THE TWELVE by Alexander Blok TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN sy Baszrrz Deursen AND Avram YARMOLINSKY LITHOGRAPHS By Gzorcr Bippre NEW YORKFOREWORD THE TWELVE was written in January, 1918, when the revolution which. inaugurated the Soviet regime was about two months old. Appearing first in a daily published in what was then Petrograd, it achieved immediate popularity, was many times reprinted both at home and abroad, illustrated by several hands, and translated into numerous languages. Although the poem was variously interpreted as a satire on the revolution and a glorifica- tion of it, the gencral estimate of it has come to be that itis the lasting monument to the epoch which gave it birth, the embodiment of the spirit of the time, We have the poet's word for it that the piece was written as though under dictation from a voice that he could not choose but obcy. During the bright Winter days when he was composing it, there was continual noise in his eas, as if so he said, the crashing of the walls of the old order were making itself manifest to his senses, Blok himself belonged wholly to the world which was meeting its overthrow, He was born, in 1880, into a family of scholarly and artistic interests, his fither being a professor of law and something of a musician, and his maternal grandfather, in whose house the boy grew up, being a celebrated naturalist and rector of the University of St. Petersburg, The atmosphere was a genial one for the boy's gifts and they blossomed early. At eighteen he was writing verse of considerable distinction. Meanwhile, he was studying at the Univer- sity of St, Petersburg. In 1905 he published his first book: “Pocms Concerning the Lady Beautiful.” These lyrics, mingling a mystic strain with a delicate eroticism, at once placed him in the front ranks of the Symbolist movemeat, then in its prime. The political upheaval which was then shaking the country froxa stem te stetti soused his civic conscience, but this ‘was not long actives he soon retreated to his ivory tower. Yet he was restless there, and ever and anon he would sally forch abisin. As he grew oldé:.this aesthete and individualist be- ‘came increasingly sensitive vote Aaws in the social schense, and eager to sce them mended. His animus against the smug miidtile classes had someting of the revolutionist’s feeling in it, as well as the artia’s, c Before the outbreak of the revit sptbpoblibed half a dozen books, five volumes of verse and one of lyrical dramas. Al of theueveal the poet as a visionary, but one whose