VFEL - "Tvardovsky"

ALEXANDER TVARDOVSKY 

1) WILL ("king") 

2) PHYSICS ("toiler") 

3) EMOTION ("dry") 

4) LOGIC ("schoolboy") 

"Tvardovsky was the strangest poet, 

Who hasn't written a word about love. 

He mumbled to me: "You're about forty years old, 

And you're waving your wiener again," 

Yevtushenko wrote, noting, unknowingly, perhaps the most characteristic feature of the Third Estate's poetry - the absence of love lyricism with an obvious lyrical gift and a general craving for the expression of passions and simply strong feelings. Tvardovsky did not let pathos into his oeuvre and could not stand it in others. He could not tolerate any overly sensitive poetry born of the First Emotion. 

Tvardovsky's third emotion was wounded by anything garish, pretentious or tasteless; even the color of his socks could seriously influence his attitude toward a person. Viktor Nekrasov recalled: "Any red socks or excessively motley tie could immediately turn him against a man. As well as loose slang expressions ... In general, vulgarity in all its manifestations, even the most refined, which also occurs as the highest form of bourgeoisie, was contraindicated to him. I saw how his interest in a man who could say in front of him, "You know, I can stand for hours in front of Raphael's Madonna," or that "the beautiful remains beautiful even in ruins, the Parthenon, for example..." was lost before his eyes. 

Incidentally, the "Twardovsky's" aversion to posture, pathetics and pathos sometimes takes anecdotal forms. For example, one day Moltke, the great Prussian military strategist and "Tvardovsky" by psychotype, was riding the train along the Rhine. It was evening. The adjutant, looking out the window, crowed something to the effect that the Rhine is especially good when the sun goes down. Moltke replied, with barely a glance at the river, and muttered: "A minor obstacle..." 

This phrase, almost insulting to the German heart, of Moltke the "Tvardovsky," is very clearly deduced and justified from Tvardovsky's work: 

"Yes, there are words that burn like flames, 

That shine far and deep to the bottom, 

But their substitution with words 

Treason may be equal. 

That's why, native land, 

Though I am languishing in their excess, 

I may be stingy in my application. 

My words to your deeds. 

Called by the love of a son 

To put your labors into words, 

I'm like blasphemies - rednecks. 

Beware, as a calamity." 

Alcohol is one of the few means of softening the stony exterior of "Tvardovsky's" soul, for a short time, pulling the chainmail off his bruised sensibility. "Tsars" in general rarely and moderately drink, Tvardovsky drank often and inordinately, so the memoirs have preserved pictures depicting him in a relaxed state and... after relaxing. Here is one of them: "There were several meetings in a bar on Pushkinskaya... Tvardovsky was sitting alone. In front of him there was vodka in a glass, a mug of beer and a plate with a slice of red fish. He had not touched the fish all evening. 

If in the editorial office Alexander Trifonovich was correct and dry with me, and I did not feel his true attitude, now suddenly I felt some involuntary movement of warmth, interest in myself... 

It was just the two of us... 

He talked about how his father was saying goodbye, how he was being taken away... 

And there was an open pain in his voice that struck me, because he was older than I was, and the separation from my father had happened long ago, twenty years ago, but I'd been thinking about my father for thirteen years, but I was much calmer. There was no pain, the wound had withered and hardened. And he was crying. 

... 

What was he crying about? About his irretrievable childhood? The fate of the old man he loved? Or about his own fate, so strikingly different from that of his father? From a young age, fame, recognition, awards, and all for having sung in talented poetry about the very thing that had ruined his father. He cried without noticing me, and probably forgot that I was sitting next to him... 

The next day I came to the "New World" for some reason, sat in the lounge and talked to Zinaida Nikolayevna. It was the beginning of the day. Tvardovsky came in, wearing a fur coat, stern and scowling. He muttered "Good afternoon" to Zinaida Nikolaevna, passed me as if he were passing a chair, looked at me point-blank, not seeing me. I mumbled "Hello", and so remained with his mouth open... Why did I need after a wonderful evening to get in his face in the "New World"? 

It all reminded me of something. I didn't guess right away - Chaplin's millionaire!" 

The parallel with the millionaire in Chaplin's famous film is absolutely correct. Alcohol for the 3rd Emotion is an excellent means of emotional release. But, as it always happens with alcohol, along with the end of its effect, the end of feelings, and the gates of the soul, previously opened wide with a hangover, are locked even more tightly. 

At the same time, it was the third emotion that made Tvardovsky a great poet. Only it could describe with such piercing simplicity and unsophisticated simplicity the fate of the soldier, the terrible everyday life of war, to describe quietly, without gusto, and from that even more terrible and expressive. Later, when Tvardovsky became editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, simplicity, artlessness and "aimlessness" became fundamental to the aesthetic of the magazine, so that one of his deputies could openly state: "For me, there is nothing more hateful than style." 

But if Tvardovsky fell in love with someone's work, he fell in love with no memory:"...he said that one must love literature jealously and with partiality. "In our youth we solved literary disputes how? I remember, in Smolensk, there was some argument in the newspaper about Leo Tolstoy, one said: "Ah, Tolstoy is shit!" - "What, Tolstoy is shit?" - Without thinking, I turn around and punch him in the teeth. You'll get it for saying that! He tumbled down the stairs..." In this short episode - all of Tvardovsky with all his order of functions. To kick Tolstoy "without thinking" in the teeth, you must necessarily have: 1st Will, 2nd Physics, 3rd Emotion and 4th Logic. 

* * * 

"Alas, I am far less known abroad as a poet than as the editor of a certain progressive magazine," Tvardovsky complained. In his own system of values, politics came first (First Will) and poetry came third (Third Emotion), and the political bias apparent in Novyi Mir under Tvardovsky was the result of the unconscious, but not accidental, choice of the psychotype of its editor-in-chief. Yuri Trifonov wrote: "A literary friend of mine in the late Fifties always asked, when it came to any novel, story or novella: "Against what?" You tell him you're writing a story or a novella, and he's like, "Against what?" All of Novomir's best works published in recent years have answered this question very clearly." 

Tvardovsky himself sometimes did not think it necessary to conceal the overtly political overtones of his literary sympathies. The same Trifonov recalled: "You will soon read a story by a young writer..." he would say, lowering his voice enigmatically, as if our illwishers could hear us in the garden, "Great prose, poisonous! It's like all jokes, with a smile, but it says a lot, and evil..." 

And in a few words retold the funny plot of Iskander's "Goatlover. 

It was there in the garden in the summer that I first heard about Mozhayev's Kuzkin. Alexander Trifonovich spoke of it lovingly and anxiously. "Satire of the first order! It's been a long time since we've had anything like that..." 

For all the irony of his worldview (3rd Emotion), Tvardovsky did not like non-toxic jokes and considered them beneath his dignity to print. He had a certain sanitized (1st Will) approach to poetry, and he once greatly offended Zabolotsky with a phrase, constructed in the same way as the phrase with which he reproached Yevtushenko, - "Not a little one, but all jokes." By the way, it will be said that the "tsars" in general are too serious and dignified people to perceive humor. Laughter, jokes, humor voluntarily or involuntarily contribute to hierarchical inversion (see M. Bakhtin's works on this topic), which the proud, caste soul of the 1st Will very much dislikes. Therefore, the lack of a sense of humor is one of the most firm attributes of the "Tsar." 

But let us continue. The politician suffocated the poet in Tvardovsky, and this happened even when he encountered poetry identical in its aesthetic credo. Tvardovsky did not accept Joseph Brodsky solely because the latter was apolitical, although Brodsky's muse, brought up on the same aesthetic of the Third Estate, was a kindred sister of Tvardovsky's muse. 

And it was not the chair of the editor-in-chief of a fat magazine that made Tvardovsky a politician. He has always been a politician. Recall the tears of a tipsy Tvardovsky remembering his repressed father. Well, the poet's father had his own memories of his son. He and his youngest son Pavel escaped from exile, managed to get to Smolensk and find Alexander. What happened next is this: "Standing with Pavlusha, waiting. But my soul is not calm: I remember the letter from him there, to Lyalya. But I also think differently: my own son! Maybe Pavlusha will take him in. What's the boy done to him, his own brother? And he, Alexander, comes out. My God, how can it be in life, that such a meeting with his own son is so disturbing! In what confusion I looked at him: tall, slender, handsome! 

But he was my son! Stands and looks at us in silence. And then not "Hello, father," but "How did you get here?" - "Shura! My son!" - I said, "It's doom for us there! Hunger, disease, outrage!" - "So you fled?" - he asks, as if in a voice that is not his own, and his gaze, which is just not his own, pressed me to the ground. I am silent - what was there to say? Even so, if only Pavlusha had not seen it. The boy was only hoping for a brotherly word, for a brotherly caress of the elder to the younger, and look how it turned out! "The only way I can help you is to take you back to where you were, for free!" - That's exactly what he said." 

Of course, it is not Tvardovsky's fault that he had to make such a terrible choice between his relatives and the authorities, but the result of his choice would have been entirely to his credit had not his psychotype, his First Will, decided everything for Tvardovsky from the very beginning. Man has neither guilt nor merit, but only nature and chance. 

The usual unevenness of attitude and behavior for the "tsar" was fully inherent in Tvardovsky. Here are a few quotes from the memoirs of Yuri Trifonov: "... when I knew Alexander Trifonovich closer, I realized what an intricate character, how naive and suspicious at the same time, how much in him simplicity, pride, arrogance and peasant good-naturedness ... was equal, shrewd and somehow correct with everyone in the same way: with prize-winners, with academicians, with tinsmiths. That evenness and democratism, which were characteristic of the editor of Novyi Mir in his relations with authors, distinguished Alexander Trifonovich in everyday life as well... He was able to suppress people who were unpleasant to him or whom he respected little, and to treat them ruthlessly: with snide remarks, and cold contempt, and even with simple scolding. Such a contradictory characterization. To what Trifonov said, it should be added that Tvardovsky's democratism was specific, "tsarist," i.e. he treated academicians and tinsmiths equally well, because he considered them inferior to himself. Tvardovsky's love also reeked of monarchism, Solzhenitsyn wrote: "A.T. called me in a letter 'the dearest person in literature' for himself, and he loved me from his heart unselfishly, but tyrannically: as a sculptor loves his product, or even as a suzerain loves his best vassal." 

* * * 

"The Tvardovs are the best fighters in the world. The 1st Will does not expect retreat and fights to the last man. The powerful, flexible 2nd Physique easily holds a blow and cannot be broken, it can only be destroyed. 

Trifonov preserved a fine description of Tvardovsky bathing with a very accurately reproduced impression of the view of the 2nd Physika: "Alexander Trifonovich was strong, healthy, his large body and large hands struck with power. Here was a man conceived for centuries! He was very fair-skinned. Only his face, neck and hands were tanned like those of a peasant. He did not move hurriedly, but somehow easily, deftly, he grasped the trunk with force, pushed off and swam slowly for a long time... .on the river, from which it floated, I saw a mature and powerful man, whose mere sight inspired me: he will win!" 

In the order of the first two functions, "Tvardovsky" coincides with "Napoleon" (see) and is the first among the fighters, better than "Napoleon", to be made by the 3rd Emotion. The calm and cold that never leave the "Tvardovsky" in the most desperate skirmish paralyses the enemy and prevents him from reading vital emotional information from his face, essential for battle tactics. The best way to compare a fighting Tvardovsky is to compare him to a bear. Any circus animal trainer will tell you right away that the most dangerous animal is the bear. It is dangerous because a bear is mostly solitary and does not need any special signals informing about its state and intentions, i.e. it is "emotionally deprived" and dry, so its attacks and consequences are almost unpredictable. Exactly the same bear can be considered a "Tvardovsky," a creature strong in mind and body and impenetrable. 

The iron nerves of the 3rd Emotions of this psychotype are an excellent additional weapon both in a simple fight and in a military campaign. It is not without reason that such firstclass commanders as Nelson, Moltke, Jofr. 

* * * 

A brief biography of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II gives an idea of what a "Twardowski" who devoted himself entirely to politics looks like. In abbreviated form it looks as follows: "The program of Joseph II was the most consistent expression of the system of enlightened absolutism. Joseph was one of the most active people and, sparing neither himself nor others, completely exhausted himself by work. His innumerable journeys were not triumphal strolls, but the hard work of a conscientious auditor. Going into everything himself, he believed in his calling to lead Austria out of its semi-wild state by reforms coming from above. At the same time he followed the old Austrian tradition of strengthening the external and internal power of the state, of bureaucratic centralization, of unifying the different tribes of the monarchy, of trampling on the ancient liberties of feudal origin, and of subordinating the church to the state. As a corrective to arbitrariness he allowed, however, public discussion of current issues in the press and open criticism of the actions of the monarch (the press law of June 11, 1781). His humanity was extended to all the disadvantaged, from the oppressed peasantry to orphans, the sick, the deaf-mute, the illegitimate. Nevertheless, Joseph was quite alien to the sentimental and somewhat abstracted complacency of the sensitive XYIII century... He did not seek the praise of fashionable writers; during his sensational trip to France (1777) he did not have a meeting with Voltaire. In 1781 he issued the famous decree of religious tolerance... Eliminating the privileges of the magnates and establishing the equality of all citizens, Joseph recognized the nobility only as a service class and allowed the influx of the gentry into the ranks of the officialdom.... His policies aroused widespread dissatisfaction... On his deathbed, in spite of severe suffering, he continued to deal with public affairs until his last day, and died February 20, 1790, with firmness". 

Everything is recognizable in this hagiography. Consistent centralism, combined with equalizing tendencies, is the usual policy of the 1st Will. From the 2nd Physic, tremendous capacity for work and concern for the needy. Belief tolerance and unsentimentality are from the 3rd Emotion. Such, in fact, is the busybody of pure politics, the "Tvardovsky. 

* * * 

Usually "Tvardovsky" is a dense, stocky man with a hard, straight, mocking gaze without glitter. His face is round. He is stout, ceremonious, unflappable. The gesture is calm, stately, confident, precise. Speech is smooth, assertive, ironic, monotonous. He has a secret weakness for music, literature, art, and after drinking he does not mind to sing something in a soft, expressionless voice. Mimicry is almost absent. The haircut is short and neat, even women rarely resort to hair coloring. "Tvardovsky" is caring, homely, handy, though not without arrogance and irony to the simple cares of life. He is very fond of nature, and pets seem to be the only creatures that have power over this aloof, rigid, cold-hearted man.