Artists of the Soviet Empire

Vera Mukhina

RACHEL SKEPPER MILLINERY COLLECTION "AUSTRALIA" FW14 at WHITE MILANO, MILAN FASHION WEEK 2014

RACHEL SKEPPER

FW’14 MILLINERY COLLECTION 

‘AUSTRALIA’

featured at

MILANO

 Milan Fashion Week 2014

FOR DIRECT ORDERS OR DISTRIBUTION 

contact: rachelskepper@gmail.com

Rachel Skepper on Instagram

RACHEL SKEPPER on ELLE.IT

Designer Interview & Collection Feature

THE COLLECTION

RACHEL SKEPPER                     

FW’14 MILLINERY COLLECTION

‘AUSTRALIA’

Featured at WHITE MILANO, Milan Fashion Week 2014.

Inspired by the Australian landscape and ‘outback’, the millinery collection furthermore references traditional and historical Australian headwear.

Designed in Australia, each hat is individually hand crafted by artisans in Japan, using the highest-grade materials sourced both locally and throughout Europe.

The concept behind each design in the collection imparts a story, reflecting the designer’s creative vision and interpretation of Australia, unveiling her inimitable approach to design.

THE COLLECTION

Inspired by the Australian landscape and ‘outback’, the collection furthermore references traditional and historical Australian headwear.

RS 1

The concept behind the avant-garde design draws inspiration from the natural formations and contoured landforms in the desert and coastline of Australia.

Crafted with a broad brim, the design brings an element of couture to the collection being structured entirely by hand from start to finish.

RS 2/3

The open incision in the peak is inspired by the cracked and arid landscape of the Australian desert and emulates a distressed appearance from being handled over time.

RS 4

The simplicity of the design references the Australian style fedora hat, and forms the classic shape of the collection.

RS 5

Inspired by the ‘brumbies’ (wild horses) of Australia, the design signifies the headwear worn by the drovers, furthermore depicted by the cavalry hat cord.

RS 6

The design is strongly influenced by Australian military hats worn by the soldiers during the occupation of World War I & II.

The punctured holes, which were often stamped on the crown of hats for the purpose of ventilation, feature the designer’s initials ‘RS’.

The gold symbol adorned on numerous designs throughout the collection not only represents the designer’s logo, but also draws reference to the strong presence of the sun overlooking the Australian landscape.

The collection is unisex, excepting one design, and is available in five shades: Midnight Blue, Black Charcoal, Pearl, Burgundy Uluru and Moss Green.

Designed in Australia, each hat is individually hand crafted by artisans in Japan, using the highest-grade materials sourced both locally and throughout Europe.

SPECIAL FEATURE INSTALLATION 

created for A.I Artisinal Intelligence 

curated by Clara Tosi Pamphili (Alta Roma)

sound design by Benjamin Skepper

from left to right:  RS 2 and 3

from left to right:  RS 5 and 4

from left to right:  RS 1 and 6

GAY PROPAGANDA LAWS IN RUSSIA - CITY OF MELBOURNE POLITICAL SYMBOLISM IS A STEP BACKWARDS - PRESERVE SISTER CITY RELATIONSHIP WITH ST PETERSBURG VIA YOUR CULTURAL AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA BENJAMIN SKEPPER

BE ACTIVE IN OUR CULTURAL and CIVIC AFFAIRS BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND RUSSIA


WRITE to MELBOURNE CITY COUNCIL deploring termination of our Sister City Relationship with 
ST PETERSBURG

EMAIL COUNCIL HERE  com.meetings@melbourne.vic.gov.au


PRESERVE OUR SISTER CITY RELATIONSHIP WITH ST PETERSBURG VIA YOUR CULTURAL AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA BENJAMIN SKEPPER

DEADLINE 24 FEB Council Meet 25 FEB

As your Cultural Ambassador to St. Petersburg and Russia generally,
I implore all Melbourne residents to write to City Council and express discontent at the present decision to terminate our sister city relationship with St Petersburg due to the operation of the gay propaganda laws.

This all came about through a Change.org petition, seeking signatures demanding council cut all ties with a purportedly "homophobic" sister city. Note that it is lawful to be homosexual in Russia, whereas it is not in India for example. Yet are we ceasing all trade ties with India?

Upon what grounds do Councillors and its affiliates base there assertion other than what they have noted on social media and the internet?  Based on my personal discussions with Melbourne City Council, both the Business Branch and Councillors, NO RESEARCH and NO STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION has been sought (other than a perfunctory letter to the St Petersburg City Council demanding reversal of the laws citing breaches of International Law Conventions). It appears to have been a knee-jerk emotional response to highly confronting and confounding issues, but it was certainly not based not on sound judgement through law, reason or dialogue. And what of the potentially damaging consequences to Australia's national trade interests as well as our international reputation of tolerance, understanding and mutual respect?

I was sent as a Cultural Advocate to St Petersburg in June/July 2013 at the request of The City of Melbourne. As a consultant to Council, I undertook a number of meetings with sister city counterparts and a range of public arts and civic institutions interested in the Melbourne St Petersburg relationship, to identify the level of interest in the sister city relationship and possible future projects. I provided Council with a report, which informs the future direction of cultural exchanges that may be initiated under the auspice of the Melbourne St Petersburg sister city relationship. Valuable work conducted on the ground, at a grass roots level.

To further promote and support the work undertaken, I was invited by the STATE CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC in ST PETERSBURG to undertake a fellowship and continue my cultural advocacy, commencing in April this year. Our Russian counterparts want to take part in international relationships, to share ideas and culture, to open a dialogue for cultural exchange and social interchange. Are we to persecute them for this?

By way of background, The Sister City Relationship was ensrhined in 1989 stating

As espoused by Melbourne City Council, this sister city relationship has always been about promoting ART and CULTURAL ties between our sister cities, and considering the richness of Russian cultural life and history, Australia has much to benefit from such a relationship, considering our own very young historical position. This is also about the need to provide opportunities to Australians wanting to benefit from such cultural exchange. What must be understood, this relationship was never about massive trade profits as expected with our present relations with China, India and Japan. This relationship sits within a cultural and artistic portfolio, which should not be frowned upon nor is it preclusive to benefiting our trade prospects and relationships.

Gay rights, human rights, equal rights, the entire Human Rights Debate - terminating the Sister City Relationship through Councils formal procedural system is an incorrect use of this mechanism to seek change about the gay propaganda laws. Whilst it has created debate about what we need to do in order to bring about a lasting and just result for LGBTI in Russia, it will not produce results. Terminating the relationship is going to take us further away from any lasting justice that we might seek with respect to the operation of the gay propaganda laws in Russia and indeed the anti-gay laws that still operate around Australia.

I am a trained International Lawyer with a Masters in Public and International Law focusing on Human Rights Law, specialising in Children's Rights under International Law. The present approach we are adopting will not create a debate, open up dialogue or conversation with our Russian friends. Requesting another country to change its laws (no matter how heinous they may seem) has not, and will never, work, nor is it legally justifiable under international law (and let us not forget the civilian disasters caused by military force and economic sanction regimes applied in past world conflicts and the number of people that have been injured or killed due to one political regime being "better" than the other). It is paradoxical that Australian stakeholders cite International Law Conventions when Australia's present track record is indeed abysmal, and this goes also towards Australia's treatment of homosexual people under State and Federal Criminal Law: the homosexual advances defence remains lawful (and was only repealed in Victoria 10 years ago), and the High Court recently annulled gay marriage in Canberra. So what is the solution?

How does Melbourne City Council, and its affiliated supporters and Councillors, expect that symbolically terminating the relationship is going to benefit LGBTI people in Russia when our counterparts expressly request our support? What research and understanding supports such a hypothesis?

I received a highly persuasive statement from Russia's Peak LGBTI Body Chairman
Российская ЛГБТ-Сеть (Russian LGBT Network)

"Isolation of Russia and St. Petersburg is now very bad idea. Inclusion of minorities and to discuss the problems of equality in government and civil exchanges between sister cities will be much more effective" ( Кочетков Игорь | Kochetkov Igor , председатель | chairman ) (14 December 2013, transcript email from the author)

This statement single handedly saved the relationship at Councils meeting of 17 December 2013, where our Lord Mayor Robert Doyle was essentially ready to terminate the relationship backed by our elected Councillors - I did mention the federal legal consequences of termination which had not even been considered by Council in what was to be a unilateral decision to terminate ... and so it was "competently" deferred to DFAT for advice.

I was informed that I was the only Melbourne resident to express grave concern about terminating the relationship. What do you think about this? Did you even know we had a sister city relationship with St Petersburg?

WRITE TO MELBOURNE CITY COUNIL BEFORE FEBRUARY 25 AND STATE THAT WE MUST PRESERVE OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ST PETERSBURG

I AM YOUR CULTURAL AMBASSADOR AND I REPRESENT A FUTURE PARADIGM OF DIALOGUE AND EXCHANGE, NOT POLITICAL SYMBOLISM, VOTE GRABBING AND THE RESULTING IGNORANCE AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST THAT UNDERPIN MUCH ABOUT THE WAY BUSINESS OPERATES.

Write in ONLINE and copy the SUBJECT HEADING

PRESERVE SISTER CITY RELATIONSHIP WITH ST PETERSBURG VIA CULTURAL AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA BENJAMIN SKEPPER

EMAIL COUNCIL DIRECT com.meetings@melbourne.vic.gov.au
DEADLINE 24 FEB Council Meet 25 FEB to "deliberate".


THE ONLINE CONTACT LINK IS HERE
http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/AboutCouncil/ContactUs/Pages/ContactUs.aspx


Art and Culture can strengthen our relationships internationally, and provide an active, non-aggressive and viable way to talk about political, social and civic issues important to all humanity.

GET ON BOARD!  DEADLINE 24 FEB 2014

Vatolina and Denisov (Artists)

Poster NE BOLTAY! ("Don't Gossip!")
Moscow-Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1941

RUSSIAN POETS and LITERATURE - BLOK, BUNIN and BEYOND

RESEARCH - OBERIU

Marina Tsvetaeva

Nikolai Berdyaev

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin

Ivan Bunin - 1933 Nobel Prize for Literature 

The Great Purge 1934-1939 

Pavel Filonov - also a painter

Anna Akhmatova - anti-Stalinist 

 

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok 
Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Бло́к


Black night.
White snow.
The wind, the wind!
It will not let you go. The wind, the wind!
Through God's whole world it blows

The wind is weaving
The white snow.
Brother ice peeps from below
Stumbling and tumbling
Folk slip and fall.
God pity all!
From "The Twelve" (1918)


Trans. Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky
Двенадцать

The Twelve

By Alexander Blok

Translated by Aleksey Calvin

Featuring original illustrations by Yuri Annekov and others.

1

Black evening.

White snow.

The wind, the wind!

Not a soul on their feet

The wind, the wind –

All across god’s realms!

The wind wails

White snowdrops.

Under fallen snow – the ice.

Slippery, tough,

Some walker

Slips, — ah, what a poor kid!

From building to building

A cable is stretched.

On the cable – a poster:

“All Power to the Constituent Assembly!”

A little old woman eats herself up – weeps,

She just doesn’t get it, what it all means,

What for – this poster,

Why such a big fabric piece?

Could’ve made so many footwraps for the kids,

Instead, pick any one – got no clothes, no shoes…

The little old thing, like a hen,

Barely tossed herself over a snow bank.

–Oh, Holy Mother, my Protectress!

– Oh, those Bolsheviks will shut my casket case!

The wind is lashing!

The frost keeps up as well!

And a bourgeois on the corner

Hid his nose into a coat collar.

And who is this? – With the long hair

And speaking softly, like he’s barely there:

— Traitors!

— Perished, our Russia! —

Must be, the writer —

Of some eloquence…

 

And right over there mister long robe –

Slyly — hides behind a snowbank…

Why so upset these days,

Comrade priest?

Do you recall, how once it was,

You walked around with your gut-upfront,

Your big belly shining

With a cross to the folk?..

Here a fancy lady warm in a caracul

Ran into another madam:

- How we cried and cried… -

She slipped up

And – bam – on the ground all stretched out!

Hey! Hey!

Lend a hand, help me up!

The wind so joyous

Both angry, and glad.

It spirals coat hems,

Cuts down pedestrians,

Rips, bends, and tosses

A humongous poster:

“All Power to the Constituent Assembly”…

And carries words across:

… And we too had an assembly…

… Right here in this building…

… Discussed –

Decreed:

For an hour – ten; for the night – twenty five…

… And don’t take any less from anyone…

… Let’s go sleep now….

Late evening.

The street empties.

Only a single vagrant

Hunches over,

And the wind whistles…

Hey, poor boy!

Come closer —

Let’s make out…

I demand bread!

What awaits ahead?

Come on through!

The black, black sky.

Spite, sorrowful spite,

Boils in the breast…

Black spite, blesséd spite…

Comrade! Watch out

With both eyes!

 

2

The wind strolls, flutters the snow.

There are twelve of them as they go.

Their rifles’ black belts,

And around them – flames, flames, flames…

Rolled cig in the teeth, a crumpled hat,

Gotta stick an ace of diamonds to the back!

Freedom, freedom,

Hey, hey, without a cross!

Tra-ta-ta!

It’s cold, comrades, cold!

- Ivan and Katya – in the drinking hole…

- Inside her sock she hides Kerensky dough!

- And Vanya’s gotten rich as well…

- Was once our boy, he’s now a soldier!

-Well, Vanya, bitch’s spawn, boughie-man,

Try and kiss my ass, if you can!

Freedom, freedom,

Well, well, well, without a cross!

Katya and Vanya are busy,

Busy doing what?..

Tra-ta-ta!

All around them – flames, flames, flames…

Upon the shoulders – rifle belts…

Keep up the pace with Revolution’s thunder!

Our tireless enemy never slumbers!

Hold up your rifle, comrade, don’t you cower!

Let’s lodge a bullet into Blessed Russia!

Into the hardy,

And the wooden-hutted,

Into the fat-assed Russia!

Hey, hey, without a cross!

3

How our guys at once went off

In the Red Guard went to serve –

In the Red Guard went to serve –

To lay down their stormy skulls!

Oh you, bitter-bitterness,

Oh, sweet life of fun!

A torn up little overcoat,

And an Austrian gun!

And for the bourgeois to cry

We will blow our fires worldwide,

Fire across the globe in blood –

Worldwide fire, so bless us God!

4

Swirling snow, wild driver cries,

Vankya next to Katya flies –

And a small electric streetlight

Dances on the rushing sled…

Hey, hey, hey, ahead, ahead!..

All dressed up in a soldier’s coat

With the face of an idiot

Twirling, twirling, his black whisker,

And twisting, twisting,

And kidding, and kidding…

Look at Vankya – so broad-shouldered!

Look at Vankya – so well – worded!

Hugging, hugging foolish Katya,

Talking her top off…

Now she’d lift that face of hers,

Tiny teeth glisten with pearls…

Oh you, Katya, oh my Katya,

Little fatty-face…

 

5

Katya, right there on your neck,

There’s a knife-scar that remains.

Katya, right beneath your breast,

There’s a scratch and it’s still fresh!

Hey, hey, go on and dance!

Much too fine your little legs!

Strolled in lacy underwear –

Stroll-away-hey, stroll away!

With the officers you cankered –

Whore-away-hey, whore away!

Do you still recall the sergeant –

How the knife tore up his flesh…

Maybe, scum, you can’t remember?

Or is your memory not fresh?

Hey, hey, freshen up,

Let him sleep next to your lap!

Walked around in those gray gaiters,

Guzzled Mignon chocolates…

With the junkers promenanded –

Going out with soldiers now?

Hey, hey, sin along!

It will liberate your soul!

6

… Again the rider sweeps ahead,

He flies, and yells and wails like mad…

Stop, stop! Andrey, now help me here!

And Petya, get him from the rear!

Bambambambam-bam-bam-bam-bry!

The snowy ash weaves through the sky!

The fiend – with Vanya – fleeing thither

Come on, once more! Now raise the trigger!..

Bam-bambambam! Now you will know,

………………………………………………………………

Just how to snatch another’s girl!

The bastard fled! Now, wait a moment,

I will take care of you tomorrow!

But where is Katya? – Dead, she’s dead!

A gunshot ran right through her head!

Well, Katya, happy? – Not a word…

Then lay there, dead meat, on the snow!

Keep up the pace with Revolution’s thunder!

Our tireless enemy never slumbers!

 

7

And again the twelve are marching,

Rifles hang behind their backs.

Only the poor killer somehow

Lost his face with sorrow black.

Faster, faster, faster yet

He hurries up his marching step.

It’s no use, he can’t recover -

Ties a scarf around his neck…

- Hey there, comrade, why so sad?

- Why’d you lose your tongue, old friend?

- Why, Petruhka, droop your nose, eh?

Or for Katya you feel bad?

- Oh, my comrades, oh, my brothers,

I sure loved that girly so…

Many black and drunken evenings,

I would spend right next to her…

- All because of fatal boldness

Hiding in her flaming eyes,

And that crimson birthmark burning

By her right-hand shoulder side,

And I killed her, what a moron,

Ruined her, oh, lost my mind…

- Look, you wretch, you better shut it,

What are you a broad now, ahh?

- Spare us this revealing moment.

Why wear your spirit inside out?

- Keep your posture good and straight!

- Get a grip upon yourself!

- These are not the proper days

For us to nurse your inner babe.

And the times are getting tougher,

My dear comrade, for ourselves.

And Petruha’s slowing down

His uneasy rapid steps.

He lifts up his boyish head,

He’s once more all joyful, glad…

Hey, hey, hey, heyheyhey, hun!

It’s no sin to have some fun!

Lock your attics, lock your floors,

For tonight the robber goes!

But do unlock the cellar doors –

Today the rabble parties on!

 

8

Oh, you bitter bitterness!

Boredom boring,

And deadly!

How a little time,

I will spend, will spend…

How your little head,

I will scratch, will scratch…

How some sunflower seeds,

I will shell, will shell…

How with my little knife,

I will slash, will slash…

Fly away, bourgeois, as a sparrow babe!

I’ll drink some sweet blood,

Drink for my sweetheart,

For my little black-browed hun…

Grant rest, My Lord, to the soul

Of your slave, the maiden…

Oh, how boring!

 

9

The city’s noise has melted down,

Around the Nevsky tower silence hangs,

Even the town guardsman’s gone somewhere.

So party without wine tonight, my friends!

The bourgeois man at a crossroad stands,

Inside the collar hides his nose.

Beside him, cringes its coarse fur

And hides its tail some lousy dog.

The bourgeois stands like a starving mutt,

Without a word stands, like a question mark.

And the old world, just like some mongrel dog,

Stands right behind him, tail pressed to its back.

10

Seems the blizzard’s playing wildly,

What a blizzard, what a storm!

We can’t even see each other,

Even from four steps along!

The snowstorm with a funnel swirls,

The snowstorm with a column rose…

- What a blizzard, help us Savior!

- Petka! Hey, don’t drown in lies!

Just from what did that gold icon

Ever save you by and by?

You’re utterly unconscious,

Use your reason, think it out,

Aren’t both your hands all bloody,

Due to Katya’s finest love?

- Keep up the Revolutionary step!

The tireless enemy is close ahead!

Forward, forward, go,

Working folk, working folk!

11

…So they walk without a holy word,

All twelve – walk far along.

All ready for any thing,

All regretting nothing…

Aiming their darling rifles

At a ghostly foe…

Right into the voiceless alleys,

Where snowstorm dusts alone,

They go…

And into feathered snowbanks -

Where boots get stuck in snow…

Their scarlet flag

Strikes the eyes.

Their measured pace

Resounds.

Their ferocious enemy -

Soon enough will rise…

And the blizzard dusts their eyes

Days and nights

Away…

Forward, forward,

Working folk!

Forward and ahead!

 

12

…Off they go with valiant step…

“Who’s out there? Now show yourself!”

Just the wind up in the distance

Playing with the scarlet flag….

There’s a snowbank up ahead

- You in the snowbank, show yourself!..

Just a pooch, all poor and hungry,

Totters softly in the back…

- Now lose yourself, you mongrel creature,

Or else my bayonet will get you!

I say, old world, make like that stupid dog

Drop out of sight or bleed under my poke!

… Bares his teeth – the hungry wolf –

Tail tucked in – follows along –

Ice-cold hound, the kinless mongrel…

- Heey, respond, who’s out there walking?

- Who’s there waving that red flag?

- No use looking, what darkness black!

- Who’s up there, who walks so quickly

Digging in ‘side every house?

- All the same, somehow I’ll get you,

Best surrender while you breathe!

- Hey there, comrade, won’t end well,

We’ll start shooting, show yourself!

Bam-bam-bam!

And merely echo

Answers from the building walls…

Just the blizzard with its laughter

Rolls around amidst the snows…

Bam-bam-bam!

Bam-bam-bam!

…And so they walk a valiant stride,

The starving dog treads close behind,

While ahead – with a blood-red banner,

And behind the snow unseen,

Safe from any bullet’s sting,

Softly stepping ‘bove the blizzard,

Through the snowy pearly swirls,

In a wreath of roses white -

Leading them walks Jesus Christ.

- Petrograd, January 1918

......

Leon Trotsky

Literature and Revolution

Alexander Blok

Blok’s Place in Russian Literature – The Pre-Revolutionary Element of Blok’s Symbolism – Why The Twelve is not a Poem of the Revolution. – Dualism – Blok and the Bourgeoisie

---

BLOK belonged entirely to pre-October literature. Blok’s impulses – whether towards tempestuous mysticism, or towards revolution – arise not in empty space, but in the very thick atmosphere of the culture of old Russia, of its landlords and intelligentsia. Blok’s symbolism was a reflection of this immediate and disgusting environment. A symbol is a generalized image of a reality. Blok’s lyrics are romantic, symbolic, mystic, formless and unreal. But they presuppose a very real life with definite forms and relationships. Romantic symbolism is only a going away from life, in the sense of an abstraction from its concreteness, from individual traits, and from its proper names; at bottom, symbolism is a means of transforming and sublimating life. Blok’s starry, stormy and formless lyrics reflect a definite environment and period, with its manner of living, its customs, its rhythms, but outside of this period, they hang like a cloud-patch. This lyric poetry will not outlive its time or its author.

Blok belonged to pre-October literature, but he overcame this, and entered into the sphere of October when he wrote The Twelve. That is why he will occupy a special place in the history of Russian literature.

One should not allow Blok to be obscured by those petty poetic and semi-poetic demons who whirl around his memory, and who to this very day, the pious idiots cannot understand how Blok recognized Mayakovsky as a great talent, and yawned frankly over Gumilev. Blok, the “purest” of lyricists, did not speak of pure art, and did not place poetry above life. On the contrary, he recognized the fact that “art, life and politics were indivisible and inseparable”. “I am accustomed,” writes Blok in his preface toRetaliation, written in 1919, “to put together the facts accessible to my eye in a given time in every field of life, and I am sure that all together they always create one musical chord.” This is much bigger and stronger and deeper than a self-sufficient aestheticism, than all the nonsense about art being independent of social life.

Blok knew the value of the intelligentsia: “I am none the less a blood-relation of the intelligentsia,” he said, “but the intelligentsia has always been negative. If I did not go over to the Revolution, it is still less worth while to go over to the War.” Blok did not “go over to the Revolution”, but he took his spiritual course from it. Already the approach of the Revolution of 19o5 opened up the factory to Blok, and for the first time raised his art above lyrical nebulousness. The first Revolution entered his soul and tore him away from individualistic self-contentment and mystic quietism. Blok felt the reaction between the two Revolutions to be an emptiness of spirit, and the aimlessness of the epoch he felt to be a circus, with cranberry sauce for blood. Blok wrote of “the true mystic twilight of the years which preceded the first Revolution” and of “the untrue mystic after-effect which immediately followed it.” (Retaliation) The second Revolution gave him a feeling of wakening, of movement, of purpose and of meaning. Blok was not the poet of the Revolution. Blok caught hold of the wheel of the Revolution as he lay perishing in the stupid cul de sac of pre-Revolutionary life and art. The poem called The Twelve, Blok’s most important work, and the only one which will live for ages, was the result of this contact.

As he himself said, Blok carried chaos within himself all his life. His manner of saying this was formless, just as his philosophy of life and his lyrics were on the whole formless. What he felt to be chaos was his incapacity to combine the subjective and the objective, his cautious and watchful lack of will power, in an epoch which saw the preparation and afterwards the letting loose of the greatest events. Throughout all his changes, Blok remained a true decadent, if one were to take this word in a large historic sense, in the sense of the contrast between decadent individualism and the individualism of the rising bourgeoisie.

Blok’s anxious state of chaos gravitated into two main directions, the mystic and the revolutionary. But in neither direction did it resolve itself to the end. His religion was unclear and infirm, not imperative like his lyrics. The Revolution which descended on the poet like a hail of facts, like a geologic avalanche of events, refuted or rather swept away the pre-Revolutionary Blok, who was wasting himself in languor and presentiments. It drowned the tender, gnat-like note of individualism in the roaring and heaving music of destruction. And here one had to choose. Of course, the parlor poets could continue their chirping without choosing, and needed merely to add their complaints about the difficulties of life. But Blok, who was carried away by the period, and who translated it into his own inner language, had to choose, and he chose by writing The Twelve.

This poem is unquestionably Blok’s highest achievement. At bottom it is a cry of despair for the dying past, and yet a cry of despair which rises in a hope for the future. The music of the terrible events inspired Blok. It seemed to say to him: “Everything which you have written up to now is not right. New people are coming. They bring new hearts. They do not need this. Their victory over the old world signifies a victory over you, over your lyrics, which voiced only the torment of the old world before its death.” Blok heard this, and accepted it, and because it was hard to accept, and because he sought support for his lack of faith in his revolutionary faith, and because he wanted to fortify and convince himself, he expressed his acceptance of the Revolution in the most extreme images, that the bridges behind him might be burned. Blok does not make even a shadow of an attempt to sugar the revolutionary change. On the contrary, he takes it in its most uncouth forms and only in its uncouth forms – a strike of prostitutes, for instance, the murder of Katka by a Red guard, the pillage of a bourgeois home – and, he says, I accept this, and he sanctifies all this provocatively with the blessings of Christ, and perhaps tries even to save the artistic image of Christ by propping it up with the Revolution.

But nonetheless, The Twelve is not a poem of the Revolution. It is the swan song of the individualistic art that went over to the Revolution. And this poem will remain. The twilight lyrics of Blok are gone into the past, and will never return, for such times will not come again, but The Twelve will remain with its cruel wind, with its placard, with Katka lying on the snow, with the revolutionary step, and with the old world like a mangy cur.

The fact that Blok wrote The Twelve and that he became silent after The Twelve, that he stopped hearing music, is due as much to Blok’s character as to the very extraordinary “music” which he grasped in 1918. The convulsive and pathetic break with the whole past became, for the poet, a fatal rupture. Aside from the destructive processes which were going on in his organism, Blok could have been kept going perhaps only by a continual development of revolutionary events, by a powerful spiral of shocks that would embrace the whole world. But the march of history is not adapted for the psychic needs of a romanticist who is struck by the Revolution. And to be able to maintain oneself on the temporary sand-banks, one has to have a different training, a different faith in the Revolution, an understanding of its sequential rhythms, and not only an understanding of the chaotic music of its tides. Blok did not and could not have all this. The leaders of the Revolution were all people whose psychology and behavior were strange to him. That is why he withdrew into himself, and became silent after The Twelve. And those with whom he had lived spiritually, the wise men and the poets, the same who are always “negative”, turned away from him with malice and with hate. They could not forgive him his phrase, the mangy cur. They stopped shaking hands with Blok, as with a traitor, and only after his death did they “make peace with him”, and tried to show that The Twelve contained nothing unexpected, and that it was not of October, but of the old Blok, and that all the elements of The Twelve had their roots in the past, and let not the Bolsheviks imagine that Blok was one of theirs. This contention is not hard to gather from Blok’s various other works. There are rhythms, alliterations, strophes which find their full development in The Twelve. But one can find in the individualist Blok other rhythms and moods also; and it was this same Blok who, just in 1918, found in himself (certainly not on the pavement, but in himself) the broken music of The Twelve. The pavement of October was needed for this. Others escaped abroad from this pavement, or moved into interior islands. Here is the crux of the matter and this is what they do not forgive Blok for!

Thus rave all the fed, Thus longs the satisfaction of important bellies, Their trough is overturned, And confusion is in their foul pen. – A. Blok, The Fed)

But just the same, The Twelve is not a poem of the Revolution; because, after all, the meaning of the Revolution as an element (if one were to consider it as an element only) does not consist in releasing individualism that had been driven into a blind alley. The inner meaning of the Revolution remains somewhere outside the poem. The poem itself is eccentric in the sense of the word as it is used in physics. That is why Blok crowns his poem with Christ. But Christ belongs in no way to the Revolution, only to Blok’s past.

When Eichenvald, expressing the bourgeois attitude towards The Twelve, says openly and most maliciously, that the acts of Blok’s heroes are characteristic of the “comrades”, he fulfills the task he has set himself, namely, to slander the Revolution. A Red guard kills Katka, for jealousy. Is this possible, or is it impossible? It is entirely possible. But had such a Red guard been caught, he would have been sentenced to be shot by the Revolutionary Tribunal. The Revolution which applies the frightful sword of Terrorism, guards it severely as a State right. Were Terror used for personal ends, the Revolution would be threatened by inevitable destruction. As early as the beginning of 1918, the Revolution put an end to anarchistic unruliness, and carried on a merciless and victorious Struggle with the disintegrating methods of guerrilla warfare.

“Open up the cellars; the sansculottes are now having their holiday.” And this happened. But what bloody collisions took place for this very reason between the Red guards and the hooligans! “Soberness” was written on the banner of the Revolution. The Revolution was ascetic, especially in this most intense period. Therefore Blok does not give a picture of the Revolution, and certainly not of the work of its vanguard, but of its accompanying phenomena which were called forth by it, but which were in essence contrary to it. The poet seems to want to say that he feels the Revolution in this also, that he feels its sweep, the terrible commotion in the heart, the awakening, the bravery, the risk, and that even in these disgusting, senseless and bloody manifestations is reflected the spirit of the Revolution which, to Blok, is the spirit of Christ rampant.

Of all the things which have been written about Blok and about The Twelve, perhaps the most impossible are the writings of Mr. Chukovsky. His booklet about Blok is not worse than his other books. They reveal an external vivacity combined with an inability to bring the least order into his thoughts, an unevenness of exposition, a provincial newspaper rhythm, as well as a meager pedantism and a tendency to generalize on the basis of external antitheses. And Chukovsky always discovers what no one else has ever seen. Has anyone ever considered The Twelve as the poem of the Revolution, that very Revolution which took place in October? Heaven forbid! Chukovsky will immediately explain all about it, and will reconcile Blok with “public opinion”. The Twelve does not sing the Revolution, but Russia, in spite of the Revolution: “Here is an obstinate nationalism which, unembarrassed by anything, wants to see holiness even in ugliness, as long as this ugliness is Russia.” (K. Chukovsky, A Book About Alexander Blok) Blok then accepts Russia, in spite of the Revolution, or, to be more exact, in spite of the ugliness of the Revolution. This seems to be his reasoning; that much seems definite. At the same time, however, it turns out that Blok was always (!) the poet of the Revolution, “but not of the Revolution which is taking place now, but of another revolution, national and Russian ...” This is jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Thus Blok in The Twelve did not sing of Russia in spite of the Revolution, but sang of a revolution, not of the one which has taken place, but of another one, the exact address of which is fully known to Chukovsky. This is the way this talented fellow says it: “The Revolution he sang of was not the Revolution which was taking place around him, but another one, a true one, a flaming one.” But we just heard that he sang of ugliness, and not of a burning flame, and he sang of this ugliness because it was a Russian one, and not because it was revolutionary. And now we discover that he did not make his peace with the ugliness of the true revolution at all, just because that ugliness was Russian, but that he sang exaltingly of a revolution, of another one, a true and flaming one, only because that revolution was directed against an existing ugliness.

Vanka kills Katka with the rifle which was given him by his class to defend the Revolution. We say that this is incidental to the Revolution, but not of the Revolution. Blok means his poem to say: I accept this also, because here, also, I hear the dynamics of events, and the music of the storm. Now comes his interpreter Chukovsky, and explains it. The murder of Katka by Vanka is the ugliness of the Revolution. Blok accepts Russia, even with this ugliness, because it is Russian. But at the same time when he sings of the murder of Katka by Vanka and of the pillaging of the houses, Blok sings of a revolution, but not of this ugly present-day real Russian Revolution, but of another, a truer, flaming one. The address of this true and flaming revolution Chukovsky will tell us soon, right away.

But if the Revolution to Blok is Russia herself, just as she is, then what is the meaning of the “orator”, who looks upon the Revolution as treason? What is the meaning of the priest who walks by the side? What is the meaning of “the old world like a mangy cur”? What is the meaning of Denikin, Miliukov, Chernov and the émigrés? Russia has been split in half. That is the Revolution. Blok called one-half a mangy cur, and the other halt he blessed with the blessings at his command, that is, with verses and with Christ. But Chukovsky declares all this to be a mere misunderstanding. What charlatanism of words, what an indecent slovenliness of thought, what a spiritual devastation, what a cheap and mean and shameful jabber of speech!

To be sure, Blok is not one of ours, but he reached towards us. And in doing so, he broke down. But the result of his impulse is the most significant work of our epoch. His poem, The Twelve, will remain forever.

TAKEN FROM 

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lit_revo/ch03.htm