Status Updates From Aleksandr Blok: A Life

Life unravelled with astonishing rapidity. Jam-packed trains ran irregularly;
the post was increasingly fitful; the food supply diminished. But how beautiful the city was that spring of 1917! The swarming city, decked out in red, vibrant with revolutionary songs, drunk on hope! Trucks covered in flowers went to and fro, bearing pictures of Alexander Kerensky, the first love of the Russian revolution

Life unravelled with astonishing rapidity. Jam-packed trains ran irregularly;
the post was increasingly fitful; the food supply diminished. But how beautiful the city was that spring of 1917! The swarming city, decked out in red, vibrant with revolutionary songs, drunk on hope! Trucks covered in flowers when to and fro, bearing pictures of Alexander Kerensky, the first love of the Russian revolution.

"I came home last night, shattered, after the Three Sisters. It is a fragment of great Russian art which, by luck or miracle, remains unspoilt; it is a fragment of my country - dirty, limited, bloody - which, thank God, I'm leaving tomorrow. We are all unhappy. Our homeland prepares the ground for our anger and quarrels. The government, the Crown, the police, hide their faces and set us against each other"

Lermontov and Tyutchev became Blok's companions along the way until he
discovered Apollon Grigoriev, whom his grandmother had known well, and who remained his favourite poet. Blok received the memory of this poet, who died in 1864 - an unhappy, alcoholic, disowned, forgotten man, who taught him to love gypsies, guitars, and the popular so-called 'cruel' romances.

"...that liberty, the sleepless nights and the disordered days, which alone provided opportunities for writing."