“The tavern locus” in the Russian poetry of the 20th century. Article 2

The second article, dedicated to the tavern text in the Russian poetry of the 20th century, deals with the works of S. Yesenin, I. Brodsky, V. Vysotsky, A. Bashlachev. In Yesenin’s poetry this complex of “restaurant motifs” is first and foremost implemented in a cycle of poems “Moscow of Taverns”. Yesenin presents several images of the restaurant theme, and it accumulates almost all the motifs and images that form the tavern text in the symbolism and acmeism. Vysotsky as a key figure of a bard song and Bashlachev as a poetic leader of the rock poetry in his “tavern text” inherit the basic motifs and images of the Silver age. However, in the works of the bards of the second half of the 20th century there are the elements not being the part of the space of the tavern text, such as the motif of sacrilege. Brodsky restores the modernist motive matrix with almost no changes. A general typological matrix of the tavern motifs in Russian modernism and poetic songs is given at the end (on the material of both articles). The system of characters in the tavern text is most often the following characters: protagonist, infernal guards, “personnel” of the black spot, guests-drunkards, feminine-erotic characters. Characters drink, smoke, fight, gamble, dance, etc. The space of the tavern is closed, necrotic, infernal, mirage. Besides, the prevailing theme determining the specifics of the tavern text in the Russian poetry of the twentieth century is reconstructed. The structure of the plot is this: a difficult path to a black spot, an entrance to the borderland (vestibule), a stay in a tavern locus and exit from it.