Yevtushenko's white snows are circling. Analysis of the poem E

"White snows are coming..." Evgeny Yevtushenko

White snows are falling
like sliding on a thread...
To live and live in the world,
but probably not.

Someone's soul without a trace
dissolving away,
like white snow
go to heaven from earth.

White snows are coming...
And I'll leave too.
I don't mourn death
and I do not expect immortality.

I don't believe in miracles
I am not snow, not a star,
and I won't do it again
never ever.

And I think sinful
Well, who was I?
that I am hasty in life
love more than life?

And I loved Russia
with all the blood, the ridge -
her rivers in flood
and when under the ice

the spirit of her five-walls,
the spirit of her pine forests,
her Pushkin, Stenka
and her elders.

If it was hard
I didn't bother too much.
Let me live uncomfortably
for Russia I lived.

And I hope
(full of secret worries)
that at least a little
I helped Russia.

Let her forget
about me without difficulty,
just let her be
forever, forever.

White snows are falling
like at all times
as under Pushkin, Stenka
and how after me

Big snows are coming
painfully bright
both mine and others
covering their tracks.

Being immortal is not possible
but my hope
if there is Russia,
so I will be.

Analysis of Yevtushenko's poem "White snows are falling ..."

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, like many poets of the Soviet era, was forced to write poems praising the communist system and preaching the ideals of a worker-peasant society. However, this did not prevent him from remaining a true patriot of his homeland and serving the Russian people. An example of this is the poem “White snows are falling ...”, written in 1965, in which the author sums up his work and expresses the hope that he did not live his life in vain.

The first part of the poem is devoted to discussions about life and death. Yevtushenko notes that he wants to "live and live in the world, but probably not." The poet emphasizes that he does not expect immortality and does not hope for a miracle.. Sooner or later, his turn will come to go to another world, so the author is worried about the thought of what exactly he will leave behind.

In this case, we are not talking about the creative heritage, since at the time when this work was created, Yevtushenko's poems were criticized by everyone and sundry, accusing the poet of sycophancy. Therefore, the author declares that his most valuable asset is that all his life he sincerely and devotedly loved Russia, its wooden huts, fields and forests, its amazing people, full of their own pride and fortitude. The poet emphasizes that "even though I lived hard, I lived for Russia." And he hopes that his life was not in vain, and his work helped his native country to become stronger, more successful and prosperous.

Yevtushenko does not put himself on a par with the classics of Russian literature, but he emphasizes that any poet is mortal. And the fate of leaving this world was prepared for more famous writers than he. At the same time, the “white snows” covered up the traces of people who played a significant role in Russian poetry, and the author will not be an exception from the huge list of iconic figures, in which he assigns the first place to Pushkin.

Yevtushenko himself does not believe in immortality in the generally accepted sense of the word, he does not consider himself superior and better than others in order to be awarded such an honor. Nevertheless, the author expresses the hope that "if there is Russia, then I will be too." With this phrase, the poet emphasizes that he cannot imagine his existence without a country, which for him is not just a homeland. Russia is a key image in Yevtushenko's civil lyrics, which the author considers not only through the prism of historical events. In the concept of the poet, Russia is somehow eternal and unshakable: people die, but the great power remains, being a symbol of the might and power of the Slavic peoples.

08.01.2013 22:23:46
Review: positive
Victor! You read Yevtushenko's poems very penetratingly and skillfully! Wonderful (of course!) background music! I always listen with attention to your reading, not only because it is professional in the best sense of the word. I am pleased with the depth of comprehension of the text. It fascinates me that your reading is always a penetration into the secrets of the soul.
This time you have chosen a cherished theme. You communicated your living faith to Yevtushenko's poems and brought them closer to the spiritual climate of our time.
Concepts - the Russian people, the Russian intelligentsia are still preserved. They are also in our everyday life and you breathed into them your own conviction, your faith and hope!
I beg you very much: do not get tired, do not stop your noble educational work. I also have in mind your propaganda of the work of the poetess Claudia Kholodova, who passed away early.
All this is worthy of respect! And accept my assurances in it!
I sincerely congratulate you on the coming New Year and Christmas! Health to you and all the best. I believe you will be fine! After all, you do not get tired, live among people and give them the work of your soul! Thank you!

“White snows are coming ...” - Yevtushenko E.A.

Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko came to poetry on the wave of the “thaw of the sixties”. Bright, original talent immediately attracted the attention of readers and critics. For about forty years, Yevtushenko has been the voice of truth and conscience in Russia.
The poem "White snows are falling" is one of the earliest in the poet's lyrics, but it can be considered a program in the work of Yevgeny Alexandrovich. Still young, in essence, the guy talks about eternal questions: life and death, creativity and immortality, the inviolability of his native land.

White snows are falling
Like gliding on a thread...
To live and live in the world, but, probably, it is impossible.
Something of the soul, without a trace
dissolving in the distance, like white snows, go to the sky from the earth.

The more carefully you read the poem, the more philosophical meaning opens up behind these seemingly simple lines. Here is the connection of generations, and the understanding that immortality can be gained only in true creativity, and the great, all-conquering love for the Motherland.

And I loved Russia
with all the blood, the ridge -
her rivers in flood
and when under the ice
the spirit of her five-walls,
the spirit of her pine forests,
her Pushkin, Stenka
and her elders.

Not a contradiction, but a barely emerging, timid hope, the words about the people's memory, the opportunity to leave one's name in the history of this great country, sound.

And I hope
(full of secret worries)
that at least a little
Helped Russia. Let her forget
about me without difficulty, just let
she will be forever, forever.

Following his great predecessors: Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Yevtushenko expresses a wish-hope for the immortality of Russia, and therefore his own.
Being immortal is not possible
but my hope
if there is Russia
so I will be.

In the poem, the poet uses his favorite technique - ring composition. The phrase “white snows are falling” sounds like a refrain. This is a happy find of the master, helping him to show the inviolability in the centuries of nature and Russia, and the connection of times, and the transience of time.

Big snows are coming
painfully bright
both mine and others
covering my tracks...

This is one of the best poems in the mature work of Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko, a gifted, bright, original poet.

Read by E. Kindinov

Evtushenko, Evgeny Alexandrovich
Poet, screenwriter, film director; co-chairman of the "April" Writers' Association, Secretary of the Board of the Commonwealth of Writers' Unions; was born on July 18, 1933 at st. Winter in the Irkutsk region; graduated from the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky in 1954; began publishing in 1949; was a member of the editorial board of the magazine "Youth" (1962-1969); member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, author of the poems "Bratskaya HPP", "Kazan University", "Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty", "Fuku", "Mother and the Neutron Bomb", the novel "Berry Places" and many other prose and poetic works.
Yevtushenko wrote that in his youth he was "a product of the Stalin era, a mixed-up mixed being, in which revolutionary romance, and the bestial instinct for survival, and devotion to poetry, and its frivolous betrayal at every step, coexisted." Since the late 50s, numerous performances have contributed to his popularity, sometimes 300-400 times a year. In 1963 Yevtushenko published his Premature Autobiography in the West German magazine Stern and in the French weekly Express. In it, he spoke about the existing anti-Semitism, about the "heirs" of Stalin, wrote about the literary bureaucracy, about the need to open borders, about the artist's right to a variety of styles outside the rigid framework of socialist realism. The publication of such a work abroad and some of its provisions were sharply criticized at the IV Plenum of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR in March 1963. Yevtushenko made a penitential speech in which he said that in his autobiography he wanted to show that the ideology of communism was, is and will be the foundation of his whole life. In the future, Yevtushenko often made compromises. Many readers began to be skeptical about his work, which received, in many respects, a journalistic, opportunistic orientation. With the beginning of perestroika, which Yevtushenko ardently supported, his social activities intensified; he spoke a lot in the press and at various meetings; inside the Writers' Union, the confrontation between it and a group of "pochvennik" writers led by S. Kunyaev and Yu. Bondarev intensified. He believes that the economic prosperity of society should be in harmony with the spiritual.

The main theme of the poem is expressed already in the first stanza: the lyrical hero, admiring the fabulous beauty of winter, bewitching quiet snowfall, says:

To live and live in the world,

But probably not.

The theme of the short life of man and the eternity of nature, the endless change of generations, the departure of the old life and the arrival of a new one is the eternal theme of poetry. So, A.S. Pushkin, reflecting on it in the poem “Do I wander along the noisy streets ...” (1829), reconciles the moment and eternity:

And let at the coffin entrance

Young will play life

And indifferent nature

Shine with eternal beauty.

The second stanza of the poem echoes the thoughts of the lyrical hero Yesenin in the poem "The golden grove dissuaded ..." (1924). In Yevtushenko’s poem “White snows are falling ...” snowflakes, “sliding like a thread”, connect the earth with the sky with a continuous connection:

Someone's soul without a trace

dissolving away,

like white snow

go to heaven from earth.

Yesenin's philosophical lines affirm the idea that people who lived on earth will remain in her memory forever:

Whom to pity? After all, every wanderer in the world -

Pass, enter and leave the house again.

Hemp dreams about all the departed

With a wide moon over the blue pond.

The lyrical hero Yevtushenko, confessing that he “does not believe in a miracle” and “does not expect immortality”, is looking for value in human existence, finds it in love for Russia, the Motherland:

And I loved Russia

with all the blood, spine ...

Love for Russia is love for its past, its history and spirit, the lyrical hero loves everything about her:

the spirit of her five-walls,

the spirit of her pine forests,

her Pushkin, Stenka

and her elders.

These lines continue the traditions of Russian poetry, which affirmed an internal connection with the Motherland as the basis of being and love for the world. Let us recall the poems of M.Yu. Lermontov "Motherland" (1841), A.A. Blok "Russia" (1908), S.A. Yesenin "Goy you, Rus', my dear ..." (1914) and other poets. This connection is clearly expressed in the exclamation of the lyrical hero Yesenin:

I will say: “There is no need for paradise,

Give me my country."

In the last lines of Yevtushenko's poem, the idea is proclaimed that the immortality of a person lies in the eternal life of the Motherland, and not in personal immortality:

if there is Russia,

so I will be.

Everything is quite natural. Every time I sit on the couch, looking at my bookcase, I catch my eye on Yevgeny Yevtushenko's book "White Snows Are Falling". She looks at me challengingly, testing my patience. And so, literally, the other day I could not resist the temptation and opened it, stumbling upon a poem with the same name. After reading to the end, I was very upset. There were many unclear points after reading that did not give me peace of mind, so I decided to conduct a small "literary investigation". I tried to understand the author, about whom Yevgeny Vinokurov wrote in his introductory article, "a thorough poet, Yevtushenko likes to tell slowly, he loves the plot."

"White snows are falling,
like sliding on a thread...
To live and live in the world,
yes, probably not."

Personally, I have a deep doubt about the word "snow", or rather doubt about the existence of this word as such. Perhaps the author uses it in the plural to show that it is snowing everywhere. In addition, the poem was dated about half a century ago and it is difficult to say something clearly here. Already in the first quatrain there is a repetition "to live and live in the world." There is a feeling that the author writes quickly and in passing. After all, one can think and find more precise words to convey the meaning, for example: "I would live forever in the world."

"Someone's souls, without a trace
Dissolving away
like white snow
go to heaven from earth.

A very subtle and figurative metaphor about souls that, like white snow, go to heaven, leaving the body. The problem is that it is difficult for the average reader to understand. Here it is worth considering that Yevtushenko is a poet of the social orientation of “a tenfold feeling of a day of life, being”, for which snow must certainly fall to the ground, and not fly up to heaven. It goes against his writing style.

“I don't believe in miracles.
I'm not snow, I'm not a star
and I won't do it again
never ever".

This unnecessary repetition of “never, never” crosses out the meaning of the entire quatrain, or rather, it becomes simply incomprehensible what the author is talking about, what he wants to convey with these lines, what idea he was going to convey to the reader. We can only guess and speculate. Why does the author deliberately use repetitions, when one might think, and a new line will definitely appear in it, more accurate, more clear. Let it take an hour or half a day, but it's worth it. The reader will be grateful.

"If it was hard,
I didn't bother too much.
Let me live uncomfortably -
I lived for Russia.

It is impossible to bypass these lines, it is very accurately and wisely said: “Let me live awkwardly - I lived for Russia.” Inaccurate rhyme suggests that the author paid special attention to the meaning, and not to the external faceting of the poem, and did not lose. The lines turned out to be extremely memorable and vital.

"Let her forget
About me without difficulty
Just let her be
Forever, forever…”

It is obvious that the author focuses on repetitions. It may be a kind of refrain and a wonderful line for a song, but I'm talking about poetry now. This is not the first time in the course of the poem there are such lines. I would like to focus on this, because again the meaning that the author puts into this quatrain is lost. Even despite the fact that the meaning is clear even without the last line, the reader is still left in a slight bewilderment, being unsure of his guesses. Of course, you can think and compose a more precise line, for example: “only let her be in my heart always,” but the author does not set himself such a goal.
In addition, the size of the poem is confusing. Usually in such situations, the reader, having read the poem to the end, begins to scratch his head vigorously, remembering what happened at the beginning. In this poem, the situation is the opposite. It seems that thanks to the same type of lines we are marking time in one place. Here lines pop up about Pushkin and Stenka, about immortality. What can be contained in one quatrain, the author manages to stretch into several, and completely unreasonably.
Summing up the results of my little “literary investigation”, I would like to note that repetitions made a special discord in the poems, thanks to which a simple, at first glance, poem was filled with a lot of unnecessary and incomprehensible riddles for the reader, for the solution of which there was no time or energy left.