The Last Address of Blok

The house was built between 1874 and 1876, architect M. F. Peterson. The income house belonged to the merchant Petrovsky. In 1911, according to the project of civil engineer Fantalov, the service premises were rebuilt, and a laundry and stable were built in the courtyard. According to the architect Basin’s project, in 1914 the wing facing the embankment of the Pryazhka River was expanded, and a five-story wing was built in the courtyard.

Anna Akhmatova came here to Blok on one of the last Sundays of 1913 and brought him his books so that he could inscribe them for her. On each, he simply wrote: “To Akhmatova – Blok,” and on the third volume—the madrigal dedicated to Akhmatova, “Beauty is terrible, they will tell you…” Akhmatova recalled: “I never had the Spanish shawl in which I am depicted there, but at that time Blok was obsessed with Carmen and ‘Spanishized’ me too.” The poetic cycle “Carmen,” as well as the cycles “Sacred World” and “Motherland,” were written in this house. Later, the poems “Retribution” and “The Twelve” were also born here.

From here, in 1916, Blok was drafted into the army (he served in an engineering and construction detachment), and he returned here a few months before the October Revolution. He lived here in his last years in deep depression, experiencing a sharp discord with reality.

At house number 57 on Dekabristov Street, the poet lived until the end of his life, which was cut short in 1921 due to inflammation of the heart valves. If only he had been granted permission to travel abroad in time, where he could have been treated, Blok might have survived and perhaps created more powerful works condemning the ruthless times in which he lived. In this study, Blok created almost all his works from 1912 to 1920, including the poetic cycles “What the Wind Sings About,” “The Life of My Friend,” “Black Blood,” “Iambs,” “Carmen,” the poems “Nightingale Garden” and “The Twelve,” the drama “The Rose and the Cross”; here he continued work on the poem “Retribution,” and on the cycles “Italian Poems” and “After Twelve Years.”

Perhaps he could have emigrated and written abroad, as creating in Russia was no longer possible for him. In his last years, Blok, tired and describing his state with the words “they drank me up,” unable to write: “For almost a year I have not belonged to myself, I have forgotten how to write poems and think about poems…”—barely resembled the young, daring man before the revolution. However, a calm environment and rest could have revived him... Yet 1921 was tragic: literature lost its brilliant and significant poet, leaving us a legacy of words—harsh and beautiful, lyrical and angry, sensitive and... still needed by us despite the passage of years and the vast distances.

He died “from lack of air.” A contemporary recalled: “They had just removed the plaster mask from his face. It was quiet and solemnly deserted… nearby, by the wall, Anna Akhmatova stood quietly crying; by six o’clock the room was filled with those gathered for the requiem. A. A. lay in the funeral attire with a thinned, yellowish-pale face… In death, he lost the appearance of grandeur and took on the form of suffering and decay.”

At his funeral, there was a huge crowd. His coffin was carried on hands from this house on Officer Street to the Smolensk Cemetery.

Today, the house houses the Alexander Blok museum-apartment, where the poet’s archive, library, and personal belongings are exhibited.

The room’s setting has been almost completely preserved; it was transferred to the museum by the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House), where it had been kept since 1940, after the poet’s widow’s death. When recreating the study, as well as other rooms, letters, notebooks, and diaries of Blok, memories of his relatives and contemporaries, archival documents, and fragments of original wallpaper preserved on the walls under later layers were used. The writing desk belonged to Blok from his grandmother E. G. Beketova, the office chair and sofa—from the study of his grandfather A. N. Beketov. The redwood bookcase was purchased by the poet’s wife because the bronze plate on its lock reminded her of lines from Blok’s poem “Under Masks”:

There, by the carved old door

A naked boy clung

On one wing.

The painting by Roerich “City on the Hill” (illustration to “Italian Poems”) and the sketch of the set “Ocean Shore” by Dobuzhinsky (for the unrealized production of the drama “The Rose and the Cross” at the Moscow Art Theatre) were gifted to Blok by the authors.

Blok brought a photograph of Massys’s painting “Salome with the Head of John the Baptist” (right side of the triptych “The Burial of Christ”) from Belgium in 1911. Later, in the poem “Antwerp,” he wrote:

And you—look into the mist of ages

In the calm city museum:

There reigns Quentin Massys;

There in the folds of Salome’s dress

Flowers of gold are woven...

Also displayed here are personal belongings of the poet’s wife and various items preserved from her collections, sold off during the Civil War years.

Sources:

https://spbdnevnik.ru/news/2020-11-27/ot-universitetskoy-do-dekabristov-adresa-aleksandra-bloka-v-peterburge

https://family-history.ru/material/biography/mesto/blok/dekabristov57/

https://izi.travel/sv/browse/c41604b9-2e9b-40e9-9291-c0c4d3aa90d7