Victor Sonkin. Bear, you said it right

Bear, you said it right
Nikolai Zabolotsky. Mad wolf

Victor Sonkin

Publication date: July 14, 2000

Examiner . Okay, that's enough. Move on to the second question.
Student . You know, I had difficulty formulating the second question.
Examiner . How is it formulated?
Student . "Poem by N. Zabolotsky "Mad Wolf".
Examiner . Haven't you read it?
Student . I read
Examiner . Don't remember well?
Student . I remember it very well, more than half of it even by heart.
Examiner . What are the difficulties then?
Student . Well, there’s nothing to grab onto here, right? Did you come up with the themes for the tickets? If there was “composition”, or “ideological features”, or “intertextuality”...
Examiner . Do not swear.
Student . Sorry. And so it’s not clear where to start.
Examiner . Improvise.
Student . I'll try. Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky was born in 1903...
Examiner . Stop, stop. It doesn’t say anything about Zabolotsky’s biography.
Student . ( after a pause ). The poem "Mad Wolf" was written as if in the middle period of creativity...
Examiner ( interrupts ). I asked...
Student . Oh, sorry. The poem "Mad Wolf" was written in the middle period of Zabolotsky's work - after "Stolbtsy", but before his arrest and long creative silence. At this time, Zabo...
Examiner . No, it won't do. Don't talk around. Tell us about the poem itself.
Student . In this poem, Zabolotsky develops a number of themes that are important for his work as a whole: the opposition of a creative personality and an inert environment, the relationship between nature and culture, change...
Examiner . Around again. That is, this is already better, but you go from the general to the specific. Start directly with the text. What is he talking about?
Student . Well, I already said - opposition to a creative personality...
Examiner . Why are you answering the wrong question I'm asking? Let's make it simple: who is this poem about?
Student ( unsure ). About the wolf?
Examiner ( joyfully ). Right! And what is this wolf doing?
Student . In the first part of the poem - "Conversation with a Bear" - we see the Wolf at the beginning of his, so to speak, creative journey. He has not yet realized the strength of his own creative aspirations and only feels the need to look at the sky, because the Chigir star is shining there. The bear personifies the inert, natural, traditional principle; Paradoxically, the negative, ridiculing reaction of the Bear becomes a catalyst for a turning point in the life and fate of the Wolf: “...God knows, / The Bear helped me make up my mind.”
Examiner . Yes, that's better. You talked about the contrast between nature and culture. Do you think the Bear is pure nature in our poem?
Student ( after thinking ): Perhaps not. He calls himself "Cow Assurbanipal". This is still an image from the sphere of culture, not nature. And, by the way, it is Bear who quotes Goethe twice.
Examiner . Well, this is more of an anti-quote... Okay, one more question: The Wolf in the first part is obsessed with the desire to see the Chigir-star. Does the Bear have a cherished wish?
Student . Eat. “I want to eat! I want to bite!”
Examiner . What do we see in the second part?
Student . In the second part we see the Wolf ten years later. He lives in a hut, dresses in a shirt and trousers, writes poetry, and performs various experiments.
Examiner . For example?
Student . He tries to turn plants into animals and vice versa.
Examiner . Why is he doing this?
Student . It seems to me that he turns plants into animals simply out of love for art. Moreover, he never managed to make a camel from birch. But when he himself tries to become a plant and stands for twelve days with his foot stuck in a hole, this is a meaningful step. He says: “It’s nice to live for a happy plant... / but we took off with a crazy foot, / we run back and forth, / but there is no happiness.” The wolf strives for non-existence, this is clear from his last suicidal action. He became enlightened during this time, became a kind of bodhisattva and is preparing to complete his karmic existence.
Examiner . That is, go to nirvana?
Student . I'm being harsh, yes.
Examiner . Well... the interpretation is as good as any other. What happens in the third part?
Student . I don't like the third part at all.
Examiner . Perhaps this was the author's intention.
Student . Even most likely. In the first two parts, individuals act, in the third - the collective, society. In the first two parts, nature and culture are not at odds with each other... ( getting animated ) Oh, I understand! Look: in fact, the Wolf and the Bear are not opposed, like culture and nature. These are simply two different levels of penetration into nature. The bear acts superficially: “We live under a free oak tree, / enjoying rough knowledge.” The wolf wants to see the star and find out “if there are wolves up there.” After his hermitage and attempts to become a plant, he merges even more strongly with the natural ideal; all his experiments and actions in general are not technocratic: “The wolf talks to the cuckoo, / gives the trees names.” And in the third part we see wolf engineers, wolf doctors, students, musicians; They perceive the madman as their forerunner, but in fact they went exactly in the opposite direction. Therefore, the student wolf who criticizes the “Crazy Ridiculous Dream”, in fact, assesses the situation much more correctly than the Chairman wolf who defends him.
Examiner . So why don't you like this part?
Student . I now understand why. Because there begins a continuous ideology and all the ideas of the Madman are consistently perverted. I feel sorry for him.
Examiner . Well, you see, it’s not such a difficult question. To be honest, I don’t agree with you - it seems to me that they are developing the ideas of the Mad Wolf, and not perverting them - but this is not significant, it can be interpreted in any way. And who is Harpagon, whom the Wolf mentions in his last words?
Student . I do not know.
Examiner . Move on to the third question.

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Web presence

The full text of the poem is here .

In general, Zabolotsky’s web presence is doing much better than one might expect. Here are the selected pages:

- The monograph on life and work seems to be quite neat, although it relates to a very traditional “literary criticism”. Author - A.F. Avdeeva;

- Sixteen (actually fifteen, “Love painting, poets” is duplicated) poems on “Elements” by Masha Shkolnikova;

- Zabolotsky in the project “Russian poetry of the 1960s as hypertext”, an independent project by Maria Levchenko on Ruthenia;

- “Chronicles of Charon”, an encyclopedia of selected deaths - a story about the death of Zabolotsky (according to the words of Nikita’s son);

- Revold Banchukov, “ Faces of the life and work of Nikolai Zabolotsky ”;

- Nikita Zabolotsky, “ Poetry Bequeathed to Descendants ” in the Moshkov Library;

- Yuri Kats, “ Read, trees, poems of Hesiod ”: Zabolotsky and geology;

- OBERIU . A page from a British server, but in Russian. Not of particular value.

-Who is Harpagon ?