Oh shut your pale legs

The poem was published in the third edition of the almanac "Russian Symbolists" edited by Bryusov, published in the summer of 1895 (p. 13). This was the first original (not a translation) Russian monostic, published over 90 years (the previous single-line poem was published in 1804 by D. I. Khvostov ).

Monostikh Bryusov caused an extremely sharp reaction of literary criticism. Moreover, as Yu. N. Tynyanov subsequently wrote, ““ Why one line? ”Was the first question, ... and only the second question was:“ What are these legs? ”” ^[3] . Newspaper reviewers took Bryusov’s text as a good occasion for wit exercises and harsh remarks against Bryusov’s work and all new poetry in general - he saw the one-line poem of non-obvious content as the most concentrated manifestation of such vices of symbolist poetry as a penchant for formal experimentation and slurred meaning. The response of Vladimir Solovyov had the greatest resonance: “For complete clarity, we should probably add:“ for you will catch a cold ”, but even without this, Mr. Bryusov’s advice, obviously addressed to a person suffering from anemia, is the most meaningful work of the whole symbolic literature ” ^[4] .

Against this background, the review of Vasily Rozanov stood out, who devoted a lot of space to the Bruce monostic in reviewing the book production of the Symbolists, twice (with different interpretations) published in periodicals in 1896, and then included in Rozanov’s book “Religion and Culture” (1899): “ A woman, not only without an image, but always always without a name, usually appears in this “poetry” <...> The angle of view of a person and, it seems, of all human relations <...> here does not open from above, does not come from the person, does not penetrate with meaning, but rises from somewhere below, from the feet, and pron hiccups of sensations and desires that have nothing to do with meaning. <...> A new person <...> more and more forgotten how to pray: <...> his soul speaks only to itself. Everything that <...> hinders the independent discovery of self, <...> becomes unbearable for him, <...> as long as I, exalted, adorned, <...> on the ruins of all the great connecting institutions: church, fatherland, family , doesn’t define himself <...> in this unexpectedly brief, but also together expressive wish: Oh, close your pale legs! " ^[5] Thus, Rozanov was the first to attempt to interpret Bryusov’s poem, turning in this connection to the erotic sphere.

Bryusov considered it necessary to explain his creative intent in relation to this poem. In various letters and interviews of 1895-1896, the poet repeatedly commented on him. Characteristically, this comment did not clarify the content of the text and was associated exclusively with its single-line form. In the most distinct variant, Bryusov’s explanations look like this: “If you like a poetic play, and I’ll ask you: what struck you especially? - you will call me one single verse. Is it not clear from here that the ideal for the poet should be one verse that would tell the reader’s soul everything that the poet wanted to tell him? .. ” (Interview with Novosti newspaper, November 1895) ^[6] .

Other interpreters and commentators of the poem - especially those close to the camp of the Symbolists - on the contrary, tried to penetrate the essence of the poem. The most common version was the religious subtext of the Bruce monostic. According to the memoirs of K. Erberg , Vyacheslav Ivanov Bryusov allegedly answered in 1905 a direct question about the meaning of the text: “Why, what newspaper scribblers did not weave about this line ... and this is just an appeal to the crucifixion” ^[7] . A similar version belongs to Vadim Shershenevich : “He (Bryusov) told me ... that, having read in one novel the exclamation of Judas, who saw the“ pale legs ”of the crucified Christ, he wanted to translate this cry of the traitor in one line, however, another time Bryusov told me, that this line is the beginning of the poem about Judah ” ^[8] . Similar considerations are expressed by several other memoirists. However, Bryusov himself never stated anything like this in writing or in public.

Bryusov’s poem was remembered after years and decades, although the assessment and emphasis could change. Maximilian Voloshin in 1907 wrote about him with regret: this text “ overshadowed the rest of the poet’s work for many years from her (the reading public). <...> For Bryusov, this small line was a heavy millstone of thousands of pounds ... " ^[9] On the contrary, Sergei Yesenin, in 1924, in an unpublished obituary to Bryusov, recalled with obvious sympathy:" He was the first to cry out against stereotyping with his famous: Oh, close their pale legs ” ^[10] .

Subsequent publications of Russian monostics have always evoked the Bruce model of form in the memory of readers and critics. Poets took this into account. It is very characteristic, for example, that in the next publication of monostics after Bryusov in Russia - the book by Vasilisk Gnedov “Death to Art” (1914), consisting of 15 texts, the volume of which decreases from one line to one word, one letter and, finally, a blank page, - The first one-line poem is written by the same three-foot anapaest as the text of Bryusov, that is, it is a rhythmic quote ^[11] .

In the posthumous editions of Bryusov, on the initiative of his widow I. M. Bryusova, several more single-line poems were printed, starting with the book "Unreleased Poems" (1935). However, the origin of all of them is doubtful.

Most publications accept the dating of the famous monostic on December 3, 1894. Bryusov’s notebooks for this period, stored in the Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library ^[12] , contain a poem autograph that differs markedly from what readers are used to. The page opens with the number "XIII" (there are no other similar numbers on the adjacent pages). The following is the line: Bare your pale legs . The first word is crossed out, above it is inscribed: Extend . The final version - with the words About close - is missing in the autograph. After a single line, free space is left to the end of the page.

According to D. Kuzmin , this kind of autograph in Bruce’s notebooks, which are usually filled very densely, can indicate only one thing: we have before us a fragment of an incomplete translation. Bryusov began to translate some poem, which was listed under number XIII in the foreign source book, translated the first line and, intending to finish later, left a place for continuation, which did not follow. Several similar lines from incomplete translations are found in this and other notebooks of Bryusov, and some of them were posthumously published as monostics. However, it was this line that caught Bryusov’s attention after about six months, when he looked through his notebooks, selecting texts for publication in the next issue of “Russian Symbolists,” and Bryusov decided to publish this single line separately, while changing its meaning to the opposite (strictly speaking, it was at this moment that the famous poem was born, and before that there was only an abandoned line of a failed translation). It is possible that Bryusov’s decision was influenced by his acquaintance with the Max Nordau treatise “Degeneracy,” where, among other examples of the destructive influence of modernism on culture, the statement by Theophil Gauthier that only one fine line should be left out of all Racine ^[13] .

• Kuzmin D.V. Monostikhi Bryusova: facts and conjectures // Bryusov readings of 1996. - Yerevan: Lingua, 2001. - S. 63–67.
• Ivanova E. V. "Pale legs" in the fate of Valery Bryusov. // At the turn of two centuries: A collection in honor of the 60th anniversary of A. V. Lavrov / Comp. Sun Bagno, J. Malmstad, M. Malikova. - M., 2009 .-- S. 288-294.