Voloshin's works. Voloshin Maximilian Alexandrovich: biography, creative heritage, personal life. Interesting facts from Voloshin's personal life

At first, Voloshin Maximilian Aleksandrovich, a poet, did not write many poems. Almost all of them were placed in a book that appeared in 1910 ("Poems. 1900-1910"). V. Bryusov saw the hand of a "jeweler", a "real master" in it. Voloshin considered his teachers the virtuoso poetic plastics J. M. Heredia, Gauthier, and other "Parnassian" poets from France. Their works were in opposition to Verlaine's "musical" trend. This characteristic of Voloshin's work can be attributed to his first collection, as well as to the second, which was compiled by Maximilian in the early 1920s and was not published. It was called "Selva oscura". It included poems created between 1910 and 1914. Most of them later entered the book of the chosen one, published in 1916 ("Iverny").

Focus on Verhaarn

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

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

official bullying

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

Return to Crimea, attempts to get into print

In the spring of 1917, Voloshin returned to the Crimea. In his autobiography of 1925, he wrote that he would not leave him again, would not emigrate anywhere, and would not be saved from anything. Earlier, he stated that he does not act on any of the fighting sides, but he lives only in Russia and what is happening in it; and also wrote that he needed to stay in Russia until the end. Voloshin's house, located in Koktebel, remained hospitable during the civil war. Here both white officers and red leaders found shelter and hid from persecution. Maximilian wrote about this in his 1926 poem "The Poet's House". The "Red Leader" was Bela Kun. After Wrangel was defeated, he controlled the pacification of the Crimea through organized famine and terror. Apparently, as a reward for hiding Kun under the Soviet regime, Voloshin was kept his house, and also provided relative safety. However, neither his merits, nor the efforts of the influential at that time, nor the somewhat repentant and pleading appeal to L. Kamenev, the all-powerful ideologist (in 1924), helped Maximilian break into the press.

Two directions of Voloshin's thoughts

Voloshin wrote that for him verse remains the only way to express thoughts. And they rushed him in two directions. The first is historiosophical (the fate of Russia, the works about which he often took on a conditionally religious coloring). The second is anti-historical. Here we can note the cycle "Ways of Cain", which reflected the ideas of universal anarchism. The poet wrote that in these works he forms almost all of his social ideas, which were mostly negative. The general ironic tone of this cycle should be noted.

Recognized and unrecognized works

The inconsistency of thoughts characteristic of Voloshin often led to the fact that his creations were sometimes perceived as high-sounding melodic declamation ("Transubstantiation", "Holy Russia", "Kitezh", "Angel of Times", "Wild Field"), aestheticized philosophies ("Cosmos ", "Leviathan", "Thanob" and some other works from "The Ways of Cain"), pretentious stylization ("Dmetrius the Emperor", "Protopope Habakkuk", "Saint Seraphim", "The Legend of the Monk Epiphanius"). Nevertheless, it can be said that many of his revolutionary poems were recognized as capacious and accurate poetic evidence (for example, typological portraits of "Bourgeois", "Speculator", "Red Guard", etc., lyrical declarations "At the bottom of the underworld" and "Readiness ", the rhetorical masterpiece "North East" and other works).

Articles about art and painting

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

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

Interesting facts from Voloshin's personal life

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

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

The first wife of Maximilian Voloshin is Margarita Sabashnikova. With her, he attended lectures at the Sorbonne. This marriage, however, soon broke up - the girl fell in love with Vyacheslav Ivanov. His wife offered Sabashnikova to live together. However, the "new type" family did not take shape. His second wife was a paramedic (pictured above), who cared for Maximilian's elderly mother.

Voloshin Maximilian Alexandrovich - Russian landscape painter, critic, translator and poet. He traveled extensively in Egypt, Europe and Russia. During the Civil War, he tried to reconcile the conflicting parties: in his house he saved the whites from the reds and the reds from the whites. The poems of those years were filled exclusively with tragedy. Voloshin is also known as a watercolor artist. The works of Maximilian Alexandrovich are exhibited in the Feodosia Aivazovsky Gallery. The article will present his brief biography.

Childhood

Maximilian Voloshin was born in Kyiv in 1877. The boy's father worked as a collegiate adviser and lawyer. After his death in 1893, Maximilian moved with his mother to Koktebel (southeastern Crimea). In 1897, the future poet graduated from the gymnasium in Feodosia and entered Moscow University (faculty of law). Also, the young man went to Paris to take several lessons in engraving and drawing from the artist E. S. Kruglikova. In the future, Voloshin greatly regretted the years spent studying at the gymnasium and university. The knowledge gained there was completely useless to him.

Wandering years

Soon Maximilian Voloshin was expelled from Moscow for participating in student uprisings. In 1899 and 1900 he traveled extensively in Europe (Greece, Austria, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy). Ancient monuments, medieval architecture, libraries, museums - all this was the subject of Maximilian's genuine interest. 1900 was the year of his spiritual birth: the future artist traveled with a caravan of camels through the Central Asian desert. He could look at Europe from the "height of the plateaus" and feel all the "relativity of its culture."

Maximilian Voloshin traveled for fifteen years, moving from city to city. He lived in Koktebel, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Berlin and Paris. In those years, the hero of this article met Emile Verharn (Belgian symbolist poet). In 1919, Voloshin translated a book of his poems into Russian. In addition to Verhaarn, Maximilian also met other outstanding personalities: the playwright Maurice Maeterlinck, the sculptor Auguste Rodin, the poet Jurgis Baltrushaitis, Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely, Valery Bryusov, as well as the artists of the World of Art. Soon the young man began to publish in the almanacs "Vulture", "Northern Flowers" and the magazines "Apollo", "Golden Fleece", "Scales", etc. In those years, the poet was characterized by "wandering of the spirit" - from Catholicism and Buddhism to anthroposophy and theosophy. And many of his works also reflected romantic experiences (in 1906, Voloshin married the artist Margarita Sabashnikova. Their relationship was rather strained).

freemasonry

In March 1905, the hero of this article became a Freemason. The initiation took place in the lodge "Labor and True True Friends". But already in April, the poet moved to another department - "Mount Sinai".

Duel

In November 1909, Maximilian Voloshin received a challenge to a duel from Nikolai Gumilyov. The cause of the duel was the poetess E. I. Dmitrieva. Together with her, Voloshin composed a very successful literary hoax, namely, the personality of Cherubina de Gabriac. Soon there was a scandalous exposure, and Gumilyov spoke unflatteringly about Dmitrieva. Voloshin personally insulted him and received a call. In the end, both poets survived. Maximilian pulled the trigger twice, but there were misfires. Nikolai just shot up.

Creativity of Maximilian Voloshin

The hero of this article was generously gifted in nature and combined different talents. In 1910 he published his first collection Poems. 1900-1910". In it, Maximilian appeared as a mature master who went through the Parnassus school and comprehended the innermost moments of the poetic craft. In the same year, two more cycles were released - "Cimmerian Spring" and "Cimmerian Twilight". In them, Voloshin turned to biblical images, as well as Slavic, Egyptian and Greek mythology. Maximilian also experimented with poetic sizes, trying to convey echoes of ancient civilizations in lines. Perhaps his most significant works of that period were the wreaths of sonnets "Lunaria" and "Star Crown". This was a new trend in Russian poetry. The works consisted of 15 sonnets: each verse of the main sonnet was the first and at the same time closing in the remaining fourteen. And the end of the latter repeated the beginning of the first, thereby forming a wreath. Maximilian Voloshin's poem "Star Crown" was dedicated to the poetess Elizaveta Vasilyeva. It was with her that he came up with the aforementioned hoax of Cherubina de Gabriac.

Lecture

In February 1913, Voloshin Maximilian Alexandrovich, whose poems made him famous, was invited to the Polytechnic Museum to give a public lecture. The topic was the following: "On the artistic value of the damaged painting by Repin." In the lecture, Voloshin expressed the idea that the painting itself "laid self-destructive forces", and it was the art form, as well as the content, that caused aggression against it.

Painting

Voloshin's literary and artistic criticism occupied a special place in the culture of the Silver Age. In his own essays, Maximilian Alexandrovich did not share the personality of the painter and his works. He sought to create a legend about the master, conveying to the reader his "whole face". All articles written on the topic of contemporary art, Voloshin combined in the collection "Faces of Creativity". The first part came out in 1914. Then the war began, and the poet failed to realize his plan to issue a multi-volume edition.

In addition to writing critical articles, the hero of this story himself was engaged in painting. At first it was tempera, and then Voloshin became interested in watercolor. From memory, he often painted colorful Crimean landscapes. Over the years, watercolors have become the artist's daily hobby, literally becoming his diary.

Temple construction

In the summer of 1914, Maximilian Voloshin, whose paintings were already actively discussed in the community of artists, became interested in the ideas of anthroposophy. Together with like-minded people from more than 70 countries (Margarita Voloshina, Asya Turgeneva, Andrey Bely and others), he came to Switzerland in the commune of Dornach. There, the whole company began to build the Goetheanum - the famous temple of St. John, which became a symbol of the brotherhood of religions and peoples. Voloshin worked more as an artist - he created a sketch of a curtain and cut bas-reliefs.

Rejection of service

In 1914, Maximilian Aleksandrovich wrote a letter to V. A. Sukhomlinov. In his message, the poet refused to participate in the First World War, calling it a "carnage".

Burning bush

Voloshin had a negative attitude towards the war. All his disgust resulted in the collection "In the Year of the Burning World 1915". The Civil War and the October Revolution found him in Koktebel. The poet did everything to prevent his compatriots from exterminating each other. Maximilian accepted the historical inevitability of the revolution and helped the persecuted, regardless of his "color" - "both the white officer and the red leader" found "advice, protection and refuge" in his house. In the post-revolutionary years, the poetic vector of Voloshin's work changed dramatically: impressionistic sketches and philosophical meditations were replaced by passionate reflections on the fate of the country, its election (the book of poems "The Burning Bush") and history (the poem "Russia", the collection "Deaf-Mute Demons"). And in the cycle "Ways of Cain" the hero of this article touched upon the topic of the material culture of mankind.

Violent activity

In the 1920s, Maximilian Voloshin, whose poems were becoming increasingly popular, worked closely with the new government. He worked in the field of local history, protection of monuments, public education - he traveled with inspections in the Crimea, gave lectures, etc. He repeatedly arranged exhibitions of his watercolors (including in Leningrad and Moscow). Maximilian Alexandrovich also received a safe-conduct for his house, joined the Writers' Union, he was given a pension. However, after 1919, the author's poems were hardly published in Russia.

Wedding

In 1927, the poet Maximilian Voloshin married Maria Zabolotskaya. She shared with her husband his most difficult years (1922-1932). At that time, Zabolotskaya was a support in all the endeavors of the hero of this article. After the death of Voloshin, the woman did everything to preserve his creative heritage.

"Poet's House"

Perhaps this mansion in Koktebel became the main creation of Maximilian Alexandrovich. The poet built it on the seashore in 1903. A spacious house with a tower for observing the starry sky and an art workshop soon became a place of pilgrimage for the artistic and literary intelligentsia. Altman, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Shervinsky, Bulgakov, Zamyatin, Khodasevich, Mandelstam, A. N. Tolstoy, Gumilyov, Tsvetaeva and many others stayed here. In the summer months, the number of visitors reached several hundred.

Maximilian was the soul of all the events held - catching butterflies, collecting pebbles, walking on Karadag, live pictures, charades, tournaments of poets, etc. He met his guests in sandals on his bare feet and a canvas hoodie, with a massive head of Zeus, which was decorated a wreath of wormwood.

Death

Maximilian Voloshin, whose biography was presented above, died after a second stroke in Koktebel in 1932. They decided to bury the artist on Mount Kuchuk-Yanyshar. After the death of the hero of this article, the regulars continued to come to the Poet's House. They were met by his widow Maria Stepanovna and tried to maintain the same atmosphere.

Memory

One part of the critics puts the poetry of Voloshin, which is very heterogeneous in value, much lower than the works of Akhmatova and Pasternak. The other recognizes the presence in them of a deep philosophical insight. In their opinion, the poems of Maximilian Alexandrovich tell readers about Russian history much more than the works of other poets. Some of Voloshin's thoughts are classified as prophetic. The depth of ideas and the integrity of the worldview of the hero of this article led to the concealment of his heritage in the USSR. From 1928 to 1961 not a single poem by the author was published. If Maximilian Aleksandrovich had not died of a stroke in 1932, he would certainly have become a victim of the Great Terror.

Koktebel, which inspired Voloshin to create many works, still keeps the memory of its famous inhabitant. On Mount Kuchuk-Yanyshar is his grave. The "House of the Poet" described above has turned into a museum that attracts people from all over the world. This building reminds visitors of a hospitable host who gathered around him travelers, scientists, actors, artists and poets. At the moment, Maximilian Alexandrovich is one of the most remarkable poets of the Silver Age.

The poet and artist Maximilian Voloshin, who was expelled from the university, surprised his contemporaries with the versatility of his interests. The creator, who knew how to conclude the passions raging inside, within the framework of the poetic genre, in addition to painting and poetry, wrote critical articles, was engaged in translations, and was also fond of astronomical and meteorological observations.

From the beginning of 1917, his bright life, full of turbulent events and various meetings, concentrated in Russia. The literary evenings held by the writer in the house he personally built in Koktebel were repeatedly attended by his son, Nikolai, and, and, and even.

Childhood and youth

Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin was born on May 16, 1877 in Kyiv. The poet's mother Elena Ottobaldovna was a strong-willed and original woman. Shortly after the birth of her son, she separated from her husband. In Max, the woman wanted to bring up a fighting character, and the boy grew up, as Marina Tsvetaeva later said about him, “without claws”, he was peaceful and friendly to everyone.

Maximilian Voloshin in childhood with his mother

It is known that in Koktebel, where Voloshin moved with his mother at the age of 16, Elena even hired the surrounding boys to challenge Maximilian to a fight. The mother welcomed her son's interest in the occult and was not at all upset that he always stayed in the gymnasium for the second year. One of Max's teachers once said that it was impossible to teach anything to an idiot. Less than six months later, at the funeral of that same teacher, Voloshin recited his wonderful poems.

Although the writer from 1897 to 1899 was a student at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University and regularly attended lectures, he already acquired his surprisingly versatile knowledge on his own. From the biography of the publicist, it is known that Maximilian never managed to get a diploma. Expelled for participating in the riots, the guy decided not to continue his studies and engage in self-education.

Literature

Voloshin's first book, Poems, was published in 1910. In the works included in the collection, the author's desire to know the fate of the world and the history of mankind as a whole was clearly traced. In 1916, the writer published a collection of anti-war poems "Anno mundi ardentis" ("In the year of the burning world"). In the same year, he firmly settled in his beloved Koktebel, to which he later dedicated a couple of sonnets.

In 1918 and 1919, two of his new books of poetry were published - "Iverny" and "Deaf and Dumb Demons". In each line, the hand of a writer is invariably felt. Particularly colorful are Voloshin's poems dedicated to the nature of the Eastern Crimea.

Since 1903, Voloshin has been publishing his reports in the journal "Vesy" and the newspaper "Rus". In the future, he writes articles on painting and poetry for the magazines "Golden Fleece", "Apollo", the newspapers "Russian Art Chronicle" and "Morning of Russia". The total volume of works, which to this day have not lost their value, is more than one volume.

In 1913, in connection with the sensational attempt on the painting "and his son Ivan", Voloshin spoke out against naturalism in art by publishing the pamphlet "About Repin". And although after that the editorial offices of most magazines closed their doors to him, considering the work an attack against the artist revered by the public, in 1914 a book of articles by Maximilian "Faces of Creativity" was published.

Painting

Voloshin took up painting in order to professionally judge the fine arts. In the summer of 1913, he mastered the tempera technique, and the following year he painted his first sketches in watercolor (“Spain. By the Sea”, “Paris. Place de la Concorde at night”). Poor quality watercolor paper taught Voloshin to work immediately in the right tone, without corrections and blots.

Painting by Maximilian Voloshin "Bible Land"

Each new work of Maximilian carried a particle of wisdom and love. Creating paintings, the artist thought about the relationship of the four elements (earth, water, air and fire) and about the deep meaning of the cosmos. Each landscape painted by Maximilian retained its density and texture and remained translucent even on canvas (“Landscape with a lake and mountains”, “Pink twilight”, “Hills parched by heat”, “Moon whirlwind”, “Lead light”).

Painting by Maximilian Voloshin "Kara-Dag in the clouds"

Maximilian was inspired by the classical works of Japanese painters, as well as the paintings of his friend, the Feodosia artist Konstantin Bogaevsky, whose illustrations adorned the first Voloshin collection of poems in 1910. Along with Emmanuil Magdesyan and Lev Lagorio, Voloshin is today considered to be a representative of the Cimmerian school of painting.

Personal life

Fullness, combined with small stature and a rebellious mane of hair on his head, created a deceptive impression in the opposite sex about Voloshin's male failure. Women next to an eccentric writer felt safe and believed that it was not shameful to invite a writer who did not look like a real man to rub his back with him to the bathhouse.

Throughout his life, Voloshin used this delusion, replenishing his amorous piggy bank with new names. The critic's first wife was the artist Margarita Sabashnikova. Their romance began in Paris. Young people attended lectures at the Sorbonne, at one of which the writer noticed the girl, like two peas in a pod, similar to Queen Taiah.

On the day they met, the writer took the chosen one to the museum and showed her the statue of the ruler of Egypt. In letters to friends, Maximilian admitted that he could not believe that Margarita was a real person of flesh and blood. Friends in response messages jokingly asked the amorous poet not to marry a young lady from alabaster.

After the wedding, which took place in 1906, the lovers moved to St. Petersburg. Their neighbor was the popular poet Vyacheslav Ivanov. Symbolists gathered in the writer's apartment every week. Voloshin and his wife were also frequent guests. While Maximilian enthusiastically recited, argued and quoted, his missus conducted quiet conversations with Ivanov. In conversations, Margarita repeatedly stated that, in her view, the life of a true artist should be permeated with drama and that friendly couples are not in fashion today.

During the period when Vyacheslav and Margarita were just beginning to have romantic feelings, Voloshin fell in love with the playwright Elizaveta Dmitrieva, with whom he composed a very successful literary hoax in 1909 - the mysterious Catholic beauty Cherubina de Gabriak, whose works were published in the Apollon magazine.

The hoax lasted only 3 months, then Cherubina was exposed. In November of the same year, who at one time introduced Dmitrieva to Voloshin, under Maximilian impartially spoke out on the side of the poetess, for which he immediately received a slap in the face from the author of the poem "Venice".

As a result, an ugly lame-legged girl became the reason why Voloshin and Gumilyov had a duel on the Black River. After a scandalous duel, during which miraculously no one was hurt, Maximilian's wife informed her husband, immersed in a pool of amorous passions, about her intention to divorce. As it turned out later, Ivanov's wife invited Margarita to live together, and she agreed.

In 1922, a famine began in the Crimea. The publicist's mother, Elena Ottobaldovna, began to noticeably fail. Max lured paramedic Maria Zabolotskaya for his beloved parent from a neighboring village. It was this kind and sympathetic woman, who stood beside him during his mother's funeral, that he married in March 1927.

And although the spouses did not succeed in having children, Maria Stepanovna was next to the writer both in joy and in sorrow until his death. Having been widowed, she did not change the Koktebel order and also continued to receive wandering poets and artists in Voloshin's house.

Death

The last years of the poet's life were full of work - Maximilian wrote a lot and painted with watercolors. In July 1932, asthma, which had long bothered the publicist, was complicated by influenza and pneumonia. Voloshin died after a stroke on August 11, 1932. His grave is located on the mountain Kuchuk-Yanyshar located a couple of kilometers from Koktebel.

After the death of the eminent writer, the sculptor Sergei Merkurov, who created the death masks, and, took a cast from the face of the deceased Voloshin. The writer's wife, Maria Zabolotskaya, managed to preserve the creative heritage of her beloved husband. Thanks to her efforts, in August 1984, Maximilian's house located in the Crimea received the status of a museum.

Bibliography

• 1899 - "Venice"
• 1900 - "Acropolis"
• 1904 - “I walked through the night. And the flame of pale death ... "
• 1905 - "Taiah"
• 1906 - "Angel of Vengeance"
• 1911 - "Edward Wittig"
• 1915 - "Paris"
• 1915 - "Spring"
• 1917 - "The Capture of the Tuileries"
• 1917 - "Holy Russia"
• 1919 - "Writing about the Tsars of Moscow"
• 1919 - "Kitezh"
• 1922 - "The Sword"
• 1922 - Steam
• 1924 - "Anchutka"

Maximilian Alexandrovich Kiriyenko-Voloshin (May 28, 1877 - November 8, 1932) - a famous Russian poet, one of the most significant representatives of the symbolist movement in Russian culture, literary and art critic, published in many magazines of the early 20th century ("Scales", "Golden Fleece ", "Apollo"). He is also known for his brilliant translations into Russian of a number of French poetic and prose works.

Voloshin's youth

Voloshin was born in Kyiv in 1877. He spent his childhood in Sevastopol and Taganrog. In 1893, his mother bought a cheap plot of land in the Crimean Koktebel. After graduating from high school, Voloshin entered Moscow University - just at the time when the radical student movement was expanding in Russia. Voloshin took an active part in it and in 1899 was expelled from the university.

Not discouraged by this, Maximilian Alexandrovich began to travel throughout Russia, often on foot. He himself described this period of his life as follows:

“...The last year of the hateful 19th century was living out: 1900 was the year of “Three Conversations” Vladimir Solovyov and his Letters on the End of World History, Boxer Rebellion in China, the year when the shoots of a new cultural epoch began to sprout, when in different parts of Russia several Russian boys, who later became poets and bearers of its spirit, clearly and concretely experienced the shifts of times. Same as Block in the Shakhmatovsky swamps, and White near the walls of the Novodevichy Convent, I experienced in my own way those days in the steppes and deserts of Turkestan, where I drove camel caravans.

Returning to Moscow, Voloshin did not try to recover at the university, but continued traveling - now to Western Europe, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. Staying in Paris and traveling around France deeply influenced Maximilian Alexandrovich. Voloshin returned to Russia as a "real Parisian".

At that time in Russia there were many literary groups and trends that created the "Silver Age of Russian Poetry". But Voloshin stood apart from them, although he was a close friend of many prominent cultural figures. “I am a Passer-by, close to everyone, a stranger to everything,” he wrote about himself.

Portrait of Maximilian Voloshin. Artist B. Kustodiev

When one "crazy" cut a famous painting with a knife Repin“Ivan the Terrible kills his son”, having shocked intellectual Russia with this, Voloshin was the only person in the country who defended the culprit, seeing in his act an appropriate aesthetic protest against the “tasteless” picture depicting blood.

Voloshin entered into a short-term marriage with the artist Sabashnikova, but they soon parted. Maximilian Alexandrovich returned back to the Crimean Koktebel, where he spent most of his childhood. Voloshin's first collection of poems appeared in 1910, followed by others. In 1914, a complete collection of his works was published. The poet gave warm and disinterested support to the young, unknown Marina Tsvetaeva at the beginning of her career.

Voloshin in troubled years

At the beginning First World War Voloshin, then living in Switzerland, wrote deep and insightful poems, full of philosophical and historical analysis of contemporary tragic events. He proved himself to be a convinced humanist, urging “in the days of revolutions to be a Man, not a Citizen”, “to comprehend wholeness in the turmoil of strife and wars. To be not a part, but all; not on one side, but on both" (poem "The Poet's Valor").

Voloshin moved to France, where he remained until 1916. A year before February Revolution in Russia, Maximilian Alexandrovich returned to his homeland and settled in Koktebel, where he was to remain until the end of his life. Followed by this Civil War prompted Voloshin to write long poems, where he tried to identify the connection between what was happening then in Russia and its distant, mythologized past. Later, Voloshin was accused of the worst thing for Bolshevism sin: self-withdrawal from the political struggle between reds and whites. In fact, he tried to protect whites from reds and reds from whites. During the Civil War, his house was an underground retreat for people of both parties if they were in danger.

No other poet's works have ever been so closely connected with the place where he lived. Voloshin recreated the semi-mythical world of Cimmeria in paintings and poems, painted landscapes of the primordial Eastern Crimea. Nature itself seemed to respond to the art of Maximilian Alexandrovich. To the east of the current Voloshin Museum (his former home), there is a mountain whose shape strangely resembles the profile of the poet.

Voloshin miraculously survived the Civil War. In the 1920s, he set up a free rest home for writers in his house. Maximilian Alexandrovich always treated the idea of ​​private property with disdain, but continued to draw much of his inspiration from solitude and the contemplation of nature.

In the last years of his life, Maximilian Voloshin gained recognition as a subtle watercolor painter. Some of his paintings are now owned by museums around the world, others are in private collections in Russia and abroad.

Voloshin's work and memory of him

Although some critics put Voloshin's poetry, which is very heterogeneous in dignity, lower than poetry Pasternak or Akhmatova, it is also recognized that it contains deep philosophical insights and tells us more about Russian history than the work of any other poet. Many of Voloshin's thoughts seem prophetic. The integrity of the worldview and the depth of the ideas of Maximilian Aleksandrovich led to the hushing up of his heritage in the Soviet state. During the period 1928-1961 not a single of his poems was published. If Voloshin had not died of a stroke in 1932, he would almost certainly have become a victim of the Great Terror. “Not for the first time, dreaming of freedom, we are building a new prison,” he writes prophetically in one of his best works, Kitezh.

The small village of Voloshin Koktebel in Southeastern Crimea, which inspired so many of his poems, still retains the memory of its famous inhabitant. Maximilian Alexandrovich was buried there on the mountain that now bears his name. Voloshinskiy "House of the Poet" (now a museum) continues to attract people from all over the world, reminiscent of the days when its hospitable host gathered around him many poets, artists, actors, scientists and travelers. Maximilian Voloshin is considered one of the most remarkable poets of the Russian Silver Age.

M. A. Voloshin considered the year of his spiritual birth to be 1900 - "the junction of two centuries", "when the shoots of a new cultural era clearly began to sprout, when in different parts of Russia several Russian boys, who later became poets and bearers of its spirit, clearly and concretely experienced the shifts of time." "The same as Blok in the chess swamps, and Bely at the walls of the Novodevichy Convent," Voloshin "experienced those same days in the steppes and deserts of Turkestan, where he led caravans of camels." Inspired by Vl. Solovyov, the eschatological aspirations of the new century were the initial impetus for the wanderings of a spiritually hospitable poet, artist, literary and art critic through various historical eras and cultures. Hellenic antiquity and Rome, the European Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the culture of the East and the latest achievements of the art of the West - everything attracts and attracts Voloshin, his creative genius wants to "see everything, understand everything, know everything, experience everything." "A poet seduced by all the vestments and all the masks of life: fluttering Baroque saints and Steiner's idolatry, the mysteries of Mallarmé and the Kabbalistic formulas of locks, the non-opening keys of the Apocalypse and the dandyism of Barbe d'0rvilli," he appeared to Ilya Ehrenburg.

M. A. Kirienko-Voloshin was born in Kyiv in the family of a lawyer. His childhood and partly high school years were spent in Moscow, where he entered the Faculty of Law (classes were interrupted due to participation in student unrest, voluntary "exile" to Central Asia, and then departure to Paris). In 1893, the poet's mother, Elena Ottobaldovna, acquired a land plot in Koktebel. The desert harsh coast of the Eastern Crimea, which holds many cultural strata (Taurians, Scythians, Pechenegs, Greeks, Goths, Huns, Khazars), the legendary Cimmeria of the ancients - all this took shape in a kind of unique Cimmerian theme in Voloshin's poetry and painting. Built in 1903 in Koktebel, the house gradually turned into one of the unique cultural centers - a colony for artists. At different times there lived: A. N. Tolstoy, M. I. Tsvetaeva, V. Ya. Bryusov, I. G. Ehrenburg, Andrey Bely, A. N. Benois, R. R. Falk, A. V. Lentulov , A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva and many, many others.

In 1903, Voloshin quickly and easily got acquainted with the circle of Moscow symbolists (V. Ya. Bryusov, Andrei Bely, Yu. K. Baltrushaitis) and St. Petersburg artists of the "World of Art", in 1906 - 1907. he is close to the St. Petersburg literary salon - the "tower" of Vyach. Ivanov, in the 1910s adjoins the editorial office of the Apollo magazine. Peace-loving and open to communication, he, however, acutely felt his isolation in any literary and artistic environment. The editor of "Apollo" S.K. Makovsky recalled that the poet always "remained a stranger in his way of thinking, in his self-awareness and in the universalism of artistic and speculative predilections."

France occupies an important place in Voloshin's cultural orientation. In the spring of 1901, he went to Europe to study "art form - from France, a sense of color - from Paris, logic - from Gothic cathedrals, medieval Latin - from Gaston Paris, structure of thought - from Bergson, skepticism - from Anatole France, prose - from Flaubert, verse - in Gauthier and Heredia. In Paris, he enters literary and artistic circles, gets acquainted with European representatives of the new art (R. Gil, E. Verharn, O. Mirbeau, O. Rodin, M. Maeterlinck, A. Duncan, O. Redon). The reader learned about the latest French art from Voloshin's correspondence in Rus, Window, Scales, Golden Fleece, and Pass. His translations introduced the Russian public to the work of X. M. Heredia, P. Claudel, Villiers de Lille Adam, Henri de Regnier.

The first publication of eight of his poems, which were edited by P.P. Pertsov, appeared in the August issue of Novy Put in 1903. ", "characterized by extraordinary lightness." In 1906, the poet offered to publish a book of poems "Years of Wanderings" to M. Gorky, in subsequent years, either the collection "Star-wormwood", or "Ad Rosam" was announced by the publishing house Vyach. Ivanov "Ory". None of these plans came to fruition. Finally, in 1910, the publishing house "Grif" published "Poems" - the result of ten years of poetic activity (1900 - 1910). V. Ya. Bryusov compared them with "a collection of rarities made by a lovingly enlightened amateur connoisseur." “Painting,” noted Vyach. Ivanov, “taught him to see nature; books about secret knowledge - to hear it; creations of poets - to sing ... Such was the magnificent apprenticeship of a student of sages and artists who did not teach the wanderer in the world "one thing - the mystery of Life" M. Kuzmin pointed out "a peculiar mystery of experiences" and "great skill, unlike the techniques of other artists. " As shortcomings of the collection, they called isolation in a close circle of their experiences, congestion of the verse, predilection for too colorful epithets.

Three subsequent collections: "Anno mundi ardentis. 1915" (1916), "Iverny" (1918) and "Deaf and Dumb Demons" (1919) - reflected the era of social cataclysms (World War I, February and October revolutions). Now the fate of the world and the fate of Russia are brought to the fore by the poet. Trying to understand what is happening, he often refers to historical and mythological parallels. His poetic voice takes on a prophetic glow. The courageous and humane position of Voloshin during the civil war is known: he saves people from the cruelty of reprisals, regardless of their beliefs, or their belonging to whites or reds. Bely, who visited the poet in 1924 in Koktebel, wrote: “I don’t recognize Maximilian Alexandrovich. During the five years of the revolution, he changed amazingly, went through a lot and seriously ... I see with amazement that “Max Voloshin has become ... Maximilian”; and although still elements of the "Latin culture of the arts" separate us from him, but at the points of love for modern Russia we meet, as evidenced by his amazing poems. Here is another "old man" from the era of symbolism, who turned out to be younger than many "young"