I'm a fired arrow

The song was written in 1990 after reading by Edmund Shklyarsky of the novel “So said Zarathustra. A book for all and for no one ”by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche ^[1] . According to the musician’s recollections, while still a schoolboy, he read a brief reference about the novel and its author in the encyclopedia , and even then he was interested in the name of this work ^[1] . Many years later, already in the perestroika period, while in Moscow , according to Shklyarsky, “on some musical matters, in search of a brighter future”, in a conversation with an employee of the “near-concert” organization, he mentioned the novel “That’s what Zarathustra said.” Unexpectedly for the musician, the interlocutor left him, but soon returned with a copy of Nietzsche’s book and presented it to Shklyarsky ^[1] . The latter called the circumstances of this meeting mysterious, noting that everything was “good” then, until his interlocutor “began to talk about his meetings with the Martians ” ^[1] . The book itself, Shklyarsky believed, fell into his hands "at the time when it should have" ^[2] .

Acquaintance with the work of Nietzsche made a strong impression on Shklyarsky and was perceived by him as a revelation ^{[3] [4]} . According to the musician, he was surprised how “one person can accommodate all this and write this” ^[3] . From what he read, he came up with the idea that “everything present should be on the blood. Temples , verses - everything is in the blood. Even every line in a song must be riddled with blood ” ^[4] . Later, in various interviews, the musician repeatedly mentioned the influence of the novel “So Said Zarathustra” on the song “I am a fired arrow”, noting, for example, the fact that “some motives ” from this work “penetrated” her text ^[5] , or by defining a song as an “ association” ^[2] or even as an “ afterword to a read” ^[3] .

The song “I am an arrow shot” was included in the track list of the fifth studio album of the band “Picnic” “Harakiri” , material for which was prepared during 1990 ^[6] . Unlike the previous work of the group, this album, according to Shklyarsky, was a “laconic form of repetitions of a short structure”, like T. Rex ^[7] . Since the possibilities of promoting the future album through broadcasting were not initially considered, insofar as the songs were created, the goal was to quickly attract the attention of the audience: “if a person heard somewhere, a few seconds are enough” ^[7] .

The recording of “Harakiri” was made in January 1991 at the Lenfilm film studio ^{[8] [9]} . The executive producer of the album was Andrei Burlaka , in his words, who worked closely with the Picnic musicians at that time ^[10] . Problems of economic development in the country, which also affected the recording industry, led to the release of the Harakiri record only at the end of 1992 ^{[8] [11]} . The album was released by the Leningrad factory “Melodies” , however, in its output data Edmund Shklyarsky's own label Matuzalem Records was indicated ^[10] .

In the early 1990s, the song “I am an arrow shot” was included in the “Picnic” concert program. Citing the group’s performance on Palace Square on August 22, 1991, after the August coup ’s defeat, Shklyarsky noticed that in those years the concert organizers often “remembered” the song “I am an arrow shot” and other compositions included in “Harakiri”, inviting musicians to perform exactly when "some troubles" occurred in the country ^[12] .

During the performance of the song at the rock festival “Invasion 2002”, the actress of the “Black and White” theater Marcela Soltan showed a specific theatrical performance: she moved to the beat in the form of a biomechanical doll in a suit from the play “Triad” of this theater ^[13] . The performance of other songs during this performance of "Picnic" was also accompanied by elements of performance . The “Invasion” site has become a “ springboard ” for testing new stage technologies as part of work on the band's anniversary, in honor of the twentieth, concerts ^[14] . Therefore, preparation for the rock festival then took several months ^[14] .

October 7, 2011 at the anniversary concert "Picnic" in the Ice Palace of St. Petersburg , the song "I am a shot arrow", together with Shklyarsky, was performed by Vyacheslav Butusov . In the introduction to the song, another ex- Nautilus Pompilius member Alexei Mogilevsky played a separate saxophone solo ^[15] . In 2012, this concert recording was released on the album “30 Light Years”.

The studio version of the song “I Am A Launched Arrow” was reprinted as part of collection albums : “Collection Album 83–93” (1994), “Violet-Black” (2001), “The Big Game” (2015), “35” (2016) .

The motive of movement

Researcher V. Kurskaya considered their dissimilarity to others, lack of mutual understanding with the latter, and, as a result, loneliness ^[16] . Having singled out two incarnations of the lyrical hero - the Shaman and the Prophet, acting as a mediator between the real world and the other world, Kurskaya drew attention to the fact that the author often contrasts her hero with other people ^[16] . Analysis of the image of the Launched Arrow becomes important for understanding the essence of the hero-Prophet ^[17] . Mentioning the influence of Nietzsche ’s novel “ So Said Zarathustra ” on the idea of ​​the song “I am a fired arrow”, the researcher suggested that this image was inspired by the thesis from the text of the novel, which Kurskaya formulated as follows: “A man is an arrow fired through an abyss of despair” ^[17] . (At Nietzsche, translated by Julius Antonovsky , edited by K. Svasyan : “I love the great haters, for they are great admirers and arrows of longing on the other side” ^[18] .)

Nietzsche himself, in the interpretation of Kursk, defined man as an intermediate link between the beast and the superman , and compared the transformation of man into a superman by overcoming the abyss along a narrow bridge ^[19] . For Nietzsche, it is important in a person that he is “not a goal”, but “a bridge”, “a transition and death” ^[19] . Edmund Shklyarsky, as Kurskaya believed, also emphasizes this motive of movement in her song. A fired arrow is constantly moving toward its goal, and only “for its own sake”, it “calls nobody to anything”, but is only an example to people showing that development is possible for them ^[20] . It is to this development that the Prophet calls on them, who is unable to help people go this way - “either they will go it themselves, or they will not go at all” ^[19] . This formulation of the question reveals the special quality of the Prophet Shklyarsky, namely, his “ruthlessness” when revealing to people the truth: “I am a fired arrow / And there is no evil in my heart, but / Someone will have to fall anyway” ^[17] . To feel sorry for a person for the Prophet means to leave him “with his eyes closed”, with the illusions for which he clings, and on which he builds his assumptions about the world around him and himself ^[17] .

The real world, Kurskaya concluded, is seen by the lyrical hero Shklyarsky as “a sky without wind and birds”, that is, soulless (both images here are both wind and birds, according to the researcher, are traditionally identified with the soul) ^[21] . That is why the hero-Prophet ultimately strives for a different one from the real world ^[19] . Shklyarsky describes his dissimilarity to other people (“for the better”), according to Kurskaya, “through the difference in blood”: even “what they call blood is only water” ^[19] . The researcher also emphasized the special importance of the concept of blood in the work of Shklyarsky as a whole ^[19] .

A. Mamontova considered the text of the song “I am an arrow shot” as one of the examples of Gothic subculture works appealing to the philosophy of decadence ^[22] . In her opinion, the song urges Zarathustra to become like the elements “in their power and indifference, in their eternity” when moving “between” people who are more “busy with their stomachs” than ideas and finding a way to the superman ^[23] .

The “involuntary evil” motive

D. Gantsazh considered the center of poetry of Edmund Shklyarsky to be a timeless universal problem, namely, the questions of being and nonexistence, self-identification and the meaning of existence ^[24] . Gantsazh refused to give unambiguous answers to the questions of who these mysterious “they” are from the text of the song “I am a shot arrow,” and who actually is the one who shot the arrow ^[25] . Nevertheless, he associatively associated this “shooter” with the image of the Inquisitor from the eponymous song “Picnic”, published on the album “ Dance of the Wolf ” in 1984, noting that the goal of the latter was to pursue and seize the mind and soul of a lost person ^[26] .

The spiritual state and actions of the lyrical hero himself, identifying himself with the Launched Arrow, his desires and possibilities, coming into conflict with each other, according to Gantsazzh, on the contrary, carry the motive of “involuntary evil” ^[27] . The researcher found a common ground in this motive with the inner world of Demon and Pechorin - the characters of the works of Mikhail Lermontov : they searched for “real values ​​and feelings, however, following the law of denial, they were sent to the side of evil that they could not reject” ^[27] . So is the Hero-Launched Arrow - he notices the problems surrounding him, but "is not able to take any measures": "Oh, how many lights went out, / How many hands that you can’t warm - / So by, by, by, past, past quickly! ” ^[28] . A fired arrow flies along the trajectory designated by the shooter, and “itself, without the influence of external factors, is not able to change its purpose,” as a result, Gantsazh concluded, this type of behavior “involuntarily leads to someone’s death” ^[25] .

City Motive

According to Yu. Pilyute, the art world of Edmund Shklyarsky is a multiverse consisting of many worlds ^[29] . At the same time, the main features of his worldview are his aspiration to the world of the infinite (beyond) and an attempt to comprehend it ^[30] . It is from the “realm of transcendental worlds” that come into contact with the author’s world that various “entities” appear in Shklyarsky’s poetics ^[31] . According to Pilyut, the author’s world, in turn, is divided into real and surreal ^[31] . Moreover, the real world is a city inhabited by people (“our reality”), and it is opposed to the unreal world, “as a profane sacred”: “And the poor rule the ball, / They want, but can’t give, / And what is called they are blood, only water ” ^[31] .

A. Mamontova paid special attention to the image of the city arising in the fourth stanza of the lyrics (“I can’t love this city ...”), mentioning a similar image in the first part of the novel “So Zarathustra spoke”. According to her, the image of the city is not only the main sign of this part of Nietzsche’s novel, but also one of the cultural codes of decadence and the Gothic subculture as a whole, “the octopus city as a symbol, the city as a mystical space where either the main action or the formation of the hero takes place " ^[23] .

• Gantsazh D. “Who am I?” - One of the key issues of the poetry of Edmund Shklyarsky // Russian rock poetry: text and context. - Tver, 2010. - No. 11. - S. 203-212.
• Tavern M. Picnic. 30 light years. Illustrated story. - M .: Nota-R, 2014 .-- 327 p.
• Kurskaya V.A. The Prophet and the Shaman: Towards a Hero's Problem in the Artistic World of Edmund Shklyarsky // Russian Rock Poetry: Text and Context. - Tver, 2010. - No. 11. - S. 221-225.