1880–1921
○ died of illness in
Russia's foremost Symbolist poet who embraced the October Revolution
After finishing The Twelve, he wrote in his diary: 'Today I am a genius.'
The foremost poet of Russia's Silver Age and leader of the Symbolist movement, Alexander Blok wrote The Twelve (1918), the Revolution's greatest literary work, placing Christ before twelve Red Guards marching through a blizzard. One of only five established writers to answer Lunacharsky's summons after the Bolsheviks took power, he served on the Provisional Government's commission investigating Tsarist ministers and worked in Soviet cultural institutions. His revolutionary commitment alienated his Symbolist readership while his mysticism distanced Bolshevik critics, and by 1921 he had fallen silent, saying 'all sounds have stopped.' Refused an exit visa for medical treatment, he died at forty; Gorky warned Lunacharsky the regime would be 'guilty of his death.'
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1904published first collection, Verses About the Beautiful Lady
- 1906drama The Puppet Show staged
- 1917editor, Extraordinary Commission investigating Tsarist ministers
- 1918published The Twelve and The Scythians; joined Socialist Academy
- 1921delivered 'On the Calling of the Poet' at Pushkin memorial
Editing the Investigative Commission's records
In March 1917 the Provisional Government established the Extraordinary Investigative Commission to examine unlawful acts by former ministers in office. Blok worked in the commission's special group of professional editors, checking interrogation records first taken down in shorthand and improving their style. His work therefore involved editing testimony into readable documentary records, not simply taking dictation. The extensive material he handled informed The Last Days of Imperial Power, published in Petrograd in 1921, in which he recounted the empire's final period using the commission's documents. The interrogation records he checked and revised also contributed to the commission materials later published in the seven-volume The Fall of the Tsarist Regime (1924–1927).