The poet’s works can become a focus point where the features of the world perception of a whole generation are refracted, especially when the case is the generation that is peer to the Revolution and has experienced the Zeitgeist. In his work P. Vassiliyev concentrated not only the features of two cultures: Russian and Kazakh, but also the changing trends of the time from the pathos of transformation to unconscious anguish. Poem «The Butchers», selected for analysis, summarizes the idea of the rebirth to a new life, which later became the leitmotif of the P. Vassiliyev's poetry in a mythopoetic context. The material of the article may be interesting for understanding the features of the historical and literary process in the study of the history of the 20th century's Russian literature, as well as in the study of the regional component in literature and elective classes in secondary schools.