The Scythians is Aleksandr Blok’s last significant poem, composed from and for a particular moment in history. It forms part of the “January Trilogy” of 1918, together with The Twelve and the essay The Intelligentsia and the Revolution.

Revolutionary Russia had been trying to withdraw from World War I. The Scythians was published on the day the government accepted the German terms for a separate peace. Hopes were running high in Russia, although it was forced to cede large areas to Germany. Many were convinced that the revolution would spread, first to Germany and then to the rest of Europe and possibly the world.

Blok’s poem reflects a utopian hope that the world revolution was imminent and that Russia was going to take the lead, putting an end to warfare and the suffering of the oppressed: “Come . . . / into our peaceful arms! . . . / Comrades! We shall be brothers!”

Blok combines this messianic role ascribed to Russia with the idea of an impending Asian invasion of Europe that would sweep away the spiritually degraded old civilization. This idea, as well as the perception of Russia as a shield between Europe and the East, is based on ideas developed by Vladimir Solovyov in the 1890s. Russia, he affirms, is both European and Asian, and while Europe has for centuries been looking “derisively” at backward Russia, “Russia is a Sphinx.”

In The Scythians Mother Russia is prepared to give up her mediating role and turn against the West. The poet delivers a stark warning to Europe to play fair, promising that those who are with Russia will eventually share her peace. But those who try to destroy the revolution are calling her wrath upon themselves, and like a changeling Russia will “turn an Asiatic mask to you” and open wide the floodgates to the East.

Blok’s East/West opposition is spiritual rather than geographical. He glorifies revolutionary violence, symbolized by the Scythians’ “impulsive ardour” and cannibalism, as the birth pangs of the victory of the generous Russian spirit that encompasses everything (including “the Frenchman’s shaft / of wit, the German’s genius . . .”).

Like The Twelve before it, The Scythians is an attempt at capturing and communicating the hidden harmony, which the poet has “heard” in the chaotic events of the revolution. But its musicality is fundamentally different from that of The Twelve. The Scythians consists of 19 quatrains, nine of which end in an exclamation point. While The Twelve is essentially narrative and comprises different moods and melodies, The Scythians is a sustained admonition listing the “Asiatic” elements of the Russian character and ending in an open threat. Rhyme scheme (abab) and meter stay the same throughout the poem.

The title and the poem can be read as a metaphor for Russia and its fate, reminiscent of the prophecy in the 1910 cycle On Kulikovo Field. However, the Blok of The Scythians is no remote prophet but the voice of Russia itself (or so he thinks), and this voice is collective: “Yes, we are Scythians!”

Bibliography

Blok, Aleksandr. Selected Poems. Translated by John Stallworthy and Peter France. Manchester, U.K.: Carcanet, 2000.

Categories: Literature, Russian Literature, World Literature

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