Konstantin Balmont - biography and creativity

Biographical note.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont was born on June 3, 1867 in the village of Gumnishchi, Shuisky district, Vladimir province.

Father - chairman of the Zemstvo Council in the mountains of Shuya, Vladimir province., Landowner. Mother did a lot in her life to spread cultural ideas in a remote province, and for many years organized amateur performances and concerts in Shuya

According to family legends, Balmont's ancestors were some Scottish or Scandinavian sailors who moved to Russia. The surname Balmont is very common in Scotland. Balmont's grandfather, on his father's side, was a naval officer who took part in the Russian-Turkish war and earned the personal gratitude of Nicholas I for his courage. The ancestors of his mother (nee Lebedeva) were Tatars. The ancestor was Prince White Swan of the Golden Horde. Perhaps this can partly explain the unbridledness and passion that have always distinguished mine and which Balmont inherited from her, as well as his entire mental structure. Mother's father (also a military man, a general) wrote poetry, but did not publish them. All mother's sisters (there are many of them) wrote poetry, but did not publish them. Mother also wrote and writes, but not poetry, but notes and short articles, in provincial newspapers.

He studied at the Shuya gymnasium. He was expelled from the 7th grade in 1884, on charges of state crime (belonged to a revolutionary circle), but two months later he was admitted to the Vladimir Gymnasium, where he completed the course, having lived, as in prison, for a year and a half under the supervision of a class teacher, in whose apartment he was ordered to live. "I curse the gymnasium with all my might. It disfigured my nervous system for a long time."

Then, in 1886, he entered Moscow University, the Faculty of Law. He was engaged in legal sciences very little, but intensively studied German literature and the history of the Great French Revolution. In 1887, as one of the main organizers of student riots, he was brought to the university court, expelled, and after a three-day prison sentence he was sent to Shuya. A year later he was again admitted to Moscow University. He left the university after a few months, thanks to a nervous breakdown. A year later he entered the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl. He left again a few months later and no longer returned to state education. He owes his knowledge (in the field of history, philosophy, literature and philology) only to himself. However, the first and strong impetus was given to Balmont by his older brother, who was very fond of philosophy and died at the age of 23 in insanity (religious mania). In his youth, he was most interested in social issues. "The idea of ​​the embodiment of human happiness on earth is dear to me even now. But now I am completely absorbed by questions of art and religion."

The beginning of literary activity was associated with many torments and failures. For 4 or 5 years, not a single magazine wanted to publish Balmont. The first collection of his poems, which he himself published in Yaroslavl (albeit a weak one), of course, did not have any success, his first translated work (a book by the Norwegian writer Henrik Neir about Henrik Ibsen) was burned by censors. Close people with their negative attitude significantly increased the severity of the first failures. Further works, translations of Shelley, the collection "Under the Northern Sky", translations of Edgar Poe were a significant success. Contributed to almost all major magazines.

He considered the most remarkable events of his life to be those inner sudden gaps that sometimes open in the soul in connection with the most insignificant external facts. “Therefore, I find it difficult to mark as more “significant” any events from my personal life. However, I will try to list. from the mountain I saw in the distance a blackening long train of peasants.) Reading "Crime and Punishment" (16 years old) and especially "The Brothers Karamazov" (17 years old) This last book gave me more than any book in World First marriage (21 years old, divorced 5 years later) Second marriage (28 years old) Suicides of several of my friends during my youth My attempt to kill myself (22 years old) by throwing myself through a window on rocks from a third floor high (various fractures, years of lying in bed and then an unprecedented flowering of mental excitement and cheerfulness). Writing poetry (first at the age of 9, then 17, 21). Numerous travels in Europe (especially struck England, Spain and Italy)."

Pseudonyms: Gridinsky (in Yasinsky's magazine "Monthly Works") and Lionel (in "Northern Flowers").

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont - one of the most famous poets of his time in Russia, the most read and revered of the persecuted and ridiculed decadents. He was surrounded by enthusiastic fans and admirers. Circles of Balmontists and Balmontists were created, who tried to imitate him both in life and in poetry. In 1896, Bryusov was already writing about the “Balmont school”, including M. Lokhvitskaya and several other minor poets. “They all adopt Balmont’s appearance: the brilliant finish of the verse, the flaunting of rhymes, consonances, and the very essence of his poetry.”

It is no coincidence that many poets dedicated their poems to him:

M. Lokhvitskaya, V. Bryusov, A. Bely, Vyach. Ivanov, M. Voloshin, S. Gorodetsky and others. All of them saw in him, first of all, the “spontaneous genius”, “eternally free, eternally young” Arion, doomed to stand “somewhere on top” and completely immersed in revelations your bottomless soul.

Oh, which one of us threw himself into lyrical storms, naked, like gentle Lionel? ..

Bryusov found an explanation and justification for Balmont's worldly behavior in the very nature of poetry: “He experiences life like a poet, and as soon as poets can experience it, as given to them alone: ​​finding in every minute the fullness of life. Therefore, it cannot be measured by a common yardstick.” But there was also a mirror point of view, which tried to explain the poet's work through his personal life: "Balmont, with his personal life, proved the deep, tragic sincerity of his lyrical movements and his slogans."

Many famous artists painted portraits of Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont, among them were: M. A. Durnov (1900), V. A. Serov (1905), L. O. Pasternak (1913). But, perhaps, the image of the poet, his manner of behavior, habits in the verbal portraits of Balmont are captured more vividly. One of his most detailed external characteristics was left by Andrei Bely: “A light, slightly limping gait definitely throws Balmont forward into space. Or rather, as if from space, Balmont gets to the ground, to the salon, to the street. And the impulse breaks in him, and he, realizing that he has hit the wrong place, ceremoniously restrains himself, puts on pince-nez and haughtily (or rather, frightened) looks around, raises his dry lips, framed by a beard red as fire. Deep in their orbits, his almost eyebrowless brown eyes look melancholy, meekly and incredulously: they can also look vengefully, betraying something helpless in Balmont himself. And that is why his whole appearance doubles. Arrogance and impotence, grandeur and lethargy, boldness, fright - all this alternates in him, and what a subtle whimsical scale passes on his emaciated face, pale, with widely flaring nostrils! And how insignificant that face may seem! And what an elusive grace this face sometimes exudes!”

Perhaps this portrait allows us to understand the extraordinary attractive power of Balmont the man: his appearance stood out among the crowd, leaving even a casual passerby indifferent. “I saw, in ancient days, how in the prim quarter of Paris-Passi, passers-by stopped when they saw Balmont, and looked after him for a long time. I don’t know who the curious rentiers took him for, for a Russian “prince”, for a Spanish anarchist, or, simply, for a madman who deceived the vigilance of the guards. But their faces for a long time kept a trace of bewildered anxiety, for a long time they could not return to the interrupted peaceful conversation about the weather or politics in Morocco.

Balmont wrote 35 books of poetry, that is, 3,750 printed pages, 20 books of prose, that is, 5,000 pages. Translated, accompanied by articles and comments: Edgar Poe - 5 books - 1800 pages, Shelley - 3 books - 1000 pages, Calderon - 4 books - 1400 pages. Balmont's translations in numbers represent more than 10,000 printed pages. Among the translated names: Wilde, Christopher Marlo, Charles van Lerberg, Hauptmann, Zudermann, Yeager's voluminous History of Scandinavian Literature (burned by Russian censorship). Slovak, Vrkhlitsky, “The Knight in the Panther's Skin” by S. Rustaveli, Bulgarian poetry, Yugoslav folk songs and riddles, Lithuanian folk songs, Mexican fairy tales, Kalidasa dramas and much more.

In his article “Am I a Revolutionary or Not?” Balmont wrote that at the age of 13 he learned the English word selfhelp (self-help) and since then fell in love with research and “mental work”. He "read whole libraries every year, wrote regularly every day, learned languages ​​with ease."

The poet's work is conditionally divided into three uneven and unequal periods. Early Balmont, author of three poetry collections: "Under the northern sky" (1894), "In the boundlessness" (1895) and "Silence" (1898).

The structure of the first collections is very eclectic. It combines the traditions of “pure poetry” of the seventies and eighties (the influence of A. Fet is especially strong) with the motives of “civil sorrow” in the spirit of Pleshcheev and Nadson. According to the exact definition of A. Izmailov, the lyrical hero of the early Balmont is “a meek and meek young man, imbued with the most well-intentioned and moderate feelings.”

The first collections of Balmont are the forerunners of Russian symbolism. The poetic style of Balmont can be much more accurately defined by the word impressionism. The impressionist poet is attracted not so much by the subject of the image as by his personal feeling of this subject. A fleeting impression, contained in a personal experience, becomes the only accessible form of relation to the world for the artist. Balmont defined it as follows: “the great principle of personality” is in “separation, solitude, separation from the general”.

... I discovered that there is no time,
That the patterns of the planets are motionless,
That immortality leads to death,
What immortality awaits after death.

K. Balmont

... only transiences I put into verse.

K. Balmont

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont was born on June 3 (15), 1867 in the village of Gumnishchi, Shuisky district, Vladimir province. Father, Dmitry Konstantinovich, served in the Shuisky district court and zemstvo, having gone from a small employee in the rank of collegiate registrar to a magistrate, and then to the chairman of the district zemstvo council. Mother, Vera Nikolaevna, nee Lebedeva, was an educated woman, and greatly influenced the future outlook of the poet, introducing him to the world of music, literature, history.
In 1876-1883, Balmont studied at the Shuya gymnasium, from where he was expelled for participating in an anti-government circle. He continued his education at the Vladimir Gymnasium, then at the University of Moscow, and at the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl. In 1887 he was expelled from Moscow University for participation in student unrest and exiled to Shuya. He never received a higher education, but thanks to his diligence and curiosity, he became one of the most erudite and cultured people of his time. Balmont annually read a huge number of books, studied, according to various sources, from 14 to 16 languages, in addition to literature and art, he was fond of history, ethnography, and chemistry.
Poems began to write in childhood. The first book of poems "Collection of Poems" was published in Yaroslavl at the expense of the author in 1890. The young poet, after the release of the book, burned almost the entire small print run.
The decisive time in the formation of Balmont's poetic worldview was the mid-1890s. Until now, his poems have not stood out as something special among late populist poetry. Publication of the collections “Under the Northern Sky” (1894) and “In the Vastness” (1895), translation of two scientific works “History of Scandinavian Literature” by Gorn-Schweitzer and “History of Italian Literature” by Gaspari, acquaintance with V. Bryusov and other representatives of the new direction in art, strengthened the poet's faith in himself and his special destiny. In 1898, Balmont released the collection "Silence", which finally marked the author's place in modern literature.
Balmont was destined to become one of the initiators of a new direction in literature -. However, among the “senior symbolists” ( , ) and among the “younger” ( , ) he had his own position associated with a broader understanding of symbolism as poetry, which, in addition to a specific meaning, has a hidden content, expressed through hints, mood, musical sound. Of all the symbolists, Balmont most consistently developed the impressionist branch. His poetic world is the world of the finest fleeting observations, fragile feelings.
Balmont's forerunners in poetry were, in his opinion, Zhukovsky, Lermontov, Fet, Shelley and E. Poe.
Widespread fame came to Balmont rather late, and in the late 1890s he was rather known as a talented translator from Norwegian, Spanish, English and other languages.
In 1903, one of the best collections of the poet "We'll be like the sun" and the collection "Only Love" were published. And before that, for the anti-government poem "The Little Sultan", read at a literary evening in the City Duma, the authorities expelled Balmont from St. Petersburg, forbidding him to live in other university cities. And in 1902, Balmont went abroad, being a political emigrant.
In addition to almost all European countries, Balmont visited the United States of America and Mexico, and in the summer of 1905 returned to Moscow, where his two collections Liturgy of Beauty and Fairy Tales were published.
Konstantin Balmont responds to the events of the first Russian revolution with the collections Poems (1906) and Songs of the Avenger (1907). Fearing persecution, the poet again leaves Russia and leaves for France, where he lives until 1913. From here he travels to Spain, Egypt, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Ceylon, India.
The book The Firebird, published in 1907. The pipe of a Slav”, in which Balmont developed the national theme, did not bring him success, and from that time the gradual decline of the poet's fame begins. However, Balmont himself was not aware of his creative decline. He remains aloof from the fierce controversy between the Symbolists, which is being conducted on the pages and, disagrees with Bryusov in understanding the tasks facing contemporary art, he still writes a lot, easily, selflessly. One after another, the collections “Birds in the Air” (1908), “Round Dance of Times” (1908), “Green Heliport” (1909) are published. A. Blok speaks of them with unusual harshness.
In May 1913, after an amnesty was announced in connection with the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty, Balmont returned to Russia and for some time found himself in the center of attention of the literary community. By this time, he was not only a famous poet, but also the author of three books containing literary critical and aesthetic articles: Mountain Peaks (1904), White Lightnings (1908), Sea Glow (1910).
Before the October Revolution, Balmont created two more truly interesting collections, Ash (1916) and Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and Moon (1917).
Balmont welcomed the overthrow of the autocracy, but the events that followed the revolution scared him away, and thanks to the support of A. Lunacharsky, Balmont received permission in June 1920 to temporarily travel abroad. The temporary departure turned into long years of emigration for the poet.
In exile, Balmont published several poetry collections: A Gift to the Earth (1921), Haze (1922), Mine to Her (1923), Parted Distances (1929), Northern Lights (1931), Blue horseshoe "(1935)," Light service "(1936-1937).
He died on December 23, 1942 from pneumonia. He was buried in the town of Noisy le Grand near Paris, where he lived in recent years.

Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942) is a remarkable symbolist poet, one of the brightest representatives of Russian poetry of the Silver Age. Author of a number of philological treatises, critical essays and historical and literary studies. Balmont is a talented translator who adapted works written in many languages ​​into Russian. From the end of the 90s of the 19th century, he literally reigned in Russian poetry, for which he received the nickname "the sun king of Russian lyrics."

Childhood and youth

Konstantin Balmont was born on June 15, 1867 in the small village of Gumnishchi, Vladimir province, where the parents' estate was located. His father was a landowner and first worked as a magistrate, after which he moved to serve in the Zemstvo council. Mother, Vera Nikolaevna, was well educated and from early childhood carried her son into the boundless world of literary creativity.

When the boy was 10 years old, the family moved to the city of Shuya. Here Konstantin was determined to study at the local gymnasium, but in the 7th grade he was expelled for participating in the activities of the revolutionary circle. Therefore, he had to finish his studies at the Vladimir gymnasium. In 1886, Balmont began his studies at Moscow University, but it did not work out here either. A year later, for anti-government work in student circles, he was expelled and sent into exile in Shuya.

Balmont never received a higher education, although he was reinstated at the university. Due to severe nervous exhaustion, he left the walls of the alma mater. It was not possible to complete his studies at the Yaroslavl Demidov Lyceum, where the poet also entered. But thanks to his diligence and diligence, he became one of the most erudite representatives of his generation, having learned about 15 languages ​​and being well versed in chemistry, history, and ethnography.

Poetic path

In 1890, Balmont's first book, A Collection of Poems, was published in Yaroslavl. The opuses of this time have a clear imprint of late populism with its sadness and melancholy, belittling almost every poem. The author bought out almost the entire small edition and destroyed it with his own hands.

At first, Konstantin did not stand out much against the background of many other masters of the poetic word. The situation begins to change after the publication of two collections of poems "Under the Northern Sky" (1894) and "In the Vastness" (1895), in which the formation of his mastery was already traced. Acquaintance with V. Bryusov helped to see his place in poetry and greatly strengthened his self-confidence. In 1898, the collection "Silence" appeared, leaving no doubt about the greatness of its author.

At the beginning of the new century, the flowering of Balmont's creativity begins. In 1900, the collection Burning Buildings was published, in the preface to which the poet says: "In this book, I speak not only for myself, but also for others who are silent". In 1902, Konstantin Dmitrievich was forced to go abroad for reading the anti-government poem "The Little Sultan". He will visit many countries of the Old World, the USA and Mexico, and will return to Russia only in 1905. It was during this period that one of the best collections "Only Love" and "Let's Be Like the Sun" (1903) came out from under his pen. The last A. Blok will call one of the greatest creations of symbolism. The poet himself did not deny this, writing in one of his autobiographies: "I am convinced that before me in Russia they did not know how to write sonorous poetry".

The first Russian revolution echoed in the heart of Balmont with a series of poems that fell into the poetry collections "Poems" (1906) and "Songs of the Avenger" (1907). Not wanting to incur a negative reaction from the tsarist government, he emigrates to France, where he will live until 1913. Thus, the poet withdrew himself from the fierce dispute of the Symbolists, which was taking place at that time in the country. But he, as always, is fruitful, writes a lot and easily, having published three collections in 1908-1909: "Dance of Times", "Birds in the Air" and "Green Heliport".

By the time he returned to Russia, Konstantin Dmitrievich was already known as the author of a series of articles filled with criticism that received a great response - "Mountain Peaks" (1904), "White Lightning" (1908) and "Sea Glow" (1910).

Balmont accepted the fall of tsarist power, but the events of the Civil War frightened him greatly and, using the patronage of the People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky, he managed to go abroad. At first, the poet considered this departure as temporary, but the trip turned out to be a long emigration.

Life in exile

In the first decade of his life abroad, Balmont is quite fruitful. Many magnificent collections come out from under his pen - "My-her. Poems about Russia" (1923), Gift of the Earth "(1921)," In the parted distance "(1929). At this time, the autobiographical prose "Under the new sickle" and the book of memoirs "Where is my home?" appeared.

With the beginning of the 30s, the Balmont family fully felt poverty. From time to time, funds received from aid funds for Russian writers did not save the situation. The situation worsened after the poet was diagnosed with a severe mental illness. Since 1935, he alternately lives in a charity house, then in a cheap rented apartment. In rare moments of insight, he tried to reread "War and Peace" and his old works. The Russian poet died in a Russian orphanage in Paris on December 23, 1942.

Innovative poet

Konstantin Balmont is deservedly considered one of the outstanding representatives of symbolism, personifying his impressionist direction. His poetry is distinguished by extraordinary musicality and brilliance. For him, beauty was associated with a formidable element that appears before us either angelically pure and bright, or demonically dark and terrible. But whatever the element, it always remains free, irrational and alive, completely beyond the control of the human mind.

Balmont managed to define his own "I" deeper than others in the rich world of reincarnations, which was unusually far from reality. He does not try to tell about this world. Instead, he shares his personal impressions and moods with the reader, trying to reverse reality with his subjective world. Balmont was characterized by deep democratism, manifested in a sensitive and reasonable reaction to the political and social events of the era.

O. Mandelstam once very accurately described Balmont's poetry as "foreign representation from a non-existent phonetic power."

Personal life

With his first wife, Larisa Garelina, the daughter of an Ivanovo-Voznesensk manufacturer, he met in 1888 at the theater, where she performed on the amateur stage. Even before the wedding, the poet's mother was categorically against marriage and turned out to be right. There was no happy family life. The wife's passion for alcohol, the death of the first child and the serious illness of the second, as well as chronic poverty, made the life of the poet impossible. He even tried to commit suicide, but failed to complete the plan. Subsequently, this episode will find expression in a series of works "The White Bride", "Scream in the Night" and some others.

After a divorce from Garelina, the poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya became Balmont's new muse. At the time of the meeting, she was married and had five children. The close relationship of poets arose on the basis of common ideas about literature. However, an early death due to a serious illness interrupted the novel. In honor of his beloved, Balmont will release one of the best collections "We'll be like the sun", and in memory of her, she will name her daughter from the new common-law wife Elena Tsvetkovskaya Mirra. The poet later writes: "The bright years of my feelings for her ... are clearly reflected in my work".

The second official wife of Konstantin Dmitrievich was Ekaterina Andreeva-Balmont, whose parents were prominent merchants. She, like her husband, was a writer. Together with Balmont, they were engaged in translations, in particular, adapting the works of G. Hauptmann and O. Nansen for the Russian language. In 1901, the couple will have a daughter, Nika, in honor of which her father will write a collection of poems "Fairy Tales". Another passion in the foreign period will be Dagmar Shakhovskaya, to whom the poet will dedicate 858 love letters filled with tender feelings. However, it is not she who will spend the last years of her life with the slowly fading poet, but the common-law wife Ekaterina Tsvetkovskaya.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont was born on June 3 (15), 1867 in the village of Gumnishchi, Shuisky district, Vladimir province. Father, Dmitry Konstantinovich, served in the Shuisky district court and zemstvo, having gone from a small employee in the rank of collegiate registrar to a magistrate, and then to the chairman of the district zemstvo council. Mother, Vera Nikolaevna, nee Lebedeva, was an educated woman, and greatly influenced the future outlook of the poet, introducing him to the world of music, literature, history.

In 1876-1883, Balmont studied at the Shuya gymnasium, from where he was expelled for participating in an anti-government circle. He continued his education at the Vladimir Gymnasium, then at the University of Moscow, and at the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl. In 1887 he was expelled from Moscow University for participation in student unrest and exiled to Shuya. He never received a higher education, but thanks to his diligence and curiosity, he became one of the most erudite and cultured people of his time. Balmont annually read a huge number of books, studied, according to various sources, from 14 to 16 languages, in addition to literature and art, he was fond of history, ethnography, and chemistry.

Poems began to write in childhood. The first book of poems "Collection of Poems" was published in Yaroslavl at the expense of the author in 1890. The young poet, after the release of the book, burned almost the entire small print run.

The decisive time in the formation of Balmont's poetic worldview was the mid-1890s. Until now, his poems have not stood out as something special among late populist poetry. Publication of the collections “Under the Northern Sky” (1894) and “In the Vastness” (1895), translation of two scientific works “History of Scandinavian Literature” by Gorn-Schweitzer and “History of Italian Literature” by Gaspari, acquaintance with [V. Bryusov] and other representatives of the new direction in art, strengthened the poet's faith in himself and his special destiny. In 1898, Balmont released the collection "Silence", which finally marked the author's place in modern literature.

Balmont was destined to become one of the founders of a new direction in literature - symbolism. However, among the “senior Symbolists” ([D. Merezhkovsky[, [Z. Gippius], [F. Sologub], [V. Bryusov]) and among the “junior” ones ([A. Blok], [Andrei Bely], Vyacheslav Ivanov ) he had his own position associated with a broader understanding of symbolism as poetry, which, in addition to a specific meaning, has a hidden content, expressed through hints, mood, and musical sound. Of all the symbolists, Balmont most consistently developed the impressionist branch. His poetic world is the world of the finest fleeting observations, fragile feelings.

Balmont's forerunners in poetry were, in his opinion, Zhukovsky, Lermontov, Fet, Shelley and E. Poe.

Widespread fame came to Balmont rather late, and in the late 1890s he was rather known as a talented translator from Norwegian, Spanish, English and other languages.

In 1903, one of the best collections of the poet "We'll be like the sun" and the collection "Only Love" were published. And before that, for the anti-government poem "The Little Sultan", read at a literary evening in the City Duma, the authorities expelled Balmont from St. Petersburg, forbidding him to live in other university cities. And in 1902, Balmont went abroad, being a political emigrant.

In addition to almost all European countries, Balmont visited the United States of America and Mexico, and in the summer of 1905 returned to Moscow, where his two collections Liturgy of Beauty and Fairy Tales were published.

Balmont responds to the events of the first Russian revolution with the collections Poems (1906) and Songs of the Avenger (1907). Fearing persecution, the poet again leaves Russia and leaves for France, where he lives until 1913. From here he travels to Spain, Egypt, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Ceylon, India.

The book Firebird, published in 1907. The pipe of a Slav”, in which Balmont developed the national theme, did not bring him success, and from that time the gradual decline of the poet's fame begins. However, Balmont himself was not aware of his creative decline. He remains aloof from the fierce controversy between the Symbolists, which takes place on the pages of Libra and The Golden Fleece, disagrees with Bryusov in understanding the tasks facing contemporary art, still writes a lot, easily, selflessly. One after another, the collections “Birds in the Air” (1908), “Round Dance of Times” (1908), “Green Heliport” (1909) are published. He speaks of them with uncharacteristic sharpness [A. Block].

In May 1913, after an amnesty was announced in connection with the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty, Balmont returned to Russia and for some time found himself in the center of attention of the literary community. By this time, he was not only a famous poet, but also the author of three books containing literary critical and aesthetic articles: Mountain Peaks (1904), White Lightnings (1908), Sea Glow (1910).

Before the October Revolution, Balmont created two more truly interesting collections, Ash (1916) and Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and Moon (1917).

Balmont welcomed the overthrow of the autocracy, but the events that followed the revolution scared him away, and thanks to the support of A. Lunacharsky, Balmont received permission in June 1920 to temporarily travel abroad. The temporary departure turned into long years of emigration for the poet.

He died on December 23, 1942 from pneumonia. He was buried in the town of Noisy le Grand near Paris, where he lived in recent years.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont(June 3, 1867, the village of Gumnishchi, Vladimir province - December 23, 1942, Noisy-le-Grand, France) - symbolist poet, translator, essayist, one of the most prominent representatives of Russian poetry of the Silver Age. Published 35 collections of poetry, 20 books of prose, translated from many languages ​​(W. Blake, E. Poe, P. B. Shelley, O. Wilde, G. Hauptman, S. Baudelaire, G. Zuderman; Spanish songs, Slovak, Georgian epic, Yugoslav, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Mexican, Japanese poetry). Author of autobiographical prose, memoirs, philological treatises, historical and literary studies and critical essays.

Konstantin Balmont was born on June 3 (15), 1867 in the village of Gumnishchi, Shuisky district, Vladimir province, the third of seven sons. It is known that the poet's grandfather was a naval officer. Father Dmitry Konstantinovich Balmont (1835-1907) served in the Shuya district court and zemstvo: first as a collegiate registrar, then as a justice of the peace, and finally as chairman of the district zemstvo council. Mother Vera Nikolaevna, nee Lebedeva, came from a general's family, in which they loved literature and were engaged in it professionally; she appeared in the local press, arranged literary evenings, amateur performances; she had a strong influence on the worldview of the future poet, introducing him to the world of music, literature, history, and was the first to teach him to comprehend the "beauty of the female soul." Vera Nikolaevna knew foreign languages ​​well, read a lot and "was not alien to some free-thinking": "unreliable" guests were received in the house. It was from his mother that Balmont, as he himself wrote, inherited "unbridledness and passion", his entire "mental system".

Childhood

The future poet learned to read on his own at the age of five, spying on his mother, who taught her elder brother to read and write. The touched father presented Konstantin on this occasion with the first book, "something about savage oceanians." Mother introduced her son to samples of the best poetry. “The first poets I read were folk songs, Nikitin, Koltsov, Nekrasov and Pushkin. Of all the poems in the world, I love Lermontov's Mountain Peaks (not Goethe, Lermontov) the most, ”the poet later wrote. At the same time, “... My best teachers in poetry were the estate, the garden, streams, marsh lakes, the rustle of leaves, butterflies, birds and dawns,” he recalled in the 1910s. “A beautiful small kingdom of comfort and silence,” he later wrote about a village with a dozen huts, in which there was a modest estate - an old house surrounded by a shady garden. The barns and the native land where the first ten years of his life passed, the poet recalled all his life and always described with great love.

When the time came to send older children to school, the family moved to Shuya. Moving to the city did not mean a separation from nature: the Balmont house, surrounded by a vast garden, stood on the picturesque bank of the Teza River; his father, a hunting lover, often traveled to Gumnishchi, and Konstantin accompanied him more often than others. In 1876, Balmont entered the preparatory class of the Shuya gymnasium, which he later called "a nest of decadence and capitalists, whose factories spoiled the air and water in the river." At first, the boy made progress, but soon he got bored with his studies, and his performance decreased, but the time came for drunken reading, and he read French and German works in the original. Impressed by what he read, at the age of ten he began to write poetry himself. “On a bright sunny day, they arose, two poems at once, one about winter, the other about summer,” he recalled. These poetic endeavors, however, were criticized by his mother, and the boy did not try to repeat his poetic experiment for six years.

Balmont was expelled from the seventh grade in 1884 for belonging to an illegal circle, which consisted of high school students, visiting students and teachers, and was engaged in printing and distributing proclamations of the executive committee of the Narodnaya Volya party in Shuya. The poet later explained the background of this early revolutionary mood as follows: “... I was happy, and I wanted everyone to be just as good. It seemed to me that if it’s good only for me and for a few, it’s ugly.”

Through the efforts of his mother, Balmont was transferred to the gymnasium of the city of Vladimir. But here he had to live in an apartment with a Greek teacher, who zealously performed the duties of a "supervisor". At the end of 1885, Balmont, a last-year student, made his literary debut. Three of his poems were published in the popular St. Petersburg magazine "Picturesque Review" (November 2 - December 7). This event was not noticed by anyone except the mentor, who forbade Balmont to publish until the end of his studies at the gymnasium. Balmont graduated from the course in 1886, in his own words, "having lived, as in prison, for a year and a half." “I curse the gymnasium with all my might. She disfigured my nervous system for a long time, ”the poet later wrote. He described his childhood and youth in detail in his autobiographical novel Under the New Sickle (Berlin, 1923). At the age of seventeen, Balmont also experienced his first literary shock: the novel The Brothers Karamazov, as he later recalled, gave him "more than any book in the world."

In 1886, Konstantin Balmont entered the law faculty of Moscow University, where he became close friends with P. F. Nikolaev, a sixties revolutionary. But already in 1887, for participating in the riots (related to the introduction of a new university charter, which students considered reactionary), Balmont was expelled, arrested and imprisoned for three days in Butyrka prison, and then sent to Shuya without trial. Balmont, who "in his youth was most fond of public issues", until the end of his life considered himself a revolutionary and a rebel who dreamed "of the embodiment of human happiness on earth." Poetry in the interests of Balmont prevailed only later; in his youth, he tried to become a propagandist and "go to the people."

Literary debut

In 1889, Balmont returned to the university, but due to severe nervous exhaustion he could not study either there or at the Yaroslavl Demidov Lyceum of Legal Sciences, where he successfully entered. In September 1890, he was expelled from the lyceum and left attempts to get a "state education" on this. “... I could not force myself, but I lived truly and intensely the life of my heart, and also was in a great passion for German literature,” he wrote in 1911. Balmont owed his knowledge in the field of history, philosophy, literature and philology to himself and his older brother, who was passionately fond of philosophy. Balmont recalled that at the age of 13 he learned the English word selfhelp (“self-help”), since then he fell in love with research and “mental work” and worked, sparing his strength, until the end of his days.

In 1889, Balmont married Larisa Garelina, the daughter of a Shuya manufacturer. A year later, in Yaroslavl, at his own expense, he published his first "Collection of Poems"; some of the youthful works included in the book were published as early as 1885. The acquaintance of the young poet with V. G. Korolenko dates back to this time. The famous writer, having received a notebook with his poems from Balmont's comrades at the gymnasium, took them seriously and wrote a detailed letter to the gymnasium student - a benevolent mentor's review. “He wrote to me that I have a lot of beautiful details, successfully snatched from the natural world, that you need to focus your attention, and not chase after every passing moth, that you don’t need to rush your feeling with thought, but you need to trust the unconscious area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe soul, which is imperceptibly accumulates his observations and comparisons, and then all of a sudden it all blooms, like a flower blooms after a long invisible pore of accumulating its forces, ”Balmont recalled. “If you manage to concentrate and work, we will hear something extraordinary from you over time,” ended the letter of Korolenko, whom the poet later called his “godfather”. However, the debut collection of 1890 did not arouse interest, close people did not accept it, and soon after the release, the poet burned almost the entire small edition.

In March 1890, an incident occurred that left an imprint on Balmont's entire subsequent life: he tried to commit suicide, threw himself out of a third-floor window, received serious fractures and spent a year in bed. It was believed that despair from his family and financial situation pushed him to such an act: marriage quarreled with Balmont's parents and deprived him of financial support, the immediate impetus was the Kreutzer Sonata read shortly before. The year spent in bed, as the poet himself recalled, turned out to be creatively very fruitful and led to "an unprecedented flowering of mental excitement and cheerfulness." It was during this year that he realized himself as a poet, saw his own destiny. In 1923, in the biographical story The Airway, he wrote:

Some time after his illness, Balmont, by this time separated from his wife, lived in need; he, according to his own recollections, for months "did not know what it was to be full, and approached the bakery to admire the rolls and bread through the glass." “The beginning of literary activity was associated with many torments and failures. For four or five years no magazine wanted to print me. The first collection of my poems ... did not, of course, have any success. Close people, with their negative attitude, significantly increased the severity of the first failures, ”he wrote in an autobiographical letter of 1903. By "close people" the poet meant his wife Larisa, as well as friends from among the "thinking students" who met the publication with hostility, believing that the author had betrayed the "ideals of social struggle" and closed himself within the framework of "pure art". In these difficult days, Balmont was again helped by V. G. Korolenko. “Now he came to me, greatly crushed by various hardships, but apparently not discouraged. He, poor fellow, is very timid, and a simple, attentive attitude to his work will already encourage him and will make a difference, ”he wrote in September 1891, referring to M. N. Albov, who was then one of the editors of the Severny Vestnik magazine ”, with a request to pay attention to the novice poet.

Professor of Moscow University N. I. Storozhenko also provided great assistance to Balmont. “He truly saved me from hunger and, like a father to his son, threw a faithful bridge ...”, the poet later recalled. Balmont took his article about Shelley to him (“very bad”, by his own later admission), and he took the novice writer under his wing. It was Storozhenko who persuaded the publisher K. T. Soldatenkov to entrust the novice poet with the translation of two fundamental books - Horn-Schweitzer's History of Scandinavian Literature and Gaspari's History of Italian Literature. Both translations were published in 1894-1895. “These works were my daily bread for three whole years and gave me the opportunity to fulfill my poetic dreams,” Balmont wrote in the essay “Seeing Eyes”. In 1887-1889, the poet actively translated German and French authors, then in 1892-1894 he took up work on the works of Percy Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe; It is this period that is considered the time of his creative formation.

Professor Storozhenko, in addition, introduced Balmont to the editorial office of the Severny Vestnik, around which the poets of the new direction were grouped. Balmont's first trip to St. Petersburg took place in October 1892: here he met N. M. Minsky, D. S. Merezhkovsky and Z. N. Gippius; general rosy impressions, however, were overshadowed by the emerging mutual antipathy with the latter.

On the basis of translation activities, Balmont became closer to the patron of arts, an expert on Western European literatures, Prince A. N. Urusov, who in many ways contributed to the expansion of the literary horizons of the young poet. At the expense of the philanthropist, Balmont published two books of translations by Edgar Allan Poe (“Ballads and Fantasies”, “Mysterious Tales”). “He published my translation of Poe's Mysterious Tales and loudly praised my first poems, which compiled the books Under the Northern Sky and In the Boundlessness,” Balmont later recalled. “Urusov helped my soul to free itself, helped me find myself,” the poet wrote in 1904 in his book Mountain Peaks. Calling his undertakings “... ridiculed steps on broken glass, on dark sharp-edged flints, along a dusty road, as if leading to nothing,” Balmont, among the people who helped him, also noted the translator and publicist P. F. Nikolaev.

In September 1894, in the student "Circle of Lovers of Western European Literature", Balmont met V. Ya. Bryusov, who later became his closest friend. Bryusov wrote about the "exceptional" impression that the poet's personality and his "frantic love for poetry" made on him.

The collection "Under the Northern Sky", published in 1894, is considered to be the starting point of Balmont's creative path. In December 1893, shortly before the publication of the book, the poet wrote in a letter to N. M. Minsky: “I have written a whole series of poems (my own) and in January I will start printing them in a separate book. I have a presentiment that my liberal friends will scold me very much, because there is no liberalism in them, but there are enough “corrupting” moods.” The poems were in many ways a product of their time (full of complaints about a dull, bleak life, descriptions of romantic experiences), but the aspiring poet's forebodings were only partially justified: the book received a wide response, and reviews were mostly positive. They noted the undoubted talent of the debutant, his "own physiognomy, the grace of form" and the freedom with which he owns it.

Rise to glory

If the debut of 1894 did not differ in originality, then in the second collection "In the boundlessness" (1895), Balmont began to search for "new space, new freedom", the possibilities of combining the poetic word with the melody. “... I showed what a poet who loves music can do with Russian verse. They have rhythms and chimes of euphonies, found for the first time, ”he later wrote about the poems of the 1890s. Despite the fact that contemporary critics recognized Balmont’s collection “In the Vastness” as unsuccessful, “the brilliance of verse and poetic flight” (according to the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron) provided the young poet with access to leading literary magazines.

The 1890s were for Balmont a period of active creative work in a wide variety of fields of knowledge. The poet, who had a phenomenal capacity for work, mastered "one after another, many languages, reveling in work, like a man possessed ... he read entire libraries of books, from treatises on Spanish painting he loved to studies on Chinese and Sanskrit." He enthusiastically studied the history of Russia, books on the natural sciences and folk art. Already in his mature years, addressing novice writers with instruction, he wrote that a debutant needs “... to be able to sit on his spring day over a philosophical book and an English dictionary, and Spanish grammar, when you really want to ride a boat and, maybe, you can kiss someone. To be able to read 100, and 300, and 3,000 books, among which there are many, many boring ones. Love not only joy, but also pain. Silently cherish in yourself not only happiness, but also the longing that pierces your heart.

By 1895, Balmont's acquaintances with Jurgis Baltrushaitis, which gradually grew into a friendship that lasted for many years, and S. A. Polyakov, an educated Moscow businessman, mathematician and polyglot, translator of Knut Hamsun, belong. It was Polyakov, the publisher of the modernist journal Vese, who five years later established the symbolist publishing house Scorpion, which published Balmont's best books.

In 1896, Balmont married the translator E. A. Andreeva and went with his wife to Western Europe. Several years spent abroad provided the novice writer, who was interested, in addition to the main subject, in history, religion and philosophy, with great opportunities. He visited France, Holland, Spain, Italy, spending a lot of time in libraries, improving his knowledge of languages. In the same days, he wrote to his mother from Rome: “All this year abroad, I feel myself on the stage, among the scenery. And there - in the distance - my sad beauty, for which I won’t take ten Italy. ” In the spring of 1897, Balmont was invited to England to lecture on Russian poetry at Oxford University, where he met, in particular, the anthropologist Edward Tylor and the philologist and historian of religions Thomas Rhys-Davids. “For the first time in my life, I live entirely and undividedly by aesthetic and mental interests, and I can’t get enough of the treasuries of painting, poetry and philosophy,” he enthusiastically wrote to Akim Volynsky. Impressions from the travels of 1896-1897 were reflected in the collection "Silence": it was perceived by critics as the best book of the poet at that time. “It seemed to me that the collection bears the imprint of an increasingly stronger style. Your own, Balmont style and color,” Prince Urusov wrote to the poet in 1898. In 1899, K. Balmont was elected a member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.

Peak of popularity

At the end of the 1890s, Balmont did not stay in one place for a long time; the main points of his route were St. Petersburg (October 1898 - April 1899), Moscow and the Moscow region (May - September 1899), Berlin, Paris, Spain, Biarritz and Oxford (end of the year). In 1899, Balmont wrote to the poetess L. Vilkina:

The collection "Burning Buildings" (1900), which occupies a central place in the poet's creative biography, was created for the most part in the Polyakovs' estate "Bathhouses" in the Moscow district; its owner was mentioned with great warmth in the dedication. “You have to be merciless to yourself. Only then can something be achieved, ”Balmont formulated his motto in the preface to Burning Buildings with these words. The author defined the main task of the book as the desire for inner liberation and self-knowledge. In 1901, sending the collection to L. N. Tolstoy, the poet wrote: “This book is a continuous cry of a soul torn, and, if you like, miserable, ugly. But I will not refuse any of its pages and - for now - I love ugliness no less than harmony. Thanks to the collection Burning Buildings, Balmont gained all-Russian fame and became one of the leaders of symbolism, a new movement in Russian literature. “For a decade, Balmont reigned indivisibly over Russian poetry. Other poets either dutifully followed him, or, with great effort, defended their independence from his overwhelming influence,” wrote V. Ya. Bryusov.

Gradually, Balmont's way of life, largely under the influence of S. Polyakov, began to change. The life of the poet in Moscow passed in assiduous studies at home, alternating with violent revels, when an alarmed wife began to look for him throughout the city. At the same time, inspiration did not leave the poet. “Something more complicated than I could have expected has come to me, and now I am writing page after page, hurrying and watching myself, so as not to be mistaken in joyful haste. How unexpected is your own soul! It is worth looking into it to see new distances ... I feel that I have attacked the ore ... And if I do not leave this earth, I will write a book that will not die, ”he wrote in December 1900 to I. I. Yasinsky. Balmont's fourth poetry collection Let's Be Like the Sun (1902) sold 1,800 copies within six months, which was considered an unheard-of success for a poetic publication, secured the author's reputation as a leader of symbolism and, in retrospect, is considered his best poetic book. Blok called "Let's be like the sun" "a book, unique in its kind in terms of immeasurable wealth."

Conflict with power

In 1901, an event occurred that had a significant impact on the life and work of Balmont and made him "a true hero in St. Petersburg." In March, he took part in a mass student demonstration on the square near the Kazan Cathedral, the main demand of which was the abolition of the decree on sending unreliable students to the military service. The demonstration was dispersed by the police and the Cossacks, among its participants were victims. On March 14, Balmont spoke at a literary evening in the hall of the City Duma and read the poem “The Little Sultan”, which in a veiled form criticized the terror regime in Russia and its organizer, Nicholas II (“That was in Turkey, where conscience is an empty thing, the fist reigns there, whip, scimitar, two or three zeros, four scoundrels and a stupid little sultan”). The poem went from hand to hand, it was going to be published in the Iskra newspaper by V. I. Lenin.

According to the decision of the "special meeting", the poet was expelled from St. Petersburg, for three years he lost the right to reside in the capital and university cities. For several months he stayed with friends at the Volkonsky Sabynino estate in the Kursk province (now the Belgorod region), in March 1902 he left for Paris, then lived in England, Belgium, and again in France. In the summer of 1903, Balmont returned to Moscow, then headed to the Baltic coast, where he took up poetry, which was included in the collection Only Love. After spending autumn and winter in Moscow, at the beginning of 1904 Balmont again found himself in Europe (Spain, Switzerland, after returning to Moscow - France), where he often acted as a lecturer; in particular, he gave public lectures on Russian and Western European literature at a higher school in Paris. By the time of the release of the collection “Only love. Semitsvetnik (1903), the poet already enjoyed all-Russian fame. He was surrounded by enthusiastic fans and admirers. “A whole category of young ladies and young ladies of“ Balmontists ”appeared - various Zinochki, Lyuba, Katenka constantly jostled with us, admired Balmont. He, of course, unfurled the sails and blissfully sailed in the wind, ”recalled B.K. Zaitsev, who was next to Balmont.

The poetic circles of balmonists created in these years tried to imitate the idol not only in poetic self-expression, but also in life. Already in 1896, Valery Bryusov wrote about the “Balmont school”, including, in particular, Mirra Lokhvitskaya. “They all adopt Balmont’s appearance: the brilliant finish of the verse, the flaunting of rhymes, consonances, and the very essence of his poetry,” he wrote. Balmont, according to Teffi, "surprised and delighted with his" chime of crystal harmonies "that poured into the soul with the first spring happiness." “... Russia was precisely in love with Balmont ... They read him, recited and sang from the stage. Cavaliers whispered his words to their ladies, schoolgirls copied them into notebooks ... ". Many poets (including Lokhvitskaya, Bryusov, Andrei Bely, Vyach. Ivanov, M. A. Voloshin, S. M. Gorodetsky) dedicated poems to him, seeing in him a “spontaneous genius”, an eternally free Arigon, doomed to rise above the world and completely immersed "in the revelations of his bottomless soul."

"Our king"
In 1906, Balmont wrote the poem "Our Tsar" about Emperor Nicholas II:

Our king is Mukden, our king is Tsushima,
Our king is a bloodstain
The stench of gunpowder and smoke
In which the mind is dark...
Our king is blind squalor,
Prison and whip, jurisdiction, execution,
Tsar hangman, the low twice,
What he promised, but did not dare to give.
He's a coward, he feels stuttering
But it will be, the hour of reckoning awaits.
Who began to reign - Khodynka,
He will finish - standing on the scaffold.

Another poem from the same cycle - "To Nicholas the Last" - ended with the words: "You must be killed, you have become a disaster for everyone."

In 1904-1905, the Scorpion publishing house published a collection of Balmont's poems in two volumes. In January 1905, the poet took a trip to Mexico, from where he went to California. The poet's travel notes and essays, along with his free-form transcriptions of Native American cosmogonic myths and legends, were later included in Snake Flowers (1910). This period of Balmont's work ended with the release of the collection Liturgy of Beauty. Elemental Hymns (1905), largely inspired by the events of the Russo-Japanese War.

In 1905, Balmont returned to Russia and took an active part in political life. In December, the poet, in his own words, "took some part in the armed uprising of Moscow, more in poetry." Having become close with Maxim Gorky, Balmont began active cooperation with the social-democratic newspaper Novaya Zhizn and the Parisian magazine Krasnoye Znamya, which was published by A. V. Amfiteatrov. E. Andreeva-Balmont confirmed in her memoirs: in 1905 the poet "was passionately carried away by the revolutionary movement", "spent all his days on the street, built barricades, made speeches, climbing on the pedestals." In December, during the days of the Moscow uprising, Balmont was often on the streets, carried a loaded revolver in his pocket, and made speeches to students. He even expected reprisals against himself, as it seemed to him, a complete revolutionary. His enthusiasm for the revolution was sincere, although, as the future showed, not deep; fearing arrest, on the night of 1906, the poet hastily left for Paris.

First emigration: 1906-1913

In 1906, Balmont settled in Paris, considering himself a political emigrant. He settled in the quiet Parisian quarter of Passy, ​​but spent most of his time on long journeys. Almost immediately, he felt a strong homesickness. “Life forced me to break away from Russia for a long time, and at times it seems to me that I no longer live, that only my strings still sound,” he wrote to Professor F. D. Batyushkov in 1907. Contrary to popular belief, the poet's fears of possible persecution by the Russian authorities were not unfounded. A. A. Ninov in his documentary study “This is how the poets lived ...”, examining in detail the materials relating to the “revolutionary activities” of K. Balmont, comes to the conclusion that the Okhrana “considered the poet a dangerous political person” and secret supervision of him was maintained even for border.

Two collections of 1906-1907 were compiled from works in which K. Balmont directly responded to the events of the first Russian revolution. The book "Poems" (St. Petersburg, 1906, "Knowledge") was confiscated by the police; "Songs of the Avenger" (Paris, 1907) were banned from distribution in Russia. During the years of the first emigration, the collections Evil Spells (1906) were also published, which was arrested by the censors because of “blasphemous” poems, as well as The Firebird. Pipe Slav" (1907) and "Green Heliport. Kissing words "(1909). The mood and imagery of these books, which reflected the poet's fascination with the ancient epic side of Russian and Slavic culture, were consonant with The Calls of Antiquity (1909). Criticism scornfully spoke of a new turn in the creative development of the poet, but Balmont himself was not aware of and did not recognize the creative decline.

In the spring of 1907, Balmont visited the Balearic Islands, at the end of 1909 he visited Egypt, writing a series of essays that later compiled the book “The Land of Osiris” (1914), in 1912 he traveled to southern countries, which lasted 11 months, visiting the Canary Islands, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, Ceylon, India. Oceania and communication with the inhabitants of the islands of New Guinea, Samoa, and Tonga made a particularly deep impression on him. “I want to enrich my mind, which is bored with the exorbitant predominance of the personal element in my whole life,” the poet explained his passion for travel in one of his letters.

Return: 1913-1920

In 1913, an amnesty was granted to political emigrants on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, and on May 5, 1913, Balmont returned to Moscow. At the Brest railway station in Moscow, a solemn public meeting was arranged for him. The gendarmes forbade the poet to address the audience who met him with a speech; instead, according to press reports of the day, he scattered fresh lilies of the valley among the crowd. In honor of the return of the poet, solemn receptions were arranged in the Society of Free Aesthetics and the Literary and Artistic Circle. In 1914, the publication of the complete collection of Balmont's poems in ten volumes was completed, which lasted seven years. At the same time, he published a poetry collection “The White Architect. The Mystery of the Four Lamps”, my impressions of Oceania.

After returning, Balmont traveled a lot around the country with lectures ("Oceania", "Poetry as Magic" and others). “The heart is shrinking here ... there are many tears in our beauty,” the poet remarked, having got after distant wanderings to the Oka, to Russian meadows and fields, where “rye is human-sized and higher.” “I love Russia and Russians. Oh, we Russians do not value ourselves! We do not know how condescending, patient and delicate we are. I believe in Russia, I believe in its brightest future, ”he wrote in one of the articles of the time.

At the beginning of 1914, the poet returned to Paris, then in April he went to Georgia, where he received a magnificent reception (in particular, a greeting from Akaki Tsereteli, the patriarch of Georgian literature) and held a course of lectures that were a great success. The poet began to study the Georgian language and took up the translation of Shota Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin". Among other major translation works of Balmont of this time is the transcription of ancient Indian monuments (“Upanishads”, Kalidasa's dramas, Asvagosha's poem “The Life of the Buddha”).

From Georgia, Balmont returned to France, where he found the beginning of the First World War. Only at the end of May 1915, by a circuitous route - through England, Norway and Sweden - did the poet return to Russia. At the end of September, Balmont went on a two-month trip to the cities of Russia with lectures, and a year later he repeated the tour, which turned out to be longer and ended in the Far East, from where he briefly left for Japan in May 1916.

In 1915, Balmont's theoretical study "Poetry as Magic" was published - a kind of continuation of the 1900 declaration "Elementary words about symbolic poetry"; in this treatise on the essence and purpose of lyric poetry, the poet attributed to the word "incantatory and magical power" and even "physical power." The research largely continued what had been started in the books Mountain Peaks (1904), White Lightnings (1908), Sea Glow (1910), dedicated to the work of Russian and Western European poets. At the same time, he wrote without ceasing, especially often referring to the genre of the sonnet. During these years, the poet created 255 sonnets, which made up the collection "Sonnets of the Sun, Sky and Moon" (1917). Books Ash. The Vision of the Tree (1916) and Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and Moon (1917) were met warmer than the previous ones, but even in them the critics saw mainly "monotony and an abundance of banal prettiness."

Between two revolutions

Balmont welcomed the February Revolution, began to cooperate in the Society of Proletarian Arts, but soon became disillusioned with the new government and joined the Cadets party, which demanded that the war continue to a victorious end. In one of the issues of the newspaper "Morning of Russia" he welcomed the activities of General Lavr Kornilov. The poet categorically did not accept the October Revolution, which made him horrified by the "chaos" and "hurricane of madness" of the "troubled times" and reconsider many of his previous views. Being a supporter of absolute freedom, he did not accept the dictatorship of the proletariat, which he considered "a bridle on free speech." In the 1918 publicist book Am I a Revolutionary or Not? Balmont, characterizing the Bolsheviks as carriers of the destructive principle, suppressing the "personality", nevertheless expressed the conviction that the poet should be outside the parties, that the poet "has his own paths, his own destiny - he is more of a comet than a planet (that is, he moves not in a certain orbit).

During these years, Balmont lived in Petrograd with E. K. Tsvetkovskaya (1880-1943), his third wife, and daughter Mirra, from time to time coming to Moscow to E. A. Andreeva and daughter Nina. Forced in this way to support two families, Balmont was in poverty, partly also because of the unwillingness to compromise with the new government. When at a literary lecture someone gave Balmont a note asking why he did not publish his works, the answer was: “I don’t want to ... I can’t print from those who have blood on their hands.” It was alleged that once the issue of his execution was discussed in the Extraordinary Commission, but, as S. Polyakov later wrote, "there was no majority of votes."

In 1920, together with E. K. Tsvetkovskaya and his daughter Mirra, the poet moved to Moscow, where "sometimes, in order to keep warm, they had to spend the whole day in bed." In relation to the authorities, Balmont was loyal: he worked in the People's Commissariat of Education, prepared poems and translations for publication, and lectured. On the day of May 1, 1920, in the Hall of Columns in the House of Unions in Moscow, he read his poem “The Song of the Working Hammer”, the next day he greeted the artist M. N. Yermolova with poems at her anniversary evening at the Maly Theater. In the same year, Moscow writers organized a celebration of Balmont, which marked the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of his first, "Yaroslavl", poetry collection. At the beginning of 1920, the poet began to arrange a trip abroad, referring to the deteriorating health of his wife and daughter. By this time, the beginning of a long and lasting friendship between Balmont and Marina Tsvetaeva, who in Moscow was in a similar, very difficult situation, dates back.

Second emigration: 1920-1942

Having received at the request of Jurgis Baltrushaitis from A. V. Lunacharsky permission to temporarily go abroad on a business trip, together with his wife, daughter and distant relative A. N. Ivanova, on May 25, 1920, Balmont left Russia forever and reached Paris through Revel. Boris Zaitsev believed that Baltrushaitis, who was the Lithuanian envoy in Moscow, saved Balmont from starvation: he was begging and starving in cold Moscow, “he carried firewood from a dismantled fence on himself.” Stanitsky (S. V. von Stein), recalling a meeting with Balmont in 1920 in Reval, remarked: “The seal of painful exhaustion lay on his face, and he seemed to be still in the grip of dark and mournful experiences, already abandoned in the country of lawlessness and evil , but wholly not yet exhausted by him.

In Paris, Balmont and his family settled in a small furnished apartment. As Teffi recalled, “the window in the dining room was always hung with a thick brown curtain, because the poet broke the glass. Inserting new glass made no sense - it could easily break again. Therefore, the room was always dark and cold. “Terrible apartment,” they said. “There is no glass, and it is blowing.”

The poet immediately found himself between two fires. On the one hand, the radical émigré community suspected him of being a Soviet sympathizer. As S. Polyakov ironically remarked, Balmont “…violated the ceremonial of flight from Soviet Russia. Instead of secretly escaping from Moscow, making his way as a wanderer through the forests and valleys of Finland, accidentally falling from the bullet of a drunken Red Army soldier or Finn on the border, he stubbornly sought permission to leave with his family for four months, received it and arrived in Paris unshot. The position of the poet was involuntarily “exacerbated” by Lunacharsky, who denied rumors in a Moscow newspaper that he was agitating abroad against the Soviet regime. This allowed right emigre circles to notice “... meaningfully: Balmont in correspondence with Lunacharsky. Well, of course, a Bolshevik!” However, the poet himself, interceding from France for Russian writers who were waiting to leave Russia, made phrases that did not condemn the state of affairs in Soviet Russia: “Everything that happens in Russia is so complicated and so mixed up”, hinting at the fact that much of what is being done in “cultural” Europe is also deeply disgusting to him. This was the reason for the attack on him by emigrant publicists (“... What is difficult? Mass executions? What is mixed up? Systematic robbery, the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the destruction of all freedoms, military expeditions to pacify the peasants?”).

On the other hand, the Soviet press began to “stigmatize him as a crafty deceiver,” who “at the cost of lies” won freedom for himself, abused the trust of the Soviet government, which generously let him go to the West “to study the revolutionary creativity of the masses.” Stanitsky wrote:

With dignity and calmly Balmont answered all these reproaches. But it is worth thinking about them in order to once again feel the charm of Soviet ethics - a purely cannibalistic type. The poet Balmont, whose whole being protests against the soviet power, which has ruined his homeland and every day kills its powerful, creative spirit in its smallest manifestations, is obliged to sacredly keep his word given to the tyrants-commissars and emergency workers. But these same principles of moral behavior are by no means guiding principles for the Soviet government and its agents. Killing parliamentarians, machine-gunning defenseless women and children, starving to death tens of thousands of innocent people - all this, of course, in the opinion of "comrade Bolsheviks" - is nothing compared to the violation of Balmont's promise to return to Lenin's communist Eden , Bukharin and Trotsky.

Stanitsky about Balmont. Latest news. 1921

As Yu. K. Terapiano later wrote, “there was no other poet in the Russian diaspora who so acutely experienced isolation from Russia.” Balmont called emigration "life among strangers", although he worked unusually hard at the same time; in 1921 alone, six of his books were published. In exile, Balmont actively collaborated with the Paris News newspaper, the Sovremennye Zapiski magazine, and numerous Russian periodicals published in other European countries. His attitude towards Soviet Russia remained ambiguous, but longing for Russia was constant: “I want Russia ... empty, empty. There is no spirit in Europe,” he wrote to E. Andreeva in December 1921. The severity of isolation from the homeland was aggravated by the feeling of loneliness, alienation from emigrant circles.

Soon Balmont left Paris and settled in the town of Capbreton in the province of Brittany, where he spent 1921-1922. In 1924 he lived in the Lower Charente (Chateleyon), in 1925 - in the Vendée (Saint-Gilles-sur-Vi), until late autumn 1926 - in the Gironde (Lacano-Ocean). In early November 1926, after leaving Lakano, Balmont and his wife went to Bordeaux. Balmont often rented a villa in Capbreton, where he communicated with many Russians and lived intermittently until the end of 1931, spending here not only the summer but also the winter months.

Public activity and journalism

Balmont unequivocally declared his attitude towards Soviet Russia soon after he left the country. “The Russian people are truly tired of their misfortunes and, most importantly, of the shameless, endless lies of merciless, evil rulers,” he wrote in 1921. In the article "Bloody Liars" the poet spoke about the vicissitudes of his life in Moscow in 1917-1920. In the emigrant periodicals of the early 1920s, his poetic lines about the "Actors of Satan", about the "drunk blood" of the Russian land, about the "days of humiliation of Russia", about the "red drops" that went to the Russian land, regularly appeared. A number of these poems were included in the collection "Marevo" (Paris, 1922) - the poet's first emigrant book. The name of the collection was predetermined by the first line of the poem of the same name: "Muddy haze, damn brew ..."

In 1927, with a publicistic article “A little bit of zoology for Little Red Riding Hood,” Balmont reacted to the scandalous speech of the Soviet plenipotentiary representative in Poland, D.V. "Russian friends") allegedly addressed the future - to modern Bolshevik Russia. In the same year, an anonymous appeal “To the Writers of the World” was published in Paris, signed “Group of Russian Writers. Russia, May 1927". Among those who responded to the call of I. D. Galperin-Kaminsky to support the appeal was (along with Bunin, Zaitsev, Kuprin, Merezhkovsky and others) and Balmont. In October 1927, the poet sent a “cry-plea” to Knut Hamsun, and without waiting for an answer, turned to Halperin-Kaminsky:

In an address to Romain Rolland in the same place, Balmont wrote: “Believe me, we are not as vagabonds by nature as you might think. We left Russia in order to be able in Europe to try to shout at least something about the Dying Mother, to shout in the deaf ear of the hardened and indifferent, who are busy only with themselves ... ”The poet also sharply reacted to the policy of the British government of James MacDonald, who entered into trade negotiations with the Bolsheviks , and later recognized the USSR. “The recognition by England of an armed gang of international crooks who, with the help of the Germans, seized power in St. Petersburg and Moscow, weakened due to our military defeat, was a mortal blow to everything honest that still remained after the monstrous war in Europe,” he wrote in 1930.

Unlike his friend Ivan Shmelev, who gravitated towards the “right” direction, Balmont generally adhered to “left”, liberal-democratic views, was critical of the ideas of Ivan Ilyin, did not accept “conciliatory” tendencies (Smenovekhovism, Eurasianism, and so on) , radical political movements (fascism). At the same time, he avoided the former socialists - A.F. Kerensky, I.I. Fondaminsky - and watched with horror the "leftward" movement in Western Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, in particular, the enthusiasm for socialism among a significant part of the French intellectual elite. Balmont vividly responded to events that shocked emigration: the abduction by Soviet agents in January 1930 of General A.P. Kutepov, the tragic death of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, who did a lot for Russian emigrants; took part in joint actions and protests of emigration (“To fight against denationalization” - in connection with the growing threat of separation of Russian children abroad from the Russian language and Russian culture; “Help native enlightenment”), but at the same time avoided participation in political organizations.

Balmont was outraged by the indifference of Western European writers to what was happening in the USSR, and this feeling was superimposed on a general disappointment with the entire Western way of life. Europe had previously made him bitter with its rational pragmatism. Back in 1907, the poet remarked: “Strange people are European people, strangely uninteresting. They have to prove everything. I never look for evidence." “No one here reads anything. Here everyone is interested in sports and cars. Cursed time, senseless generation! I feel about the same as the last Peruvian ruler among the arrogant Spanish newcomers, ”he wrote in 1927.

Creativity in exile

It is generally accepted that emigration passed for Balmont under the sign of decline; this opinion, shared by many Russian émigré poets, was subsequently disputed more than once. In different countries, Balmont during these years published books of poems “Gift to the Earth”, “Bright Hour” (1921), “Haze” (1922), “Mine - to her. Poems about Russia "(1923), "In the Parted Distance" (1929), "Northern Lights" (1933), "Blue Horseshoe", "Light Service" (1937). In 1923 he published books of autobiographical prose Under the New Sickle and Air Way, in 1924 he published a book of memoirs Where is My Home? (Prague, 1924), wrote documentary essays "Torch in the Night" and "White Dream" about his experiences in the winter of 1919 in revolutionary Russia. Balmont made long lecture tours in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, in the summer of 1930 he traveled to Lithuania, while simultaneously translating West Slavic poetry, but Russia remained the main theme of Balmont's works during these years: memories of her and longing for the lost.

“I want Russia. I want Russia to have a transforming dawn. I only want this. Nothing else,” he wrote to E. A. Andreeva. The poet was drawn back to Russia, and he, inclined to succumb to momentary moods, more than once expressed a desire to return to his homeland in the 1920s. “I live and don't live living abroad. Despite all the horrors of Russia, I am very sorry that I left Moscow,” he wrote to the poet A. B. Kusikov on May 17, 1922. At some point, Balmont was close to taking this step. “I completely decided to return, but again everything was confused in my soul,” he informed E. A. Andreeva on June 13, 1923. “You will feel how I always love Russia and how the thought of our nature dominates me. One word “lingonberry” or “sweet clover” causes such excitement in my soul that one word is enough for poetry to escape from a trembling heart, ”the poet wrote on August 19, 1925 to his daughter Nina Bruni, sending her new poems.

last years of life

By the end of the 1920s, the life of K. Balmont and E. Tsvetkovskaya became more and more difficult. Literary fees were meager, financial support, which came mainly from the Czech Republic and Yugoslavia, which created funds to help Russian writers, became irregular, then stopped. The poet had to take care of three women, and the daughter Mirra, who was distinguished by extreme carelessness and impracticality, gave him a lot of trouble. “Konstantin Dmitrievich is in a very difficult situation, barely making ends meet ... Keep in mind that our glorious Poet is struggling from real need, the help that came to him from America has ended ... The Poet’s affairs are getting worse and worse,” wrote I.S. Shmelev V.F. Seeler, one of the few who regularly provided assistance to Balmont.

The situation became critical after it became clear in 1932 that the poet was suffering from a serious mental illness. From August 1932 to May 1935, the Balmonts lived without a break in Clamart near Paris, in poverty. In the spring of 1935, Balmont ended up in a clinic. “We are in great trouble and in complete poverty ... And Konstantin Dmitrievich has neither a decent nightgown, nor night shoes, nor pajamas. We are dying, dear friend, if you can, help, advise ... ”, Tsvetkovskaya wrote to Zeeler on April 6, 1935. Despite illness and distress, the poet retained his former eccentricity and sense of humor. Regarding the car accident he got into in the mid-1930s, Balmont, in a letter to V.V. Obolyaninov, complained not about bruises, but about a damaged suit: the legs on which they are put on ... ". In a letter to E. A. Andreeva, the poet wrote:

In April 1936, the Parisian Russian writers celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Balmont's writing activity with a creative evening, designed to raise funds to help the sick poet. The committee for the organization of the evening called “To the Poet - Writers” included famous figures of Russian culture: I. S. Shmelev, M. Aldanov, I. A. Bunin, B. K. Zaitsev, A. N. Benois, A. T. Grechaninov, P. N. Milyukov, S. V. Rachmaninov.

At the end of 1936, Balmont and Tsvetkovskaya moved to Noisy-le-Grand near Paris. The last years of his life, the poet stayed alternately either in a charity house for Russians, which was kept by M. Kuzmina-Karavaeva, or in a cheap furnished apartment. As Yuri Terapiano recalled, "the Germans were indifferent to Balmont, while the Russian Nazis reproached him for his former revolutionary convictions." However, by this time Balmont had finally fallen into a "twilight state"; he came to Paris, but with great difficulty. In the hours of enlightenment, when mental illness receded, Balmont, according to the recollections of those who knew him, with a feeling of happiness opened the volume of "War and Peace" or reread his old books; he could not write for a long time.

In 1940-1942, Balmont did not leave Noisy-le-Grand; here, in the Russian House shelter, he died on the night of December 23, 1942 from pneumonia. He was buried in the local Catholic cemetery, under a gray stone tombstone with the inscription: "Constantin Balmont, poète russe" ("Konstantin Balmont, Russian poet"). Several people came from Paris to say goodbye to the poet: B.K. Zaitsev with his wife, the widow of Y. Baltrushaitis, two or three acquaintances and daughter Mirra. Irina Odoevtseva recalled that “... it was raining heavily. When the coffin was lowered into the grave, it turned out to be filled with water, and the coffin floated up. He had to be held up with a pole while the grave was filled in.” The French public learned about the death of the poet from an article in the pro-Hitler Paris Gazette, which made, "as was then customary, a thorough reprimand to the late poet for having once supported the revolutionaries."

Since the 1960s Balmont's poems in the USSR began to be printed in anthologies. In 1984, a large collection of selected works was published.

Family

It is generally accepted that the poet's father, Dmitry Konstantinovich Balmont (1835-1907), came from a noble family, which, according to family legend, had Scandinavian (according to some sources, Scottish) roots. The poet himself in 1903 wrote about his origin:

There is an alternative version of the origin of the name Balmont. Thus, the researcher P. Kupriyanovsky points out that the poet's great-grandfather, a cavalry sergeant of the Catherine's Life Guards Regiment, could bear the surname Balamut, which was later ennobled by "altering in a foreign way." This assumption is also consistent with the memoirs of E. Andreeva-Balmont, who claimed that “... the great-grandfather of the poet's father was a sergeant in one of the cavalry Life Guards regiments of Empress Catherine II Balamut ... This document on parchment and with seals was kept with us. In Ukraine, the surname Balamut is still quite common. The great-grandfather of the poet Ivan Andreevich Balamut was a Kherson landowner ... How the name Balamut moved to Balmont - I could not establish. In turn, opponents of this version noted that it contradicts the laws of textual criticism; it would be more natural to assume that, on the contrary, "the people adapted the foreign name of the landowner to their understanding."

D. K. Balmont served for half a century in the Shuya zemstvo - as a mediator, justice of the peace, chairman of the congress of justices of the peace and, finally, chairman of the county zemstvo council. In 1906, D. K. Balmont retired, a year later he died. In the memory of the poet, he remained a quiet and kind person who passionately loved nature and hunting. Mother Vera Nikolaevna came from a general's family; she received an institute education and was distinguished by an active character: she taught and treated peasants, arranged amateur performances and concerts, and was sometimes published in provincial newspapers. Dmitry Konstantinovich and Vera Nikolaevna had seven sons. All the poet's relatives pronounced their surname with an emphasis on the first syllable, the poet only subsequently independently, as he claimed, "because of the whim of one woman", shifted the emphasis to the second.

Personal life

K. D. Balmont told in his autobiography that he began to fall in love very early: “The first passionate thought about a woman was at the age of five, the first real love was nine years old, the first passion was fourteen years old,” he wrote. “Wandering through countless cities, I am always delighted with one thing - love,” the poet later admitted in one of his poems. Valery Bryusov, analyzing his work, wrote: “Balmont’s poetry glorifies and glorifies all the rites of love, all its rainbow. Balmont himself says that, following the paths of love, he can achieve “too much - everything!”

In 1889, Konstantin Balmont married Larisa Mikhailovna Garelina, the daughter of a Shuya manufacturer, "a beautiful young lady of the Botticelli type." The mother, who facilitated the acquaintance, sharply opposed the marriage, but the young man was adamant in his decision and decided to break with his family. “I was not yet twenty-two years old when I ... married a beautiful girl, and we left in early spring, or rather, at the end of winter, to the Caucasus, to the Kabardian region, and from there along the Georgian Military Highway to the blessed Tiflis and Transcaucasia”, he later wrote. But the wedding trip did not become a prologue to a happy family life.

Researchers often write about Garelina as a neurotic nature, who showed love to Balmont "in a demonic face, even devilish", tormented by jealousy; it is generally accepted that it was she who addicted him to wine, as indicated by the confessional poem of the poet "Forest Fire". The wife did not sympathize with either the literary aspirations or the revolutionary moods of her husband and was prone to quarrels. In many ways, it was the painful connection with Garelina that prompted Balmont to attempt suicide on the morning of March 13, 1890. Soon after his recovery, which was only partial - he had a limp for the rest of his life - Balmont broke up with L. Garelina. The first child born in this marriage died, the second - the son Nikolai - subsequently suffered from a nervous breakdown. Later, researchers warned against excessive “demonization” of the image of Balmont’s first wife: after breaking up with the latter, Larisa Mikhailovna married the journalist and literary historian N. A. Engelgardt and lived peacefully with him for many years. Her daughter from this marriage, Anna Nikolaevna Engelhardt, became the second wife of Nikolai Gumilyov.

The poet's second wife, Ekaterina Alekseevna Andreeva-Balmont (1867-1952), a relative of the famous Moscow publishers Sabashnikovs, came from a wealthy merchant family (the Andreevs owned shops of colonial goods) and was distinguished by a rare education. Contemporaries also noted the external attractiveness of this tall and slender young woman "with beautiful black eyes." For a long time she was unrequitedly in love with A. I. Urusov. Balmont, as Andreeva recalled, quickly became interested in her, but did not meet reciprocity for a long time. When the latter arose, it turned out that the poet was married: then the parents forbade their daughter to meet with her lover. However, Ekaterina Alekseevna, enlightened in the "latest spirit", looked at the rites as a formality and soon moved to the poet. The divorce process, allowing Garelina to enter into a second marriage, forbade her husband to marry forever, but, having found an old document where the groom was listed as unmarried, the lovers got married on September 27, 1896, and the next day they went abroad, to France.

With E. A. Andreeva, Balmont was united by a common literary interest; the couple made many joint translations, in particular Gerhart Hauptmann and Odd Nansen. Boris Zaitsev, in his memoirs about Balmont, called Ekaterina Alekseevna "a graceful, cool and noble woman, highly cultured and not without power." Their apartment on the fourth floor of a house in Tolstovsky was, as Zaitsev wrote, “the work of Ekaterina Alekseevna, as well as their way of life was also largely directed by her.” Balmont was "... in faithful, loving and healthy hands, and at home he led a life even just working." In 1901, their daughter Ninika was born - Nina Konstantinovna Balmont-Bruni (died in Moscow in 1989), to whom the poet dedicated the collection Fairy Tales.

In the early 1900s, in Paris, Balmont met Elena Konstantinovna Tsvetkovskaya (1880-1943), the daughter of General K. G. Tsvetkovsky, then a student at the Sorbonne Faculty of Mathematics and a passionate admirer of his poetry. The latter, "not strong in character, ... with her whole being was involved in the whirlpool of the poet's madness", whose every word "sounded to her like the voice of God." Balmont, judging by some of his letters, in particular to Bryusov, was not in love with Tsvetkovskaya, but soon began to feel the need for her as a truly faithful, devoted friend. Gradually, the "spheres of influence" were divided: Balmont either lived with his family, or left with Elena; for example, in 1905 they left for three months in Mexico. The poet's family life was completely confused after E.K. Tsvetkovskaya had a daughter in December 1907, who was named Mirra - in memory of Mirra Lokhvitskaya, the poetess, with whom he had complex and deep feelings. The appearance of the child finally tied Balmont to Elena Konstantinovna, but at the same time he did not want to leave Ekaterina Alekseevna either. Mental anguish led to a breakdown: in 1909, Balmont made a new suicide attempt, again jumped out of the window and survived again. Until 1917, Balmont lived in St. Petersburg with Tsvetkovskaya and Mirra, coming from time to time to Moscow to Andreeva and his daughter Nina.

Balmont emigrated from Russia with his third (civil) wife E.K. Tsvetkovskaya and daughter Mirra. However, he did not break off friendly relations with Andreeva either; only in 1934, when Soviet citizens were forbidden to correspond with relatives and friends living abroad, this connection was interrupted. The new matrimonial duet Teffi, recalling one of the meetings, described as follows: “He entered, raising his forehead high, as if carrying a golden crown of glory. His neck was wrapped twice in black, some kind of Lermontov tie, which no one wears. Lynx eyes, long, reddish hair. Behind him is his faithful shadow, his Elena, a small, thin, dark-faced creature, living only on strong tea and love for the poet. According to Teffi, the couple communicated with each other in an unusually pretentious manner. Elena Konstantinovna never called Balmont "husband", she said: "poet." The phrase "The husband asks for a drink" in their language was pronounced as "The poet wants to quench himself with moisture."

Unlike E. A. Andreeva, Elena Konstantinovna was "worldly helpless and could not organize life in any way." She considered it her duty to follow Balmont everywhere: eyewitnesses recalled how she, “leaving her child at home, followed her husband somewhere to a tavern and could not take him out of there for a day.” “With such a life, it is not surprising that by the age of forty she already looked like an old woman,” Teffi noted.

E. K. Tsvetkovskaya was not the last love of the poet. In Paris, he resumed his acquaintance with Princess Dagmar Shakhovskaya (1893-1967), which had begun in March 1919. “One of my dear ones, half-Swede, half-Polish, Princess Dagmar Shakhovskaya, nee Baroness Lilienfeld, Russified, sang Estonian songs to me more than once,” Balmont described his beloved in one of his letters. Shakhovskaya gave birth to Balmont two children - Georges (1922-194?) and Svetlana (b. 1925). The poet could not leave his family; meeting with Shakhovskaya only occasionally, he wrote to her often, almost daily, declaring his love over and over again, talking about his impressions and plans; 858 of his letters and postcards have been preserved. Be that as it may, it was not D. Shakhovskaya, but E. Tsvetkovskaya, who spent the last, most disastrous years of his life with Balmont; she died in 1943, a year after the death of the poet. Mirra Konstantinovna Balmont (married - Boychenko, in the second marriage - Autina) wrote poetry and published in the 1920s under the pseudonym Aglaya Gamayun. She died in Noisy-le-Grand in 1970.

Appearance and character

Andrei Bely characterized Balmont as an unusually lonely, detached from the real world and defenseless person, and he saw the cause of troubles in the properties of a restless and fickle, but at the same time unusually generous nature: “He failed to combine in himself all those riches that nature awarded him. He is an eternal mote of spiritual treasures ... He will receive - and squander, receive and squander. He gives them to us. He spills his creative goblet on us. But he himself does not eat from his creativity. Bely left an expressive description of Balmont's appearance:

“Slightly reddish, with lively quick eyes, head held high, high straight collars, ... a wedge-shaped beard, a kind of combat. (Portrait of Serov conveys it perfectly.) Something provocative, always ready to boil, to respond with harshness or enthusiasm. If compared with birds, then this is a magnificent chanticleer, greeting the day, light, life ... ”, - this is how Boris Zaitsev remembered Balmont.

Ilya Ehrenburg recalled that Balmont read his poems in an "inspirational and arrogant" voice, like "a shaman who knows that his words have power, if not over an evil spirit, then over poor nomads." The poet, according to him, spoke in all languages ​​​​with an accent - not with Russian, but with Balmont's, pronouncing the sound "n" in a peculiar way - "either in French, or in Polish." Speaking about the impression that Balmont made already in the 1930s, Ehrenburg wrote that on the street he could be mistaken "... for a Spanish anarchist or simply for a madman who deceived the vigilance of the guards." V. S. Yanovsky, recalling a meeting with Balmont in the 1930s, remarked: "... decrepit, gray-haired, with a sharp beard, Balmont ... looked like the ancient god Svarog or Dazhbog, in any case, something Old Slavonic."

Contemporaries characterized Balmont as an extremely sensitive, nervous and enthusiastic person, “easy-going”, inquisitive and good-natured, but at the same time prone to affectation and narcissism. Balmont's behavior was dominated by theatricality, mannerisms and pretentiousness, there was a tendency to affectation and outrageousness. Curious cases are known when he was laid down in Paris in the middle of the pavement to be run over by a fiacre, or when “on a moonlit night, in a coat and hat, with a cane in his hands, he entered, spellbound by the moon, up to his throat into a pond, trying to experience unknown sensations and describe them in verse". Boris Zaitsev told how the poet once asked his wife: “Vera, do you want the poet to come to you, bypassing boring earthly paths, directly from himself, to Boris’s room, through the air?” (two married couples were neighbors). Recalling the first such “flight”, Zaitsev noted in his memoirs: “Thank God, in Tolstovsky he did not fulfill his intention. He continued to come to us by boring earthly paths, along the sidewalk of his lane he turned into our Spaso-Peskovsky, past the church.

Laughing good-naturedly at the manners of his acquaintance, Zaitsev remarked that Balmont “was also different: sad, very simple. He willingly read his new poems to those present and brought them to tears with the penetration of reading. Many of those who knew the poet confirmed that from under the mask of the “great poet” in love with his own image, from time to time a completely different character could be seen. “Balmont loved the pose. Yes, this is understandable. Constantly surrounded by worship, he considered it necessary to behave as, in his opinion, a great poet should behave. He tilted his head, knitting his brows. But his laughter betrayed him. His laugh was good-natured, childish, and somehow defenseless. This childish laugh of his explained many of his absurd actions. He, like a child, gave himself up to the mood of the moment ... ”, Teffi recalled.

Rare humanity, the warmth of the Balmont character were noted. P.P. Pertsov, who knew the poet from his youth, wrote that it was difficult to meet such a “pleasant, helpfully friendly person” as Balmont. Marina Tsvetaeva, who met with the poet in the most difficult times, testified that he could give his “last pipe, last crust, last log” to the needy. The Soviet translator Mark Talov, who found himself in Paris in the twenties without a livelihood, recalled how, leaving Balmont’s apartment, where he timidly visited, he found money in his coat pocket, secretly invested there by the poet, who at that time himself lived far away not luxurious.

Many spoke about the impressionability and impulsiveness of Balmont. He himself considered the most remarkable events of his life "those sudden inner gaps that sometimes open in the soul about the most insignificant external facts." So, “for the first time, sparkling, to mystical conviction, the thought of the possibility and inevitability of world happiness” was born in him “at the age of seventeen, when one day in Vladimir, on a bright winter day, from the mountain, he saw in the distance a blackening long peasant convoy.”

In the character of Balmont, something feminine was also noticed: “in whatever militant poses he got up ... all his life he was closer and dearer to female souls.” The poet himself believed that the absence of sisters aroused in him a special interest in female nature. At the same time, a certain “childishness” was preserved in his nature all his life, which he himself even somewhat “flirted with” and which many considered feigned. However, it was noted that even in his mature years, the poet really "carried in his soul something very direct, tender, childish." “I still feel like a fiery high school student, shy and impudent,” Balmont himself admitted when he was already under thirty.

The penchant for external effects, the deliberate “bohemianism” did the poet a disservice: few knew that “for all the exaltation ... Balmont was a tireless worker”, worked hard, wrote every day and was very fruitful, all his life he was engaged in self-education (“read entire libraries”) , studied languages ​​and natural sciences, and traveling, enriched himself not only with new impressions, but also with information on the history, ethnography, and folklore of each country. In the mass view, Balmont remained primarily a pretentious eccentric, but many noted rationality and consistency in his character. S. V. Sabashnikov recalled that the poet “…almost did not make blots in his manuscripts. Poems in dozens of lines, apparently, formed completely finished in his head and were entered into the manuscript at once.

If any correction was needed, he rewrote the text in a new edition, without making any blots or additions to the original text. His handwriting was neat, clear and beautiful. Despite the extraordinary nervousness of Konstantin Dmitrievich, his handwriting did not reflect, however, any changes in his moods ... And in his habits, he seemed pedantically neat, not allowing any slovenliness. The books, the desk and all the accessories of the poet were always in much better order than those of us, the so-called business people. This accuracy in work made Balmont a very pleasant employee of the publishing house.

S. V. Sabashnikov about K. D. Balmont

“The manuscripts submitted to him have always been finalized and have not been subjected to changes in typesetting. Proofs were read clearly and returned quickly,” added the publisher.

Valery Bryusov noted in Balmont a frenzied love for poetry, "a subtle flair for the beauty of verse." Remembering the evenings and nights when they “endlessly read their poems to each other and ... the poems of their favorite poets,” Bryusov admitted: “I was one before meeting Balmont and became different after meeting him.” Bryusov explained the peculiarities of Balmont's behavior in life by the deep poetry of his character. “He experiences life like a poet, and as soon as poets can experience it, as given to them alone: ​​finding at every point the fullness of life. Therefore, it cannot be measured by a common arshin.

Creation

Balmont became the first representative of symbolism in poetry, who received all-Russian fame. It was noted, however, that his work as a whole was not purely symbolist; neither was the poet a “decadent” in the full sense of the word: decadence for him “…served not only and not so much as a form of aesthetic attitude to life, but as a convenient shell for creating the image of the creator of new art.” The first collections of Balmont, with all the abundance of decadent-symbolist signs in them, were attributed by literary critics to impressionism, a trend in art that aimed to convey fleeting, unsteady impressions. Basically, these were “purely romantic poems, as if opposing heaven and earth, calling to the distant, unearthly”, saturated with motifs consonant with the work of A. N. Pleshcheev or S. Ya. Nadson. It was noted that the mood of "sadness, some kind of orphanhood, homelessness" that dominated Balmont's early poems were echoes of the former "thoughts of the sick, tired generation of the intelligentsia." The poet himself noted that his work began "with sadness, depression and twilight", "under the northern sky". The lyrical hero of Balmont's early works (according to A. Izmailov) is "a meek and meek young man, imbued with the most well-intentioned and moderate feelings."

Collections "In the vastness" (1895) and "Silence. Lyric Poems" (1898) were marked by an active search for "new space, new freedom". The main ideas for these books were the ideas of the transience of being and the variability of the world. The author paid increased attention to the technique of verse, demonstrating a clear passion for sound writing and musicality. Symbolism in his understanding was primarily a means of searching for "new combinations of thoughts, colors and sounds", a method of building "from the sounds, syllables and words of his native speech a cherished chapel, where everything is full of profound meaning and penetration." Symbolic poetry “speaks its own special language, and this language is rich in intonations, like music and painting, it excites a complex mood in the soul, more than any other kind of poetry, it touches our sound and visual impressions,” Balmont wrote in the book “Mountain Peaks” . The poet also shared the idea, which was part of the general system of symbolist views, that the sound matter of a word is invested with a high meaning; like any materiality, - "represents from the spiritual substance."

The presence of new, "Nietzschean" motives and heroes ("spontaneous genius", "unlike a person", torn "beyond the limits" and even "beyond - both truth and lies") critics noted already in the collection "Silence". It is believed that Silence is the best of Balmont's first three books. “It seemed to me that the collection bears the imprint of an increasingly stronger style. Your own, Balmont style and color,” Prince Urusov wrote to the poet in 1898. The impressions from the travels of 1896-1897, which occupied a significant place in the book (“Dead Ships”, “Chords”, “In front of the El Greco Painting”, “In Oxford”, “Near Madrid”, “To Shelley”) were not simple descriptions, but they expressed the desire to get used to the spirit of a foreign or bygone civilization, a foreign country, to identify themselves "either with a novice of Brahma, or with some priest from the country of the Aztecs." “I merge with everyone every moment,” Balmont declared. “The poet is an element. He likes to take on the most diverse faces, and in each face he is self-identical. He clings lovingly to everything, and everything enters his soul, like the sun, moisture and air enter a plant… The poet is open to the world…”, he wrote.

At the turn of the century, the general tone of Balmont's poetry changed dramatically: moods of despondency and hopelessness gave way to bright colors, imagery, filled with "frantic joy, the pressure of violent forces." Beginning in 1900, the “elegiac” hero of Balmont turned into his own opposite: an active personality, “almost with orgiastic passion affirming in this world the aspiration to the Sun, fire, light”; a special place in the Balmont hierarchy of images was occupied by Fire as a manifestation of cosmic forces. Being for some time the leader of the “new poetry”, Balmont willingly formulated its principles: the symbolist poets, in his words, “are fanned with breaths coming from the realm of the beyond”, they, “recreating materiality with their complex impressionability, rule over the world and penetrate into his mysteries.

The collections Burning Buildings (1900) and Let's Be Like the Sun (1902), as well as the book Only Love (1903), are considered the strongest in Balmont's literary heritage. Researchers noted the presence of prophetic notes here, regarding the image of “burning buildings” as a symbol of “alarm in the air, a sign of impulse, movement” (“Scream of the Sentinel”). The main motives here were "sunshine", the desire for constant renewal, the thirst to "stop the moment". “When you listen to Balmont, you always listen to spring,” wrote A. A. Blok. An essentially new factor in Russian poetry was Balmont's erotica. The poems “She surrendered herself without reproach ...” and “I want to be bold ...” became his most popular works; they taught “if not to love, then, in any case, to write about love in a ‘new’ spirit.” And yet, recognizing in Balmont the leader of symbolism, the researchers noted: “the mask of elemental genius adopted by him, egocentrism, reaching narcissism, on the one hand, and eternal sun worship, fidelity to a dream, the search for beauty and perfection, on the other, allow us to speak of him as about a neo-romantic poet. After Burning Buildings, both critics and readers began to perceive Balmont as an innovator who opened up new possibilities for Russian verse, expanding its figurativeness. Many drew attention to the shocking component of his work: almost frenzied expressions of determination and energy, craving for the use of "dagger words". Prince AI Urusov called "Burning Buildings" a "psychiatric document." E. V. Anichkov regarded Balmont’s program collections as “moral, artistic and simply physical liberation from the former mournful school of Russian poetry, which tied poetry to the hardships of the native public.” It was noted that "proud optimism, the life-affirming pathos of Balmont's lyrics, the desire for freedom from the shackles imposed by society, and a return to the fundamental principles of being" were perceived by readers "not just as an aesthetic phenomenon, but as a new worldview."

Fairy Tales (1905) - a collection of children's fairy tale songs-stylizations, dedicated to daughter Nina, received high marks from contemporaries. “In Fairy Tales, the spring of Balmont's creativity again beats with a stream of clear, crystal, melodious. In these "children's songs" everything that is most valuable in his poetry came to life, what was given to it as a heavenly gift, in which is its best eternal glory. These are gentle, airy songs that create their own music. They look like the silver ringing of pensive bells, "narrow-bottomed, multi-colored on a stamen under the window," wrote Valery Bryusov.

Among the best “foreign” poems, critics noted the cycle of poems about Egypt “Extinct Volcanoes”, “Memories of an Evening in Amsterdam”, noted by Maxim Gorky, “Quiet” (about the islands in the Pacific Ocean) and “Iceland”, which was highly appreciated by Bryusov. Being in constant search for "new combinations of thoughts, colors and sounds" and the approval of "striking" images, the poet believed that he was creating "lyrics of the modern soul", a soul that has "many faces". Transferring heroes in time and space, over many eras (“Scythians”, “Oprichniki”, “In the Dead Days” and so on), he affirmed the image of a “spontaneous genius”, “superman” (“Oh, bliss to be strong and proud and forever free!" - "Albatross").

One of the fundamental principles of Balmont's philosophy in the years of his creative heyday was the affirmation of the equality of the sublime and the base, the beautiful and the ugly, characteristic of the decadent worldview as a whole. A significant place in the poet's work was occupied by the "reality of conscience", in which a kind of war against integrity took place, the polarization of opposing forces, their "justification" ("The whole world must be justified / So that one can live! ..", "But I love the unaccountable, and delight, and shame. / And the space of the marsh, and the height of the mountains"). Balmont could admire the scorpion with its "pride and desire for freedom", bless the cripples, "crooked cacti", "snakes and lizards outcast childbirth." At the same time, the sincerity of Balmont's "demonism", expressed in demonstrative submission to the elements of passions, was not questioned. According to Balmont, the poet is "an inspired demigod", "the genius of a melodious dream".

Balmont's poetic creativity was spontaneous and subject to the dictates of the moment. In the miniature “How I Write Poems,” he admitted: “... I don’t think about poetry and, really, I never compose.” Once written, he never corrected, did not edit, believing that the first impulse is the most correct, he wrote continuously, and very much. The poet believed that only a moment, always the one and only, reveals the truth, makes it possible to “see the far distance” (“I don’t know wisdom suitable for others, / I put only transiences into verse. / In each fleetingness I see worlds, / Full of changeable rainbow play"). Balmont's wife E. A. Andreeva also wrote about this: “He lived in the moment and was content with it, not embarrassed by the colorful change of moments, if only to express them more fully and more beautifully. He either sang of Evil, then Good, then he leaned towards paganism, then he bowed before Christianity. She told how one day, noticing from the window of the apartment a cart of hay riding down the street, Balmont immediately created the poem “In the Capital”; how suddenly the sound of raindrops falling from the roof gave rise to completed stanzas in him. Self-characterization: “I am a cloud, I am a breath of a breeze,” given in the book “Under the Northern Sky”, Balmont tried to match until the end of his life.

Many found the melodic repetition technique developed by Balmont to be unusually effective (“I dreamed of catching the departing shadows. / The departing shadows of the fading day. / I climbed the tower, and the steps trembled, / And the steps trembled under my foot”). It was noted that Balmont was able to “repeat a single word in such a way that a bewitching power awakened in it” (“But even at the hour before drowsiness, between the rocks of the native again / I will see the sun, the sun, the sun is red like blood”). Balmont developed his own style of colorful epithet, introduced into wide use such nouns as “lights”, “dusks”, “smoke”, “bottomless”, “transiency”, continued, following the traditions of Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Gnedich, experiment with merging individual epithets in clusters (“joyfully-expanded rivers”, “their every look is calculated-truthful”, “the trees are so gloomy-strangely silent”). Not everyone accepted these innovations, but Innokenty Annensky, objecting to Balmont's critics, argued that his “refinement ... is far from pretentiousness. A rare poet so freely and easily solves the most complex rhythmic problems and, avoiding banality, is as alien to artificiality as Balmont is, "equally alien to provincialism and Fet's German stylelessness." According to the critic, it was this poet who “brought out of the numbness of singular forms” a whole series of abstractions, which in his interpretation “lit up and became more airy”.

Everyone, even skeptics, noted the rare musicality that sounded in sharp contrast to the “anemic magazine poetry” of the end of the previous century as an undoubted merit of his poems. As if re-discovering before the reader the beauty and inherent value of the word, its, in the words of Annensky, "musical potency", Balmont largely corresponded to the motto proclaimed by Paul Verlaine: "Music is first of all." Valery Bryusov, who in the early years was strongly influenced by Balmont, wrote that Balmont fell in love with all lovers of poetry "with his sonorous melodious verse", that "there were no equals to Balmont in the art of verse in Russian literature." “I have a calm conviction that before me, in general, they didn’t know how to write sonorous poetry in Russia,” such was the poet’s brief assessment of his own contribution to literature made in those years.

Along with the merits, contemporary critics of Balmont found many shortcomings in his work. Yu. I. Aikhenvald called Balmont’s work uneven, who, along with poems “which are captivating with the musical flexibility of their size, the richness of their psychological scale,” found in the poet “such stanzas that are verbose and unpleasantly noisy, even dissonant, which are far from poetry and reveal breakthroughs and gaps in rational, rhetorical prose. According to Dmitry Mirsky, "most of what he wrote can be safely discarded as unnecessary, including all the poems after 1905, and all prose without exception - the most languid, pompous and meaningless in Russian literature." Although “in terms of sound, Balmont really surpassed all Russian poets,” he is also distinguished by “a complete lack of a sense of the Russian language, which, apparently, is explained by the Westernizing nature of his poetry. His poems sound foreign. Even the best ones sound like translations.”

The researchers noted that Balmont's poetry, built on spectacular verbal and musical consonances, conveyed the atmosphere and mood well, but at the same time the drawing, the plasticity of images suffered, the outlines of the depicted object were foggy and blurred. It was noted that the novelty of poetic means, which Balmont was proud of, was only relative. “Balmont’s verse is a verse of our past, improved, refined, but, in essence, all the same,” wrote Valery Bryusov in 1912. The declared “desire to get used to the spirit of a foreign or bygone civilization, a foreign country” was interpreted by some as a claim to universality; it was believed that the latter is a consequence of the lack of "a single creative core in the soul, the lack of integrity, which many and many symbolists suffered from." Andrei Bely spoke of "the pettiness of his 'daring'", "the ugliness of his 'freedom'", a tendency to "constant lies to himself, which has already become the truth for his soul." Later, Vladimir Mayakovsky called Balmont and Igor Severyanin "molasses manufacturers."

Innokenty Annensky about Balmont

The defiantly narcissistic revelations of the poet shocked the literary community; he was accused of arrogance and narcissism. Among those who stood up for him was one of the ideologists of symbolism, Innokenty Annensky, who (in particular, regarding one of the most “egocentric” poems “I am the sophistication of Russian slow speech ...”) reproached criticism for bias, believing that it "may seem like delusions of grandeur only to those people who do not want to see this form of insanity behind the banality of romantic formulas." Annensky suggested that "Mr. Balmont's 'I' is not personal and not collective, but, above all, our I, only recognized and expressed by Balmont." “The verse is not the creation of the poet, it does not even belong to the poet, if you like. The verse is inseparable from the lyrical self, it is its connection with the world, its place in nature; maybe his justification,” the critic explained, adding: “The new verse is strong in its love for itself and for others, and narcissism appears here as if to replace the classic poets’ pride in their merits.” Arguing that "I Balmont lives, in addition to the power of my aesthetic love, by two absurdities - the absurdity of integrity and the absurdity of justification," Annensky cited the poem "Distant loved ones" as an example (Your reasoning is alien to me: "Christ", "Antichrist", "Devil" , "God" ...), noting the presence in it of internal polemicism, which "already in itself decomposes the integrity of perceptions."

According to Annensky, it was Balmont who was one of the first in Russian poetry to begin the study of the dark world of the unconscious, which was first pointed out in the last century by the "great visionary" Edgar Allan Poe. To a common reproach against Balmont regarding the “immorality” of his lyrical hero, Annensky remarked: “... Balmont wants to be both bold and courageous, hate, admire crime, combine the executioner with the victim ...”, because “tenderness and femininity - that’s basic and, so to speak, defining properties of his poetry. These “properties” explained the critic and the “comprehensiveness” of the poet’s worldview: “Balmont’s poetry has everything you want: Russian tradition, and Baudelaire, and Chinese theology, and the Flemish landscape in Rodenbach’s illumination, and Ribeira, and the Upanishads, and Agura- Mazda, and Scottish saga, and folk psychology, and Nietzsche, and Nietzscheism. And at the same time, the poet always lives wholeheartedly in what he writes, what his verse is in love with at the present moment, which is equally unfaithful to anything.

Creativity 1905-1909

The pre-revolutionary period of Balmont's work ended with the release of the collection Liturgy of Beauty. Elemental Hymns" (1905), the main motives of which were the challenge and reproach of modernity, "the curse of people" who, according to the poet, have fallen away "from the fundamental principles of Being", Nature and the Sun, who have lost their original integrity ("We tore, split the living unity of all elements"; "People have fallen out of love with the Sun, we must return them to the Sun"). Balmont’s poems of 1905-1907, presented in two collections banned in Russia, “Poems” (1906) and “Songs of the Avenger” (Paris, 1907), denounced the “beast of the autocracy”, “blasphemy-cultural” petty bourgeoisie, glorified “conscious brave workers” and in general they were extremely radical. By contemporary poets, as later by researchers of creativity, this "political period" in the work of Balmont was not highly rated. “In what an unfortunate hour it occurred to Balmont that he could be a singer of social and political relations, a civil singer of modern Russia! .. A three-kopeck book published by the Knowledge Association makes a painful impression. There is not a penny of poetry here,” wrote Valery Bryusov.

During these years, the national theme also appeared in the poet's work, revealing itself from a peculiar angle: Balmont revealed to the reader "epic" Russia, the legends and tales of which he sought to shift in his own, modern way. The poet's fascination with Slavic antiquity was reflected in the poetry collection "Evil Spells" (1906), the books "The Firebird. Pipe of a Slav" (1907) and "Green Heliport. Kissing Words (1909), where poetically processed folklore stories and texts were presented, including sectarian songs, enchanting spells and Khlyst's "zeal" (in which, from the poet's point of view, the "people's mind" was reflected), as well as the collection "Calls of Antiquity ” with its samples of “primary creativity” of non-Slavic peoples, ritual-magical and priestly poetry. Folklore experiments of the poet, who undertook to transpose epics and folk tales in a “decadent” manner, met with a generally negative reaction from critics, were regarded as “obviously unsuccessful and false stylizations, reminiscent of a toy neo-Russian style” in painting and architecture of that time. Alexander Blok already in 1905 wrote about the "excessive spice" of Balmont's poems, Bryusov emphasized that Balmont's epic heroes are "ridiculous and pitiful" in the "decadent's coat". Blok wrote about his new poems in 1909: “This is almost exclusively ridiculous nonsense ... At best, it looks like some kind of nonsense in which, with great effort, you can catch (or invent) a shaky lyrical meaning ... there is a wonderful Russian poet Balmont , and the new poet Balmont is no more.

In the collections “Birds in the air. Melodious lines "(St. Petersburg, 1908) and" Round dance of times. Publicity ”(M., 1909), criticism noted the uniformity of themes, images and techniques; Balmont was reproached for remaining a prisoner of the old, Symbolist canons. The so-called "Balmontisms" ("sunny", "kissing", "luxuriant" and so on) in the new cultural and social atmosphere caused bewilderment and irritation. Subsequently, it was recognized that, objectively, the poet's work declined and it lost the significance that it had at the beginning of the century.

Late Balmont

Balmont's work of 1910-1914 was largely marked by impressions from numerous and lengthy trips - in particular, to Egypt ("The Land of Osiris", 1914), as well as to the islands of Oceania, where, as it seemed to the poet, he found really happy people, not lost their immediacy and "purity". Balmont popularized oral traditions, tales and legends of the peoples of Oceania in Russian for a long time, in particular, in the collection “The White Architect. The Mystery of the Four Lamps" (1914). During these years, criticism mainly wrote about his creative "sunset"; the novelty factor of the Balmont style ceased to operate, the technique remained the same and, according to many, was reborn into a stamp. The books The Glow of the Dawn (1912) and Ash. Vision of the tree" (1916), but they also noted "tedious monotony, lethargy, banal prettiness - a sign of all of Balmont's late lyrics."

Creativity Balmont in exile received mixed reviews. The poet's contemporaries considered this period to be decadent: "... That Balmont's verse seems discordant to us, which deceived with a new melodiousness," V. V. Nabokov wrote about him. Later researchers noted that in books published after 1917, Balmont also showed new, strong sides of his talent. “Balmont’s later poems are more naked, simpler, more humane and more accessible than what he wrote before. They are most often about Russia, and that Balmont’s “Slavic gilding” that Innokenty Annensky once mentioned is more clearly visible in them, ”wrote the poet Nikolai Bannikov. He also noted that "Balmont's peculiarity - to throw, as it were, casually some inspired, rarely beautiful individual lines" - manifested itself in emigre creativity as vividly as ever. Such poems as "Dune Pines" and "Russian Language" are called "little masterpieces" by the critic. It was noted that the representative of the “older” generation of Russian symbolists, “buried alive by many as a poet”, Balmont in those years sounded in a new way: “In his poems ... there are no longer“ transient ”, but genuine, deep feelings: anger, bitterness, despair. The capricious “whimsinesses” characteristic of his work are superseded by a feeling of great general misfortune, the pretentious “beautifulness” - by the severity and clarity of expression.

The evolution of the worldview

In ideological and philosophical terms, Balmont's early work was considered largely secondary: his fascination with the ideas of "brotherhood, honor, freedom" was a tribute to the general mood of the poetic community. The dominant themes of his work were the Christian feeling of compassion, admiration for the beauty of religious shrines (“There is only beauty in the world - / Love, sorrow, renunciation / And voluntary torment / Christ crucified for us”). There is an opinion that, having become a professional translator, Balmont fell under the influence of the literature he translated. Gradually, the “Christian-democratic” dreams of a bright future began to seem outdated to him, Christianity lost its former attractiveness, the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, the works of Henrik Ibsen with their vivid imagery (“towers”, “construction”, “ascent” to the heights) found a warm response in the soul. peace). Valery Bryusov, whom Balmont met in 1894, wrote in his diary that Balmont "called Christ a lackey, a philosopher for the poor." Balmont outlined the essence of his new worldview in the essay "At the Height", published in 1895:

Balmont's poetry began to be dominated by "demonic" ideas and moods, which gradually took possession of him in real life. Having become close with S. A. Polyakov, the poet received significant funds at his disposal and embarked on a spree, an important part of which was romantic “victories”, which had a somewhat sinister, pagan connotation. N. Petrovskaya, who fell into the zone of attraction of Balmont’s “charms”, but soon left it under the influence of Bryusov’s “fields”, recalled: “... It was necessary ... or to become a companion of his“ crazy nights ”, throwing all your being into these monstrous fires, up to and including health, or go to the staff of his “myrrh-bearing women”, humbly following on the heels of the triumphal chariot, speaking in unison only about him, breathing only the incense of his glory and leaving even their hearths, beloveds and husbands for this great mission ... "

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron about Balmont
"Demonic" moods in Balmont's poetry were characterized by contemporary criticism of the poet:
A whole collection of witches, incubi and succubus devils, vampires crawling out of the coffins of the dead, monstrous toads, chimeras, etc. defile before the dumbfounded reader. The poet is in the closest communication with all this venerable company; believe him, because he himself is a real monster. He not only “fell in love with his debauchery”, he not only consists of “tiger passions”, “serpentine feelings and thoughts” - he is a direct worshiper of the devil:
If somewhere, beyond the world
Someone wise rules the world
Why is my spirit, a vampire,
Satan sings and praises.
The tastes and sympathies of the devil worshiper are the most satanic. He fell in love with the albatross, this “sea and air robber”, for the “shamelessness of pirate impulses”, he glorifies the scorpion, he feels a spiritual affinity with Nero who “burned Rome” ... he loves red, because it is the color of blood ...

How Balmont himself perceived his own life of those years can be judged from his correspondence with Bryusov. One of the constant themes of these letters was the proclamation of one's own uniqueness, elevation above the world. But the poet also felt horror at what was happening: “Valery, dear, write to me, do not leave me, I am so tormented. If only I had the strength to talk about the power of the Devil, about the jubilant horror that I bring into my life! Do not want anymore. I play with Madness and Madness plays with me” (from a letter dated April 15, 1902). The poet described his next meeting with a new lover, E. Tsvetkovskaya, in a letter dated July 26, 1903: “... Elena came to St. Petersburg. I saw her, but ran away to a brothel. I like brothels. Then I lay on the floor, in a fit of hysterical stubbornness. Then I fled again to another temple of the Sabbath, where many virgins sang songs to me ... E. came for me and took me, completely distraught, to Merrecule, where for several days and nights I was in the hell of nightmares and daydreams, such that my eyes frightened the onlookers ... ".

Traveling around the world in many ways strengthened Balmont in his rejection of Christianity. “Cursed be the Conquerors who do not spare stone. I don't feel sorry for the mutilated bodies, I don't feel sorry for the dead. But to see a vile Christian cathedral on the site of an ancient temple where they prayed to the Sun, but to know that it stands on monuments of mysterious art buried in the ground, ”he wrote from Mexico to Bryusov. It is believed that the extreme point of the “poet’s fall into the abyss” was marked by the collection “Evil Spells”: after that, in his spiritual development, a gradual return to the “bright beginning” began. Boris Zaitsev, describing the poet's worldview, wrote: "Of course, self-admiration, the lack of a sense of God and one's smallness before Him, but some kind of sunshine lived in him, light and natural musicality." Zaitsev considered the poet "a pagan, but a worshiper of the light" (unlike Bryusov), noting: "... there were real Russian features in him ... and he himself was touching (in good times)."

The upheavals of 1917-1920 led to radical changes in the poet's worldview. The first evidence of this appeared already in the collection “Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and Moon” (1917), where the new Balmont appeared before the reader: “there is still a lot of pretentiousness in him, but still more spiritual balance, which harmoniously merges into the perfect form of the sonnet, and the main thing is that it is clear that the poet is no longer torn into the abyss - he is groping for the way to God. The inner rebirth of the poet was also facilitated by his friendship with I.S. Shmelev, which arose in exile. As Zaitsev wrote, Balmont, who always "paganly worshiped life, its joys and brilliance", confessing before his death, made a deep impression on the priest with the sincerity and power of repentance: he "considered himself an incorrigible sinner who cannot be forgiven."

Translation activities

The range of foreign literatures and authors translated by Balmont was extremely wide. In 1887-1889, he was mainly engaged in translations of Western European poets - Heinrich Heine, Nikolaus Lenau, Alfred Musset, Sully-Prudhomme). A trip to the Scandinavian countries (1892) marked the beginning of his new passion, which was realized in the translations of Georg Brandes, Henrik Ibsen, Bjornstjerne Bjornson.

In 1893-1899, Balmont published in seven editions the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley in his own translation with an introductory article. In 1903-1905, the Znanie partnership published their revised and expanded edition in three volumes. More artistically successful and subsequently recognized as textbook translations by Edgar Allan Poe were published in 1895 in two volumes and later included in the collected works of 1901.

Balmont translated nine dramas by Pedro Calderon (first edition - 1900); among his other famous translation works are “Cat Murr” by E. T. Hoffmann (St. Petersburg, 1893), “Salome” and “The Ballad of Reading Prison” by Oscar Wilde (Moscow, 1904). He also translated Spanish poets and playwrights Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina, English poets, prose writers, playwrights - William Blake, Oscar Wilde, J. G. Byron, A. Tennyson, J. Milton - poems by C. Baudelaire. His translations of Horn's History of Scandinavian Literature (M., 1894) and Gaspari's History of Italian Literature (M., 1895-1997) are considered important for literary criticism. Under the editorship of Balmont, the works of Gerhart Hauptmann (1900 and later), the works of Herman Zudermann (1902-1903), Muther's "History of Painting" (St. Petersburg, 1900-1904) were published. Balmont, who studied the Georgian language after a trip to Georgia in 1914, is the author of the translation of Shota Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin"; he himself considered it the best love poem ever written in Europe ("a bridge of fire that connects heaven and earth"). After visiting Japan in 1916, he translated tanka and haiku from various Japanese authors, from ancient to modern.

Not all of Balmont's works were highly rated. Serious critics criticized his translations of Ibsen (Ghosts, Moscow, 1894), Hauptmann (Gannele, The Sunken Bell) and Walt Whitman (Grass Shoots, 1911). Analyzing the translations of Shelley made by Balmont, Korney Chukovsky called the resulting “new face”, half-Shelley, half-Balmont, called Shelmont. Nevertheless, the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron states that "the fact of the sole translation of several tens of thousands of rhymed poems by a poet as complex and deep as Shelley can be called a feat in the field of Russian poetic translation literature."

According to M. I. Voloshin, “Balmont translated Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Calderon, Walt Witman, Spanish folk songs, Mexican sacred books, Egyptian hymns, Polynesian myths, Balmont knows twenty languages, Balmont translated entire libraries of Oxford, Brussels, Paris, Madrid ... All this is not true, because the works of all poets were for him only a mirror, in which he saw only a reflection of his own face in different frames, from all languages ​​​​he created one, his own, and the gray dust of libraries on his light wings of Ariel turns into the iridescent dust of butterfly wings.

Indeed, the poet never strived for accuracy in translations: it was important for him to convey the "spirit" of the original, as he felt it. Moreover, he compared the translation with a "reflection" and believed that it could be "more beautiful and radiant" than the original:

Balmont always treated Russia as an integral part of the all-Slavic world. “I am a Slav and I will continue to be,” the poet wrote in 1912. Feeling a special love for Poland, he translated a lot from Polish - in particular, the works of Adam Mickiewicz, Stanisław Wyspiański, Zygmunt Krasinsky, Bolesław Leśmian, Jan Kasprowicz, Jan Lechon, wrote a lot about Poland and Polish poetry. Later, in the 1920s, Balmont translated Czech poetry (Yaroslav Vrkhlitsky, Selected Poems. Prague, 1928), Bulgarian ("Golden Sheaf of Bulgarian Poetry. Folk Songs." Sofia, 1930), Serbian, Croatian, Slovak. Balmont also considered Lithuania to be related to the Slavic world: the first translations of Lithuanian folk songs made by him date back to 1908. Among the poets he translated were Petras Babickas, Mykolas Vaitkus and Ludas Gira; Balmont had a close friendship with the latter. Balmont's book Northern Lights. Poems about Lithuania and Russia” was published in 1931 in Paris.

By 1930, Balmont had translated The Tale of Igor's Campaign (Russia and Slavdom, 1930. No. 81) into modern Russian, dedicating his work to Professor N. K. Kulman. The professor himself, in the article “The Fate of the Tale of Igor's Campaign”, published in the same issue of the magazine “Russia and Slavdom”, wrote that Balmont, who turned out to be “closer to the original than any of his predecessors”, managed to reflect in his translation, “the conciseness, chasing of the original ... to convey all the colors, sounds, movement that the Lay is so rich in, its bright lyricism, the majesty of the epic parts ... to feel in your translation the national idea of ​​the Lay and that love for the motherland that burned it author". Balmont spoke about working with Kulman on the translation of The Tale of Igor's Campaign in the article Joy. (Letter from France)”, published in the newspaper “Segodnya”.

Memories and reviews about Balmont

Of all the memoirists, the warmest memories of K. D. Balmont were left by M. I. Tsvetaeva, who was very friendly with the poet. She wrote:

“I could spend the evenings telling you about the living Balmont, whose devoted eyewitness I had the good fortune to be for nineteen years, about Balmont - completely misunderstood and not imprinted anywhere ... and my whole soul is filled with gratitude,” she admitted.

In her memoirs, Tsvetaeva was also critical - in particular, she spoke about the “non-Russianness” of Balmont’s poetry: “In the Russian fairy tale, Balmont is not Ivan Tsarevich, but an overseas guest, scattering all the gifts of heat and seas in front of the royal daughter. I always have the feeling that Balmont speaks some foreign language, which - I don’t know, Balmont’s. A.P. Chekhov wrote about the external side of the same feature, noticing about Balmont that he "... reads very funny, with a broken voice," so that "... it is difficult to understand him."

B.K. Zaitsev captured the image of Balmont of Moscow - eccentric, spoiled by worship, capricious. “But he was also completely different ... quiet, even sad ... Despite the presence of fans, he kept himself simple - no theater,” the memoirist noted. Roman Gul also spoke about the Moscow period of Balmont's life - however, in his own words, "monstrous things", moreover, from other people's words. I. A. Bunin spoke negatively about Balmont, who saw in the poet a man who "... in his entire long life did not say a single word in simplicity." “Balmont was generally an amazing person. A man who sometimes admired many with his "childishness", unexpected naive laughter, which, however, was always with some demonic cunning, a man in whose nature there was not a little feigned tenderness, "sweetness", to put it in his language, but not a little and not at all the other - wild riot, brutal pugnacity, public insolence. This was a man who, all his life, was truly exhausted from narcissism, was intoxicated with himself ... ”, - wrote Bunin.

In the memoirs of V. S. Yanovsky, Andrei Sedykh and I. V. Odoevtseva, the poet in exile was shown as a living anachronism. Memoirists, for the most part, treated Balmont only with human sympathy, denying his works of the emigre period artistic value. The poet Mikhail Tsetlin, noting shortly after Balmont’s death that what he had done would have been enough not for one human life, but “for the whole literature of a small people”, complained that the poets of the new generation of Russian emigration “... worshiped Blok, discovered Annensky, loved Sologub , read Khodasevich, but were indifferent to Balmont. He lived in spiritual loneliness."

As E. A. Yevtushenko wrote many years later, “... Balmont had plenty of flirtatious empty sound writing, “beautifulness”. However, poetry was his true love, and he served only her alone - perhaps too priestly, intoxicated by the incense he himself smoked, but selflessly. “There are good poems, excellent poems, but they pass by, they die without a trace. And there are poems that seem banal, but there is a certain radioactivity in them, a special magic. These verses live. These were some of Balmont's poems, ”wrote Teffi.

Balmont - about predecessors and contemporaries

Balmont called Calderon, William Blake and "the most outstanding symbolist" Edgar Allan Poe his symbolist predecessors. In Russia, the poet believed, "symbolism comes from Fet and Tyutchev." Of the contemporary Russian symbolists, Balmont noted primarily Vyacheslav Ivanov, a poet who, in his words, is able to combine "deep philosophical moods with an extraordinary beauty of form", as well as Jurgis Baltrushaitis, Sergei Gorodetsky, Anna Akhmatova, whom he put "on the same level with Mirra Lokhvitskaya", and Fyodor Sologub, calling the latter "the most attractive of modern writers and one of the most talented poets").

Balmont spoke critically of Futurism, noting: “I consider the Futurist fermentation that is associated with some new names to be manifestations of inner work seeking a way out, and, mainly, a manifestation of that flashy, tasteless, advertising Americanism that marked our entire broken Russian life. ". In another interview of the same time, the poet spoke about this trend even more sharply:

Speaking about the Russian classics, the poet mentioned, first of all, F. M. Dostoevsky - the only Russian writer, along with A. S. Pushkin and A. A. Fet, who had a strong influence on him. “True, lately I have moved away from him: to me, who believes in solar harmony, his gloomy moods have become alien,” he said in 1914. Balmont personally met with Leo Tolstoy; “It's like an untold confession,” he described his impressions of the meeting in this way. However, “I don’t like Tolstoy as a novelist, and I love him even less as a philosopher,” he said already in 1914. Among the classical writers closest to him in spirit, Balmont named Gogol and Turgenev; Among contemporary fiction writers, Boris Zaitsev was noted as a writer "with subtle moods".

Balmont and Mirra Lokhvitskaya

In Russia, before emigrating, Balmont had two truly close people. The poet wrote about one of them, V. Ya. Bryusov, as “the only person he needed” in Russia. I wrote to him often and waited impatiently for his letters, ”testified E. A. Andreeva-Balmont. Balmont's arrival in Moscow ended in a spat. Andreeva gave her explanation on this matter in her memoirs: “I have reason to think that Bryusov was jealous of his wife, Ioanna Matveevna, of Balmont, who, having been captivated by her, did not think, as always, to hide his enthusiasm from either his wife or from husband ... But I can’t say.” However, there was reason to believe that the stumbling block in the relationship between the two poets was another woman, whom Balmont's second wife preferred not to even mention in her memoirs.

Mirra Lokhvitskaya became the second close friend of Balmont in the late 1890s. The details of their personal relationship are undocumented: the only surviving source is the two poets' own confessions in verse, published during an overt or covert dialogue that lasted almost a decade. Balmont and Lokhvitskaya met presumably in 1895 in the Crimea. Lokhvitskaya, a married woman with children and by that time more famous than Balmont, a poetess, was the first to start a poetic dialogue, which gradually developed into a stormy "novel in verse." In addition to direct dedications, researchers later discovered many “half” poems, the meaning of which became clear only when compared (Balmont: “... The sun makes its boring path. Something prevents the heart from breathing ...” - Lokhvitskaya: “The winter sun has made a silver path. Happy - who can rest on a sweet chest ... ”and so on).

After three years, Lokhvitskaya began to consciously complete the Platonic novel, realizing that there could be no continuation of it in reality. On her part, a kind of sign of the break was the poem “In the sarcophagus” (in the spirit of “Annabel-Lee”: “I dreamed - you and I were dozing in the sarcophagus, / Listening to how the surf beats a wave against stones. / And our names burned in a wonderful sage / Two stars merged into one"). Balmont wrote several responses to this poem, in particular one of the most famous, "Inseparable" ("... Frozen corpses, we lived in the consciousness of a curse, / What's in the grave - in the grave! - we are in a vile pose of hugs ...").

As T. Aleksandrova noted, Lokhvitskaya “made the choice of a man of the 19th century: the choice of duty, conscience, responsibility before God”; Balmont made the choice of the 20th century: "the most complete satisfaction of the growing needs." His verse appeals did not stop, but frank confessions in them now gave way to threats. Lokhvitskaya’s health condition worsened, heart problems arose, she continued to respond to Balmont’s new poems with “painful constancy”. This strong, but at the same time destructive connection, which plunged both poets into a deep personal crisis, was put to an end by the early death of Lokhvitskaya in 1905. Her literary romance with Balmont remained one of the most mysterious phenomena of Russian literary life at the beginning of the 20th century. For many years the poet continued to admire the poetic talent of his beloved, who died early, and told Anna Akhmatova that before meeting her he knew only two poetesses: Sappho and Mirra Lokhvitskaya.

Balmont and Maxim Gorky

Correspondence acquaintance of the poet with Gorky took place on September 10, 1896, when the latter in the feuilleton of the cycle "Fugitive Notes", published by "Nizhny Novgorod Listok", first spoke about Balmont's poems. Drawing a parallel between the author of the collection "In the Boundlessness" and Zinaida Gippius ("Beyond"), the author ironically advised both to go "beyond the limit, to the abyss of bright immensity." Gradually, Gorky's opinion about the poet began to change: he liked such poems as "The Smith", "Albatross", "Memories of an Evening in Amsterdam". Gorky left a second review of the poet in the same newspaper on November 14, 1900. In turn, the poems "Witch", "Spring" and "Roadside Herbs" in the journal "Life" (1900) Balmont published with a dedication to Gorky.

Balmont and Maeterlinck
The Moscow Art Theater instructed Balmont to negotiate with Maurice Maeterlinck on the production of his The Blue Bird. The poet told Teffi about this episode:
He did not let me in for a long time, and the servant ran from me to him and disappeared somewhere in the depths of the house. Finally, the servant let me into some tenth room, completely empty. A fat dog was sitting on a chair. Maeterlinck stood next to him. I outlined the proposal of the Art Theatre. Maeterlinck was silent. I repeated. He continued to be silent. Then the dog barked and I left.

Taffy. Memories.

Gorky and Balmont first met in the autumn of 1901 in Yalta. Together with Chekhov, they went to Gaspra to see Leo Tolstoy, who lived there. “I met Balmont. This neurasthenic is devilishly interesting and talented! .. ”, Gorky reported in one of his letters. Gorky credited Balmont with the fact that he, as he believed, "cursed, poured the poison of contempt ... a fussy, aimless life, full of cowardice and lies, covered with faded words, the dull life of half-dead people." Balmont, in turn, appreciated the writer for being "a complete strong personality, ... a songbird, not an inky soul." In the early 1900s, Gorky, in his own words, undertook to set the poet "in a democratic way." He attracted Balmont to participate in the Znanie publishing house, defended the poet when the press began to ridicule his revolutionary hobbies, cooperation with Bolshevik publications. Balmont, who for some time succumbed to “tuning”, admitted in 1901: “I was sincere with you all the time, but too often incomplete. How difficult it is for me to free myself at once - both from the false, and from the dark, and from my inclination towards madness, towards excessive madness. There was no real rapprochement between Gorky and Balmont. Gradually, Gorky spoke more and more critically about the work of Balmont, believing that in the latter's poetry everything is directed towards sonority to the detriment of social motives: “What is Balmont? This belfry is high and patterned, and the bells on it are all small ... Isn't it time to ring the big ones? Considering Balmont a master of the language, the writer made a reservation: "A great poet, of course, but a slave to words that intoxicate him."

The final break between Gorky and Balmont occurred after the poet's departure to France in 1920. By the end of this decade, the main pathos of the poet's denunciations related to the infringement of rights and freedoms in Soviet Russia turned out to be directed at Gorky. In the emigrant newspapers Vozrozhdenie, Segodnya and Za Svoboda! Balmont's article “Petishite Peshkov. By pseudonym: Gorky" with sharp criticism of the proletarian writer. The poet ended his poetic “Open Letter to Gorky” (“You threw a stone at the face of the Native People. / Your treacherous criminal hand / Lays down your own sin on the peasant’s shoulders ...”) the poet ended with the question: “... And who is stronger in you: a blind man or just a liar? » Gorky, in turn, made serious accusations against Balmont, who, according to his version, wrote a cycle of bad pseudo-revolutionary poems "Hammer and Sickle" for the sole purpose of obtaining permission to travel abroad, and having achieved his goal, declared himself an enemy of Bolshevism and allowed himself "hasty" statements, which, as the proletarian writer believed, had a fatal effect on the fate of many Russian poets who vainly hoped in those days to obtain permission to leave: among them were called Bely, Blok, Sologub. In a polemical fervor, Gorky spoke of Balmont as a stupid person and, due to alcoholism, not quite normal. “As a poet, he is the author of one, really beautiful book of poems “We will be like the sun”. Everything else with him is a very skillful and musical play on words, nothing more.

Balmont and I. S. Shmelev

At the end of 1926, K. D. Balmont, unexpectedly for many, became close to I. S. Shmelev, and this friendship lasted until his death. Before the revolution, they belonged to opposite literary camps (decadent and realist, respectively) and seemed to have nothing in common with each other, but in emigration, almost immediately, in their protests and public actions, they began to act as a united front.

There were also disagreements between them. Thus, Shmelev did not approve of Balmont's "cosmopolitanism". “Oh, Konstantin Dmitrievich, after all, you have Lithuanians and Finns, and Mexicans. What would be at least one Russian book ... ”, - he said, being at a party. Balmont recalled that, in answering this, he also showed him the Russian books that lay in the room, but this had very little effect on Shmelev. “He is upset that I am multilingual and multi-loving. He would like me to love only Russia,” the poet complained. In turn, Balmont argued with Shmelev more than once - in particular, about Ivan Ilyin’s article on the crisis in contemporary art (“He clearly understands little in poetry and music if ... he says such unacceptable words about the excellent work of the brilliant and enlightened Scriabin, pure Russian and highly illumined Vyacheslav Ivanov, radiant Stravinsky, classically pure Prokofiev…”).

In many ways, the strong spiritual union of two seemingly completely different people was explained by the fundamental changes that took place during the years of emigration in Balmont's worldview; the poet turned to Christian values, which he rejected for many years. In 1930 the poet wrote:

Balmont ardently supported Shmelev, who at times turned out to be a victim of near-literary intrigues, and on this basis he quarreled with the editors of Latest News, which published an article by Georgy Ivanov, who disparaged the novel Love Story. Defending Shmelyov, Balmont wrote that he “of all modern Russian writers has the richest and most original Russian language”; his "Inexhaustible Chalice" stands "on a par with the best stories of Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky", and is appreciated - first of all, in countries "accustomed to respecting artistic talent and spiritual purity."

In the difficult 1930s for the poet, friendship with Shmelev remained his main support. “Friend, if it weren’t for you, there wouldn’t be the brightest and most affectionate feeling in my life over the past 8-9 years, there wouldn’t be the most faithful and strong spiritual support and support, during the hours when the tormented soul was ready to break ... ", - Balmont wrote on October 1, 1933.

Works (selected)

Poetry collections

1890 - 1917

• "Collection of poems" (Yaroslavl, 1890)
• "Under the northern sky (elegies, stanzas, sonnets)" (St. Petersburg, 1894)
• "In the vastness of darkness" (M., 1895 and 1896)
• "Silence. Lyric poems "(St. Petersburg, 1898)
• "Burning buildings. Lyrics of the modern soul "(M., 1900)
• “We will be like the sun. The Book of Symbols (Moscow, 1903)
• "Only love. Semitsvetnik "(M., 1903)
• "The Liturgy of Beauty. Elemental hymns "(M., 1905)
• "Fairy tales (children's songs)" (M., 1905)
• "Evil Spells (Book of Spells)" (M., 1906)
• "Poems" (1906)
• "Firebird (Slav pipe)" (1907)
• "The Liturgy of Beauty (Elemental Hymns)" (1907)
• "Songs of the Avenger" (1907)
• "Three heydays (Theater of youth and beauty)" (1907)
• "Only love". 2nd ed. (1908)
• "Round dance of times (All-glasnost)" (M., 1909)
• "Birds in the Air (Sung Lines)" (1908)
• "Green garden (Kissing words)" (1909)
• "Links. Selected Poems. 1890-1912" (M.: Scorpio, 1913)
• "The White Architect (The Mystery of the Four Lamps)" (1914)
• "Ash Tree (Vision of the Tree)" (1916)
• "Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and Moon" (1917; Berlin, 1921)
• "Collection of Lyrics" (Books 1-2, 4, 6. M., 1917)

1920 - 1937

• "Ring" (M., 1920)
• "Seven Poems" (M., "Zadruga", 1920)
• Selected Poems (New York, 1920)
• "Solar thread. Izbornik "(1890-1918) (M., ed. Sabashnikovs, 1921)
• "Gamayun" (Stockholm, "Northern Lights", 1921)
• "Gift of the Earth" (Paris, "Russian Land", 1921)
• "Bright Hour" (Paris, 1921)
• "Song of the working hammer" (M., 1922)
• "Green" (Paris, 1922)
• "Under the new sickle" (Berlin, "Word", 1923)
• "Mine - to her (Russia)" (Prague, "Flame", 1924)
• "In the parted distance (Poem about Russia)" (Belgrade, 1929)
• "Complicity of Souls" (1930)
• "Northern Lights (Poems about Lithuania and Russia)" (Paris, 1931)
• Blue Horseshoe (Poems about Siberia) (1937)
• "Light Service" (Harbin, 1937)

Collections of articles and essays

• "Mountain Peaks" (M., 1904; book one)
• "Calls of antiquity. Hymns, songs and plans of the ancients” (Pb., 1908, Berlin, 1923)
• “Snake Flowers” ​​(“Travel Letters from Mexico”, M., 1910)
• "Sea Glow" (1910)
• "Dawn Glow" (1912)
• "Light sound in nature and Scriabin's light symphony" (1917)

Translations of Balmont's works into foreign languages

• Gamelan (Gamelang) - in Doa Penyair. Antologi Puisi sempena Program Bicara Karya dan Baca Puisi eSastera.Com. Kota Bharu, 2005, p. 32 (translated into Malay by Victor Pogadaev).

Memory

• May 12, 2011 in Vilnius (Lithuania) was opened the world's first monument to Konstantin Balmont.
• On November 29, 2013, the first Russian memorial plaque to Balmont was opened in Moscow at 15 Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky lane.

see also

• Writers of the Silver Age
• Symbolism
• Circle of Lovers of Western European Literature

I want you, my happiness, My unearthly beauty! You are the sun in the darkness of bad weather, You are the dew for a burning heart! Inspired by love for you, I will rush to the battle with fate. Like an ear, scorched by a thunderstorm, I bow down to the dust before you. For the sweet delight of intoxication I will pay with my life! At least at the cost of crime - I want you!

I curse the gymnasium with all my might. She permanently disfigured my nervous system.