Alexander Alexandrovich Blok

Александр Александрович Блок

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.'