiences. It is important that in the description of these experiences the coming catastrophe is guessed.

Anniversary of the Patriotic War

In Boris Leonidovich Pasternak's Safe Conduct, the year of the centenary of the Patriotic War, in which the events of the work begin, contains the inevitable and coming collapse of Russian glory. There is a feeling that all this was predetermined by the very attitude towards one's past.

So, Pasternak writes down his impressions of what he saw in his book "Certificate of Conduct".

When I returned from abroad, it was the centenary of the Patriotic War. The road from Brestskaya was renamed to Aleksandrovskaya. The stations were whitewashed, the watchmen at the bells were dressed in clean shirts. The station building in Kubinka was studded with flags, and a reinforced guard stood at the door. Nearby there was a grand review, and on this occasion the platform burned with a bright collapse of loose and not yet everywhere trodden sand. It did not evoke memories of the events being celebrated. The jubilee decoration breathed the main feature of the reign - indifference to native history.

The author reflects such an indifferent attitude to his story in the mean transfer of the hero's mood, as well as in his manner of presenting his observations. At the same time, the reader is forced to agree that this is the conclusion about the important historical significance of everything that happens.

This thesis is supported by memories of howrepresentatives of the domestic intelligentsia at that time belonged to the power of the king.

I involuntarily recalled Serov, who had died the winter before, his stories written by the royal family, the caricatures made by artists at Yusupov's drawing evenings, the curiosities that accompanied the Kutepov edition of the "Royal Hunt" and many trifles suitable for the occasion.

After that, the upcoming drama becomes apparent.

Writing style

From the above passages and quotations from the "Certificate of Safeguards" one can clearly see by what means the author created the historical and cultural background for understanding the inner life of that period.

It is obvious that Pasternak strives not to use complex forms, excessive sophistication. Of particular interest is the story for understanding the environment in which many literary movements of that time were born.

For example, the "Certificate of Conduct" describes the origin of futurism. The author vividly draws the attitude of young people towards contemporary art.

It was the young art of Scriabin, Blok, Komissarzhevskaya, Bely. Cutting-edge, exciting, original. And it was so striking that not only did it not evoke thoughts of a replacement, but, on the contrary, for greater strength, I wanted to repeat it, but only more vibrantly, hotter and more whole. I wanted to retell it in one gulp, which was unthinkable without passion, but passion bounced off to the side, and in this way something new was obtained. However, the new arose not in the abolition of the old,as is commonly thought, but quite the contrary, in an admiring reproduction of the pattern.

In this case, the classic idea of the destructive pathos of futurism meets with surprising conviction. It is worth noting that often, with the development of various literary forms, it shows that what could seem destructive is actually a constructive beginning.

Literary generation

In his work, Pasternak gives an original analysis of the contemporary young and novice literary generation. Writers and poets who were destined to embody the new pace of art. This is how Pasternak writes about them in the Safe Conduct, an analysis of which is given in this article.

Thinking about the younger generation, Pasternak approaches the main theme of his final essay. He talks about the chosen one of his generation, Vladimir Mayakovsky. It demonstrates a sense of the significance of Mayakovsky as a literary phenomenon in the futuristic circles of the time.

Pasternak himself was convinced that Mayakovsky had the primacy among the poets of his generation. He noticed how subtly the role of futurism as an advanced literary movement was conveyed at that time, justifying it precisely by the fact that Mayakovsky came out of it.

Poetic youth

Telling about the literary moods of poetic youth, the author of the Safeguard notes that even at that time the fate of the fortune-telling chosen one was already in the air. The Futurist movement was innovative andvisible unanimity.

Memories of meetings with Vladimir Mayakovsky, especially the reader is impressed by the descriptions of literary Moscow. This is perhaps the best that has been written about this poet in connection with his death. The memoirs of Pasternak given here are even more significant, because he himself did not belong to his admirers.

With certainty, he declared his disagreement with the entire later period of his work, starting with his poem "150 million". Hearing it from the lips of Mayakovsky himself, Pasternak remained completely indifferent to her. He noted that even after many years, when they tried to work together, Pasternak understood him less and less. But this misunderstanding did not prevent him from perceiving his death as a huge and irreparable loss.

Causes of Mayakovsky's death

In "Certificate of Conduct" Mayakovsky repeatedly emphasized that it is fundamentally wrong to consider the poet's death solely because of his personal love failure. He puts forward his own fatal trait in such poets as Mayakovsky or Yesenin.

In Pasternak's view, it makes them related to German romanticism, consisting in understanding life as the life of a poet. In other words, they turned their personal life into a literary fact, and they could no longer separate themselves from literature, and mixed their own lyrical hero with themselves.

As a result, the collapse of their lyrical hero led topersonal tragedy and vice versa: their personal tragedy became an important literary event. The poet paid for his own romantic understanding of his life. Something enduring embraced Mayakovsky and Yesenin, led them to self-destruction.

Only overcoming this romantic perception of life saved Alexander Blok from collapse ahead of time, Boris Pasternak himself understood the falsity of this approach to life, linking the moment of his independent literary path with this. As the author of the essay "Professional Certificate" noted, non-romantic poetics arose, with its self-recognition giving the key to understanding the peculiarities of one's own peculiar poetic image.

Reviews

In reviews of Boris Pasternak's Safe Conduct, many readers note how difficult it is at first to perceive the image and ornateness of the author's literary language.

The main thing here is to get involved in your native language, to feel its forms. Pasternak in this autobiographical story tells about the main events of his life. By the middle of his life, such main points of his fate were his first love, a trip to Marburg, the rejection of musical education, a passion for philosophy, Mayakovsky's place in the world of Pasternak and all the literature of that time.

The author carefully describes fragments and episodes of his life, some of which last for months, others for weeks, and some consist of only a few hours. Their author restores literally every second.

Pasternak succeeds organicallyweave the common essence so deftly that the reader does not even feel how quickly he finds himself in Berlin, in other cities on Pasternak's life path.

Outstanding Essays

All these are fleeting memories of meetings, long-term and short-term acquaintances with great people of art who influenced his life, destiny, love, historical era, the choice of his personal creative path.

Perhaps the impressions about Mayakovsky make the greatest impression. Therefore, the book is advised to be read in the most quiet environment, while slowly, the language is not the easiest, some paragraphs have to be re-read several times in order to catch all the details in the heaps of verbal constructions.

The essay "Chopin" is considered outstanding, which encourages you to immediately listen to the composer's works in order to compare your own perception with that of Boris Pasternak. All this makes us return again and again to this amazing and wonderful story of the future Nobel laureate.