Alexander Alexandrovich Blok (1880-1921)
Autograph quotation, 'Ty – buynyy zov rogov prizyvnykh'. 1920
Autograph quotation signed ('A. Blok'), two lines of verse from the poem 'Ty – buynyy zov rogov prizyvnykh', n.p., July 1920.

In Russian. Two lines, on a leaf, 126 x 138mm.

Ty – buynyy zov rogov prizyvnykh,
Vlekushchiy na nevernyy sled …

'You are like the wild call of horns summoning conscripts, / Leading up the wrong path ...'. The poem was originally composed in December 1913, but at the time of the present quotation in 1920 it is difficult not to read in it a meditation on the years of war and revolution that had intervened. Blok had initially embraced the October Revolution, but later became disillusioned and exhausted by the demands made upon him by the Bolshevik authorities: by the winter of 1920, his health had collapsed, and he died in August 1921, shortly after having been given official permission to emigrate. Rare: ABPC and RBH record only four Blok autographs at auction, the most recent in 2012.

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