Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin

Voloshin (real name - Kirienko-Voloshin) Maximilian Aleksandrovich (1877 - 1932), poet, critic, essayist, artist.

Born on May 16 (28 NS) in Kyiv. The mother, Elena Ottobaldovna (née Glaser), was involved in upbringing. Voloshin's father died when Maximilian was four years old.

He begins to study at the Moscow gymnasium, and finishes the gymnasium course in Feodosia. In 1890 he began to write poetry, translated by G. Heine.

In 1897 he entered the Faculty of Law Moscow University, but three years later he was expelled for participating in student unrest. Decides to devote himself entirely to literature and art.

In 1901 he went to Paris, listened to lectures at the Sorbonne and the Louvre, studied a lot in libraries, and traveled to Spain, Italy, and the Balearic Islands. Writes poems.

In 1903 he returned to Russia, met V. Bryusov, A. Blok, A. Bely and other figures of Russian culture. He publishes his poems in various publications. In the summer of the same year, not far from Feodosia, in the village of Koktebel, he bought land and built a house, which very soon became a kind of “summer club”, the “summer family” of which was crowded and diverse: poets, artists, scientists, people of all kinds of professions, inclinations and ages.

Voloshin was greatly influenced by his first wife, the artist M. Sabashnikova, who was passionate about the occult and theosophy (this influence was reflected in his poems “Blood”, “Saturn”, the cycle “Rouen Cathedral”). In addition to literature, Voloshin was seriously involved in painting (his Crimean watercolors are famous).

When visiting France in the winter, as a correspondent for the Besy magazine, he writes articles on contemporary art, reports on Parisian exhibitions, reviews of new books, published in various newspapers and magazines. He was one of the first to support the creativity of the young M. Tsvetaeva, S. Gorodetsky, M. Kuzmin and others.

In 1910 criticism noted as an event in literary life Voloshin's new book "Poems. 1900 - 1910".

Before the First World War, Voloshin published several books: translations, a collection of articles; continues to be passionate about painting. Just before the start of the war, he goes to Switzerland, then to Paris. His new poems show the “horror of angry times”; he protests against the world carnage in a series of articles “Paris and War”.

In 1916 he returned to Koktebel, gave lectures on literature and art in Feodosia and Kerch.

During the February Revolution, which did not arouse “great enthusiasm” in him, Voloshin was in Moscow and spoke at evenings and literary concerts. October Revolution accepted it as a harsh inevitability, as a test sent down to Russia. During the Civil War, he sought to take a position “above the fray,” calling for “to be a man, not a citizen.” Living in the Crimea, in Koktebel, where the “power” changed especially often, Voloshin saved both “reds” and “whites” from death, realizing that he was saving just a person.

After the revolution, he created a cycle of philosophical poems "The Ways of Cain" (1921 - 23), the poem "Russia" (1924), the poems "The House of the Poet" (1927), "Our Lady of Vladimir" (1929). He works a lot as an artist, participating in exhibitions in Feodosia, Odessa, Kharkov, Moscow, Leningrad. Voloshin turned his house in Koktebel into a free shelter for writers and artists, with the help of his second wife M. Zabolotskaya. In 1931 he bequeathed his house to the Writers' Union.

Voloshin died of pneumonia on August 11, 1932 in Koktebel. He was buried, as he bequeathed, on the top of the seaside hill Kuchuk-Yanyshar.

Materials used from the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.

M. Voloshin in 1919.
Photo from the site www.day.kiev.ua

Voloshin (pseud.; real surname – Kirienko-Voloshin), Maximilian Alexandrovich 05/16/1877-08/11/1932), poet. Born in Kyiv into a noble family. He graduated from the Feodosia gymnasium. He studied at the Faculty of Law at Moscow University and was expelled for participating in student riots. He appeared in print in 1900. He joined the Symbolists, collaborated with the magazines “Scales”, “Golden Fleece”, and in the organ of the Acmeists “Apollo”. Living in Paris for many years, he experienced significant influence from French poets (P. Verlaine, A. Rainier, etc.) and impressionist artists. He was engaged in painting (his Crimean watercolors are famous). Since 1917, Voloshin lived constantly in the Crimea, in Koktebel. During the Civil War, he sought to take a position “above the fray,” calling for “to be a man, not a citizen.” During the revolutionary upheavals in Russia, which Voloshin witnessed in Koktebel, he stated that “the poet’s prayer during the civil war can only be for both: when the children of a single mother kill each other, one must be with the mother, and not with one of the brothers." The motherland becomes mainly in Voloshin’s poetry of the revolutionary years. More precisely, not the “Motherland” in Nekrasov’s incarnation, but the Russian Mother of God. A ferocious, restless Rus' appears in his poems - a Rus' of timelessness, where whirlwinds walk across the battlefield, swamp lights flicker ominously and the body of Prince Dmitry (“Dmetrius the Emperor”) emerges from the earth’s womb. The frantic Avvakum burns alive in the log house, affirming the true faith with his death (poem “Archpriest Avvakum”, 1918). Stenka Razin walks around Rus', carrying out cruel trials against the oppressors and celebrating bloody celebrations (“Stenka’s Court”, 1917). The types of modernity compete with each other: “Red Guardsman”, “Sailor”, “Bolshevik”, “Bourgeois”, “Speculator” (the cycle “Disguises”). And above these scenes of ancient years and modernity rises the face of the Mother of God, the light of life-giving love and purification: “The mystery of mysteries is incomprehensible, / The depth of the depths is boundless, / The height is unclimbed, / The joy of earthly joy, / The triumph is invincible. / Angelically bestowed / Over the native land, / The Burning Bush” (“Praise to the Mother of God,” 1919). The image of the Burning Bush appears more than once in Voloshin’s poems of those years. According to biblical legend, this is a burning thorn bush that does not burn and personifies the immortality of the spirit. This, according to Voloshin, is Russia, engulfed in revolutionary flames: “We perish without dying, / We bare the Spirit to the ground...” (“The Burning Bush,” 1919). Even during these years, the poet retained faith in the revival of Russia.

The book “The Ways of Cain,” which was created in parallel with the book “The Burning Bush,” is filled with a different pathos. “This is not so much poetry as a philosophical treatise in prose with a slightly elevated rhythm.” Subtitle: “The Tragedy of Material Culture.” The poet traces the entire disturbing path of humanity: from the first confrontation with God (“Rebellion”), from the first spark of civilization - the use of fire (“Fire”), from the first religious quest (“Magic”), from the first internal strife that began with Cain’s murder of his brother (“Fist”), through the achievements of medieval and bourgeois thought (“Gunpowder”, “Steam”, “Machine”), which ended with the fact that “the machine defeated man”, and “the whistle, roar, clang, movement turned the King of the Universe into a greaser wheels”, through the hostile attack of the new state on the individual (“Rebel”, “War”, “State”, “Leviathan”). This path ends for the poet with an insight into the future - where it is not the Lord who carries out the Last Judgment on everyone, but where “everyone ... judged himself” (“Judgment”). Voloshin’s poetry is characterized by motifs of contemplation of nature, reflection on the course of history, tragic destinies man and the destinies of ancient cultures, usually clothed in scenic paintings, visible, material images. Voloshin combined material tangibility and objectivity of the image with the “transparency” of poetic speech, and concreteness with symbolism. Voloshin defined his style as “neo-realism”, combining the achievements of symbolism and impressionism. Phenomena modern era Voloshin strives to depict as if through the haze of history, “from the perspective of other centuries,” considering this the most important condition for artistic perception. The philosophical and historical orientation of Voloshin’s lyrics intensified during the years of the First World War and the Revolution (“Deaf and Mute Demons,” 1919). Voloshin is a translator of French poets and the author of articles on various issues of culture and art (partially collected in the book “Faces of Creativity”, 1914).

G.F., A.S.

Site materials used Great encyclopedia Russian people - http://www.rusinst.ru

Poet of the 20th century

Voloshin ( real name Kirienko-Voloshin) Maximilian Aleksandrovich - poet.

Father - Alexander Maksimovich Kirienko-Voloshin, served as a lawyer with the rank of collegiate adviser. Mother - Elena Ottobaldovna, nee Glaser. “Kirienko-Voloshins are Cossacks from Zaporozhye. On the maternal side - Germans, Russified since the 18th century,” Voloshin pointed out (“Autobiography”, 1925. RO IRL). When delving deeper into his ancestry, he called himself “a product of mixed blood (German, Russian, Italian-Greek)” (Memoirs... P.40). He did not remember his father: after a disagreement with his wife, he died in 1881. Voloshin maintained not only a filial, but also a creative relationship with his mother until the end of her life. While studying with a tutor as a child, Voloshin memorized Latin poetry, listened to his stories on the history of religion, and wrote essays on complex literary themes. He then studied at gymnasiums in Moscow and Feodosia. Moving to Koktebel in 1893, where his mother bought a plot of land that was cheap at that time, largely predetermined the creative fate of the aspiring poet (his first poetic experiments - 1890, first publication - in the collection “In Memory of V.K. Vinogradov” (Feodosia, 1895) “The historical richness of Cimmeria and the austere landscape of Koktebel” immediately sank into Max’s soul (as Voloshin’s relatives and friends called him) (“Autobiography”, 1925).

According to family tradition, in 1897 Voloshin entered the law faculty of Moscow University, although he dreamed of studying history and philology. Studying was interrupted more than once.

In Feb. 1899 Voloshin was expelled from the university for a year for participating in “student riots” and exiled to Feodosia. After recovery, he finally left the university and devoted himself to self-education with the feeling: “I am not obliged to either the gymnasium or the university.” single knowledge, not a single thought” (“Autobiography”, 1925). But his acquaintance with European countries, where, due to meager means, he traveled on foot and spent the night in shelters (Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Greece, and Andorra, which he especially loved), turned out to be fruitful for Voloshin’s spiritual formation. No less important was the one and a half month stay in Central Asia after expulsion from the university (1899-1900). “1900, the turn of two centuries, was the year of my spiritual birth. I walked with caravans through the desert. Here Nietzsche and “Three Conversations” by Vladimir Solovyov overtook me. They gave me the opportunity to look at the entire European culture retrospectively - from the heights of the Asian plateaus to reassess cultural values... Here the decision was made to go to the West for many years, to go through the Latin discipline of form" (Memoirs... P. 30, 37) .

Since 1901 Voloshin settled in Paris. His task is to “learn: artistic form from France, a sense of color from Paris, logic from Gothic cathedrals... During these years, I am just an absorbent sponge, I am all eyes, all ears” (“Autobiography”, 1925 ). After the “years of wandering” (as Voloshin himself defined the seven years of 1898-1905), the “years of wandering” begin (1905-12): passion Buddhism, Catholicism, occultism, Freemasonry, anthroposophy of R. Steiner. Finding ourselves in Jan. 1905 in St. Petersburg, Voloshin witnessed Bloody Sunday, but the revolution, as he admitted, passed him by, although the poet anticipated the coming turmoil in Russia at that time (“Angel of Vengeance,” 1906, with the final lines: “Whoever has once drunk the intoxicating poison of anger, / He will become an executioner or a victim of the executioner”).

Alternately living in Paris, St. Petersburg, and Moscow, Voloshin actively participates in literary activities in Russia. The first book of his poems (Poems, 1910) is published, he collaborates in the Symbolist magazine “Libra” and the Acmeist magazine “Apollo”. There are also scandals: due to Voloshin’s craving for pranks, a hoax occurs with Cherubina de Gabriac, which led to his famous duel with N. Gumilyov (1909). The lecture and brochure “About Repin” (1913), where Voloshin rebelled against the naturalistic tendency in art, turned into “Russian ostracism” for him - excommunication from publications.

In the summer of 1914, captivated by the ideas of anthroposophy, Voloshin came to Dornach (Switzerland), where, together with like-minded people, he began the construction of the Goetheanum - the Church of St. John, a symbol of the brotherhood of peoples and religions. Voloshin immediately responded to the outbreak of the world war both in poetry (the book “Anno mundi ardentis”, 1915) and in direct statements. “This is not a war of liberation,” he wrote to his mother. “This is all made up to make it popular. Just a few octopuses (industry) are trying to trample each other” (quoted from: Kupriyanov I. - P. 161). He even sent a letter to the Minister of War, where he announced his refusal to serve in the tsarist army. According to the testimony of relatives, “he agreed to be shot rather than kill” (Ibid. p.175). Having delved into the foundations of Russian national identity, completing a book about V. Surikov (fully published in 1985), in 1917 Voloshin finally settled in Koktebel. If February Revolution was perceived by him “without much enthusiasm,” and after the final disbelief in it, the October Revolution as a historical inevitability, then fratricidal Civil War I couldn't find any justification in his heart. But it did not shake his moral foundations: “Neither the war nor the revolution frightened me or disappointed me in anything: I had been expecting them for a long time and in even more cruel forms... The 19th pushed me to social activities in the only form possible given my negative attitude towards all politics and all statehood... - the fight against terror, regardless of its color” (“Autobiography”, 1925). Voloshin takes a position “above the fray”, saving both Reds and Whites in his house in Koktebel.

In 1920-30 he did not enter into literary battles. Died at the age of 54. He was buried on the Kuchuk-Yenishar hill near Koktebel.

In 1925 Voloshin indicated how the publication of his poetic works, and thereby outlined the stages of his creative development. Suggested books: “Years of Wandering” (1900-10); “Selva oscura” (Italian: “Dark Forest” - from the first lines of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”... G.F.) (1910-14); "The Burning Bush" (1914-24); “In the Ways of Cain” (1915-26, as a result).

Mine spiritual path before the revolution, Voloshin described in an unpublished preface to the book of selected poems “Iverni” (1918): “The lyrical focus of this book is wandering. Man is a wanderer: across the earth, across the stars, across the universes. At first, the wanderer surrenders to purely impressionistic impressions of the outside world (“Wanderings”, “Paris”; hereinafter - the names of sections of the book - G.F.), then moves on to a deeper and more bitter feeling of mother earth (“Cimmeria”), passes through the test of the element of water (“Love”, “Shapes”), he experiences the fire of the inner world (“Wanderings”) and the fires of the outer world (“Armageddon”), and this path ends with the “Double Wreath” hanging in the interstellar ether. This is the psychological blueprint of this path, passing through tests of the elements: earth, water, fire and air” (Poems and Poems. Vol. 1. P. 390).

The poet changed. But his main quality as an artist came from his constant natural sociability and passionate temperament with a heightened sense of loneliness; from the desire to enter the depth of a phenomenon, to become one’s own in it - and at the same time to preserve oneself. Regardless of the situation, he will remind one of his contemporaries (A. Bely) of a Parisian intellectual (Memoirs... P. 140), and to another (I. Ehrenburg) of a Russian coachman (Memoirs... P. 339). In Paris, Voloshin will meet A. France, R. Rolland, P. Picasso and will hang around markets and cabarets. So he creates a Parisian cycle about the beauty of everyday life: “In the rain, Paris blooms, / Like a gray rose...” (“Rain”, 1904). In the Parisian alleys, he will distinguish “pearl blue between bronze sheets,” “and rusty spots of runaway gilding, / And the gray sky, and the branches of the bindings - / Inky blue, like threads of dark veins.” This is not the symbolism with which the early Voloshin was always associated. Yes, he knew all the leaders of this movement, dedicated poems to them (A. Bely, Y. Baltrushaitis, V. Bryusov, K. Balmont), but he turned out to be closer to French impressionism (in painting - K. Monet, in poetry - P. Verdun) . “Talking eye,” Vyacheslav Ivanov accurately said about him. Fascinated by mystical theories, V. even embodied them realistically. “Realism is the eternal root of art, which takes its juices from the rich black soil of life...” - he wrote in “Faces of Time”.

Since 1906, Voloshin’s cycle “Cimmerian Twilight” began to take shape, then continued by another - “Cimmerian Spring” (1906-09; 1910-19). Looking at the Taurian landscape, Voloshin felt that history “wanders here in the shadows of the Argonauts and Odysseus... it is in these rain-washed hills... it is in the dug-up burial grounds of nameless tribes and peoples... it is in these bays where trade has never been carried out vanity and the burning human mold has been blooming indestructibly from century to century for the third millennium” (quoted from: Kupriyanov I. - P. 140). The historical landscape is what Voloshin discovered then for our poetry and theoretically substantiated in his articles. The point is not that in the poem “The Thunderstorm” mythological images from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” come to life, but something else: the stepped crown of mountains reminds of the sacred forest Ancient Greece(“Here was a sacred forest. Divine messenger...”, 1907) - in the very nature of personal experience one hears the voice of eternity, embodied concretely, sensually: “Whose bent ridge is overgrown with jelly, like wool? / Who is the resident of these places: a monster? titanium? / Here it’s stuffy in cramped conditions... And there is space, freedom, / There the heavily tired Ocean breathes / And the smell of rotting herbs and iodine wafts” (“Nourished with ancient gold and bile...”, 1907). M. Tsvetaeva said about this: “Voloshin’s creativity is dense, weighty, almost like the creativity of matter itself, with forces that do not descend from above, but supplied by that - slightly warmed through - burnt, dry, like flint, earth on which he I walked so much...” (Memoirs... P.200-201). It seems that the primitive East and the sophisticated West have found mutual language on Cimmerian soil.

But in Nov. 1914 in Dornach, under the pen of Voloshin, ominous lines are born: “The angel of bad weather shed fire and thunder, / Having drunk the peoples with painful wine...” During the revolutionary upheavals in Russia, which Voloshin witnessed in Koktebel, he stated that “the poet’s prayer during civil war can only be for one and for the other: when the children of a single mother kill each other, one must be with the mother, and not with one of the brothers.” The Motherland becomes the main theme in Voloshin’s poetry of the revolutionary years. More precisely, not the “Motherland” in Nekrasov’s incarnation, but the Russian Mother of God. A ferocious, restless Rus' appears in his poems - a Rus' of timelessness, where whirlwinds walk across the battlefield, swamp lights flicker ominously and the body of Prince Dmitry (“Dmetrius the Emperor”) emerges from the earth’s womb. The frantic Avvakum burns alive in the log house, affirming the true faith with his death (poem “Archpriest Avvakum”, 1918). Stenka Razin walks around Rus', carrying out cruel trials against the oppressors and celebrating bloody celebrations (“Stenka’s Court”, 1917). The types of modernity compete with each other: “Red Guardsman”, “Sailor”, “Bolshevik”, “Bourgeois”, “Speculator” (the cycle “Disguises”). And above these scenes of ancient times and modernity rises the face of the Mother of God, the light of life-giving love and purification: “The mystery of mysteries is incomprehensible. / The depth of the depths is boundless, / The height is unclimbed, / The joy of earthly joy, / The triumph is invincible. / Angelically bestowed / Over the native land, / The Burning Bush” (“Praise to the Mother of God,” 1919). The image of the Burning Bush appears more than once in Voloshin’s poems of those years. According to biblical legend, this is a burning thorn bush that does not burn and personifies the immortality of the spirit. This, according to Voloshin, is Russia, engulfed in revolutionary flames: “We perish without dying, / We bare the Spirit to the ground...” (“The Burning Bush,” 1919). Even during these years, the poet retained faith in the revival of Russia.

The book “The Ways of Cain,” which was created in parallel with the book “The Burning Bush,” is filled with a different pathos. “This is not so much poetry as a philosophical treatise in prose with a slightly increased rhythm” (Rayet E. Maximilian Voloshin and his time // Poems and Poems. Vol. 1. P. XCI). Subtitle: “The Tragedy of Material Culture.” The poet traces the entire disturbing path of humanity: from the first confrontation with God (“Rebellion”), from the first spark of civilization - the use of fire (“Fire”), from the first religious quest (“Magic”), from the first internal strife that began with Cain’s murder of his brother (“Fist”), through the achievements of medieval and bourgeois thought (“Gunpowder”, “Steam”, “Machine”), which ended with the fact that “the machine defeated man”, and “the whistle, roar, clang, movement turned the King of the Universe into a greaser wheels”, through the hostile attack of the new state on the individual (“Rebel”, “War”, “State”, “Leviathan”). This path ends for the poet with an insight into the future - where it is not the Lord who carries out the Last Judgment on everyone, but where “everyone... judged himself” (“Judgment”). It is precisely in this - in entering on the path of individual improvement, and not rational knowledge of the surrounding world (after all, “Reason is creativity inverted”), not material and technical improvement and social revolutions, but the organic fusion of man with the primordial Cosmos (“the known world is a distortion world”, but “our spirit is an interplanetary rocket”) the call of the very first poem of the book is carried out: “Recreate yourself!” - the only way out of the global crisis.

The measure of art for Voloshin has always been the person. “Living about living” - that’s what M. Tsvetaeva called the article about him. And Voloshin himself, in articles concentrated mainly in the book “Faces of Creativity” (1914), put the artist’s personality in its psychological complexity to the fore. Whatever and whoever he wrote about - about the poetry of Russia or the West, about Parisian art salons, about Russian icon painting or historical painting - the living faces of the creators with their individual features were always presented to the reader. This did not prevent the author, however, from making theoretical discoveries. An example is Voloshin’s book “Vasily Surikov”. Written based on conversations with the great national artist and recreating not only the bright character of the interlocutor, but also the everyday specificity of the Siberian environment that gave birth to him, she also outlined new method in art history: structural study of the composition of an artistic canvas. And this is also a discovery “from within”: the work of Voloshin - a poet or critic - is inseparable from his painting. Impressionism and strict calculation distinguished both his lyrics and watercolor sketches of the Crimea. To the question: “Who is he - a poet or an artist?” - Voloshin answered: “Of course, a poet” and added: “And an artist.”

Having retired from literary activity in 1926, V. painted watercolors every day and gave them to numerous visitors to his house in Koktebel on the day of their departure. He did everything in the name of universal brotherhood, and his brainchild, his house, built back in 1903 according to his own plan and turned over the years into either a museum or a creative reserve, where there was a workshop below, and on the roof one could observe the heavenly bodies ; that house where writers M. Gorky and M. Bulgakov, artists K. Petrov-Vodkin and A. Benois, poets M. Tsvetaeva and A. Bely, many actors, musicians, artists visited, where they lived, met each other , created - Voloshin bequeathed this house to the writers of his country a year before his death. One of Voloshin’s last poems, essentially the final one, was called “The House of the Poet” (1926). His final lines are Voloshin’s testament: “All the thrill of life of all centuries and races / Lives in you. Always. Now. Now".

Voloshin was strict with his poetry and reserved his attitude towards paintings. Perhaps only one thing became a source of pride for him. Poem. “Koktebel” (1918) ended with the words: “And on the rock that closed the swell of the bay, / My profile was sculpted by fate and the winds.” The southern tip of one of the Karadag mountains is strikingly similar to Voloshin’s profile. He could not imagine a better monument to himself. Because Nature itself put it there.

G.V. Filippov

Materials used from the book: Russian literature of the 20th century. Prose writers, poets, playwrights. Biobibliographical dictionary. Volume 1. p. 419-423.

Read further:

Essays:

Poems. M., 1910;

Anno mundi ardentis. M., 1916;

Iverni. Selected Poems. M., 1918;

Poetry. M., 1922;

Poems. L., 1977;

Poems and poems. St. Petersburg, 1995.

Demons are deaf and dumb. Kharkov, 1919;

Poems about terror. Berlin, 1923;

Strife: Poems about the Revolution. Lvov, 1923;

Poems. L., 1977. (Poet's book. M. series);

Poems and poems: in 2 volumes. Paris, 1982, 1984;

Faces of creativity. L., 1988. (Literary monuments); 2nd ed., stereotype. 1989;

Autobiographical prose. Diaries. M., 1991;

House of the Poet: Poems, chapters from the book “Surikov”. L., 1991;

Poems and poems. St. Petersburg, 1995. (Poet's book. B. series);

Life is endless knowledge: Poems and poems. Prose. Memoirs of contemporaries. Dedications. M., 1995.

Literature:

Pann E. The writer's fate of Maximilian Voloshin. M., 1927;

Tsvetaeva A. Memoirs. M., 1971. P.400-406, 418-442, 508;

Voloshin the artist: collection. materials. M., 1976;

Kupriyanov I. The fate of a poet: The personality and poetry of Maximilian Voloshin. Kyiv, 1978;

Kupchenko V. Koktebel Island. M., 1981;

Voloshin readings. M., 1981;

Memories of Maximilian Voloshin. M., 1990;

Bazanov V.V. “I believe in the rightness of the supreme forces...”: Revolutionary Russia in the perception of Maximilian Voloshin // From the creative heritage of Soviet writers. L., 1991. P.7-260;

Vsekhsvyatskaya T. Years of wanderings of Maximilian Voloshin: A conversation about poetry. M., 1993;

Kupchenko V.P. The journey of Maximilian Voloshin: A documentary narrative. St. Petersburg, 1996.

MAXIMILIAN VOLOSHIN (1877-1932)

From other poets Silver Age M. A. Voloshin is distinguished by perhaps the greatest artistic amplitude. In his work, seemingly incompatible styles and genres came together: sonnets that were strict in form and cumbersome works close to rhythmic prose; reverent love poems and extremely complex philosophical poems; symbolist-esoteric revelations and passionate civic lyrics. Voloshin did not belong to literary groups and movements; he went through life “close to everyone, alien to everything.” He went down in the history of literature as a “genius of the place”, an artist who recreated in his poems and watercolors the harsh appearance of Cimmeria, eastern Crimea. His house in Koktebel became, in the words of A. Bely, “one of the most cultural centers not only in Russia, but also in Europe.” Prominent poets, artists, artists came here: A. N. Tolstoy and O. E. Mandelstam, V. V. Veresaev and M. A. Bulgakov, N. S. Gumilyov and M. I. Tsvetaeva, I. G. Erenburg and E.I. Zamyatin, K.S. Petrov-Vodkin and A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva. It was here, on the mezzanine behind a colored panel, that M. I. Tsvetaeva’s husband, second lieutenant S. Ya. Efron, hid from the Reds, and on other days the secretary of the Feodosian Bolshevik Committee I. Khmilko-Khmelnitsky hid from the Whites, indirect evidence of which we find in the most famous and in many ways Voloshin’s final poem “The House of the Poet.” The artist lived in Crimea, a place where the tragedy of national strife was perceived especially acutely. Voloshin is perhaps the only one who left a poetic chronicle of this terrible era.

Creative biography and artistic world of M. A. Voloshin

Maximilian Aleksandrovich Kirienko-Voloshin was born on May 16, 1877 in Kyiv, into a noble family. His father, a member of the Kyiv Chamber of Criminal and Civil Courts, died when the boy was four years old. The mother, Elena Ottobaldovna (nee Glaser), was involved in raising the child, a well-educated woman with strong character. At the age of 12, Voloshin began writing poetry. One of the poems was published in 1895, but the poet himself considered his true literary debut to be the publication of poems in the magazine " New way" in 1903. After graduating from high school, the young man entered the law faculty of Moscow University, but soon, for his "propensity for various kinds of agitation" and participation in riots, he was expelled from the student body and sent to Feodosia under the secret supervision of the police.

Voloshin does not perceive this as a blow of fate. In the fall of 1899, he visited Europe for the first time, and a year later he went to the construction of the Tashkent-Orenburg railway. middle Asia, East, desert, “frenzied blue sky”, fragments of ancient civilizations - all this leaves an indelible mark on the poet’s soul (poem “Desert”, 1901). However, Voloshin is drawn to Paris. WITH early years he is captivated by French literature and art. While still a young man, Voloshin outlined a life program for himself, based on the desire

See everything, understand everything, know everything, experience everything, absorb all forms, all colors with your eyes, walk across the entire earth with burning feet, perceive everything and embody everything again.

(“Through the diamond network the east turned green...”, 1903 1904) “The Earth is such a small planet that it’s a shame not to visit everywhere,” the poet wrote to his mother at the end of 1901. But it was Paris that truly turned out to be the threshold for him “Into the expanses of all centuries and countries, / Legends, stories and beliefs...", became the birthplace of the spirit, a school of artistic and poetic skill. Voloshin is credited with the following attitude: “Study in Paris, work in Koktebel.” In Paris, by his own admission, he first “approached painting” and developed his own style. The poet feels the need to “go through the Latin discipline of form,” and he succeeds. In the technique of versification he reaches true heights; masters the most complex art of the sonnet: the Parnassian J.-M. had a significant influence on him in this regard. de Heredia, whose sonnets Voloshin translated in 1904. The poet enjoys the atmosphere of the capital of France, writes poems that will soon form the “Paris” cycle - a kind of declaration of love for this city, an elegiac song of farewell to the passing youth. According to Voloshin himself, he preferred to learn “artistic form from France, a sense of color from Paris<...>structure of thought - from Bergson, skepticism - from Anatole France, prose - from Flaubert, verse - from Gautier and Heredia." But in the method of "approaching nature, studying and transmitting it" the artist stood "from the point of view of the classical Japanese (Hokusan, Utamaro )". This West-East orientation in its organic creative refraction with deep Russian roots is a rather rare phenomenon in our poetry.

From all the spiritual and aesthetic diversity of Voloshin’s creativity, two artistic universes can be distinguished: Paris (France) and Koktebel (Cimmeria). However, these two worlds do not exist in isolation in the poet’s mind. They are brought together by the feeling of history flowing into “today.” It is significant that he feels the “ancient poison of vacuous sadness” of Paris especially acutely

At the bottom of courtyards, under the roofs of attics, Where young Dante and youth Bonaparte rocked their worlds within themselves.

When you read Voloshin’s sonnets dedicated to french revolution, consciousness involuntarily transfers them to Russian soil.

With a fair degree of convention, three main periods can be distinguished in the poet’s work: early stage works of the 1900s - early 1910s, marked by symbolist-impressionistic trends and the influence of the occult; transition period, associated with the events of the First World War, the elimination of anthroposophical mysticism; final phase - creativity of the era of revolution and civil war, historiosophical reflections on the fate of Russia, comprehension of the “tragedy of material culture,” the growing influence of the Orthodox religion. The last, post-war, decade in the poet’s life does not represent a qualitatively new stage and is a kind of summing up the results of his work.

“Years of Wandering” is the name of the first cycle of Voloshin’s first collection of poems, published in 1910 (“Poems. 1900-1910”). With the same phrase he himself defines the corresponding stage of his life path.

“These years, I am just an absorbing sponge. I am all eyes, all ears. I wander through countries, museums, libraries: Rome, Spain, the Balearics, Corsica, Sardinia, Andorra... Louvre, Prado, Vatican, Uffizi... . National Library. In addition to the technique of words, I master the technique of brush and pencil,” writes Voloshin in his autobiography.

The motive of wandering is one of the main ones for Voloshin. These are the poet’s long wanderings through the deserts of Asia and the Mediterranean, and spiritual wanderings, the search for truth. The poet perceives his path in inextricable connection with the entire universe, with the history of mankind. In addition to the Parnassians, Voloshin was influenced by the French Symbolists. And in the summer of 1905, he took on the translation of the Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren, who also paid tribute to symbolist quests. He also collaborates with Russian symbolists (V. Ya. Bryusov, K. D. Balmont, F. Sologub, etc.), publishes in their magazines, and participates in many artistic endeavors. However, symbolism is not Voloshin’s pervasive artistic method. In 1910, in the article "Henri de Regnier" he defines his creative style as new realism (neorealism), perceived as a synthesis of traditional realism of the 19th century, impressionism (“realistic individualism”) and symbolism. Voloshin is impressed by Repier, whose merit lies in the fact that he gave the verse of the Symbolists a sensual fabulousness, “unhurried transparency, and to new symbols - clarity and tangibility.” The Russian poet will learn for a long time the creative principle of Repier: “to recreate, immortalize fleeting moments within oneself and outside oneself,” to express the eternal through the fleeting.

But one way or another, symbolist abstraction and transcendence of the spirit, research in the field of art and philosophy do not turn the poet away from earthly problems. “My spirit is in Russia...” writes Voloshin, living in Paris, even then, in 1906, feeling that “bloody dreams are swirling in the world...” One of his visits to Russia turns out to be especially memorable for the poet: he witnesses the execution of a peaceful march on January 9, 1905. Voloshin reflected his impressions of this terrible spectacle in the article “Bloody Week in St. Petersburg,” written in French. What shocked him most was that they were shooting at unarmed people, women and children, and icons. The theme of historical retribution and popular indignation takes hold creative imagination poet ("Foretellings", 1905; "Angel of Vengeance", "Head of Madame de Lamballe" - both 1906, etc.). In the poem "Angel of Vengeance" he writes:

To the Russian people: I am the mournful Angel of Vengeance! I throw seeds into black wounds - into the plowed new land. Centuries of patience have passed. And my voice is pabat. My banner is like blood.

The object of vengeance looks extremely vague and vague in the poem:

The Sword of Justice - punishing and avenging - I will give into the power of the crowd... And in the hands of a blind man it will sparkle, swift as lightning, striking. Their son will kill their mother, their daughter will kill their father.

Already here is a prediction of the rampant demonic, from Voloshin’s point of view, forces of civil war, tearing apart families, the affirmation of the identity of the executioner and the victim, the guilty and the punisher. Everyone, Voloshin believes, perceives justice in their own way, and everyone considers their understanding to be the only correct and moral one. Therefore, he writes in the article “Prophets and Avengers” (1906), “the idea of ​​justice is the most cruel and tenacious of all the ideas that have ever taken possession of the human brain. When it enters the hearts and clouds a person’s vision, then people begin to kill each other.” friend... Crises of the idea of ​​justice are called great revolutions." The poet feels the breath of the first Russian revolution, but gives the impending events a mystical-symbolic character, filling the semantic fabric of his poems with biblical images and reminiscences.

The final stanza of the poem “Angel of Vengeance” is characteristic. Here are the words of Jesus Christ addressed to one of the disciples: “...return your sword to its place, for all who take the sword with the sword will perish” (Matthew 26:52), as well as the image of the cup with the wine of wrath, which made the nations drunk and mad. (Jer. 25:15-16), will acquire a concentrated, symbolic meaning in Voloshin’s work:

It is not the sower who reaps the thorny ears of sowing. The one who accepts the sword will die by the sword. Whoever has once drunk the intoxicating poison of anger will become an executioner or a victim of the executioner.

However, to say that the writer lives at this time only by revolutionary events and politics would be the greatest misconception. Voloshin himself defines the period from 1905 to 1912 as “wanderings of the spirit”: “Buddhism, Catholicism, magic, Freemasonry, occultism, theosophy,

R. Steiner. A period of great personal experiences of a romantic and mystical nature." It was at this time that he experienced an affair with his future wife M.V. Sabashnikova, to whom he dedicated famous poems: "Letter", "Tanakh", "We are lost in this world..." , "In the Studio", etc. Margarita Sabashnikova, an artist and poetess, becomes for Voloshin a poetic muse, the personification of femininity and beauty that has survived centuries. It is no coincidence that in the artistic consciousness of the writer, his beloved earthly woman is associated with the queen Ancient Egypt Tanakh, the same one that abolished polytheism in her country and established the cult of the sun god Aten.

Speaking about Voloshin’s love poetry, one cannot ignore the philosophical teachings of V. S. Solovyov, which had a significant influence on the poet’s worldview. Solovyov's ethics of love, the motif of Eternal Femininity are felt in Voloshin's work in the cycle of poems "Ainori Amara Sacrum" ("Holy Bitterness of Love", 1903-1907) and the poem "She" (1909).

By the mid-1900s. the poet's passion should be timed theosophy - mystical teaching, in which its founder H. P. Blavatsky combined elements of Brahmanism, Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as anthroposophy - the Western version of Theosophy, which was developed by R. Steiner (in Voloshin’s transcription - Steiner). Captivated by new ideas, Voloshin feels earthly life as a moment snatched from cosmic time, and the human “I” as a kind of “core”, carried in the “corridors” of eternity and periodically embodied in bodily shells. These ideas are reflected in the poems that make up the short cycle “When Time Stops” (1903-1905):

A new bottom is hidden in the abyss, Forms and thoughts are mixed. We all died somewhere a long time ago... We were all not born yet.

Rudolf Steiner and his followers believed that man in his stage of earthly incarnation is an intermediate phase in the evolution of his spiritual self. Matter is secondary, it developed from spirit. The same can be said about globe: Before reaching his present stage, he passed through three phases of bodily incarnation, interspersed with a state of pure spirituality. The first planetary incarnation of the Earth is Saturn (Saturn stage), the second incarnation is the Sun, the third is the Moon. Without knowledge of this anthroposophical concept, it is impossible to interpret Voloshin's poems "Saturn", "Sun" and "Moon" (1907). Echoes of Steiper's teaching are palpable in the poems "Blood" and "Grotto of the Nymphs" (1907), as well as in later poems: "The Cave" (1915) and "Motherhood" (1917).

The poem "Saturn" contains a whole set of images of anthroposophical cosmogony. Here is the almost spiritual state of the Earth at the first stage of its existence (in Voloshin - “condensation of star juice”), and Steiner’s idea that the spirits of the will participate in the cosmic formation of man (“creating numbers and wills, a flickering stream”), and the idea of that the Earth and something preceding humanity consisted first of “will”, then of “heat”, finally of “light” (“shimmering stream”) and “sound” (“living tissues of bodies, but the body was sound” ). It is no coincidence that Voloshin’s close friend, theosophist A.R. Mintslova, greatly appreciated this poem. It is with her that the poet goes through the “mystery of Gothic cathedrals” in 1905, which receives a response in the cycle of poems “Rouen Cathedral” (1907). Voloshin extremely highly valued Gothic as a complete expression of medieval culture. According to the poet's plan, the composition of the cycle of seven poems represents a symbolic architectonics: "The seven steps of the way of the cross correspond to the seven steps of Christian initiation, symbolically embodied in the architectural crystals of Gothic cathedrals."

The wreath of sonnets “Corona Astralis” (1909), according to Voloshin, expresses his “attitude to the world,” which contains a synthesis of religion, science and philosophy. Here, more clearly than anywhere else, one can hear the motif of the antiquity of the human spirit in its connections with the Cosmos. He is immersed in earthly life, but at the same time yearns for eternity:

And he wanders in the dust earthly roads, - An apostate priest, a self-forgotten God, Following familiar patterns in things.

Voloshin is one of those few who vaguely remember “as reflections of real life, their wanderings in reversed time.” Such people (or prophets) “know so much that they are barely able to bear this terrible burden. And the worst thing is that they do not have the opportunity to warn people from the possible future, because they are not believed<...>So they are the eternal wanderers, walking the ahasphere paths, who pay a terrible price for the transparency of the past and future for them: they are doomed to eternal inner loneliness..."

The path of proven orbits is closed to us, The harmony of the prayer system is disrupted... Building earthly temples for the earthly gods, The priest of the earth will not commune us with the earth.

The poet's pessimism has not so much an everyday psychological background (a break with his wife), but rather a mystical-anthroposophical outline. But it is also caused by the awareness of the initial tragedy of the poet’s position in the world, his eternal earthly disorder. "Corona Astralis" is the news of his destined mission as the Redeemer of human vices and errors:

Exiles, wanderers and poets, - Who longed to be, but could not become anything... The birds have a nest, the beast has a dark den, And the staff is our beggary covenant.

From 1906 to 1914, Voloshin lived in Russia, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, spending the summer months in Koktebel, feeling his inner kinship with “a land saturated with Hellenism and the ruins of Genoese and Venetian towers.” Here, starting in 1903, on the very shore of the sea, his house was built, a haven of creative inspiration, a kind of Mecca for numerous servants of art and literature. Ktsheri - that's what the poet called in the old way eastern region Crimea - Voloshin dedicated more than 60 poems (the most famous of them were included in the cycles “Cimmerian Twilight” and “Cimmerian Spring”), eight articles, not to mention watercolors and poetic inscriptions made on them. Cimmerian painting and Voloshin's poetry complement each other. At the same time, the poet’s Cimmerian poems are not landscape lyrics, but a “cast of the soul” of these places, a modern and eternal image. The same can be said about painting: it is not just a photographic reproduction of Crimean exoticism. On the one hand, Voloshin’s landscapes are concrete and recognizable, realistic in the best sense of the word, despite the conventionality of the use of colors. On the other hand, Voloshin’s watercolors are philosophical works that bear the stamp of this ancient country.

“I spend the years before the war in the Koktebel retreat, and this gives me the opportunity to once again focus on painting...” says the poet’s autobiography. Cimmerian harmony was destroyed by the outbreak of global carnage. A week before the fatal shot in Sarajevo, the poet, at the suggestion of his ex-wife, travels to Switzerland, to Dornach, to take part in the construction of the Goetheanum (Cathedral of St. John), which was supposed to symbolize the unity of religions and nations. During this period, religious pacifism was the main principle of the poet’s worldview, manifested in the poems that made up the collection “Anno Mundi Ardentis. 1915” (“In the year of the burning world. 1915”, 1916). In some ways he is close to Romain Rolland, who formulated his position in the collection of articles “Above the Scrum.” “Alone among hostile armies,” Voloshin, as it were, absorbs the pain of humanity, the convulsions of the world, feeling both his responsibility - as a poet, thinker, humanist - for what is happening, and his powerlessness. As a second-class militia warrior, Voloshin was subject to conscription into the army. Not wanting to become a deserter and hide behind the fragile steps of the anthroposophical temple in Dornach or the National Library in Paris, in the spring of 1916 he went to Russia, and in the fall Voloshin was drafted into the army. He officially appeals to the Minister of War, refusing to “be a soldier as a European, as an artist, as a poet” and expresses his readiness to suffer any punishment for this. From that moment on, Voloshin never left his homeland. He perceives the October Revolution and the Civil War with painful difficulty. Lives in Koktebel, works a lot. His books appeared in print one after another: “Iverni” (1918), “Verharn: Fate. Creativity. Translations” (1919), “Deaf and Mute Demons” (1919). The poet witnesses those horrors, the eerie clarity of which amazes us in the poem “Terror” (1921) and other works from the cycle “Strife” (1919-1922).

The book of poems “The Ways of Cain” (1922-1926) is a historiosophical and cultural study of civilization, in which, according to Voloshin, all his “social ideas, mostly negative,” are formulated. The artist defines his basic principle of worldview (in the cosmic and social sense): harmony of balances ("Cosmos", 1923), counter-creativity born from itself, which is the source of the existence of the world, its way and form. The “world of tangible and stable equilibria” is doomed to collapse, although it retains some hope of salvation. The author of the book largely builds on the theory of Oswald Spengler (“The Decline of Europe”), the pathos of which is the hopeless circulation of history (the idea of ​​“fate-time”) and the inevitable death of culture in the face of a mechanistic-consumer civilization. Man's trouble is that, having picked up the keys to the forbidden secrets of nature, he "transformed the whole world, but not himself." Unlike the ancients, the modern European does not take into account the “moral essence” of the forces of nature. Any machine he creates on the basis of human greed turns into a demon and enslaves its creator ("Machine", 1922). Moreover, this means every “... cheapened spirit / For the joys of comfort and philistinism” - regardless of whether he is a proletarian or a bourgeois. Human morality, Voloshin notes following M. Maeterlinck and P. de Saint-Victor, has always been taken into account only by force. The expression was first the fist, then the sword and, finally, gunpowder, with the invention of which humanity rushed towards the abyss. It is doomed to become “stomach juice” in the digestion of “several octopuses” of industry if it does not take the path of self-restraint of its selfish interests. Only “personal moral awareness” of everything that is happening can resist war and decay, the poet believes, because everyone “voluntarily took upon himself his life and at the Judgment will give his own individual answer, which will have a cosmic meaning.” It is no coincidence that Voloshin’s book ends with the apocalyptic image of the Judgment, the vision “within oneself” of the “sun in the circle of stars” (“Judgment”, 1915).

In November 1920, Soviet power was finally established in Crimea. Voloshin expresses a desire to give lectures at the opening people's university, headed by V.V. Veresaev. The poet actively participates in cultural construction and takes care of the preservation of historical monuments. He is elected an honorary member Russian society on the study of Crimea, and Voloshin shares his knowledge with geologists, archaeologists, volcanologists, and local historians. He lives in his Koktebel house, which again becomes a haven for many scientists, artists, writers, and performers. Poems are sung again, plays are staged, reports are read, walks around Karadag are organized. The artist’s second wife, Maria Stepanovna Zabolotskaya, becomes a reliable keeper of the home. But, alas, my health deteriorated. Voloshin felt very painfully the blow dealt to him by the orthodox press1. The financial situation was also difficult. Only in November 1931, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the poet (together with A. Bely and G. I. Chulkov) was assigned a lifelong personal pension. In August 1932, Maximilian Voloshin passed away.

The poetry of M. Voloshin is broader than any perception of it - this is where the patterns and paradoxes associated with this are rooted. His poems about Russia were banned both under the Bolsheviks and under the “volunteers”, and were first performed from the stage in the Jewish literary society of Feodosia. During the poet’s lifetime and in the next five or six decades, his works were distributed “secretly and furtively” in thousands of copies. The poem "Russian Revolution" (1919) delighted such polar people as V. M. Purishkevich and L. D. Trotsky. In 1919, the Whites and Reds, capturing Odessa in turn, began their appeals with the same words from Voloshin's " Treaty of Brest-Litovsk"(1917). All this convinced the poet that "in moments of the highest discord" he "managed, speaking about the most controversial and modern, to find such words and such a perspective that both of them accepted it." However, collected in book, these poems were not passed by either right or left censorship, since neither one nor the other could accept Voloshin’s main directive: “A person... is more important than his convictions. Therefore, the only form of activism that I allowed myself was to stop people from killing each other."

Biography

VOLOSHIN, MAXIMILIAN ALEXANDROVICH (pseud.; real surname Kirienko-Voloshin) (1877−1932), Russian poet, artist, literary critic, art critic. Born on May 16 (28), 1877 in Kyiv, his paternal ancestors were Zaporozhye Cossacks, his maternal ancestors were Russified in the 17th century. Germans. At the age of three he was left without a father; his childhood and adolescence were spent in Moscow. In 1893, his mother purchased a plot of land in Koktebel (near Feodosia), where Voloshin graduated from high school in 1897. Having entered the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, I became involved in revolutionary activity, for involvement in the All-Russian student strike (February 1900), as well as for a “negative worldview” and “a penchant for all kinds of agitation”, he was suspended from classes. In order to avoid other consequences, he went as a worker in the fall of 1900 to the construction of the Tashkent-Orenburg railway. Voloshin later called this period “the decisive moment in my spiritual life. Here I felt Asia, the East, antiquity, the relativity of European culture.”

Nevertheless, it is precisely the active involvement in the achievements of artistic and intellectual culture Western Europe becomes his life goal since his first travels in 1899−1900 to France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, and Greece. He was especially attracted to Paris, in which he saw the center of European and, therefore, universal spiritual life. Returning from Asia and fearing further persecution, Voloshin decides to “go to the West, go through the Latin discipline of form.”

Voloshin lives in Paris from April 1901 to January 1903, from December 1903 to June 1906, from May 1908 to January 1909, from September 1911 to January 1912 and from January 1915 to April 1916. In between, he wanders “within the ancient Mediterranean world,” visits both Russian capitals on visits and lives in his Koktebel “house of the poet,” which becomes a kind of cultural center, a haven and resting place for the literary elite, “Cimmerian Athens,” in the words of the poet and translator G. Shengeli. IN different time V. Bryusov, Andrei Bely, M. Gorky, A. Tolstoy, N. Gumilev, M. Tsvetaeva, O. Mandelstam, G. Ivanov, E. Zamyatin, V. Khodasevich, M. Bulgakov, K. Chukovsky and many visited there other writers, artists, performers, scientists.

Voloshin made his debut as a literary critic: in 1899 the magazine “Russian Thought” published his small reviews without a signature, in May 1900 a large article appeared there in Defense of Hauptmann, signed “Max. Voloshin" and represents one of the first Russian manifestos of modernist aesthetics. His further articles (36 on Russian literature, 28 on French, 35 on Russian and French theater, 49 - about the events of the cultural life of France) proclaim and affirm the artistic principles of modernism, introduce new phenomena of Russian literature (especially the work of the “younger” symbolists) into the context of modern European culture. “Voloshin was needed these years,” recalled Andrei Bely, “without him, the rounder sharp corners , I don’t know how the sharpening of opinions would end...” F. Sologub called him “the questioner of this century,” and he was also called the “poet-answerer.” He was a literary agent, expert and advocate, entrepreneur and consultant for the Scorpion, Grif publishing houses and the Sabashnikov brothers. Voloshin himself called his educational mission as follows: “Buddhism, Catholicism, magic, Freemasonry, occultism, theosophy...”. All this was perceived through the prism of art - “the poetry of ideas and the pathos of thought” were especially valued; therefore, “articles similar to poems, poems similar to articles” were written (according to the remark of I. Ehrenburg, who dedicated an essay to Voloshin in the book Portraits of Modern Poets (1923). At first, few poems were written, and almost all of them were collected in the book Poems. 1900 −1910 (1910). Reviewer V. Bryusov saw in her “the hand of a real master”, a “jeweler”; Voloshin considered his teachers the virtuosos of poetic plasticity (as opposed to the “musical”, Verlaine direction) T. Gautier, J. M. Heredia and other French "Parnassian" poets. This self-characteristic can be attributed to the first and second, unpublished (compiled in the early 1920s) collection Selva oscura, which included poems from 1910−1914: most of them were included in the book of selected Iverny (1916). Since the beginning of the First World War, Voloshin’s clear poetic reference point has been E. Verhaerne, whose translations by Bryusov were subjected to crushing criticism in the article Emil Verhaerne and Valery Bryusov (1907), whom he himself translated “in different eras and from different points of view” and his attitude towards which was summarized in the book by Verhaerne. Fate. Creation. Translations (1919). The poems about war that made up the collection Anno mundi ardentis 1915 (1916) are quite in tune with Verhaeren’s poetics. Here the techniques and images of that poetic rhetoric were worked out, which became a stable characteristic of Voloshin’s poetry during the revolution, civil war and subsequent years. Some of the poems of that time were published in the collection Deaf and Mute Demons (1919), some - under the conventional unifying title Poems about Terror, published in Berlin in 1923; but for the most part they remained in manuscript. In the 1920s, Voloshin compiled them into the books The Burning Bush. Poems about war and revolution and the Ways of Cain. The tragedy of material culture. However, in 1923, the official persecution of Voloshin began, his name was consigned to oblivion, and from 1928 to 1961 not a single line of his appeared in the press in the USSR. When in 1961 Ehrenburg respectfully mentioned Voloshin in his memoirs, this caused an immediate rebuke from A. Dymshits, who pointed out: “M. Voloshin was one of the most insignificant decadents, he ... reacted negatively to the revolution.” Voloshin returned to Crimea in the spring of 1917. “I’m not leaving it anymore,” he wrote in his autobiography (1925), “I’m not saving myself from anyone, I’m not emigrating anywhere...”. “Not being on any of the fighting sides,” he stated earlier, “I live only in Russia and what is happening in it... I (I know this) need to stay in Russia to the end.” His house in Koktebel remained hospitable throughout the civil war: “both the red leader and the white officer” found shelter in it and even hid from persecution, as he wrote in the poem House of the Poet (1926). The “Red Leader” was Bela Kun, who, after the defeat of Wrangel, led the pacification of Crimea through terror and organized famine. Apparently, as a reward for concealing him, Voloshin was Soviet power the house was preserved and relative safety was ensured. But neither these merits, nor the efforts of the influential V. Veresaev, nor the pleading and partly repentant appeal to the all-powerful ideologist L. Kamenev (1924) helped him get into print. “Poem remains for me the only way to express thoughts,” Voloshin wrote. His thoughts rushed in two directions: historiosophical (poems about the fate of Russia, often taking on a conditionally religious overtones) and anti-historical (the cycle The Ways of Cain, imbued with the ideas of universal anarchism: “there I formulate almost all my social ideas, mostly negative. The general tone is ironic "). The inconsistency of thoughts characteristic of Voloshin often led to the fact that his poems were perceived as stilted melodic declamation (Holy Rus', Transubstantiation, Angel of the Times, Kitezh, Wild Field), pretentious stylization (The Tale of the Monk Epiphanius, Saint Seraphim, Archpriest Avvakum, Demetrius the Emperor) or aestheticized speculations (Tanob, Leviathan, Cosmos and some other poems from the cycle In the Ways of Cain). Nevertheless, many of Voloshin’s poems from the revolutionary era have received recognition as accurate and succinct poetic evidence (typological portraits of the Red Guard, Speculator, Bourgeois, etc., a poetic diary of the Red Terror, the rhetorical masterpiece Northeast and such lyrical declarations as Readiness and At the Bottom of Hell) . Voloshin's activities as an art critic ceased after the revolution, but he managed to publish 34 articles about Russian fine arts and 37 - about French. His first monographic work on Surikov remains significant. The book The Spirit of the Gothic, on which Voloshin worked in 1912-1913, remained unfinished. Voloshin took up painting in order to judge the fine arts professionally, and turned out to be a gifted artist; his favorite genre was watercolor Crimean landscapes with poetic inscriptions. Voloshin died in Koktebel on August 11, 1932.

Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin (real name Kirienko-Voloshin) (1877-1932) - Russian poet, artist, literary critic and art critic. He is originally from Kyiv. At the age of 3, he lost his father. His mother bought land in Koktebel in 1893, so the boy studied and graduated from the local gymnasium in 1897. While studying at Moscow University to become a lawyer, he joined the revolutionaries, which was the reason for his suspension from classes. To avoid further repression, in 1900 he went to the construction of the Tashkent-Orenburg railway. Here there was a turning point in the young man’s worldview.

Numerous trips around Europe with frequent stops in his beloved Paris alternate with visits to Moscow, St. Petersburg and Koktebel. As for the latter, Voloshin’s house becomes the “house of the poet”, in which not only the literary elite gathers, but also creative people.

Since 1899, Voloshin has published critical articles in support of modernism. At first, Voloshin had little poetry. All of it was included in the collection “Poems 1900−1910 (1910).” Many creations remained unpublished. But V. Bryusov managed to discern talent.

Since 1923, Voloshin has been persona non grata. Not in any print publication Soviet Union from 1928 to 1961 there is not a word about Voloshin. The writer returned to Crimea in 1917 and remained to live in his “poet’s house,” where he received various disgraced friends and comrades. Voloshin's poetry of this period is either universally anarchic or historiosophical. As an art critic after the revolution, Voloshin was exhausted. Although he did manage to publish 71 articles about the fine arts of Russia and France. The monograph dedicated to Surikov is a very significant work. Voloshin worked on the work “The Spirit of the Gothic” in 1912-1913, but never completed it. Voloshin decided to paint pictures in order to plunge into the world of fine art, and turned out to be quite a talented artist. He loved to paint landscapes of Crimea and leave poetic inscriptions on them. The writer died in August 1932 in Koktebel.

At first, Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin, a poet, wrote not many poems. Almost all of them were placed in a book that appeared in 1910 (“Poems. 1900-1910”). V. Bryusov saw in it the hand of a “jeweler”, a “real master”. Voloshin considered his teachers the virtuosos of poetic plasticity J. M. Heredia, Gautier and other “Parnassian” poets from France. Their works were in contrast to Verlaine's "musical" direction. This characteristic of Voloshin’s work can be attributed to his first collection, as well as to the second, which was compiled by Maximilian in the early 1920s and was not published. It was called "Selva oscura". It included poems created between 1910 and 1914. The main part of them was later included in the book of favorites, published in 1916 (“Iverni”).

Orientation towards Verhaeren

We can talk for a long time about the work of such a poet as Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin. The biography summarized in this article contains only basic facts about him. It should be noted that E. Verhaeren became a clear political reference point for the poet from the beginning of the 1st World War. Bryusov’s translations back in an article in 1907 and Valery Bryusov” were subjected to crushing criticism by Maximilian. Voloshin himself translated Verhaeren “from different points of view” and “in different eras.” He summed up his attitude towards him in his 1919 book “Verhaeren. Fate. Creation. Translations".

Voloshin Maximilian Aleksandrovich is a Russian poet who wrote poems about the war. Included in the 1916 collection “Anno mundi ardentis”, they are quite in tune with Verkhanov’s poetics. They processed the images and techniques of poetic rhetoric, which became a stable characteristic of all of Maximilian’s poetry during revolutionary times, the civil war and subsequent years. Some of the poems written at that time were published in the 1919 book “Deaf and Mute Demons”, another part was published in Berlin in 1923 under the title “Poems about Terror”. However, most of these works remained in manuscript.

Official persecution

In 1923, the persecution of Voloshin by the state began. His name was forgotten. In the USSR, from 1928 to 1961, not a single line of this poet appeared in print. When Ehrenburg respectfully mentioned Voloshin in his memoirs in 1961, this immediately provoked a rebuke from A. Dymshits, who pointed out that Maximilian was a decadent of the most insignificant kind and reacted negatively to the revolution.

Return to Crimea, attempts to get into print

In the spring of 1917, Voloshin returned to Crimea. In his 1925 autobiography, he wrote that he would not leave him again, would not emigrate anywhere and would not escape from anything. Previously, he stated that he does not speak on any of the warring sides, but lives only in Russia and what is happening in it; and also wrote that he needed to stay in Russia until the end. Voloshin's house, located in Koktebel, remained hospitable to strangers during the civil war. Both white officers and red leaders found shelter here and hid from persecution. Maximilian wrote about this in his 1926 poem “The House of the Poet.” The “Red Leader” was Bela Kun. After Wrangel was defeated, he led the pacification of Crimea through organized famine and terror. Apparently, as a reward for harboring Kun under Soviet rule, Voloshin was kept his house, and relative safety was ensured. However, neither his merits, nor the efforts of an influential person at that time, nor a partially repentant and pleading appeal to L. Kamenev, the all-powerful ideologist (in 1924) helped Maximilian get into print.

Two directions of Voloshin’s thoughts

Voloshin wrote that for him poetry remains the only way to express thoughts. And they rushed towards him in two directions. The first is historiosophical (the fate of Russia, the works about which he often took on a conditionally religious overtones). The second is ahistorical. Here we can note the cycle “In the Ways of Cain,” which reflected the ideas of universal anarchism. The poet wrote that in these works he forms almost all of his social ideas, which were mostly negative. It is worth noting the general ironic tone of this cycle.

Recognized and unrecognized works

The inconsistency of thoughts characteristic of Voloshin often led to the fact that his creations were sometimes perceived as stilted melodic declamation ("Transrealization", "Holy Rus'", "Kitezh", "Angel of Times", "Wild Field"), aestheticized speculations ("Cosmos" ", "Leviathan", "Tanob" and some other works from "The Ways of Cain"), pretentious stylization ("Dmetrius the Emperor", "Archpriest Avvakum", "Saint Seraphim", "The Tale of the Monk Epiphany"). Nevertheless, it can be said that many of his poems of the revolutionary time were recognized as capacious and accurate poetic evidence (for example, typological portraits “Bourgeois”, “Speculator”, “Red Guard”, etc., lyrical declarations “At the Bottom of the Underworld” and “Readiness ", the rhetorical masterpiece "Northeast" and other works).

Articles about art and painting

After the revolution, his activity as an art critic ceased. Nevertheless, Maximilian was able to publish 34 articles on Russian fine art, as well as 37 articles on French art. His first monographic work, dedicated to Surikov, retains its significance. The book "The Spirit of the Gothic" remained unfinished. Maximilian worked on it in 1912 and 1913.

Voloshin took up painting in order to judge fine art professionally. As it turned out, he was a gifted artist. Crimean watercolor landscapes, made with poetic inscriptions, became his favorite genre. In 1932 (August 11) Maximilian Voloshin died in Koktebel. short biography it can be supplemented with information about his personal life, Interesting Facts from which we quote below.

Interesting facts from Voloshin’s personal life

The duel between Voloshin and Nikolai Gumilyov took place on the Black River, the same one where Dantes shot Pushkin. This happened 72 years later and also because of a woman. However, fate then saved two famous poets, such as Gumilyov Nikolai Stepanovich and Voloshin Maximilian Alexandrovich. The poet, whose photo is presented below, is Nikolai Gumilyov.

They shot because of Liza Dmitrieva. She studied on a course in Old Spanish and Old French literature at the Sorbonne. Gumilev was the first to be captivated by this girl. He brought her to visit Voloshin in Koktebel. He seduced the girl. Nikolai Gumilyov left because he felt superfluous. However, this story continued after some time and eventually led to a duel. The court sentenced Gumilev to a week of arrest, and Voloshin to one day.

Maximilian Voloshin's first wife is Margarita Sabashnikova. He attended lectures with her at the Sorbonne. This marriage, however, soon broke up - the girl fell in love with Vyacheslav Ivanov. His wife invited Sabashnikova to live together. However, the “new type” family did not work out. His second wife was a paramedic (pictured above), who cared for Maximilian’s elderly mother.

, Artist, Literary critic, Art critic

(pseud.; real surname Kirienko-Voloshin) (1877-1932), Russian poet, artist, literary critic, art critic. Born on May 16 (28), 1877 in Kyiv, his paternal ancestors were Zaporozhye Cossacks, his maternal ancestors were Russified in the 17th century. Germans. At the age of three he was left without a father; his childhood and adolescence were spent in Moscow. In 1893, his mother purchased a plot of land in Koktebel (near Feodosia), where Voloshin graduated from high school in 1897. Having entered the Faculty of Law at Moscow University, he became involved in revolutionary activities, and was suspended from classes for his involvement in the All-Russian student strike (February 1900), as well as for his “negative worldview” and “propensity for all kinds of agitation.” In order to avoid other consequences, he went as a worker in the fall of 1900 to the construction of the Tashkent-Orenburg railway. Voloshin later called this period “the decisive moment in my spiritual life. Here I felt Asia, the East, antiquity, the relativity of European culture.”

Nevertheless, it was the active involvement in the achievements of the artistic and intellectual culture of Western Europe that became his life goal, starting from his first travels in 1899-1900 to France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, and Greece. He was especially attracted to Paris, in which he saw the center of European and, therefore, universal spiritual life. Returning from Asia and fearing further persecution, Voloshin decides to “go to the West, go through the Latin discipline of form.”

Suffering and grief are the cutter,
By which death sculpts a person.

Voloshin Maximilian Alexandrovich

Voloshin lives in Paris from April 1901 to January 1903, from December 1903 to June 1906, from May 1908 to January 1909, from September 1911 to January 1912 and from January 1915 to April 1916. In between, he wanders “within the ancient Mediterranean world,” visits both Russian capitals on visits and lives in his Koktebel “house of the poet,” which becomes a kind of cultural center, a haven and resting place for the literary elite, “Cimmerian Athens,” in the words of the poet and translator G. Shengeli. At different times, V. Bryusov, Andrei Bely, M. Gorky, A. Tolstoy, N. Gumilev, M. Tsvetaeva, O. Mandelstam, G. Ivanov, E. Zamyatin, V. Khodasevich, M. Bulgakov, K. visited there. Chukovsky and many other writers, artists, actors, scientists.

Voloshin made his debut as a literary critic: in 1899 the magazine "Russian Thought" published his small reviews without a signature, in May 1900 a large article appeared there in Defense of Hauptmann, signed "Max. Voloshin" and representing one of the first Russian manifestos of modernist aesthetics. His further articles (36 on Russian literature, 28 on French, 35 on Russian and French theater, 49 on events in the cultural life of France) proclaim and affirm the artistic principles of modernism, introduce new phenomena of Russian literature (especially the work of the “younger” symbolists ) in the context of modern European culture. “Voloshin was necessary these years,” Andrei Bely recalled, “without him, the rounder of sharp corners, I don’t know how the sharpening of opinions would have ended...” F. Sologub called him “the questioner of this century,” and he was also called the “poet-answerer.”

He was a literary agent, expert and advocate, entrepreneur and consultant for the Scorpion, Grif publishing houses and the Sabashnikov brothers. Voloshin himself called his educational mission as follows: “Buddhism, Catholicism, magic, Freemasonry, occultism, theosophy...”. All this was perceived through the prism of art - “the poetry of ideas and the pathos of thought” were especially valued; therefore, “articles similar to poems, poems similar to articles” were written (according to the remark of I. Erenburg, who dedicated an essay to Voloshin in the book Portraits of Modern Poets (1923). At first, few poems were written, and almost all of them were collected in the book Poems. 1900 -1910 (1910). “The hand of a real master”, a “jeweler” was seen in it by the reviewer V. Bryusov; Voloshin considered his teachers the virtuosos of poetic plasticity (as opposed to the “musical”, Verlaine direction) T. Gautier, J. M. Heredia and other French "Parnassian" poets. This self-characterization can be attributed to the first and second, unpublished (compiled in the early 1920s) collection Selva oscura, which included poems from 1910-1914: most of them were included in the book of selected Iverny (1916).

Freedom and love are inseparable in the soul,
But there is no love that does not impose bonds.

Voloshin Maximilian Alexandrovich

Since the beginning of the First World War, Voloshin’s clear poetic reference point has been E. Verhaern, whose translations by Bryusov were subjected to crushing criticism in the article Emil Verhaeren and Valery Bryusov (1907), whom he himself translated “in different eras and from different points of view” and his attitude towards which was summarized in the book by Verhaerne. Fate. Creation. Translations (1919).

The poems about war that made up the collection Anno mundi ardentis 1915 (1916) are quite in tune with Verhaeren’s poetics. Here the techniques and images of that poetic rhetoric were worked out, which became a stable characteristic of Voloshin’s poetry during the revolution, civil war and subsequent years. Some of the poems of that time were published in the collection Deaf and Mute Demons (1919), some - under the conventional unifying title Poems about Terror, published in Berlin in 1923; but for the most part they remained in manuscript. In the 1920s, Voloshin compiled them into the books The Burning Bush. Poems about war and revolution and the Ways of Cain. The tragedy of material culture. However, in 1923, the official persecution of Voloshin began, his name was consigned to oblivion, and from 1928 to 1961 not a single line of his appeared in the press in the USSR. When in 1961 Ehrenburg respectfully mentioned Voloshin in his memoirs, this caused an immediate rebuke from A. Dymshits, who pointed out: “M. Voloshin was one of the most insignificant decadents, he ... reacted negatively to the revolution.”

Voloshin returned to Crimea in the spring of 1917. “I’m not leaving it anymore,” he wrote in his autobiography (1925), “I’m not saving myself from anyone, I’m not emigrating anywhere...” “Not being on any of the fighting sides,” he stated earlier, “I live only in Russia and what is happening in it... I (I know this) need to stay in Russia to the end.” His house in Koktebel remained hospitable throughout the civil war: “both the red leader and the white officer” found shelter in it and even hid from persecution, as he wrote in the poem The House of the Poet (1926). The “Red Leader” was Bela Kun, who, after the defeat of Wrangel, led the pacification of Crimea through terror and organized famine. Apparently, as a reward for harboring him, Voloshin’s house was preserved under Soviet rule and relative safety was ensured. But neither these merits, nor the efforts of the influential V. Veresaev, nor the pleading and partly repentant appeal to the all-powerful ideologist L. Kamenev (1924) helped him get into print.

When they want to make people kind and wise, tolerant and noble, they inevitably come to the desire to kill them all.

Voloshin Maximilian Alexandrovich

“Poem remains for me the only way to express thoughts,” Voloshin wrote. His thoughts rushed in two directions: historiosophical (poems about the fate of Russia, often taking on a conditionally religious overtones) and anti-historical (the cycle The Ways of Cain, imbued with the ideas of universal anarchism: “there I formulate almost all my social ideas, mostly negative. The general tone is ironic "). The inconsistency of thoughts characteristic of Voloshin often led to the fact that his poems were perceived as stilted melodic declamation (Holy Rus', Transubstantiation, Angel of the Times, Kitezh, Wild Field), pretentious stylization (The Tale of the Monk Epiphanius, Saint Seraphim, Archpriest Avvakum, Demetrius the Emperor) or aestheticized speculations (Tanob, Leviathan, Cosmos and some other poems from the cycle In the Ways of Cain). Nevertheless, many of Voloshin’s poems from the revolutionary era have received recognition as accurate and succinct poetic evidence (typological portraits of the Red Guard, Speculator, Bourgeois, etc., a poetic diary of the Red Terror, the rhetorical masterpiece Northeast and such lyrical declarations as Readiness and At the Bottom of Hell) .

Art never addresses the crowd, the masses, it speaks to the individual, in the deep and hidden recesses of his soul.