Balmont biography for children Summary. Balmont Konstantin Dmitrievich, biography and a brief analysis of creativity. last years of life

Balmont Konstantin Dmitrievich (1867-1942)

Russian poet. Born in the village of Gumnishe, Vladimir Province, in the noble family. He studied in the gymnasium in Shua. In 1886 he entered the Faculty of Faculty of Moscow University, but was excluded for participating in student movement.

The first collection of Balmont poems came out in Yaroslavl in 1890, the second - "under the northern sky" - in 1894 they prevail the motives of civil sorrow. Soon Balmont acts as one of the symbolism symbol.

In the late XIX - early XX centuries. The poet released the collections "in vastness", "silence", "we will be like the sun." In 1895-1905 Balmont was hardly the most famous among Russian poets; Later, its popularity falls. Its poetry is characterized by an emphasized exoticity, some manners and self-confidence.

Balmont made several round-the-world travels, describing them in outlining prosaic books. He was captured by the revolutionary events of 1905, performed with verses, the famous workers (the book "Avenger's songs").

From the end of the same year, the autocravia lived as a result of repression and was able to return to his homeland by amnesty only in 1913 translated from the West and East poetry. The first transfer to the Russian language of the poem of the classics of Georgian literature Shota Rustaveli "Vityaz in Tiger Schucket".

In 1921, emigrated, lived, much needing, in France. Created there a cycle of bright poems full of longing in Russia.

He died in the town of Nuazi-le-Grand Prix near Paris.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont was born on June 15, 1867 in the Gumnikov Vladimir province. The father of the poet, Dmitry Konstantinovich, a poor landowner, half a century he served in the Shuisian Land - the world mediator, the magistrate, chairman of the congress of the magistrates and, finally, the chairman of the county Zemstvo administration. Mother, Vera Nikolaevna, received institutional education, taught and treated the peasants, satisfied amateur performances and concerts, printed in provincial newspapers. In Shua, she was a famous and respected special.

In 1876, Balmont was given to the preparatory class of the Shuisian gymnasium, in which he studied until 1884. Excluded from the gymnasium, he was for belonging to the revolutionary circle. After two months, Balmont was adopted in the Vladimir gymnasium, which he graduated in 1886. In the Vladimir gymnasium, the young poet began literary activities - in 1885 the three poems were published in the magazine "Picturesque Review". Immediately at the end of the gymnasium at the invitation, Balmont made a trip to the villages of the Vladimir province: Suzdal, Shui, Melenkovsky and Muromsky.

After graduating from the Gymnasium, Balmont entered the Moscow University to the Faculty of Law, a year later, it was excluded for participating in student unrest and sent to see. I tried to continue my education in the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl, but again unsuccessfully. With its extensive knowledge in the field of history, literature and philology, Balmont was obliged only.

In February 1889, K. D. Balmont married Larisa Mikhailovna Malina, daughter. Parents of the poet were against - he decided to break with his family. The marriage was unsuccessful.

Balmont finally decided to play literature. He came out the first "collection of poems", released on his own money in Yaroslavl. Neither creative financial success is the enterprise, but the decision to continue literary classes remains unchanged.

Balmont was in a difficult position: without support, without a means, he was literally hungry. Fortunately, people who took part in the fate of a novice poet were very soon found. This is first of all V. G. Korolenko, with whom he met in Vladimir, being a gymnasium.

Another patron saint of Balmont became N. I. Storozhenko, Professor of Moscow University. He helped Balmont to receive an order for the translation of two fundamental writings of the "History of Scandinavian Literature" Gorna - Switucer and the two-volume "history of Italian literature" Gaspari. The time of the professional formation of Balmont falls in 1892 - 1894. He translates a lot: makes full translation of Shelley, it gets the opportunity to be printed in magazines and newspapers, expands the circle of literary dating.

In early 1894, the first "real" collection of poems of Balmont "under the Northern Sky" was released. Balmont is already a fairly famous writer, translator E. By, Shelly, Hoffman, Calderon.

In 1895, Balmont prints a new collection of poems "in vintage".

In September 1896, he married (two years before that, the poet was divorced with her former wife). Immediately after the wedding, the young left abroad.

For several years spent in Europe, they gave extraordinarily many Balmont. He visited France, Spain, Holland, Italy and England. Letters of this period are overcrowded with new impressions. A lot of time Balmont spent in libraries, improved languages, was invited to Oxford - to read lectures on the history of Russian poetry.

Collections "Northern Sky", "in vastity", "silence" is considered in the history of Russian poetry closely related to the earlier period of the poet's creativity.

In 1900, the collection of poems "Last minute buildings" is coming. With the advent of this book, the new and main period of life and literary activities of Balmont begins.

In March 1901, the poet became a genuine hero in St. Petersburg: he publicly read the anti-government poem "Little Sultan", and this event had a huge political resonance. After that, administrative repression and reference were immediately followed.

Since the spring of 1902, the poet lives in Paris, then moves to London and Oxford, followed by Spain, Switzerland, Mexico and the United States of America. The result of this trip, in addition to poems, began way essays and translations of the myths of Aztecs and Maya, which were combined in the "Snake Flowers" book (1910).

At the end of 1905, a book "Faiga fairy tales" was printed in Moscow in Moscow in the Publishing House. It placed 71 poems. She dedicated to Ninika - Nina Konstantinovna Balmont-Bruni, the daughter of Balmont and E. A. Andreva.

In July 1905, the poet returned to Moscow. The revolution captured him. He writes the accusatory poems, cooperates in the newspaper "New Life". But deciding that he is one of the obvious contenders for the royal reprisal, Balmont leaves for Paris. The poet left Russia for seven years.

All seven years spent abroad, Balmont mostly lives in Paris, westing for a short time in Brittany, Norway, to the Balearic Islands, to Spain, Belgium, London, Egypt. Love for traveling the poet retained for life, but always clearly felt cut from Russia.

February 1, 1912 Balmont goes into the world journey: London - Plymouth - Canary Islands - South Africa - Madagascar - Tasmania - South Australia - New Zealand - Polynesia (Tonga Islands, Samoa, Fiji) - New Guinea - Kealon, Java, Sumatra - Ceylon - India.

In February 1913, in connection with the "Three hundredth of the House of Romanov", political amnesty was announced, and Balmont received a long-awaited opportunity to return home. In Moscow, he arrived at the very beginning of May 1913. A huge crowd of people awaited him on the Brest train station.

In early 1914, the poet again leaving for Paris to Paris, then in Georgia, where he performs with lectures. He is arranged a lush intake. After Georgia, Balmont went to France, where he found his First World War. Only at the end of May 1915, the poet managed to return to Russia.

Balmont enthusiastically accepted the February Revolution, but soon disappointed. After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks, having beating about the past liberal views of Balmont, called him in the HCC and asked: "What party are you in which party?" Balmont replied: "I am a poet."

For K. D. Balmont, difficult times have come. It was necessary to contain two families: Wife E. A. Andreev and daughter Nina, who lived in Moscow, and Elena Tvetkovskaya with daughter Mirra, who lived in Petrograd. In 1920, they move to Moscow, which meets their cold and hunger. Balmont begins troubles about the trip abroad.

On May 25, 1920, Balmont with his family forever leaves Russia. Glinding from the birthday of Balmont suffered hard. His relationships with Russian literary emigration were not easy. Close connections supported with.

Balmont died (from inflammation of the lungs) on the night of December 24, 1942. To the east of Paris is Nuzi-Le Gran. Here, at the local Catholic cemetery, a cross from the gray stone, which is written in French: "Konstantin Balmont, a Russian poet."

Sources:

Balmont K.D. Favorites: poems, translations, articles / Konstantin Balmont; Sost., Intr. Art. and comments. D. G. Makogonenko. - M.: True, 1991. - P. 8-20.

In August 1876, at the age of 9, K. D. Balmont entered the preparatory class of Shuisian deflection, subsequently transformed into a gymnasium. Reception tests were handed over to round four. On the back of the examination sheet, children's autograph poet - dictation and arithmetic task. Balmont studied mediocrely, which can be seen from the so-called ballot books, in which the fourth and annual marks of students were entered: he showed the best progress on history and in French, in the III class, remained for the 2nd year. According to teachers, it was a capable boy who did not suffer from a gymnasic ambigue, why he did not chase at good marks.

Balmont's behavior, except for the preparatory class (where it was 5), it was always noted by a score 4, probably due to his living experience. There are almost no records about behavior, and no serious misconduct is noted.

In the autumn of 1884, 5 students were dismissed from the Shuisian gymnasium, including on September 18th and the youngest - 17-year-old Balmont Konstantin 7th grade. All these disciples were dismissed according to the past of parents - Balmont - "due to the disease." The dismissal of students followed a violation of the existing rules without the participation of the Pedagogical Council. The director of the Gymnasium Rogozinnikov was suggested to parents to take their sons from the gymnasium, of course, under the threat of exception, in case of non-fulfillment of this requirement, with the worst certification, so that parents were forced to obey. On the same day, when students were dismissed, they were issued documents and evidence of education, and everyone had a reduced mark in behavior - 4 and also without a pedagogical council, which belonged to the right to certify the behavior of students. In the testimony of K. Balmont for № 971 in all subjects there were topics. All his papers - testimony, metric and medical certificate of attorney of his mother received an elder brother - Arkady.

What was the fault of these students? What was the reason for such quick dismissal from the gymnasium? This is what Constantine wrote about it later.

"In 1884, when I was in the seventh grade of gymnasium, someone D., writer arrived in my hometown, brought the number of revolutionary newspapers" Banner and Will "and" People's Volia ", several revolutionary brochures, and his call gathered in One house, in small quantities, a few thinking gymnasists and several adults who are revolutionary. D. told us that the revolution will not break out in Russia now - tomorrow, and that for this it only needs to be covered by Russia a network of revolutionary circles. I remember, as one of my favorite companions, the son of the urban head (Nikolai Ltratov), \u200b\u200baccustomed to arrange hunting hikes on ducks and Waldshnepes, sitting on the window and, ranks with their hands, said that, of course, Russia is absolutely ready for the revolution and need Only organize it, and it is absolutely not easy. I silently believed that all this is not easy, but it is very difficult, the company is stupid. But I sympathized with the thoughts about spreading self-development, agreed to join the revolutionary circle and began to keep the revolutionary literature. It was quite quickly followed in the city searches, but in those patriarchal times, the gendarme officer did not dare to make a search in the houses of two major persons of the city - the city head and chairman of the Zemstvo administration. Thus, neither I, nor my comrade in prison, but only were excluded from the gymnasium, together with several more. We were soon accepted in the gymnasium, where we ended up led by supervision. " The supervisory state of K. Balmont gave their positive results. He was almost not distracted by the teachings, studying languages, reading books, wrote and translated poetry.

In early November 1884, Balmont accepted Balmont to the 7th grade of the Vladimir provincial gymnasium. He was not silent or shy, but he was also eloquent either, and the relationship with his new comrades established quickly. To live in Vladimir, he was prescribed on the apartment at his strict class mentor, the teacher of the Greek language Osip Sedlak. The first half of the school year was already approached by an end, the newcomer had to sharply catch up with the peers and the cost of great efforts still managed to pass all objects successfully and on time.

And the first speech of Constantine in print refers to the Vladimir period of his life. As a student of the 8th grade of the gymnasium, in 1885 he published in the journal "Picturesque Review" (No. 48, November 2 - December 7) Three poems: "bitterness of flour", "awakening", "farewell look." Of these, the first two are his own, and the third is a translation from Lenaão. Signed - "Const. Balmont. This event was not particularly observed by anyone, except for the class mentor, who forbade Balmont to be printed until the end of his studies in the gymnasium.

On December 4, 1885, Konstantin from Vladimir writes already a student at Moscow University. Nikolay Ltratov: "I have long wanted to write you, but everything fails, it's not to break away from sciences - I am doing my brother. Challenged hunting to cum gymnasium. Whether the efforts will be crowned with success and for a long time there is enough to the tool, covered with darkness of unknown.<…> If I stay in May with a nose, it will not matter. But if you get to the university, then I will live nicely to live. By the way, the future seems to not be pale: there was Korolenko - an employee "Rus<ской> M.<ысли>"And" Sitting<ерного> IN<естника>"(I tell everyone about him - he does not come out of my head, as you didn't leave my head during you - do you remember? - D-sky?) This very korolenko, after reading my poems found in me - imagine talent. Here I have thoughts about writing and get some support. Tracks<ательно> And the study of social sciences and the study of new languages \u200b\u200b("Swedish, Norwegian ...") will go much faster. Maybe actually goes out something. "

"End of a gymnasium in Vladimir Gubernsky, I first personally met the writer," and this writer was not anyone else, as a honest, kindest, delicately interlocutor, who ever had to meet me, who was famous for the story of Vladimir Galaktonovich Korolenko. Before his arrival in Vladimir, to visit the engineer M. M. Kovalsky and his wife A. S. Kovalskaya, I gave A. S. Kovalskaya, at her wish, the notebook of my poems to read. These were poems written by me mainly aged 16-17 years. She handed this notebook Korolenko. He took her with him and later wrote me a detailed letter about my verses. He pointed to me on the wise law of creativity, which at that time of youth, I only suspected, and he clearly and poetically expressed that the words V. G. Korolenko forever crashed into my memory and remembered with feeling as a smart word of the older who should obey. He wrote to me that I have a lot of beautiful details, privately selected from the world of nature, which you need to focus your attention, and not chase every riming moth, which does not need to hurry your feeling to be thought, but you need to trust the unconscious field of the soul, which Imperceptibly accumulates its observations and comparisons, and then suddenly all this blooms, as the flower suddenly blooms after a long ridewalk of the accumulation of his forces. This golden rule I remember and remember now. This flower rule would have been, praising, picturesquely and verbally take over the entrance to the strict shrine, which is called - creativity.

The feeling of gratitude tells me to say that Vladimir Galaktionovich ended his letter to me: "If you are able to focus and work, we will hear something uncomplicable from you." Whether it is necessary to say which he poured in my heart delight and the flow of aspirations from these words of Korolenko. "

Balmont gymnasium graduate graduated from 1886, according to his own words, "living, as in prison, a year and a half." "Gymnasium curse with all their might. She was overwhelming my nervous system for a long time, "the poet later wrote.

In 1886, Balmont entered Moscow University at the Faculty of Law. But in Vladimir, the future poet came periodically and wrote letters with his acquaintances.

The greatest representative of the poetry of the beginning of the twentieth century Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont was born on June 3, 1867 in the village of Mr. Vladimir Province. His father was a judge in the urban area, and the mother was engaged in literature. She often conducted literary evenings, appeared in amateur performances.

It was the mother who was introduced to Balmont with literature, history, music and literature, affecting the perception of the boy. As the poet wrote later, he learned from his mother's unforgettable and passion of nature, which became the basis of his whole thin soul.

Childhood

Konstantin had 6 brothers. When it was time to teach the elders, the family settled in the city. In 1876, the little Balmont went to the gymnasium. Studying the boy soon bored, and he spent all his days for a winding reading. And German and French books read in the original. Read so inspired Balmont that at 10 years he first wrote poems.

But, like many boys of that time, the little Kostya subjected to the Bunlet revolutionary sentiments. He met a revolutionary circle, where he actively participated, because of which he was expelled in 1884. Died in Vladimir, and somehow finished the gymnasium in 1886, then the young man is sent to Moscow University to study at a lawyer. But the revolutionary attitude did not go anywhere, and a year later, the student is expelled for holding student unrest.

Start of a creative path

The first poetic experience of a 10-year-old boy was cruelly criticized by her mother. Becoming for a living boy forgets about poetry for 6 years. The first published work dates back to 1885, and it appeared in the "Picturesque Review" journal. From 1887 to 1889. Konstantin came across the translation of books from German and French. In 1890, due to poverty and sad marriage, a newly reduced translator is thrown out of the window. With strong injuries, he spends in the hospital about a year. As the poet himself, held in the Chamber, led to the "unprecedented flourishing of mental arousal and cheerfulness." During this year, Balmont issued his debut book poems. Recognition did not follow, and, vulnerable to your creativity, it destroys the whole circulation.

Poet's flourishing

After unsuccessful experience with his own book, Balmont took up self-development. He reads books, improves languages, spends time in the road. From 1894 to 1897. Engaged in translations of the "History of Scandinavian Literature" and "History of Italian Literature". New, now already successful, attempts to publish verses: In 1894, the book "Northern Sky" was published, 1895 - "in vastness", 1898 - "Silence". The works of Balmont appear in the newspaper "Scales". In 1896, the poet again marries, and leaves his wife to Europe. Travels continue: in 1897 he spends lessons about Russian literature in England.

The new book of poems was published in 1903 with the title "We will be like the sun." She had an unprecedented success. In 1905, Balmont leaves Russia again, and sent to Mexico. Revolution 1905-1907 The traveler met frantically, and accepted direct participation in it. The poet was regularly on the street, had a charged revolver with him and read the speech to students. Fear of arrest causes the revolutionary to leave in 1906 to France.

Setting up in the outback of Paris, the poet still holds all the time away from home. In 1914, visiting Georgia, he transfers the Pustaveli poem "Vityaz in Tiger Shkura". In 1915 it returns to Moscow, where he reads lectures in literature.

Creative crisis

In 1920, Balmont leaves again to Paris with a third wife and daughter, and no longer leaves its limits. In France, another 6 collections with verses are coming out, in 1923, autobiography "under the new sickle" and "airway" are published. Konstantin Dmitrievich really missed his homeland, and often regretted that he left her. Suffering poured into verses of the period. He was becoming more complicated, and soon he found a serious impairment of the psyche. The poet stopped writing, and more and more time dedicated to reading. He spent the end of life in the "Russian House" shelter in the French outback. The Great Poet died on December 23, 1942

Birth name ::	Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont.
Pseudonyms:	Bd, k.; Gridinsky; Don; Kb; Lionel
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:	The village of Gumnyj, Shuisky County, Vladimir Province
Date of death:
Place of death:	NUASI-le-Gran, France
Citizenship:	Russian empire
Occupation:	Symbolist poet, translator, essayist
Direction:	Symbolism
	Elegy, ballad
	"Northern Sky"

Biography

Childhood

Literary debut

Climbing to glory

Peak popularity

Conflict with power

Return: 1913-1920

Between two revolutions

Creativity in emigration

last years of life

Translation activities

Personal life

Analysis of creativity

Creativity 1905-1909

Late Balmont

Evolution of the worldview

Balmont and Mirra Lochwitskaya

Balmont and Maxim Gorky

Balmont and I. S. Shmelev

Appearance and nature

Works (Favorites)

Poetic collections

Collections of articles and essays

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont (3 (15) June 1867, Gumnyj village, Shuisky County, Vladimir Province - December 23, 1942, Nuzi-le-Gran, France) - a symbolist poet, translator, Esseist, one of the most prominent representatives of Russian silver eyelid poetry. Published 35 poetic collections, 20 prose books, translated from many languages \u200b\u200b(W. Blake, E. By, P. B. Shelly, O. Wilde, Hauptman, Sh. Bajler, Zuderman; Spanish songs, Slovak, Georgian Epos, Yugoslav, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Mexican, Japanese Poetry). Author of autobiographical prose, memoirs, philological treatises, historical and literary studies and critical essays.

Biography

Konstantin Balmont was born 3 (15) June 1867 in the village of Gumnychi Shui County of Vladimir Province, the third of the seven sons. It is known that grandfather's grandfather was a maritime officer. Father Dmitry Konstantinovich Balmont (1835-1907), served in the Shuisky district court and the land: First, the college registrar, then the world judge, finally, the chairman of the county goddan government. Mother Vera Nikolaevna, Nebacked Lebedev, came from the general family, in which they loved literature and did it professionally; She performed in the local press, arranged literary evenings, amateur performances; She had a strong influence on the worldview of the future poet, introducing it into the world of music, literature, history, the first to learn to comprehend the "beauty of the female soul." Faith Nikolaevna knew foreign languages \u200b\u200bwell, I read a lot and "I was not alien to some liberty": in the house they took the "unreliable" guests. It was from Mother Balmont, as he himself wrote, inherited "unbridled and passion", all his "spiritual system".

Childhood

Read the future poet learned independently for five years, taking on the mother, who trained the lead of her older brother. The touched father gave Konstantin on this occasion the first book, "something about the savages-oceanians." Mother introduced the Son with the samples of the best poetry. "The first poets that I read were folk songs, nikitin, rings, necris and Pushkin. Of all the poems in the world, I most love the "mountain peaks" Lermontov (not Goethe, Lermontov), \u200b\u200b"wrote later. At the same time, "... My best teachers in poetry were the estate, garden, streams, marsh lakes, rustling of foliage, butterflies, birds and dawns," he recalled in the 1910s. "A beautiful small kingdom of comfort and silence," he wrote later about the village with a dozen g., At which there was a modest manor - an old house surrounded by a shady garden. Gumnyj and native land, where the first ten years of his life passed, the poet recalled his whole life and always described with great love.

When the time came to give older children to school, the family moved to her. Moving to the city did not mean the separation from nature: the house of Balmonts, surrounded by an extensive garden, stood on the picturesque bank of the River Teza; Father, hunting amateur, often went to the humines, and Konstantin accompanied him more often than others. In 1876, Balmont entered the preparatory class of the Shuisian gymnasium, which later called the "nest of decadency and capitalists, whose factories spoiled air and water in the river." At first, the boy did successes, but soon the study was bored with him, and the performance decreased, but the time of the foaming reading came, and he read the French and German works in the script. Under the impression of the read he at the age of ten years began to write poems. "In a bright sunny day, they arose, at once two poems, one about winter, another about summer," he recalled. These poetic undertakings, however, were criticized by her mother, and the boy did not try to repeat his poetic experiment for six years.

From the seventh grade in 1884, Balmont was excluded for belonging to an illegal circle, which consisted of gymnasists, visiting students and teachers, and was engaged in the fact that the executive committee of the Folk Free Party of the Filk Committee was proclaiming and distributed in Shua. The poet subsequently explained this early revolutionary attitude of this earliest revolutionary attitude: "... I was happy and I wanted everyone to be just as well. It seemed to me that if it was good only to me, it was ugly. "

The efforts of Mother Balmont was translated into the gymnasium of the city of Vladimir. But here he had to live on the apartment of the Greek teacher, who was jealously performed the responsibilities of the "warder". At the end of 1885, the literary debut of Balmont, student of the last course took place. Three his poems were printed in the popular St. Petersburg journal "Picturesque Review" (November 2 - December 7). This event was not observed - nobody, except for the mentor who forbade Balmont to be printed until the completion of studies in the gymnasium. The Balmont course graduated in 1886, according to his own words, "living, as in prison, a year and a half." "Gymnasium curse with all their might. She was overwhelming my nervous system for a long time, "the poet later wrote. In detail, children's and youthful years have been described by them in the autobiographical novel "under the new Sherp" (Berlin, 1923). At seventeen years of age, Balmont experienced the first literary shock: the Roman "The Karamazov Brothers", as he recalled later, gave him "more than any book in the world."

In 1886, Konstantin Balmont entered the Faculty of Faculty of Moscow University, where he became close to P. F. Nikolaev, a sixtieth 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 excluded, arrested and planted on three days in a Butyndrian prison, and then without a trial he was sent. Balmont, who "in his youth most was most fond of public issues," until the end of his life he considered himself a revolutionary and the rigging that dreamed of "about the embodiment of human happiness on Earth." Poetry in the interests of Balmont prevailed only later; In the young years, he rose to become a propagandist and "go to the people."

Literary debut

In 1889, Balmont returned to the university, but due to strong nervous exhaustion, he could not study - neither there, nor in the Yaroslavl Demidovsky Lyceum of Law, where successfully entered. In September 1890, he was deducted from the lyceum and there was an attempt to receive "official education". "... I could not force myself, but I lived truly and strained the life of my heart, and also stayed in great hobby of German literature," he wrote in 1911. Balmont, his knowledge of History, Philosophy, Literature and Philology, Balmont, was obliged to himself and the older brother, passionately fascinating philosophy. Balmont recalled that at the age of 13 he learned the English word Selfhelp ("Self-help"), since then has loved research and "mental work" and worked, without sparing his forces, until the end of his days.

In 1889, Balmont married Larisa Malina, the daughter of the Shuisian manufacturer. A year later in Yaroslavl on his own funds, he published his first "collection of poems"; Some youthful works entered into the book were published in 1885. By this time, the familiarity of the young poet with V. G. Korolenko. The famous writer, receiving a notebook from his comrades Balmont on the gymnasium with his verses, took a serious letter to them and wrote a detailed letter - a benevolent mentoring review. "He wrote to me that I have a lot of beautiful details that have successfully grated from the world of nature, which you need to focus your attention, and not chase every rolling moth that in no way you need to hurry your feeling of thought, but you need to trust the unconscious field of the soul, which is unnoticed It accumulates its observations and comparisons, and then suddenly all this blooms, as the flower flourishes after a long rapid pore of the accumulation of his forces, "said Balmont. "If you are able to focus and work, we will beat something outstanding from you over time," the letter of Korolenko, which the poet later called his "godfather" subsequently. However, the debut collection of 1890 did not cause interest, close people did not accept him, and soon after the release of the poet burns almost the entire small circulation.

In March 1890, an incident occurred that had an imprint for the entire subsequent life of Balmont: he tried to end with him, he jumped out of the third floor window, received serious fractures and spent the year in bed. It was believed that despair from a family and financial situation pushed him to such an act: the marriage Rasura Balmont with his parents and deprived financial support, the "Crecera Sonata" "Crecerava" appeared immediately before that. A year spent in bed, as the poet himself recalled, turned out to be creatively very fruitful and the front of the "unprecedented flourishing of mental arousal and cheerfulness." It was this year that he realized himself a poet, saw his own destination. In 1923, in the biographical story "Airway" he wrote:

Some time after Balmont's illness, by this time with his wife broke up, lived in need; He, on his own memoirs, for months "did not know what to be full, and came to the bunny, so that through the glass admire the Kalachi and Breads." "The beginning of the literary activity has been conjugate with many torments and failures. For four or five years, no log wanted me to print. The first collection of my poems ... did not have, of course, no success. Close people with their negative attitude significantly increased the severity of the first failures, "he wrote in an autobiographical letter of 1903. Under the "close people", the poet meant Larisa's wife, as well as friends from among the "Thinking Students", who were hostile to the publication, considering that the author betrayed the "ideals of public struggle" and closed in the framework of "pure art". In these difficult days, Balmont again helped V. G. Korolenko. "Now he came to me, strongly crumpled with different adversity, but, apparently, not fallen by the Spirit. He, poor fellow, very timid, and simple, attentive attitude to his work will already encourage him and will be important, "he wrote in September 1891, referring to M. N. Albov, which was then one of the editors of the Northern Bulletin ", With a request to draw attention to a beginner poet.

Balmont and Professor of Moscow University N. I. Storozhenko provided huge help. "He truly saved me from hunger and how his father threw a faithful bridge ...", - recalled the poet later. Balmont took him his article about Shelly ("From the hands of Won," in his own later recognition), and he took a beginner writer under his care. It was Storozhenko who persuaded the publisher K. T. Soldatyankov to entrust the beginning of the poet for the translation of two fundamental books - the "History of Scandinavian Literature" of Gorna-Switucer and the "History of Italian Literature" Gaspari. Both translations were published in 1894-1895. "These works were my urgent bread for the whole three years and gave me the opportunities desired to fulfill their poetic dreams," wrote Balmont in the sketch of "seeing eyes." In 1887-1889, the poet actively translated German and French authors, then in 1892-1894 he took up the work on the works of Percy Shelly and Edgar Allan Pon; This period is considered the time of his creative formation.

Professor Storozhenko, in addition, introduced Balmont to the editorial office of the Northern Bulletin, around which the poets of the new direction were grouped. The first trip of Balmont to St. Petersburg took place in October 1892: here he met N. M. Minsk, D. S. Merezhkovsky and Z. N. Hippius; General rainbow impressions, however, were overshadowed with the latter mutual antipathy.

On the soil of translation activities occurred by Balmont's rapprochement with a statistant, an expert on Western European literature, Prince A. N. Urusov, who largely contributed to the expansion of the literary horizon of the young poet. Balmont has released two books of translations of Edgar PO ("Ballads and Fantasies" transfers, "mysterious stories"). "He printed my translation of" mysterious stories "Edgar software and loudly praised my first poems that made up the books" under the northern sky "and" in vastness "," Balmont later recalled. "Urusov helped my soul to free himself, helped me find myself," wrote the poet in 1904 in the Book of Mountain Verse. Calling his undertakings "... Ricked steps along a broken glass, according to Dark Ostroyprint Silica, on the road dusty, as if not leading anything", Balmont, among people who helped him, also noted the translator and publicist P. F. Nikolaev.

In September 1894, Balmont met Balmont in the student "circle of Fans of Western European literature", subsequently became his closest friend. Bryusov wrote about the "exclusive" impression, which was made on him the personality of the poet and his "sophisticated love for poetry."

The collection "Northern Sky", published in 1894, is customary to be considered the starting point of the creative path of Balmont. In December 1893, shortly before the release of the book, the poet reported in the letter N. M. Minsk: "I wrote a whole series of poems (my own) and in January I will start printing their separate book. Anticipate that my liberal friends will scold me very much, because there are no liberalism in them, but "indulging" moods are enough. " The poems were largely a product of their time (having laughed by the complaints of a dull, insufficient life, descriptions of romantic experiences), but the premonition of a novice poet was justified only in part: the book received a wide response, and the reviews were mostly positive. They did not have the undoubted gifting of the debutant, his "own physiognomy, the grace of form" and the freedom from which he owns it.

Climbing to glory

If the debut of 1894 did not differ in originality, then in the second collection "in vastity" (1895), Balmont began to search for "new space, new freedom", the possibilities of connecting the poetic word with melody. "... I showed what could make a poet with Russian verse, loving music. They have rhythms and chimes Prozuny, found for the first time, "he later wrote about verses of the 1890s. Despite the fact that the collection "in vastity" Modern Balmont critics recognized the unsuccessful, "brilliance of verse and poetic flight" (according to the encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron) provided young poet access to leading literary magazines.

The 1890s were for Balmont a period of active creative work in a wide variety of areas of knowledge. The poet, who had phenomenal performance, mastered "one by one by many languages, reveling with work, as an obsessed ... I read the whole libraries of books, starting with treatises about your favorite Spanish painting and ending with research on Chinese and Sanskrit." He was passionate about the history of Russia, books on natural sciences and folk art. Already in mature years, referring to the beginning of the writers with the instruction, he wrote that the debutant need "... to be able to sit on the spring of the philosophical book and English vocabulary, and Spanish grammar, when so I want to ride a boat and maybe with Someone kiss. To be able to read and 100, and 300, and 3,000 books, including many more boring. Love not only joy, but also pain. Silently calm in yourself not only happiness, but also stunned in the heart of longing. "

By 1895, dating Balmont with Jurgis Baltrushattis, which gradually turned into friendship, which lasted many years, and S. A. Polyakov, educated by the Moscow merchant, mathematician and polyglot, the translator of Knut Gamsun. It was Polyakov, the publisher of the modernist magazine "Scales", five years later, established the Summerist Publishing House "Scorpio", where the best books of Balmont came out.

In 1896, Balmont married E. A. Andreva translator and went with his wife to Western Europe. For several years, conducted abroad, provided a novice writer who was interested in, in addition to the main subject, history, religion and philosophy, huge opportunities. He visited France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Italy, spending a lot of time in libraries, improving knowledge of languages. On the same days, he wrote her mother from Rome: "All this year abroad I feel on the stage, among the scenery. And there - away - my sad beauty, for which Ten Italy will not take. " In the spring of 1897, Balmont was invited to England to read lectures on Russian poetry in Oxford University, where he met, in particular, with the Anthropologist Edward Tyllor and the philologist, the historian of religious Thomas Rice Davids. "For the first time in life, I live wholely and fearlessly aesthetic and mental interests and I can not satisfy the treasures of painting, poetry and philosophy," he wrote to Akim Volyn enthusiastically. Impressions from traveling 1896-1897 were reflected in the collection "Silence": he was perceived with criticism as the best poet's book at that time. "It seemed to me that the collection would carry an imprint of more and more faster style. Your own, ballmont style and color, "said Prince of Urusov to the poet in 1898.

With the help of Moscow friends (including Professor of the Moscow University of N. I. Storozhenko) began to receive orders for translations. In 1899 he was elected a member of the society of Russian literature lovers.

Peak popularity

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

The collection "Last Minute Buildings" (1900), which occupies a central place in the creative biography of the poet, was created mostly in the estate of the Pole "Balniks" of the Moscow County; His owner was with great warmth mentioned in dedication. "You need to be merciless to yourself. Only then can be achieved something, "Balmont formulated with such words in the preface to the" burning buildings ", Balmont formulated. The main task of the book The author identified as a desire for internal liberation and self-knowledge. In 1901, sending a collection of L. N. Tolstoy, the poet wrote: "This book is a solid cry of the soul torn, and, if you want, the poor, ugly. But I will not refuse any of her page and - as long as I love the deformity is no less than harmony. " Thanks to the collection "Last minute buildings" Balmont acquired all-Russian fame and became one of the leaders of symbolism, a new movement in Russian literature. "For a decade, Balmont disadvantacled over Russian poetry. Other poets or submissively followed him, or with great efforts, defended their independence from his overwhelming influence, "wrote V. Ya. Bryusov.

Gradually, the lifestyle of Balmont is largely under the influence of S. Polyakova began to change. The life of the poet in Moscow took place in the enhanced occupations of the house alternating with stormy couches, when an alarmed wife was accepted to search for him throughout the city. At the same time, inspiration did not leave the poet. "I came to me more difficult than I could expect, and now I am now writing a page for a page, hurrying and watching not to make a mistake in joyful athletes. How unexpected your own soul! It is worth looking into it to see new gave ... I feel that I attacked ore ... And if I do not leave this earth, I will write a book that will not die, "he wrote in December 1900 I. I. Yasinsky. The fourth poetic collection of Balmont "We will be like the sun" (1902) in a circulation of 1800 copies for six months, which was considered unheard of success for the poetic publication, consolidated the reputation of the leader of symbolism and in retrospect with his best poetic book. The block called "we will be like the sun" "Book, the only one in his own way of immense wealth."

Conflict with power

In 1901, an event that had an essential impact on the life and work of Balmont and made it the "genuine hero in St. Petersburg" was occurring. In March, he took part in a mass student demonstration on the square at the Kazan Cathedral, the main requirement of which was the cancellation of the Decision on the Soldier service of unreliable students. The demonstration was negotiated by the police and the Cossacks, among its participants there were victims. On March 14, Balmont spoke at the literary party in the hall of the city Duma and read the poem "Little Sultan", in the veiled form, criticized the terror regime in Russia and his organizer, Nikolai second ("that was in Turkey, where the conscience is empty, there is a fist, Nagayka, Yatagan, two or three scratch, four rascal and stupid little sultan "). The poem went on hand, he was going to printed in the newspaper "Spark" V. I. Lenin.

According to the Resolution of the "Special Meeting", the poet was expelled from St. Petersburg, after three years he had lost their rights to residence in the capital and university cities. For several months, he stayed with friends in the estate of the Volkon Sabynino Kursk Province (now Belgorod region), in March 1902 he left to Paris, then lived in England, Belgium, again in France. In the summer of 1903, Balmont returned to Moscow, then headed to the Baltic coast, where he was engaged in verses who entered the collection "Only love". After spending autumn and winter in Moscow, in early 1904, Balmont was again in Europe (Spain, Switzerland, after returning to Moscow - France), where he often acted as a lecturer; In particular, he read public lectures on Russian and Western European literature in Higher School in Paris. By the time the collection of a collection "Only love. Semi cleaner "(1903) The poet has already enjoyed the All-Russian glory. He was surrounded by enthusiastic fans and veneers. "There was a whole discharge of the young lady and young ladies of" Balmontist "- various tombs, lobs, Katenki constantly interpreted with us, admired Balmont. Of course, he dismissed Sails and blissfully sailed in the wind, "recalled Balmont Balmont B. K. Zaitsev.

The poetic mugs of Balmonists who created these years were trying to imitate idols not only in poetic self-expression, but also in life. Already in 1896, Valery Bryusov wrote about the Balmont School, ranging to her, in particular, Mirru Lohvitsky. "All of them adopt Balmont and appearance: the brilliant trim of verse, fastening rhymes, consonents, and the very essence of his poetry," he wrote. Balmont, according to TEFFI, "surprised and delighted his" Crystal consonance ", which joined the soul with the first spring happiness." "... Russia was in love with Balmont ... He was read, declared and sang with pop. Cavalelers were whispered his words to their ladies, the gymnasists rewrite in the notebooks ... " Many poets (among them Lohvitskaya, Bryusov, Andrey White, Vyach. Ivanov, M. A. Voloshin, S. M. Gorodetsky) devoted to him the poem, seeing "spontaneous genius" in him, eternally free Arigone, doomed to rise over the world and Fully immersed "in the revelation of his bottomless soul."

"Our king"
In 1906, Balmont wrote the poem "Our King" about the emperor Nicolae II:
Our king - Mukden, our king - Tsushima,
Our king is a bloody spot,
Malicious powder and smoke
In which reason - dark ...
Our king - misery blind,
Prison and knut, susso, shooting,
Tsar-Hangman, the lowest twice
What promised, but not bold.
He is a coward, he feels with a wrist,
But it will be, the hour of payback is waiting.
Who started to reign - Walking,
That ending - putting on the scaffold.

Another poem from the same cycle - "Nikolai Last" - ended with the words: "You must be killed, you have become for all misfortune."

In 1904-1905, the Scorpio Publishing House issued a meeting of Balmont's poems in two volumes. In January 1905, the poet took a journey to Mexico, where he went to California. Travel notes and essays of the poet along with their free transfers of Indian cosmogonic myths and legends later entered the "snake flowers" (1910). This period of Balmont's creativity ended with the release of the collection "Liturgy of Beauty. The spontaneous hymns "(1905), in many ways created under the impression of the events of the Russian-Japanese war.

In 1905, Balmont returned to Russia and accepted an active part in political life. In December, the poet, according to his own words, "took some participation in the Armed Rise of Moscow, more - verses." Racing with Maxim Gorky, Balmont began active cooperation with the Social Democratic Newspaper "New Life" and the Paris magazine "Red Banner", which published A. V. Amphitheatres. E. Andreeva-Balmont confirmed in memories: In 1905, the poet "passionately faded the revolutionary movement", "all the days spent on the street, built barricades, uttered speeches, climbing on the stands." In December, in the days of the Moscow uprising, Balmont often visited the streets, wore a charged revolver in his pocket, said speeches to students. He even waited for reprisals over himself, as he seemed to her finished revolutionary. Hobbly, he was sincere, although, as the future showed, shallow; Fearing arrest, on the night of 1906, the poet hurked in Paris.

First Emigration: 1906-1913

In 1906, Balmont settled in Paris, considering himself a political emigrant. He settled in the quiet Paris Passion quarter, but most of the time spent in distant traffic. Almost immediately he felt acute longing in his homeland. "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 sounded," he wrote to Professor F. D. Batyushkov in 1907. Contrary to the underlying idea, the fears of the poet before the possible persecution of the Russian authorities were not at odds. A. A. Ninov in his documentary "So lived poets ...", examining the materials concerning the "revolutionary activities" of K. Balmont in detail, it comes to the conclusion that the guard "believed the poet a dangerous political face" and the ineffable supervision of him remained 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 "Poem" (St. Petersburg, 1906, "Knowledge") confiscated the police; "Avenger's songs" (Paris, 1907) were prohibited for distribution in Russia. In the years of the first emigration, the collections "Evil Chara" (1906) were also published, arrested by censorship because of the "bogworm" poems, as well as the "Firebird. Slavil Slavyanina "(1907) and" Green Vertograd. Kisswords "(1909). The mood and the imagery of these books, reflected in themselves the passion of the poet the ancient-the epiced party of the Russian and Slavic culture, were also consonant with the "call of antiquity" (1909). Criticism dismissively responded about the new turn in the creative development of the poet, but Balmont himself was not aware and did not recognize the creative recession.

In the spring of 1907, Balmont visited the Balearic Islands, at the end of 1909 he visited Egypt, writing a series of essays, which were subsequently a book "Edge of Oziris" (1914), in 1912, he traveled to southern countries, which lasted 11 months, visiting the Canary Islands, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, Ceylon, India. A particularly deep impression was made on him Oceania and communication with the inhabitants of New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga. "I want to enrich my mind, bored by the exorbitant predominance of the personal element in my entire life," the poet explained his passion for traveling in one of the letters.

Return: 1913-1920

In 1913, political emigrants on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov were granted amnesty, and on May 5, 1913, Balmont returned to Moscow. At the Brest station in Moscow, he was arranged a solemn public meeting. The gendarmes banned the poet to appeal to his audience with a speech; Instead, as reported by the presss of the press, he scattered among the crowd of fresh valley. In honor of the return of the poet, solemn techniques in the society of free aesthetics and literary and artistic circle were arranged. In 1914, the publication of a full assembly of Balmont's poems was completed in ten volumes, which lasted seven years. Then he published the poetic collection "White architect. The sacrament of four lamps ", your impressions of Oceania.

After returning Balmont, he traveled a lot in the country with lectures ("Oceania", "Poetry as magic" and others). "The heart is compressed here ... a lot of tears in our beauty," said the poet, hitting after distant wanderings on OKU, in Russian meadows and fields, where "rye into human growth and higher." "I love Russia and Russians. Oh, we, Russians, do not appreciate yourself! We do not know how we are indulgent, patient and delicate. I believe in Russia, I believe in the lightest of its future, "he wrote in one of the then articles.

In early 1914, the poet returned to Paris, then in April went to Georgia, where he received a magnificent reception (in particular - a greeting from Akakia Tsereteli, Patriarch of Georgian literature) and held a course of lectures that had a great success. The poet began to study the Georgian language and took up the transfer of the poema of the Rustaveli Schot "Vityaz in Tiger Skur". Among other major translation works of Balmont of this time - the Arrangement of Ancient Indian monuments ("Upanishads", Drama Kalidas, Asvagoshi Poem "Buddha's life").

From Georgia, Balmont returned to France, where he caught the beginning of the First World War. Only at the end of May 1915, Districted through England, Norway and Sweden - the poet returned to Russia. At the end of September, Balmont went to a two-month journey through the cities of Russia with lectures, and a year later repeated the tour, which turned out to be longer and ended in the Far East, from where he went to Japan in May 1916.

In 1915, the theoretical Etude Balmont "Poetry as Magic" - a kind of continuation of the 1900 Declaration "Elementary words about symbolic poetry"; In this treatise on the essence and appointment of lyrical poetry, the poet attributed the word "spell and magical power" and even "physical power." The study largely continued in the books "Mountain peaks" (1904), "White Zabry" (1908), "Marine Glow" (1910), dedicated to the work of Russian and Western European poets. At the same time, he did not stop writing, especially often referring to the Sonet genre. In these years, 255 sonnets were created by the poet, which made a collection of "Sun Saowns, Heaven and Moon" (1917). Books "ash. Vision of the Tree "(1916) and" Sonnets of the Sun, Möday and Moon "(1917) were met warmer than the old, but also in them the criticism saw mainly" monotony and the abundance of banal beautiful beautifulness. "

Between two revolutions

Balmont welcomed the February Revolution, began to cooperate in the society of proletarian arts, but soon disappointed in the new government and joined the party of cadets, which required the continuation of the war to the victorious end. In one of the rooms of the newspaper "Morning Russia", he welcomed the activities of General Lavra Cornilov. The poet categorically did not accept the October Revolution, which made him terrify the "chaos" and "hurricane of madness" "troubled times" and reconsider many of their former views. Being a supporter of absolute freedom, he did not accept the dictatorship of the proletariat, which he considered "Jdoka on free Word." In the publicistic book of 1918 "Revolutionary me or not?" Balmont, characterizing the Bolsheviks as carriers of the destructive principle, overwhelming "personality,", nevertheless, the belief is that the poet should be outside the parties that the poet "his ways, his fate - he is rather a comet than a planet (that is, moving Not at a certain orbit). "

These years, Balmont lived in Petrograd with E. K. Tvetkovskaya (1880-1943), his third wife, and daughter Mirra, from time to time coming to Moscow to E. A. Andreva and daughter Nina. Forced to make two families in this way, Balmont disagreeed, partly also because of the reluctance to compromise with the new government. When someone filed a note on the literary lecture with a question with a question, which is why he does not publish his works, followed the answer: "I do not want ... I can not print from those who have hands in the blood." It was alleged that one day in an emergency commission discussed the question of his execution, but as S. Polekov later wrote, "there was no majority of votes."

In 1920, together with E. K. Tsvetkovskaya and daughter, the poet moved to Moscow, where "sometimes to warm up, they accounted for a whole day in bed." In relation to power, Balmont was held loyal: he worked in the drug addict, she prepared poems and translations to the publication, lectured. On the day of May 1920, in the column hall of the House of Unions in Moscow, he read his poem "Song of the Working Hammer", the next day he was welcomed by verses Artist M. N. Yerolov at her anniversary evening in a small theater. In the same year, Moscow's writers were arranged to honor Balmont, who noted the thirtieth anniversary of the release of his first, "Yaroslavsky", the poetic collection. At the end of 1920, the poet began troubles about the trip abroad, referring to the worsening of the health of his wife and daughter. By this time, the beginning of the long and durable friendship of Balmont with Marina Tsvetaeva, which in Moscow was in a similar, very serious position.

Second Emigration: 1920-1942

In June 1920, at the request of Jurgis Baltrushattys, having received from A. V. Lunacharsky, to temporarily leave the border on a business trip, together with his wife, daughter and far-relative, I left Russia, and I got to Paris through Revel. Boris Zaitsev believed that Baltrushetis, the former Lithuanian Messenger in Moscow, saved Balmont from the hungry death: he was bent and hungry in the cold Moscow, "he traveled on fire from a disassembled fence." Stanitsky (S. V. Von Stein), remembering the meeting with Balmont in 1920 in Revel, noticed: "The seal of painful exhaustion was lying on his face, and all he seemed still in the mercy of dark and sorrowful experiences, already abandoned in the country of missing and evil but completely not yet exhausted by him. "

In Paris, Balmont with his family settled in a small furnished apartment. As TEFFI remembered, "the window in the dining room was always hung with a thick buoy cord, because the poet broke the glass. Insert a new glass did not make any point, - it could easily break again. Therefore, the room was always dark and cold. "A terrible apartment," they said. - No glass, and blowing "".

The poet immediately turned out to be between two lights. On the one hand, the radical emigrant community suspected in it sympathizing with advice. How ironically noticed S. Polekov, Balmont "... broke the ceremony of escape from Soviet Russia. Instead of fleeing in Moscow by secretly, a wanderer, wander through the forests and valleys of Finland, at the border, accidentally fall from the bullet of a drunken redarmeys or Finn, - he stubbornly sought permission to leave his family for four months, received him and arrived in Paris unsserted. " The position of the poet involuntarily "aggravated" Lunacharsky, in the Moscow newspaper refuted rumors that he leads abroad against the Soviet power abroad. This allowed the right emigrant circles to notice "... meaningful: Balmont in correspondence with Lunacharsky. Well, of course, the Bolshevik! " However, the poet himself, petitioning from France for Russian writers who spent departure from Russia, allowed phrases who did not condemn the state of affairs in Soviet Russia: "Everything that is performed in Russia is so difficult and so confused," hinted and that Much of what is being done in the "cultural" Europe, he is also deeply disgusting. It served as a reason for the attack on him of emigrant publicists ("... what is difficult? Mass executions? What is confused? Systematic robbee, overclocking the constituent assembly, the destruction of all freedoms, military expeditions to pacify the peasants?").

On the other hand, the Soviet press began to "brand him as a deceiver", which "the price of lies" achieved freedom for himself, abused the confidence of the Soviet power, generously let go to the West "to study the revolutionary creativity of the folk masses." Stanitsky wrote:

With dignity and calmly answered Balmont on all these reproaches. But they should be thought of to think about the charm of Soviet ethics once again - purely cannibal sewing. Poet Balmont, the whole being of which protests against the Soviet Soviet, who kills His Motherland and every day I kill her powerful, creative spirit in the slightest manifestations, is obliged to holy to keep his word given to rapist commissars and extremes. But the same principles of moral behavior are not guidelines for the Soviet power and its agents. To kill parliamentary, shoot out of the machine guns of defenseless women and children, execute the hungry death of tens of thousands of innocent people, - all this, of course, in the opinion of "Comrades-Bolsheviks", - Nothing in comparison with violation of Balmont's promise to return to the Communist Eden Lenin , Bukharin and Trotsky. Stanitsky about Balmont. Last news. 1921.

As Yu. K. Therapian wrote, "not in Russian scattering of another poet, who was just as sharply worried about the conclusion from Russia." Emigration Balmont called "Life among others", although he worked at the same time much; Only in 1921 six of his books came out. In Emigration, Balmont actively collaborated with the Paris News newspaper, the magazine "Modern Notes", numerous Russian periodicals published in other European countries. His attitude to Soviet Russia remained ambiguous, but the constant was longing in Russia: "I want Russia ... Empty, empty. There is no spirit in Europe, "he wrote E. Andreva in December 1921. The severity of cutoff from the homeland was aggravated by the feeling of loneliness, alienation from emigrant circles.

Soon Balmont left Paris and settled in the town of Kapabreton in the province of Brittany, where he spent 1921-1922. In 1924, he lived in Lower Charanta (Chatetheon), in 1925 - in Wanda (Saint-Zhil-sur-Wa), to late autumn of 1926 - in Gironda (Lakano Ocean). In early November 1926, leaving Lakano, Balmont and his wife went to Bordeaux. Balmont often filmed the villa in Kapibreton, where he communicated with many Russians and lived with breaks until the end of 1931, taking out not only summer, but also the winter months.

Social activities and journalism

On his attitude to Soviet Russia, Balmont unequivocally stated soon after he left the country. "The Russian people are truly tired of their malfolsh and, most importantly, from a shameless, infinite lies of non-merciful, evil rulers," he wrote in 1921. In the article "Blood Lyguns" the poet spoke about his life's heights in Moscow 1917-1920. In the emigrant periodical periodic of the 1920s, his poetic lines on the "actors of Satan" regularly appeared, about the "digested blood" of Russian land, about the "day of humiliation of Russia", about "red drops", who went to Russian land. A number of these poems entered the collection "Marevo" (Paris, 1922) - the first emigrant book of the poet. The name of the collection predetermined the first line of the poem of the same name: "Muddy Maorevo, Cherto Verevo ..."

In 1927, Balmont responded to the scandalous speech of the Soviet Plenipotentiary of the Soviet Plenipotentiary to the scandalous speech of the Soviet Plenipotentiary Representative in Poland to the scandalous performance of the Soviet Plenipotentiary Representative in Poland. "Russian friends") addressed the future to the future - to modern Bolshevik Russia. In the same year, in Paris, an anonymous appeal "To the Peace Writers", signed "A group of Russian writers was published. Russia, May 1927. Among those who responded to the call I. D. Galperin-Kaminsky to support the appeal, was (along with Bunin, Zaitsev, Cooking, Merezhkovsky and others) and Balmont. In October 1927, the poet sent the "cry of Molubus" Knut Gamsun, and not waiting for the answer, turned to Halperin-Kaminsky:

First of all, I will indicate that I was waiting for the choir of response votes, I was waiting for a human revocation from European writers, for I was not completely realized in Europe. I waited a month. I waited two. Silence. I wrote to a major writer with whom I am in personal-good relationship, to the writer of the world and very demanded in Russia pre-revolutionary - to Knutu Gamsun, I turned from the face of those martyrs of thought and words that tormented in the worst prison ever former on earth , in Soviet Russia. For two months, how Gamsun in response to my letter is silent. I wrote a few words and sent the words of Merezhkovsky, Bunin, Schmelev and other to my friend to you to Avenir, and the other friend - Alfons de Chastubin. He is silent. To whom to call me? ..

In contacting Romena Rollan there, Balmont wrote: "Believe me, we are not so bushy because of nature, as it may seem to you. We left Russia to be able to have the opportunity in Europe at least something to shout about the dying mother, shout in a deaf ear of the outlined and indifferent, who are engaged in themselves ... "Abruptly reacted the poet and on the policy of the British government of James McDonald, who joined trade negotiations with the Bolsheviks , and later recognized the USSR. "The recognition of England armed gang of international passing, with the help of the Germans who seized in St. Petersburg and Moscow weakened, thanks to the military defeat, the power was fatal blow to everything honest, which remained after the monstrous war in Europe," he wrote in 1930.

Unlike his friend, Ivan Shmelev, who was in the "right" direction, Balmont adhered to the whole "left", liberal-democratic views, critically referred to the ideas of Ivan Ilina, did not accept "conciliatory" trends (change and Eurasianism and so on) , radical political movements (fascism). At the same time, he was avoided by the former socialists - A. F. Kerensky, I. I. Fondaminsky - and with horror, he watched the "pooling" of Western Europe in the 1920s - 1930s, in particular, by the passion of socialism among a significant part of the French intellectual elite. Balmont was visited by the events, shaking emigration: the abduction by Soviet agents in January 1930, General A. P. Kutepov, the tragic death of the King Yugoslavia Alexander I, which made a lot for Russian emigrants; He took part in joint shares and protests of emigration ("on the fight against denationalization" - in connection with the increasing threat of the separation of Russian children in abroad from the Russian language and Russian culture; "Help the native enlightenment"), but at the same time avoided participation in political organizations.

Balmont was indignant to the indifference of Western European writers to what was happening in the USSR, and this feeling was imposed on the overall disappointment by all Western life lifestyle. Europe and first caused bitterness in it with rational pragmatism. Back in 1907, the poet noticed: "Strange people are European people, strangely uninteresting. They all need to prove. I never seeking evidence. " "No one reads anything here. Everyone is interested in sports and cars. Cursed time, meaningless generation! I feel approximately the same as the last Peruvian Lord among the arrogant Spanish aliens, "he wrote in 1927.

Creativity in emigration

It is believed that emigration was held for Balmont under the sign of the decline; This opinion, separated by many Russian emigrant poets, was subsequently challenged. In different countries, Balmont during these years published books of poems "Dar Earth", "Bright Hour" (1921), "Marevo" (1922), "My - her. Poems about Russia "(1923)," in the divorced Dali "(1929)," Northern Light "(1933)," Blue Horseshoe "," Light Solving "(1937). In 1923, he released the books of autobiographical prose "Under the new sickle" and "Air Way", in 1924 issued a book of memories "Where is my house?" (Prague, 1924), wrote documentary essays "Torch in the night" and "White Sleep" about the experienced in the winter of 1919 in revolutionary Russia. Balmont performed long lecture tour in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, in the summer of 1930 he traveled to Lithuania, in parallel with the translations of Western Slavonic poetry, but Russia remained the main theme of the works of Balmont in these years: Memories of her and longing for lost.

"I want Russia. I want the transforming dawn in Russia. Just want this. Nothing else, "he wrote E. A. Andreva. The poet pulled back to Russia, and he, the prone to succulent with a momentary mood, repeatedly expressed the desire to return to his homeland in the 1920s. "I live and do not live, living abroad. Despite all the horrors of Russia, I am very regretting that I left Moscow, "he wrote to the poet A. B. Kusikov on May 17, 1922. At some point, Balmont was close to doing this step. "I completely decided to return, but again everything was confused in my soul," he reported by E. A. Andreeva on June 13, 1923. "You will feel how I always love Russia and how the thought of our nature owns me. One word "lingonberry" or "Donnon" causes such an excitement in my soul that one word is enough to have verses from the trendy heart, "Poet wrote on August 19, 1925, Nina Bruni, sending her new poems.

last years of life

By the end of the 1920s, the life of K. Balmont and E. Tsvetkovsky was becoming harder. The literary fees were meager, financial support, which proceeded mainly from the Czech Republic and Yugoslavia, creating funds to help Russian writers, became irregular, then stopped. The poet had to take care of three women, and the daughter of Mirra, distinguished by extreme carelessness and impracticality, delivered him a lot of trouble. "To [Onstantine] d [Mithrievich] - in Pts [pheni] difficult position, barely drives ends with the ends ... Keep in mind that our glorious poet beats from the need for a real one who came from America to Help - End ... ate the poet worse Worse, "wrote I. S. Shmelev V. F. Zeelar, one of the few who regularly provided Balmont help.

The situation was critical after in 1932 it became clear that the poet suffers from a serious mental illness. From August 1932 to May 1935, Balmonts lived in a slowhead in Klamar under Paris, in poverty. In the spring of 1935, Balmont got into the clinic. "We are in trouble and in poverty in full ... and at the [Ontantine] d [Mithrievich] there is no night shirt decent, nor night shoes, no pajamas. Miscellaneous, dear friend, if you can, help, advise ... ", - wrote the flowering zealear on April 6, 1935. Despite the disease and distress, the poet retained the former eccentricity and sense of humor. Regarding the automotive catastrophe, in which he got in the mid-1930s, Balmont in a letter V. V. Oboljaninov complained not to the bruises, and on a spoiled costume: "The Russian emigrant actually has to reflect that it is more profitable for him to lose - pants or The legs they wear ... ". In the letter E. A. Andreva poet reported:

In April 1936, Parisian Russian writers celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Balmont's writer creative evening, designed to collect funds to help the patient poet. The Committee on the Organization of the evening entitled "Poet - Writers" included famous figures of Russian culture: I. S. Shmelev, M. Aldanov, I. A. Bunin, B. K. Zaitsev, A. N. Benua, A. K. Grechanins, P. N. Milyukov, S. V. Rakhmaninov.

At the end of 1936, Balmont and Tvetkovsky moved to Nuzi-les-Gran near Paris. The last years of life the poet was alternately in the House of Charity for Russians, which contained M. Kuzmina Karavaeva, then in a cheap furnished apartment. As Yuriy therapian remembered, "the Germans treated Balmont indifferently, the Russians of the same namesmen made him for the previous revolutionary beliefs." However, by this moment Balmont finally fell into the "twilight state"; He came to Paris, but everything with great difficulty. In the clock of enlightenment, when there is a mental illness, Balmont, who knew him, who knew him, with a feeling of happiness, opened the "War and Peace" or reread his old books; He could not write for a long time.

In 1940-1942, Balmont did not leave Nuzi-Le Gran; Here, in the shelter "Russian House", he died at night on December 23, 1942 from inflammation of the lungs. He was buried at the local Catholic cemetery, under the gravestone stove of gray stone with the inscription: "Constantin Balmont, Poète Russe" ("Konstantin Balmont, Russian Poet"). Several people came from Paris from Paris: B. K. Zaitsev with his wife, the widow of Y. Baltrushattys, two-three acquaintances and daughter Mirra. Irina Odoevtsheva recalled that "... a heavy rain went. When the coffin began to go to the grave, it turned out to be filled with water, and the coffin surfaced. He had to hold his sixth, while the grave was falling asleep. " The French public found out about the death of the poet from the article in the deflection of the Paris Bulletin, which did, "as it was then relied, a thorough reprimand to the late poet for maintaining revolutionaries."

Translation activities

The circle of foreign language literature and authors who translated Balmont was extremely wide. In 1887-1889, he was mainly engaged in the translations of Western European poets - Heinrich Heine, Nicolaus Lenau, Alfred Müs, Sully-Proudom). A trip to Scandinavian countries (1892) laid the beginning of his new hobby, which was realized in the translations of George Brandez, Henrika Ibsen, Bjornistne Bjernson.

In 1893-1899, Balmont published in seven issues of writings of Persi Beach Shelly in his own translation with an introductory article. In 1903-1905, the partnership "Knowledge" released their revised and supplemented publication in three volumes. More successful in artistic relations and subsequently recognized by the textbook translations of Edgar Allan by the existed in 1895 in two volumes and later included in the collected works of 1901.

In the translation of Balmont, nine Drum Pedro Calderon (the first edition - 1900) came out (first edition - 1900); Among other known translation works - "Cat Murr" E. T. Gofman (SPB., 1893), Salome and "Rading Prison Ballad" Oscar Wilde (M., 1904). He also translated Spanish poets and playwrights Lope de Vega and Tirsto de Molina, English poets, Prosaikov, playwrights - William Blake, Oscar Wilde, J. Byrona, A. Tennison, J. Milton, - Verse S. Bodler. Important for literary studies are considered to be the translations of the "History of Scandinavian Literature" Gorn (M., 1894) and the "History of Italian Literature" Gaspari (M., 1895-1997). Edited by Balmont, the compositions of Gerhart Hauptman (1900 and later) were edition (1900 and later), the writings of Herman Zudmanan (1902-1903), "History of Painting Mother (St. Petersburg, 1900-1904). Balmont, after a trip to Georgia in 1914 he studied the Georgian language - the author of the transfer of the poem of the Rustaveli Schotaveli "Vityaz in Tiger Shkure"; He himself considered her the best poem about love ever created in Europe ("Fire Bridge, binding heaven and land"). After visiting Japan in 1916, he translated a tank and hockey of various Japanese authors, from ancient to modern.

Not all the works of Balmont were assessed high. The serious complaints of critics caused his translations of ibsen ("Ghosts", M., 1894), Hauptman ("Gannele", "Pottered Bell") and Walt Whitman ("Flooping herbs", 1911). Analyzing the transfers of Shelley, performed by Balmont, Chukovsky's roots resulting from the "new face", Semi-Shelly, Semi-Balmont, called Shelmont. Nevertheless, in the encyclopedic dictionary of the Brockhaus and Efron, it is argued that "the fact of the sole translating of several tens of thousands of rhythic poete poems, such a complex and deep, as Shelley, can be called a feat in the field of Russian poetic literature."

According to M. I. Voloshina, "Balmont translated Shelly, Edgar by, Calderon, Witman Witman, Spanish People's Songs, Mexican Sacred Books, Egyptian Hymns, Polynesian Myths, Balmont knows twenty languages, Balmont surrounded whole libraries Oxford, Brussels, Paris, Madrid ... All this is not true, because the works of all poets were only a mirror for him, in which he saw only the reflection of his own faces in various frames, from all languages \u200b\u200bhe created one, his own, and gray dust libraries on his light wings of Ariel turns In the rainbow dust of the butterfly wings. "

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

Give artistic equivalence - the task is impossible never. The work of art, essentially in its own, one and the only one in its face. You can only give something approaching more or less. Sometimes you give an accurate translation, but the soul disappears, sometimes you give a free translation, but the soul remains. Sometimes the translation is accurate, and the soul remains in it. But, in general, the poetic translation is only an echo, response, echo, reflection. As a rule, the szvuk is poorly sound, the echo reproduces only partially awakened his voice, but sometimes, in the mountains, in the caves, in vaulted locks, echo, arising, saving your opening seven times, seven times the szvuk is more beautiful and stronger than the sound. It sometimes happens, but very rare, and with poetic translations. And the reflection is only a vague reflection of the face. But with high qualities of the mirror, when finding successful conditions for its position and lighting, a beautiful face in the mirror is beautiful and radiant in its reflected existence. Echo in the forest is one of the best charm. K. D. Balmont.

Balmont has always treated Russia as an integral part of the Overall Slavonic world. "Esm Slavyan and Abude them," wrote the poet in 1912. Having experienced a special love for Poland, he translated a lot from Polish - in particular, the works of Adam Mitskevich, Stanislav Vispeyansky, Zygmunt Krasinki, Boleslav Lesmyan, Yana Casprovich, Jan Lehone, wrote a lot about Poland and Polish poetry. Later, in the 1920s, Balmont translated the Czech poetry (Yaroslav Vrhlitsky, "Selected poems." Prague, 1928), Bulgarian ("Golden Sheaf of Bulgarian Poetry. People's Songs." Sofia, 1930), Serbian, Croatian, Slovak. The relatives of the Slavic world Balmont also considered Lithuania: the first translations of Lithuanian folk songs performed by him are back to 1908. Among the poets transferred to them were Petras Babitskas, Mycolas Weight and Ludas Gira; With the last Balmont tied a close friendship. Balmont's book "Northern Lights. Poems about Lithuania and Russia "came out in 1931 in Paris.

By 1930, Balmont translated into modern Russian language "Words about the regiment of Igor" (Russia and Slavs, 1930. No. 81), devoting his work to Professor N. K. Kulman. Professor himself in the article "The fate of the word about Igor's regiment" ", printed in the same issue of the magazine" Russia and Slavs ", wrote that Balmont, who turned out to be" closer to the script, than anyone from his predecessors, "managed to reflect In its translation, "compressedness, the scanning of the original ... Transfer all the colors, sounds, the movement that is so richly" the word ", his bright lyrism, the magnifier of the epic parts ... feel in its translation of the national idea of" words "and that love for the homeland, who burned him author". About working with Kulmann over the translation of "Words about Igor's regiment" Balmont told in the article "Joy. (Letter from France) "published in the newspaper" Today ".

A family

It is believed that the father of the poet, Dmitry Konstantinovich Balmont (1835-1907), took place from the noble family who had, according to family legends, Scandinavian (according to some data - Scottish) roots. The poet himself in 1903 so wrote about his origin:

... According to family legends, my ancestors were some Scottish or Scandinavian sailors that moved to Russia ... My father's officer, from the Father, was a naval officer, participated in the Russian-Turkish war and earned his personal gratitude to Nikolai his first courage. The ancestors of my mother (nee Lebedev) were Tatars. The prince was the prince of the White Swan Golden Horde. Perhaps this partly can be explained by the unbridles and passionship, which always distinguished my mother, and which I inherited from her, as well as all my mental system. My mother's father (also military, general) wrote poems, but did not print them. All sisters of my mother (a lot of them) wrote, but did not printed them. Autobiographical letter. 1903 year.

There is an alternative version of the origin of the Balmont surname. Thus, the researcher P. Kupriyanovsky points out that the great-grandfather's great-grandfather, Cavalry Sergeant of the Catherine Lobe Guards Regiment, could be called Balamut, who was subsequently enhanced by "alterations to foreign fell". This assumption is consistent with the memories of E. Andreyev-Balmont, which argued that "... Praded Father's Poet was a sergeant in one of the cavalry Life Guards regiments Empress Ekaterina II Balamut ... This document on parchment and with the seals was kept with us. In Ukraine, there is still quite common surname Balamut. Praded Poet Ivan Andreevich Balamut was the Kherson landowner ... as a surname Balamut moved to Balmont - I could not install. " In turn, the opponents of this version were noted that it contradicts the laws of textology; It would be natural to assume that, on the contrary, the "foreign surname of the landowner people adapted to their understanding."

D. K. Balmont Polenk served in the Shuisky Land - the global mediator, the world judge, chairman of the congress of the magistrate and, finally, the chairman of the county Zemstvo administration. In 1906, D. K. Balmont resigned, a year later died. In memory of the poet, he remained a quiet and good man, passionately loved nature and hunting. Mother Vera Nikolaevna came from the general family; She received institutional education and differed in active character: he taught and treated the peasants, satisfied with amateur performances and concerts, sometimes printed in provincial newspapers. Dmitry Konstantinovich and faith Nikolaevna had seven sons. All relatives of the poet pronounced their surname with an emphasis on the first syllable, the poet only afterwards independently, as claimed, "because of the whim of one woman," suffered an emphasis on the second.

Personal life

K. D. Balmont told in the autobiography that he began to fall in love very early: "The first passionate thought of a woman - at the age of five, the first real inquireness - nine years, the first passion - fourteen years," he wrote. "Wandering on unbearable cities, one I am always associated with love," later the poet was later recognized in one of his poems. Valery Bryusov, analyzing his work, wrote: "Balmont's poetry is famous and Slavs all the rites of love, all of her rainbow. Balmont himself says that, going through the ways of love, he can achieve "too much - just!" "

In 1889, Konstantin Balmont married Larisa Mikhailovna Malina, the daughter of the Shuisian manufacturer, the "beautiful Baryshne of Bottichellyevsky." Mother, promotion contributing, rescued sharply marriage, but the young man was in his decision he was adamant and decided to break with his family. "I have not had twenty-two years old when I ... married a beautiful girl, and we left early in the spring, or rather, at the end of winter, in the Caucasus, to the Kabardian region, and from there on the military Georgian road to the blessed Tiflis and the Transcaucasia," - Later he wrote. But the wedding trip did not become a prologue to a happy family life.

Researchers often write about harlin as a neurasthenic nature, which brought Balmont Love "in a demonic face, even the devilish", tormented with jealousy; It is believed that it was she who added him to the guilt, to which the confessional poems of the poet "Forest Fire" indicates. The wife did not sympathize with the literary aspirations, nor the revolutionary sentiment of the spouse and was prone to quarrels. In many respects, it was the painful relationship with Malina who pushed Balmont to a suicide attempt in the morning of March 13, 1890. Shortly after recovery, which was only partial - chromoty remained for his life, - Balmont broke up with L. Malina. The first child born in this marriage died, the second - the son of Nicholas - subsequently suffered from nervous disorder. Later, the researchers warned from excessive "demonization" of the image of the first wife of Balmont: Running with the latter, Larisa Mikhailovna married a journalist and historian of Literature N. A. Engelhardta and peacefully lived with him for many years. Her daughter from this marriage, Anna Nikolaevna Engelgardt, became the second wife of Nikolai Gumileva.

The second wife of the poet, Ekaterina Alekseevna Andreeva-Balmont (1867-1952), a relative of the well-known Moscow publishers of Sabashnikov, originated from the rich merchant family (Andreev belonged to the coaling of colonial goods) and differed by rare education. Contemporaries noted the external attractiveness of this high and slim young woman "with beautiful black eyes." For a long time, she was unrequited in love with A. I. Urusov. Balmont, as Andreeva recalled, quickly faded her, but did not meet reciprocity for a long time. When the last arose, it turned out that the poet was married: Then parents banned her daughter to meet with the beloved. However, Ekaterina Alekseevna, enlightened in the "Newest Spirit", looked at the rites as a formality and soon moved to the poet. The marriage process, allowing to join the second marriage Malina, forbade her husband to marry forever, but, finding the old document, where the bridegroom was undelated, the lovers married on September 27, 1896, and the next day went abroad, to France.

With E. A. Andreva Balmont united the community of literary interests; Spouses made a lot of joint transfers, in particular Gerhart Hauptman and Odda Nansen. Boris Zaitsev in his memoirs about Balmont Ekaterina Alekseevna called the "woman of graceful, cool and noble, highly cultural and not without power." Their apartment on the fourth floor of the house in Tolstovsky was, as Zaitsev wrote, "the hands of Ekaterina Alekseevna, as well as their lifestyle, too, in many ways went down." Balmont was "... in loyal, loving and healthy hands and at home was even just a labor." In 1901, they had a daughter ninika - Nina Konstantinovna Balmont Bruni (died in Moscow in 1989), which the poet devoted the collection "Faine fairy tales".

At the beginning of the 1900s, Balmont became acquainted with Elena Konstantinovna Kolmontovsky (1880-1943), the daughter of General K. G. Tsorkovsky, then - a student of the mathematical faculty of sorbonna and a passionate fan of his poetry. The latter, "not a strong character, ... the whole being was involved in the whims of the poet's madness", every word of which "sounded for her as a voice of God". Balmont, judging by some of his letters, in particular - Bryusov, was not in love with the Tvetkovsky, but soon began to experience in it the need for a truly faithful, devoted friend. Gradually, the "spheres of influence" were divided: Balmont, he lived with his family, then leaving Elena; For example, in 1905, they left for three months in Mexico. The family life of the poet was finally confused after E. K. Ts. Tsvekkovsky was born a daughter, which was called Mirrey - in memory of Mirrian Lohwitsky, a poetess, with which he was associated with complex and deep feelings. The appearance of a child finally tied Balmont to Elena Konstantinovna, but at the same time he did not want to leave the Ekaterina Alekseevna. Mental torments led to a breakdown: in 1909, Balmont made a new suicide attempt, jumped out again from the window and survived again. Until 1917, Balmont lived in St. Petersburg with Tsvetkovskaya and Mirra, coming from time to time to Moscow to Andreyeva and daughter Nina.

From Russia, Balmont emigrated with the third (civilian) wife E. K. Tsvetkovskaya and daughter Mirra. However, with Andreva he did not interrupt friendly relations; Only in 1934, when Soviet citizens were forbidden to correspond with their relatives and close living abroad, this connection was interrupted. The new marital duo of TEFFI, remembering one of the meetings, described as follows: "He entered, highly raising his forehead, as if she was a glory glory. The neck was twice wrapped in black, some Lermontov tie, which no one wears. Rysiy eyes, long, reddish hair. Behind him, his faithful shadow, his Elena, the creature is small, slender, the darkly, living only with strong tea and love for the poet. " According to the memories of TEFFI, the spouses communicated with each other in an unusually pretentious manner. Elena Konstantinovna never called Balmont "husband," she said: "Poet." The phrase "Husband asks to drink" in their language was uttered, as "the poet wants to quench moisture."

Unlike E. A. Andreva, Elena Konstantinovna was "everydays helpless and could not organize life." She considered her duty to follow Balmont everywhere: eyewitnesses recalled how she, "throwing the child's houses, went beyond her husband somewhere in the Kabak and could not withdraw him from there for a day." "With such a lifetime, it was not wonderful that by forty years she looked older," said TEFFI.

E. K. Tvetkovskaya was not the last love of the poet. In Paris, he renewed in March 1919 acquaintance with Princess Dagmar Shakhovskaya (1893-1967). "It's more from my loved ones to me, Halford, halfupal, Princess Dagmar Shakhovskaya, nee Baroness Lilienfeld, who rubbed, did not once sang Estonian songs to me," so characterized his beloved Balmont in one of the letters. Shakhovskaya gave birth to Balmont of two children - George (1922-194?) And Svetlana (r. 1925). The poet could not quit a family; Meeting with Shakhovskaya only occasionally, he often wrote almost every day, once again confessed in love, talking about impressions and plans; 858 of his letters and postcards have been preserved. Be that as it may, not D. Shakhovskaya, and E. Tsvetkovskaya spent with Balmont the last, the most distinguished years of his life; She died in 1943, a year after the death of the poet. Mirra Konstantinovna Balmont (in marriage - Boychenko, in the second marriage - Aytin) wrote poems and printed in the 1920s under the pseudonym Aglaya Gamayun. She died in Nyazi-les-Gran in 1970.

Analysis of creativity

Balmont became the first representative of symbolism in poetry, received all-Russian fame. It was noted, however, that his work as a whole was not purely symbolistic; It was not a poet and the "decadener" in the full sense of the word: a decadence for him "... he served not only and not so much a form of aesthetic attitude to life as a comfortable shell to create the image of the creator of new art." The first collections of Balmont with all abundance in them, decadent-symbolistic signs of literary crops were attributed to impressionism, the flow in art, which was aimed at the transfer of mimolement, unsubstantial impressions. Basically, it was "purely romantic poems, as if the opposing heaven and land that are visiting in the distant, domestic, saturated with motifs, consonant creativity A. N. Plesech or S. Ya. Nadson. It was noted that the moods "sadness, some kind of lion, homelessness", dominated in the early verses of Balmont, were the echoes of the previous "patient's dum, the tired generation of the intelligentsia." The poet himself noticed that his work began "with sorrow, oppression and twilight", "under the northern sky". The lyrical hero of the early works of Balmont (according to A. Izmailov) - "Mertky and Smarty young man, imbued with the most well-dimensional and moderate feelings."

Collections "in vastity" (1895) and "Silence. Lyrical poems "(1898) were noted by the active search for" new space, new freedom. " The basic for these books were the ideas of the mumbling of the life and variability of the world. Increased attention The author paid the vehicle technique, demonstrating obvious passionateness of sound pain, musicality. The symbolism in his understanding was primarily a means of searching for "new combinations of thoughts, paints and sounds", the method of building "from sounds, symbols and words of his own speech with a cherished chapel, where everything is fulfilled in an in-depth meaning and penetration." Symbolic poetry "speaks by his special language, and this language is rich in intonations, like music and painting, it excites the soul of a complex mood, more than another nature of poetry, our sound and visual impressions touches," wrote Balmont in the Book of Mountain Verse . Separed the poet and included in the overall system of symbolistic views that the sound matter of the word is extended by a high meaning; As any materiality, "represents from the spiritual substance."

The presence of new, "Nietzshean" motifs and heroes ("spontaneous genius", "unlike a person", striking "beyond the limits" and even "beyond - and truth and lies") critics already noted in the collections "Silence". It is believed that "silence" is the best of the three Balmont books. "It seemed to me that the collection would carry an imprint of more and more faster style. Your own, ballmont style and color, "said Prince of Urusov to the poet in 1898. Considering the books of 1896-1897 ("Dead Ships", "Chords", "Decking El Greco", "in Oxford", "in the vicinity of Madrid", "to Shelly") were not simple descriptions, And they expressed the desire to be born in the Spirit of someone else's or left in the past civilization, someone else's country, to identify themselves "then with the obedient of Brass, then with some priest from the country of Aztecs." "I merge every moment with everyone," Balmont declared. "The poet is the element. He can take any diverse faces, and in every face he is self-readed. He flames love to everything, and everything enters his soul, like the sun, moisture and air enter the plant ... The poet is open to the world ... "he wrote.

At the turn of the centuries, the overall tonality of Balmont's poetry changed sharply: mood of despondency and hopelessness gave way to bright colors, imagery performed by "sacred joy, theft of violent forces." Since 1900, the "Elegy" hero of Balmont turned into his own opposite: an active person, "Almost with an orgiastic passion arguing in this world aspiration to the Sun, Fire, Light"; A special place in the Balmontic hierarchy of images took fire as a manifestation of cosmic forces. Being for a while the leader of the "new poetry", Balmont willingly formulated her principles: the symbolist poets, according to him, "heated by the dungeons walking from the region of the foregoing," they, "re-exciting materiality of difficult impressiveness, rule over the world and penetrate into His Mysteries. "

Collections "Last Minute Buildings" (1900) and "Let's As Sun" (1902), as well as the book "Only love" (1903) are considered the strongest in the literary heritage of Balmont. Researchers noted the presence of prophetic notes here, the image of the "burning buildings" regarding as a symbol of anxiety that worn in the air, a sign of the impulse, movement "(" Creek of the watch "). The mains here were the motives of "Sunshine", the desire for a constant update, the thirst for "stop the moment". "When you listen to Balmont - always listen to the spring," wrote A. A. Blok. Significantly a new factor in Russian poetry was Balmontov Erotic. The poem "she gave himself without reproach ..." and "I want to be bold ..." Passed the most popular works; They studied "if not to love, then, in any case, write about love in the" New Spower ". And yet, recognizing the leader of symbolism in Balmont, the researchers were noted: adopted by it "The Master of Spiritual Geniya, Egocentrism, reaching narcissism, on the one hand, and Eternal Sunflowers, loyalty to the dream, looking for a beautiful and perfect - on the other, allow him to talk about it On the poet of the neoromantic warehouse. " After the "burning buildings" and criticism, the readers began to perceive Balmont as an innovator who opened the new opportunities of the Russian verse, which expanded his image. Many drew attention to the epatching component of its creativity: almost across the expressions of determination and energy, craving for the use of "daggey words". Prince A. I. Urusov called "last minute buildings" "psychiatric document". E. V. Anichkov regarded Balmont's program collections as "moral, artistic and simply physical liberation from the former sorrowful school of Russian poetry, which brings poetry to the native publics." It was noted that "proud optimism, the life-affirming pathos of Balmontov lyrics, the desire for freedom from the shackles imposed by society, and the return to the first-pool of being" was perceived by readers "not just as aesthetic phenomenon, but as a new worldview."

High estimates of contemporaries received "Faine fairy tales" (1905) - a collection of children's fabulous styling songs, dedicated to the daughter of Nina. "In the fairy tales, the spring of Balmont's creativity again hits a jet of clear, crystal, singing. In these "children's songs" came to life all that there is the most valuable in his poetry, which is given to her as a heavenly gift, which is its best eternal glory. These are gentle songs, air, creating their music themselves. They look like a silver ringing of thoughtful bells, "Ukodonic, multicolored on a turkey under the window," Valery Bryusov wrote.

Among the best "strangers" poems, Critica celebrated the cycle of poems about Egypt "Earthly volcanoes", "Memoper about the evening in Amsterdam", marked with Maxim Gorky, "Tishya" (about Islands in the Pacific Ocean) and Iceland, which highly appreciated Brucers. Being in a constant search for "new combinations of thoughts, paints and sounds" and the approval of the "distinguishing" images, the poet believed that he was engaged in the creation of the "lyrics of the modern soul", the soul, which has a "lot of faces". Transferring heroes in time and space, in many epochs ("Scythians", "Okrichniki", "in the deaf days" and so on), he argued the image of "spontaneous genius", "Superman" ("Oh, bliss to be strong and proud and Always free! "-" Albatross ").

One of the fundamental principles of Balmont philosophy during his creative heyday was characterized by the decadent worldview as a whole, the approval of equality of the elevated and lowland, beautiful and ugly. The essential place in the work of the poet was the "reality of conscience", in which a kind of war was held against wholeness, the polarization of the opposite forces, their "justification" ("The world should be justified the whole / so that it was possible to live! ..", "but I love without and delight, and shame. / And the space of the marsh, and the elevation of the mountains "). Balmont could admire the scorpion with his "pride and desire of freedom", bless the cripples, "Cacti curves", "snakes and lizards of rejected birth." At the same time, the sincerity of Balmontovsky Demoniser, expressed in demonstrative subordination of the element of passions, was not questioned. According to Balmont, the poet is the "demigod inspired", the "genius of singement dreams."

The poetic creativity of Balmont was spontaneously and subordinate to the dictate of the moment. In the miniature, "As I write poems", he confessed: "... I do not think over verse and, right, never compose." Once it was written, he never ruled no longer, did not edit, considering that the first rush is the most faithful, wrote continuously, and a lot. The poet believed that only a moment, always the only and unique, reveals the truth, makes it possible to "see a distant distance" ("I don't know the wisdom suitable for others, / only mumbety I woy in verse. / Each mumbiness I see the worlds, / Full changeable rainbow game "). The wife of Balmont E. A. Andreeva wrote about this: "He lived at the moment and was content with him, not embarrassed by Petroy change of MiGs, just only fully and more beautifully express them. He was angry evil, then good, then leaning towards paganism, it bowed to Christianity. " She told how one day, noticing from the window of the apartment from the window of Wen, Balmont immediately created a poem "in the capital"; As he suddenly gave rise to his finished stanzas, the sound of rain droplets falling from the roof. Self-characteristic: "I am a cloud, I am the wind of the breath", given in the book "Under the Northern Sky", Balmont tried to match until the end of his life.

An unusually spectacular many found a melodic technique of repetitions developed by Balmont ("I caught a dreaming out out. / Excessive shadows of the yielding day. / I was breathtaking on the tower, and trembled, / and trembled under my feet."). It was noted that Balmont knew how to repeat the detachable word that the fascinating power was awakened in it. "(" But at the time of the hour, between the rocks of the birthdays again / I will see the sun, the sun, the sun is red, like blood "). Balmont has developed its own colorful epithet style, introduced such nouns such as "Sveta", "dusk", "smokes", "monscity", "mumbety", continued, following the traditions of Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Galdich, experiment with the splicing of individual epithets In the borders ("joyful-expanded rivers", "their every look designed-truthful", "trees so dusk-strange-silent"). Not everyone took these innovations, but Innokenty Annensky, objection to the critics of Balmont, argued that his "sophistication ... far from personality. The rare poet is so free and easily solves the most complex rhythmic tasks and, avoiding banalities, in such extent alien and artificiality, as Balmont, "" equally alien and provincialism and the German oscillation of Feta. " According to Criticism, this particular poet "brought out of the chief of the singular forms" a number of distrastruations, which in his interpretation "lit up and became air."

All, even skeptics, as the undoubted dignity of his poems, noted rare musicality, which sounded a sharp contrast of the "anemic of journal poetry" of the end of the previous century. As if reoverfing the beauty and self-fellation of the word before the reader, his, according to Annensky, "Musical Potense", Balmont largely corresponded to the motto proclaimed by the Field of the Name: "Music - first of all." Valery Bryusov, the first years was under the strong influence of Balmont, wrote that all lovers of Balmont poetry fought "in his ring-singer verse" that "equal balmont in the art of verse in Russian literature was not." "I have a quiet conviction that before me, in general, I did not know how to write sonorous poems in Russia," there was a brief assessment of the poet of his own contribution to the literature taken in those years.

Along with the advantages of modern Balmont critics found in his work and many flaws. Nerova called the work of Balmont Yu. I. Ayhenwald, who, along with poems, "who are captivated by the musical flexibility of their sizes, the wealth of their psychological gamma," found the poet "and such storms that are verminated and unpleasant to death, even unrealized who are far from poetry and discover breakthroughs and failures in the rational, rhetorical prose. " According to Dmitry Mirsky, "most of them written it can be bolded as unnecessary, including all verses after 1905, and without exception, the most sluggish, pompous and meaningless in Russian literature." Although "the sound of Balmont really exceeded all Russian poets," he also distinguishes "the complete absence of a sense of the Russian language, which, apparently, is explained by the Western character of his poetry. It sounds poems as foreign. Even the best sounds like transfers. "

Researchers noted that Balmont's poetry, built on spectacular verbal musical consonents, well passed the atmosphere and mood, but at the same time the drawing, plastic images, were mistaken and outlined the outlines of the displayed item. It was noted that the novelty of poetic funds, which Balmont was proud of, was only relative. "The verse of Balmont is the verse of our past, improved, sophisticated, but, essentially, the same," Valery Bryusov wrote in 1912. Declarated "The desire to be born in the Spirit of someone else's or left in the past civilization, someone else's country" some were interpreted as a claim for versatility; It was believed that the latter is a consequence of the absence of a "single creative rod in the soul, the lack of integrity, which many and many symbolists suffered." Andrey White spoke about the "pettyness of his" dare "," the disgrace of his "freedom" ", the tendency to the" constant lie to himself, who has already become the truth for his soul. " Later, Vladimir Mayakovsky called Balmont and Igor Northerner "Fatoka manufacturers."

Innokenty Annene about Balmont

The defiant-narcissistic revelations of the poet shocked the literary public; He was reproached in self-reading and self-examination. Among those who got on his defense, was one of the ideologues of the symbolism of Innocent Annensky, who (in particular, about one of the most "egocentric" poems "I am the sophistication of Russian slow speech ...") reproached criticism in bias, believing that It "may seem nonsense of greatness to those people who do not want to see this form of insanity for the banality of romantic formulas." Annensky expressed the assumption that "" I "Mr. Balmont is not personal and not collective, but first of all, our, only strong and expressed by Balmont." "The verse is not creating a poet, it even if you want, does not belong to the poet. The verse is inseparable from the lyrical I, it is his connection with the world, its place in nature; Maybe his excuse, "explained the critic, adding:" The new verse is strong in love with himself and in others, and the self-flammability is here to replace the classical pride of poets with their merit. " Appearing that "I Balmont lives, in addition to the power of his aesthetic love, two absurdities - the absurdity of the wholeness and absurd of justification," Annena led an example a poem "distant loved ones" (I am alien to your reasoning: "Christ", "Antichrist", "Devil" , "God" ...), noting the presence of an internal fields in it, which "in itself decomposes the integrity of perceptions."

According to Annensky, it was Balmont one of the first in Russian poetry began a study of the dark world of the unconscious, on which the "Great Visioner" Edgar software pointed out the first century. On the widespread reproach to Balmont, concerned by the "immorality" of his lyrical hero, Annensky noticed: "... Balmont wants to be bold and bold, hate, admire the crime, combine the executioner with the victim ...", because "tenderness and femininity - here Basic and, so to speak, the determination of its poetry. " These "properties" explained the critic and "comprehensivity" of the poet's worldview: "In Balmont's poetry, there is everything you want: both Russian legend, and Baudelaire, and the Chineseology, and the Flemish landscape in Rodenbakhov lighting, and Ribeira, and Upanishada, and Agur. Mazda, and Scottish Saga, and folk psychology, and Nietzsche, and Nizrasche. And at the same time, the poet always holistically lives in what he writes that in a real moment I am in love with his verse, it is not equally faithful. "

Creativity 1905-1909

The pre-revolutionary period of Balmont's creativity ended with the release of the collection "Liturgy of Beauty. The natural hymns "(1905), the main motives of which were the challenge and reproach of modernity," curse of people ", who disappeared, on the conviction of the poet," from the first-axis of being ", nature and the sun, lost their original integrity (" We broke out, split the living fusion of all Elements ";" People the sun ripped up, it is necessary to return them to the sun "). The poems of Balmont 1905-1907, presented in the two-prohibited collections of the "poems" (1906) and "Avenger's" songs (Paris, 1907), were inferred to the "Self-Cultural Beast", "crucial" bold workers " And generally differed in extreme radicalism. Poets-contemporaries, as subsequently and researchers of creativity, this "political period" in the work of Balmont was estimated low. "In what unfortunate hour, Balmont came to the head that he could be a singer of social and political relations, a civilian singer of modern Russia! .. The three-skill book, published by the" knowledge "by the partnership, makes an impression. There are no poetry here. "I wrote Valery Bryusov.

During these years, a national topic was also shown in the work of the poet, exposed at a kind of corner of view: Balmont opened the reader the "epic" Russia, legends and the tales of which strived shifting to his own, modern way. The passion for the poet of Slavic Starina found his reflection in the poetic collection of "evil spells" (1906), the books "Firebird. Slavil Slavyanina "(1907) and" Green Vertograd. The words of the kiss "(1909), where poetically processed folklore plots and texts were presented, including sectarian songs, magic spells and whip" wound "(in which, from the point of view of the poet, the" People's Reason "was reflected), as well as the collection" Call of Antiquity "With its samples of" first alarm "of non-Slavic peoples, ritual magic and priestly poetry. Folklore experiments of the poet, who took the epidema and folk talkers to the Decadent Lad, met basically a negative reaction of criticism, was regarded as "obviously unsuccessful and fake stylization, resembling toy non-Russian style" in painting and architecture of that time. Alexander Blok already in 1905 wrote about "excessive spices" of Balmont's poems, Bryusov emphasized that the epic heroes of Balmont "are funny and miserable" in the "Sultuka of the Decadent". Block in 1909 wrote about his new verses: "It is almost exclusively ridiculous nonsense ... At best, it looks like some nonsense, in which, with a lot of effort, you can catch (or come up) a spinning lyrical meaning ... There is a wonderful Russian poet Balmont And there is no new poet Balmont. "

In the collections "Birds in the air. Rows smely "(SPB., 1908) and" dance time. All states "(M., 1909) Criticism noted the monotony of those, images and receptions; Balmont reproached that he was in captivity of old, symbolist canons. The so-called "ballmontisms" ("Sun-member", "Kiss", "Pisultolic" and so on) in a new cultural and social atmosphere caused bewilderment and irritation. Subsequently, it was recognized that there was a decline in the work of the poet and it lost the importance that he had at the beginning of the century.

Late Balmont

The creativity of Balmont 1910-1914 was largely marked by impressions from numerous and long trips - in particular, in Egypt ("Edge of Oziris", 1914), as well as on Ocean Islands, where, as it seemed to poet, he found really happy people, not Invalidate and "purity". Oral legends, fairy tales and legends of the Peoples Oceania Balmont popularized in Russian for a long time, in particular, in the collection "White architect. The sacrament of four lamps "(1914). During these years, criticism basically wrote about his creative "sunset"; Balmontov style novelty factor has ceased to act, the technique remained the same and, according to many, was reborn in the stamp. The books "Zarok Zor" (1912) and "ash" were recognized somewhat more. Vision of the Tree "(1916), but they also marked" tedious monotony, lethargy, banal beautifulness - a sign of all late lyrics of Balmont. "

The creativity of Balmont in emigration received ambiguous assessments. The contemporaries of the poet considered this period to be faln nominated: "... I never seem to be the Balmontic verse that it was deceiving with a new singer," V. Nabokov wrote about him. Later researchers noted that in the books published after 1917, Balmont showed new, strengths of their dating. "The late poems of Balmont is nude, easier, humane and more affordable what he wrote before. They are most often about Russia, and those Balmontovskaya "Slavic gilding" appear clearer, who once mentioned Innokentiy Annensky mentioned, "said Nikolay Bannikov's poet. He also noted that "Balmont's peculiarity - throwing some kind of inspired, rarely beautiful individual lines" - manifested itself in the emigrant work as never bright. Such poems as "dune pines" and "Russian language", critic calls "small masterpieces." It was noted that the representative of the "senior" generation of Russian symbolists, "Many burned as a poet,", Balmont, in those years, sounded in a new way: "In his verses ... no" mumbety "appear, and authentic, deep feelings: anger, bitterness, despair. The capricious "whimsicalness" of his creativity is displaced by a feeling of a huge universal misfortune, funeral "beautifulness" - the rigor and clarity of expression. "

Evolution of the worldview

The early creativity of Balmont in ideologically philosophically was considered in many ways secondary: the passion for the ideas of "fraternity, honor, freedom" was a tribute to the general sentiments of the poetic community. The dominant themes of his creativity were the Christian feeling of compassion, the admiration of the beauty of religious shrines ("One is in the world of beauty - / love, sadness, renunciation / and voluntary torment / for us crucified Christ"). There is an opinion that, becoming a professional translator, Balmont fell under the influence of his literature translated. Gradually, the "Christian-democratic" dreams about the bright future began to seem outdated to him, Christianity lost its former attractiveness, the hot response in the soul found works by Friedrich Nietzsche, works of Henric Ibsen with their bright imagery ("Towers", "Construction", "climbing" to the tops world). Valery Bryusov, with whom Balmont met in 1894, wrote in the diary that Balmont "called Christ with a lacker, philosopher for beggars." The essence of his new worldview Balmont outlined in the sketch "at height", published in 1895:

In the poetry of Balmont, the "demonic" ideas and sentiments began to prevail, gradually mastered them and in real life. Returning with S. A. Polyakov, the poet received significant funds to his disposal and went into a litter, an important part of which was the romantic "victories", which had a somewhat ominous, pagan hue. N. Petrovskaya, who fell into the zone of attraction "Char" Balmont, but from her soon came under the influence of the "fields" of Brysov, recalled: "... it was necessary ... or to become a companion of his" crazy nights ", throwing all his creature to these monstrous bonfires, Before health inclusive, or go to the staff of his "wing-mironositz", humbly followed by the heels of the triumphal chariot, talking about the choir only about him, breathing only by Fimyama of His glory and threw their foci, beloved and husbands for this great mission ... "

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron about Balmont

"Demonic" moods in Balmont's poetry so were characterized by a modern poet criticism:

The whole collection of witches, devils-incubations and devils-succubs, vampires, who came out of the coffins of the dead, monstrous forces, chimera, etc., defills the whole collection of witches, the vampires, and so on. With the whole of this venerable company, the poet is in the most closely; Believe him, so he himself is a real monster. He not only "loved his carelessness," he not only consists of "tiger passions", "snake feelings and a doom" - he is a direct fan of the devil:

If somewhere, over the world

Someone's wise world rules

Why my spirit, vampire,

Satan sings and famous.

The tastes and sympathies of the devil fan are the most satanic. He loved Albatross, this "marine and air robber", for the "shamelessness of pirate gusts," he glorifies Scorpio, he feels a mental affinity with the "thieves of Rome" by Nonron ... He loves red, because it is a blood color ...

About how Balmont himself perceived his own life of those years, one can judge his correspondence with Bryusov. One of the constants of these letters was the proclamation of his own uniqueness, elevation over the world. But the poet experienced horror before what happened: "Valery, cute, write me, do not leave me, I'm so suffering. If I were able to talk about the devil's power, about the horror of the horror, which I wonder in my life! Do not want anymore. I play with madness and madness playing with me "(from a letter dated April 15, 1902). His next meeting with the new Beloved, E. Tsvetkovskaya, the poet in a letter dated July 26, 1903 described this way: "Elena came to St. Petersburg. I've seen her, but fled to a public house. I like public houses. Then I was lying on the floor, in the seizure of hysterical stubbornness. Then I fled again in a different temple of Shabash, where many Virgin sang songs to me ... E. came for me and took me, completely distraught, in Merrekchul, where a few days and nights I was in hell of nightmares and dreams that my eyes frightening looking ... ".

Around the world, in many ways, strengthened Balmont in his rejection of Christianity. "Yes, there will be curses that do not spare stone. I'm not a sorry of dismissed bodies, I'm not sorry for the dead. But to see the nasty Christian cathedral on the site of the ancient temple, where the sun prayed, but to know that he stands on the monuments of mysterious art burned to the land, "he wrote from Mexico Bruce. It is believed that the extreme point of "the poet's fall in the abyss" marked the collection "Evil Chairs": after that, a gradual return to the "bright start" began in his spiritual development. Boris Zaitsev, characterizing the worldview of the poet, wrote: "Of course, the self-adjustment, the lack of a sense of God and the smallness of his before him, however, there lived some sunshine in it, light and natural musicality." Zaitsev considered the poet "pagan, but a light shield" (unlike Bruce), noting: "... There were also real Russian traits in it ... And he himself was touching (in good minutes)."

Shocks 1917-1920 caused radical changes in the worldview of the poet. The first evidence of this was already manifested in the collection of "Sun Suns, Honey and Moon" (1917), where a new Balmont appeared in front of the reader: "There is still a lot of pretentiousness in it, but still more spiritual equilibrium, which is harmoniously poured into the perfect sonnet form, and The main thing - it can be seen that the poet is no longer torn in the abyss - he grips the way to God. " The inner reincarnation of the poet was also promoted by his friendship with I. S. Shmelev, which arose in emigration. As Zaitsev wrote, Balmont, always "paganly conflicted life, her and brilliants", confessing before the death, produced a deep impression of the sincerity and power of repentance: he "considered himself an incractive sinner, which cannot be forgiven."

Memories and reviews about Balmont

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

"I could still tell you about living Balmont, whose loyal eyewitness I had the happiness to be whole nineteen years old, about Balmont - completely incomprehensible and anywhere not imprinted ... And my whole soul was gratitude," she confessed.

In his memoirs, Tsvetaeva was critical - in particular, spoke of "unboundedness" of Balmont's poetry: "In the Russian fairy tale, Balmont is not Ivan-Tsarevich, and the overseas guest, scattering in front of the royal daughter all the gifts of heat and seas. I always have a feeling that Balmont speaks in some foreign language, which - I do not know, Balmontovsky. " A. P. Chekhov wrote about the outside of the same feature, noting about Balmont, that that "... reads very funny, with broke," so "... it is difficult to understand."

B. K. Zaitsev imprinted the image of Balmont of Moscow - eccentric, spoiled by worship, capricious. "But he visited and completely different ... Quiet, even sad ... Despite the presence of the fans, he kept simply - no theater," said the memorarist. The Moscow period of life Balmont also told Roman Gul - however, according to his own words, "monstrous things", besides other words. Negatively responded about Balmont I. A. Bunin, who saw in a man's poet, who "... In all his long life, he did not say a single word in simplicity." "Balmont was generally an amazing person. A person sometimes admired his "childishness", unexpected naive laugh, which, however, has always been with some demon, a man, in nature, there was no little feigned tenderness, "sweetness", expressing his tongue, but not enough and completely The other is the dicago buyclosure, brutal rudgery, area audacity. It was a man who truly squeezed his whole life from self-ability, was eager ... ", - wrote Bunin.

In the memoirs of V. S. Yanovsky, Andrei Sedoy and I. V. Odoyeva Poet in emigration was shown as a living anachronism. Memoirists most of them belonged to Balmont only with human sympathy, refusing his works of the emigrant period in artistic value. Poet Mikhail Zetlin, noticing soon after the death of Balmont, which made them would not get on one human life, but "on the whole literature of a small nation," complained that the poets of the new generation of Russian emigration "... worshiped the block, opened Annensky, loved Sologuba , I read Khodsevich, but were indifferent to Balmont. He lived in spiritual loneliness. "

As I wrote many years later by E. A. Yevtushenko, "... Balmont had plenty of flirty empty sounding," beautifulness. " However, poetry was his genuine love, and he served only to her alone - maybe too tough, hesitated by the same inquisite Fimyama, but beless. " "There are nice poems, excellent poems, but pass by, die without a trace. And there are poems as if banal, but there are some radioactivity in them, special magic. These poems live. Such were some poems of Balmont, "wrote TEFFI.

Balmont - about predecessors and contemporaries

Balmont called Calderon, William Blake and "the most outstanding symbolist" - Edgar by the symbolists. In Russia, he considered the poet, "symbolism comes from Feta and Tyutchev." From the modern Russian symbolists of Balmont, first of all Vyacheslav Ivanova, the poet, who, according to him, is able to combine "deep philosophical moods with an extraordinary beauty of the form", as well as Yurgis Baltrushattys, Sergey Gorodetsky, Anna Akhmatova, which was "one step with Mirry Lohwitsky, "and Fedor Sologuba, calling the latter" the most attractive of modern writers and one of the talented poets ").

Balmont critically responded about Futurism, noticing: "Futuristic fermentation, which are associated with some new names, I consider the manifestations of the inner work, looking for the exit, and mainly - the manifestation of that screaming, tasteless, advertising American, which is noted all our broken Russian life " In another interview of the same time, the poet responded to this course even more sharply:

Speaking of Russian classics, the poet mentioned first of all F. M. Dostoevsky - the only one of the Russian writers, along with A. S. Pushkin and A. A. Fetom, who had a strong influence on him. "True, lately I moved away from him: I, who believes in the solar harmony, became alien to his dark spirits," he stipulated in 1914. Balmont personally met with Lv Tolstoy; "It is like a not told confession," he characterized his impressions of the meeting. However, "I don't like Tolstoy, like a novelist, and I love even less - as a philosopher," he said in 1914. Among the most close to him in the spirit of Classic writers Balmont called Gogol and Turgenev; From the Belletrists-contemporaries as a writer "with subtle moods" noted Boris Zaitseva.

Balmont and Mirra Lochwitskaya

In Russia before the emigration, Balmont had two truly loved ones. About one of them, V. Ya. Bryusov, the poet wrote like a man "the only necessary" to him in Russia "When we left Balmont after the wedding, a correspondence was raised between the poets, and Balmont became missed most of the Buses. He wrote him often and waited impatiently his letters, "he testified to E. A. Andreeva-Balmont. The arrival of Balmont to Moscow ended in a label. Andreeva gave the book of memories of his explanation on this subject: "I have a reason to think that Bryusov jealous of his wife, John Matveyevna, to Balmont, who captured her, did not think, as always, hiding his enthusiasm or from his wife, nor from husband ... but I can't say. " However, there was a reason to assume that another woman was a stumbling block in the relationship between two poets, which the second wife of Balmont in his memories chose not even mention.

The second close friend of Balmont became in the late 1890s of Mirra Lokhvitskaya. The details of their personal relationship are documented: the only preserved source can serve their own poetic recognition of two poets, published during an explicit or hidden dialogue, which has long been a decade. Balmont and Lohvitskaya met allegedly in 1895 in the Crimea. Lochwitskaya, married woman with children and by that time more famous than Balmont, poetess, the first began a poetic dialogue, which gradually developed into a stormy "novel in verse." In addition to direct dedications, the researchers later discovered the many poems - "halves", the meaning of which was clear only when comparing (Balmont: "... The sun comes into a boring his way. Something prevents the heart to breathe ..." - Lochwitskaya: "The winter sun led the silver path. Happy - who can relax on a cute chest ... "And so on).

After three years, Lochwitskaya became deliberately completing the Platonic Roman, realizing that the continuation of him in reality can not be. From her side, a kind of gap sign was the poem "in the sarcophaga" (in the spirit of "Annabel-Lee": "I dreamed - we dreamed in the sarcophagus, / attentive, as a surf of stones beats a wave. / And our names burned in a wonderful Saga / two stars, merged into one "). Balmont wrote a few answers to this poem, in particular one of the most famous, "inspiserable" ("... frozen corpses, we lived in a conscious of the curse, / which is in the grave - in the grave! - We are in a volatile pose of arms ...").

As noted by T. Alexandrov, Lohvitskaya "made a choice of man of the XIX century: the choice of debt, conscience, responsibility to God"; Balmont made the choice of the XX century: "The most complete satisfaction of growing needs." His poetic appeals did not stop, but the frank confessions in them now lost their place of threats. The state of health has deteriorated in Lohwitsky, there were problems with the heart, on the new poems of Balmont, she continued to respond with "painful constancy". This durable, but at the same time destructive communication, immersing both poets into a deep personal crisis, put an end to the early death of Lohwitsky in 1905. Her with Balmont, a literary novel remained one of the most mysterious phenomena of the Russian literary life of the beginning of the twentieth century. The poet for many years continued to admire the poetic gift to his early died lover and said Anna Akhmatova that he knew only two poetems to meet with her: Safo and Mirru Lohwitsky.

Balmont and Maxim Gorky

The correspondence acquaintance of the poet with Gorky took place on September 10, 1896, when the latter in the feuethon cycle "Running notes", who printed "Nizhny Novgorod leaflet", responded for the first time about the verses of Balmont. After holding a parallel between the author of the collection "in vastness" and Zinaida Hippius ("beyond the limits"), the author Ironically advised both going "beyond the limits of the limit, to the abyss of light vastness." Gradually, Gorky's opinion about the poet began to change: he liked such poems as the "blacksmith", "Albatross", "Memories of the evening in Amsterdam." The second review about the Gorky poet left in the same newspaper on November 14, 1900. In turn, the poem "Witch", "Spring" and "roadside herbs" in the magazine "Life" (1900) Balmont printed with the dedication of bitter.

Balmont and Meterlink

The Moscow Art Theater instructed Balmont to negotiate with Maurice Meterlink about the formulation of his "Blue Bird". The poet so told Taffphi about this episode:

He did not let me down 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 in some tenth room, completely empty. A fat dog was sitting on the chair. Nearby stood mellink. I outlined the Offer of the Art Theater. Mellink was silent. I repeated. He continued to be silent. Then the dog flashed, and I went.

TEFFI. Memories.

Gorky and Balmont first met in the fall of 1901 in Yalta. Together with Chekhov, they went to Gaspra to the Lion Tolstoy lived there. "I got acquainted with Balmont. Devilski is interesting and talented this neurasthenik! .. ", - Bitter reported in one of the letters. In merit Balmont Gorky put the fact that he believed "betrayed the curse, poured by the poison of contempt ... a fussy, aimless life, full cowardice and lies, covered with faded words, dim life of half-man." Balmont, in turn, appreciated the writer for the fact that the "finished strong personality, ... a singing bird, and not an ink soul." At the beginning of the 1900s, bitter in his own words, it took to customize the poet "on a democratic way." He brought Balmont to participate in the Publishing House "Knowledge", defended the poet when the press began to make fun of his revolutionary hobbies, cooperation with the Bolshevik publications. Balmont, for some time "setting up" responded, in 1901 recognized: "I was all the time with you sincere, but too often incomplete. As it is difficult for me to get rid of immediately - and from the false, and from the dark, and from his inclination to madness, to excessive madness. " The real convergence of Gorky with Balmont did not work. Gradually, bitterly once more critically responded about the work of Balmont, believing that in the poetry of the latter, everything was directed to the dedication to the detriment of social reasons: "What is Balmont? This is the bell tower is high and patterned, and the bells are all small on it ... Isn't it time to spawn into big? " Considering Balmont Language Master, the writer stipulated: "Large, of course, the poet, but the slave of words intoxicating him."

The final gap 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 of the poet, related to the infringement of rights and freedoms in Soviet Russia, was sent to Gorky. In the emigrant newspapers "Revival", "Today" and "For Freedom!" A article of Balmont "Peshkov's tradesman was printed. According to the pseudonym: bitter, "with the acute criticism of the proletarian writer. His poem "Open Letter Gorky" ("You threw a stone in the face of the militant people. " Gorky, in turn, made serious accusations against Balmont, who, according to his version, wrote a cycle of bad pseudo-monovative poems "Sickle and Hammer" the only way to get permission to travel abroad, and having achieved his own, declared himself the enemy of Bolshevism and allowed himself Sensiatricly "hasty" sayings, which, as the proletarian writer believed, was affected by the fatal way on the fate of many Russian poets, who were extending in those days to receive permission to leave: among them were called white, block, strawberry. In the polemical stage, Gorky responded to Balmont as a man's man and because of alcoholism not quite normal. "As a poet, he is the author of one, really beautiful books of poems" will be like the sun. " Still, his rest is very skillful and musical play words, no more. "

Balmont and I. S. Shmelev

At the end of 1926, K. D. Balmont unexpectedly for many came close to I. S. Shmelev, and this friendship lasted before his death. Before the revolution, they belonged to the opposite literary camps (respectively, "decadent" and "realistic") and did not have each other, it seemed, nothing in common, but in emigration almost immediately in their protests and public promotions began to perform a united front.

There were differences between them. So, Shmelev did not approve of Balmontovsky "cosmopolitanism". "Eh, Konstantin Dmitrievich, all that you have Lithuanians and Finns, yes Mexicans. What would at least a Russian book ... "," he said, being visiting. Balmont recalled that, responding to this, showed him and Russian books lying in the room, but it was very small on Shmelev. "He is saddened that I am multiple and crowded. He would like me to love only Russia, "the poet complained. In turn, Balmont has repeated more than once with the shlekev - in particular, about the article Ivan Ilina about the crisis in contemporary art ("he clearly does not understand in poetry and music, if ... there are such invalid words about the excellent creativity of the ingenious and enlightened Scriabin, Pure-Russian and highly illuminated Vyacheslav Ivanov, the radiant Stravinsky, classic-pure Prokofiev ... ").

In many ways, the durable spiritual union of two, it would seem completely different people due to the fundamental changes that occurred in the years of emigration in the worldview of Balmont; The poet appealed to Christian values \u200b\u200bthat rejected many years. In 1930, the poet wrote:

Balmont Higioly supported Shmelev, at times of the victim of the acute intrigue intrigue, and on this basis, it was raised with the editorial office of the "last news", published by Article George Ivanov, who was negligiously responded about the novel "Love History". Defending the shmeleva, Balmont wrote that "just from all modern Russian writers has the richest and peculiar Russian"; His "Inspromandable Bowl" stands "Vrowning with the best stories of Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky," and appreciated - first of all, in countries, "accustomed to respect for respectful artistic talent and spiritual purity."

In the 1930s, friendship with the bumblebee remained the main support for him. "Friend, if you were not, there would be no brighter and affectionate feeling in my life in the last 8-9 years, there would be no faithful and strong mental support and support, in the clock, when the exhausted soul was ready to break ... "I wrote Balmont on October 1, 1933.

Appearance and nature

Andrei White characterized Balmont as an unusually lonely, torn off from the real world and a defenseless person, and saw the cause of troubles in the properties of irrigated and non-permanent, but at the same time an unusually generous nature: "He failed to combine all the riches that His nature awarded in himself. He is the eternal ILO spiritual treasure ... will get - and dreamed, will get and divert. He gives them to us. Schows on us your creative cup. But he himself does not fall from his creativity. " White left and expressive description of the appearance of Balmont:

Light, slightly seaming gait just throws Balmont forward, into space. Rather, Balmont falls on Earth from the space - to the salon, to the street. And the impulse is shifted in it, and he realized that he didn't get there, ceremoniously restrained, puts on Pensne and arrogantly (or rather, frightened) looks around, raises dry lips framed by red, like fire, a beard. Deeply sitting in orbits almost facing his brown eyes sadly looking, meeklyko and incredulously: they can look and vengefully, giving out something helpless in Balmont itself. And because all his appearance bounces. Invitation and impotence, greatness and lethargy, daring, fright - all this alternates in it, and what a subtle whimping gamma passes on his exhausted face, pale, with wide swelling nostrils! And how this person may seem insignificant! And what unfortunate grace sometimes emits this face! A. White. Green meadow. 1910.

"Lightly reddish, with live quick eyes, highly raised head, high straight collars, ... a beard with a clina, a view of a combat. (The portrait of Serov excellent transfers it.) Something darling, ready to always boil, answer sharpness or enthusiastically. If you compare with birds, then this is a magnificent Shantecler, a welcoming day, light, life ... ", - I remember Balmont Boris Zaitsev.

Ilya Ehrenburg recalled that he read his poems Balmont by the voice "inspired and arrogant," as "Shaman, who knows that his words have force if not over an evil spirit, then over poor nomads." The poet, according to him, spoke in all languages \u200b\u200bwith an emphasis - not with the Russian, and with Balmontovsky, peculiarly pronouncing the sound "H" - "not that in French, not that in Polish." Speaking of the impression that Balmont already produced in the 1930s, Ehrenburg wrote that on the street Togo it was possible to take "... for the Spanish anarchist or just for the vigilance of the watchmen of the crazy." V. S. Yanovsky, remembering the meeting with Balmont in the 1930s, noticed: "... Drying, gray, with a sharp beard, Balmont ... was like the ancient God of Svarog or Dazhbog, in any case, something Staroslavansky."

Contemporaries characterized Balmont as an extremely sensitive, nervous and fondant man, "light on the rise", inquisitive and good-natured, but at the same time prone to affecting and self-adequacy. The behavior of Balmont prevailed theatricality, manneriness and claims, there was a tendency to affecting and outdate. Curious cases are known when he stacked in Paris in the middle of the bridge so that he moved fiakre, or when "lunar at night, in a coat and a hat, with a cane in his hands, was part of the dried moon, throat into the pond, seeking to experience unknown feelings and describe them in verse". Boris Zaitsev told how once the poet asked him: "Faith, you want, the poet will come to you, bypassing boring earth trails, right from yourself, in Boris's room, by air?" (Two married couples were neighbors). Remembering the first such "flight", Zaitsev noticed in the memoirs: "Thank God, in Tolstovsky did not fulfill the intention. He continued to go to us with boring earthly trails, for the sidewalk of his alley turned into our Savier-Peskovsky, past the church. "

Good-naturedly laughing at the manners of his friend, Zaitsev noticed that Balmont was "was different: sad, very simple. He willingly read the new poems present and the penetration of reading brought to the tears. " Many of those who knew the poet were confirmed: from the mask in love with his own image of the "Great Poet" from time to time I looked at a completely different character. "Balmont loved pose. Yes, it is understandable. Constantly surrounded by worship, he considered it necessary to hold on as, in his opinion, a great poet should hold. He leaned his head, frowned his eyebrows. But he gave him laughter. Laughter it was good-natured, children and some kind of defenseless. This children's laughter explained him many ridiculous actions. He, as a child, was given to the mood of the moment ... "- recalled TEFFI.

There were rare humanity, the heat of ballmont character. P. P. Pertsov, who knew the poet from his youth, wrote that it was difficult to meet such a "pleasant, warning-friendly man," like Balmont. Meeting with the poet in the most difficult times, Marina Tsvetaeva testified that he could give to the in need of his "the last tube, the last crust, the latter. The Soviet translator Mark Talov, who was twenties in Paris in Paris without the livelihood, recalled how, leaving the apartment of Balmont, where he was timidly on a visit, found money in his pocket, secretly embedded there by the poet, which at that time he lived far Not luxurious.

Many spoke about the impressionability and impulsivity of Balmont. The most wonderful events of their life he himself considered "those inner sudden lumens that open sometimes in the shower about the most minor external facts." So, "I first flashed, before mystical conviction, the thought of the possibility and inevitability of world happiness was born in it" Seventeen years old, when once in Vladimir, in a bright winter day, from the mountain, he saw the black-in-long Men's Men. "

In the nature of Balmont, and something feminine was noticed: "In no matter what militant postures he got up ... All his life he was closer and relatively female souls." The poet himself believed that the lack of the sisters awakened a special interest in female nature. At the same time, in his nature, some "childhood" remained all his life, which he himself even a few "flirting" and which many considered pretended. However, it was noted that even in the mature years, the poet really "the taste in the soul is something very direct, gentle, children's". "I still feel like a fiery gymnasium, shy and bold," Balmont himself confessed, when he was already under thirty.

The tendency to external effects, deliberate "Bohemity" served the poet of a bad service: few knew that "with all the exaltation ... Balmont was a tireless worker," he worked a lot, wrote every day and was very fruitful, all his life was engaged in self-education ("read the whole libraries") , I studied languages \u200b\u200band natural sciences, and traveling, enriched itself not only with new impressions, but also information on history, ethnography, folklore of each country. In the mass presentation, Balmont remained primarily a pretentious eccentric, but many noted in its nature rationality and sequence. S. V. Sabashnikov recalled that the poet "... almost did not make blots in his manuscripts. Poems in tens of lines, apparently, were in his head completely finished and once entered the manuscript. "

If there was some kind of correction, he rewrited the text in a new edition, without making any distrays or registers at the initial text. Honor he had a prestone, clear, beautiful. With the extraordinary nervousness of Konstantin Dmitrievich, the handwriting did not reflect him, however, no change in his moods ... and in the habit of his he seemed to be a pedantically neat, not allowing any nozzles. Books, writing table and all accessories of the poet were always alright much more than we have, so-called business people. This accuracy in the work did Balmont a very pleasant employee of the publisher. S. V. Sabashnikov About K. D. Balmont

"Manuscripts, they represented, have always been finally finished and no longer subjected to changes in the set. The proofreading was read clearly and returned quickly, "the publisher added.

Valery Bryusov celebrated in Balmont to the soften love for poetry, "a subtle one to the beauty of the verse." Remembering the evening and nights when they "endlessly read each other's poems and ... the poems of their favorite poets," Bryusov confessed: "I was one before the meeting with Balmont and became another after acquaintance with him." Bruce explained the peculiarities of Balmont's behavior in the life of the deep poetry of his character. "He is experiencing life like a poet, and as soon as poets can worry it, as they are given to them alone: \u200b\u200bfinding all the fullness of life at every point. Therefore, it cannot be measured by the general arches. "

Works (Favorites)

Poetic collections "Collection of poems" (Yaroslavl, 1890) "Under the Northern Sky (Ellhegia, Station, Sonnets)" (SPB., 1894) "In the vastness of the darkness" (M., 1895 and 1896) "Silence. Lyrical poems "(SPb., 1898) "Last minute buildings. Modern Soul Lyrics "(M., 1900) "We will be like the sun. Book of characters "(M., 1903) "Only love. Seiscake "(M., 1903) "Liturgy of beauty. Spontaneous Hymns "(M., 1905) "Faith fairy tales (children's songs)" (M., 1905) "Evil spells (book of spells)" (M., 1906) "Poem" (1906) "Firebird (Slavel Slavyanina)" (1907) "Liturgy of beauty (spontaneous hymns)" (1907) "Avenger songs" (1907) "Three heyday (theater of youth and beauty)" (1907) "Time dance (vaglastivity)" (M., 1909) "Birds in the air (singing lines)" (1908) "Green Vertograd (words of the kiss)" (1909) "Links. Selected poems. 1890-1912 "(M.: Scorpio, 1913) "White architect (the sacrament of four lamps)" (1914) "Ash (Vision Dreva)" (1916) "Sonnets of the Sun, Möday and Moon" (1917) "Collection of lyrics" (KN. 1-2, 4, 6. M., 1917)

"Ranger" (M., 1920) "Seven poems" (1920) "Sunny yarn. Ilamizer "(1890-1918) (M., 1921) "Dar Earth" (1921) "Song of the work hammer" (M., 1922) "Marevo" (1922) "Under the new sickle" (1923) "My - her (Russia)" (Prague, 1924) "Dali (poem about Russia)" (Belgrade, 1929) "Silence of Shower" (1930) "Northern Lights (verses of Lithuania and Russia)" (Paris, 1931) Blue Horseshoe (poems about Siberia) (?) "Lighting" (1937) Collections of articles and essays "Mountain peaks" (M., 1904; book first) "Call of antiquity. Hymns, songs and plans of ancient "(PB., 1908) "Snake Flowers" ("Travel letters from Mexico", M., 1910) "Sea glow" (1910) "Garling Zor" (1912) "Svetozvuk in nature and light symphony of Scriabin" (1917)

Translations of works of Balmont into foreign languages

• Gamelan (Gamelang) - in Doa Penyair. Antologi Puisi Sempena Program Bicara Karya Dan Baca Puisi Esastera.com. Kota Bharu, 2005, p. 32 (Translation to Malay Victor Paddaeva).

Konstantin Balmont is a Russian poet, translator, prose, critic, essist. Bright silver century representative. He published 35 collections of poetry, 20 books with prose. Translated a large number of works of foreign writers. Konstantin Dmitrievich is the author of literary studies, philological treatises, critical essays. His poems "Snowflake", "Kamyshey", "Autumn", "By winter", "Fairy" and many others are included in the school curriculum.

Childhood and youth

Konstantin Balmont was born and lived up to 10 years in the village of Humnishi Shui County Vladimir Province in a poor, but noble family. His father, Dmitry Konstantinovich, first worked as a judge, later took the post of head of the Zemskie. Mother Vera Nikolaevna was from the family, where they loved and were fond of literature. The woman sat down literary evenings, put the performances and printed in a local newspaper.

Vera Nikolaevna knew several foreign languages, and she was inherent in the share of "liberal ointment", "unwanted" people were often located in their house. Later, he wrote that his mother not only instilled love for literature, but he inherited his "spiritual system." In the family, in addition to Constantine, there was seven sons. He was the third. Watching the mother teaches the letter of senior brothers, the boy independently learned to read in 5 years.

There lived a family in the house that stood on the banks of the river, surrounded by the gardens. Therefore, when it was time for children to give to school, they moved to seam. Thus, they had to break away from nature. The boy wrote his first poems at 10 years old. But Mom did not approve these undertakings, and he did not write anything for the next 6 years.

In 1876, Balmont was enrolled in the Shui gymnasium. At first, Kostya showed himself as a diligent student, but soon he missed all this. He became interested in reading, while some books in German and French he read in the original. From the gymnasium, it was excluded for poor training and revolutionary moods. Already then he consisted in an illegal circle, which distributed leaflets of the Folk Free party.

Konstantin moved to Vladimir and studied there until 1886. While learning in the gymnasium, his poems were published in the metropolitan magazine "Picturesque Review", but this event remained unnoticed. After he entered Moscow University at the Faculty of Law. But here it was not long for a long time.

He became close to Peter Nikolaev, who was a sixtieth revolutionary. Therefore, it is not surprising that after 2 years it was expelled for participating in student unrest. Immediately after this incident, he was sent from Moscow to see.

In 1889, Balmont decided to recover at the university, but because of the nervous disorder, it was not possible to make it possible to retransly. The same fate heded him and in the Demidov Lying team of legal sciences, where he arrived later. After this attempt, he decided to leave the idea to receive "stateless" education.

Literature

The first collection of poems Balmont wrote when was chained to bed after unsuccessful suicide. I published a book in Yaroslavl in 1890, but later the poet himself personally destroyed the main part of the circulation.

All the starting point in the work of the poet is considered the collection "Under the Northern Sky". He was met by the public with admiration, as the subsequent work - "in the vastness of the darkness" and "silence". His willingly began to print in modern magazines, Balmont became popular, he was considered the most promising from the "decadents".

In the middle of the 1890s, he begins to closely communicate with ,. Soon Balmont becomes the most popular poet symbolist in Russia. In verses, he is enthusiastic in the phenomena of the world, and in some collections openly concerns the "demonic" topics. This is noticeable in "evil chars" whose circulation was confiscated by the authorities for censorship reasons.

Balmont travels a lot, so his work is permeated with images of exotic countries and polyculturity. Readers attracts and delight. The poet adheres to the spontaneous improvisation - he never contributed to the texts, believed that the first creative gust was the most faithful.

The contemporaries "Fairy fairy tales", written by Balmont in 1905, were highly appreciated. This collection of fabulous songs The poet devoted to the daughter of Nina.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont was a revolutionary in spirit and in life. The deduction from the gymnasium and the university did not stop the poet. Once he publicly read the verse "Little Sultan", in which everyone saw parallel with. For this they expelled him from St. Petersburg and for 2 years they were banned from living in university cities.

He was an opponent of tsarism, so his participation in the first Russian revolution was expected. At that time, he became friends with and poems wrote such that more resembled rhymed leaflets.

During the December 1905 Moscow uprising, Balmont opposes students. But, fearing arrest, forced to leave Russia. From 1906 to 1913 he lives in France in the status of a political emigrant. Being in a kind of link, he continues to write, but critics increasingly began to talk about the decline of Balmont's creativity. In his last works, they noticed some kind of template and self-acting.

The poet himself considered his best book "Burning buildings. Lyrics of the modern soul. " If, before this collection, his lyrics was filled with longing and melancholy, then the "burning buildings" opened Balmont on the other hand - "solar" and cheerful notes appeared in the work.

Returning to Russia in 1913, he published a 10-Tomny complete writings. It is working on translations and lectures in the country. The February revolution Balmont perceived enthusiastically, like the whole Russian intelligentsia. But soon came to the horror of the ongoing anarchy in the country.

When the October Revolution began, he was in St. Petersburg, he said, it was a "hurricane of madness" and "chaos". In 1920, the poet moved to Moscow, but soon because of the weak health of the spouse and daughter moved to France with them. In Russia, he no longer returned.

In 1923, Balmont issued two autobiographies - "Under the new Sherp" and "Air Way". Until the first half of the 1930s, he drove all over Europe, his speeches had success. But here the Russian diaspora has not enjoyed recognition.

The sunset of his creativity fell in 1937, then he published his last collection of poems "Light Service."

Personal life

In 1889, Konstantin Balmont married the daughter of Ivanovo-Voznesensky merchant - Larisa Mikhailovna Malina. I introduced their mother, but when he announced his intention to marry, spoke out against this marriage. Konstantin showed his inflexibility and even went for his beloved for a gap with his family.

Konstantin Balmont and his first wife Larisa Gallin

As it turned out, his young spouse was prone to unjustified jealousy. They always quarreled, the woman did not support him in any literary, nor in revolutionary endeavors. Some researchers note that it was she who added Balmont to the guilt.

On March 13, 1890, the poet decided to suicide - he jumped into a bridge from the third floor of his own apartment. But the attempt failed - he lay down in bed, and from the injured injuries remained chrome.

In marriage with Larisa, they had two children. Their first child died in infancy, the second - the son of Nikolai - was sick of a nervous disorder. As a result, Konstantin and Larisa diverged, she married a journalist and writer Engeldt.

In 1896, Balmont married the second time. His wife became Ekaterina Alekseevna Andreeva. The girl was from a wealthy family - smart, educated and beautiful. Immediately after the wedding, the lovers went to France. In 1901, they had a daughter Nina. In many ways, they were united by literary activities, together they worked on translations.

Konstantin Balmont and his third wife Elena Tsvetkovskaya

Ekaterina Alekseevna was not a powerful special, but the lifestyle of his spouses dictated. And everything would be fine, if I had not met Balmont in Paris Elena Konstantinovna Tvetkovskaya. The girl was fascinated by the poet, looked like him on God. From now on he lived with his family, then a couple of months left for foreign journeys with Catherine.

His family life was finally confused when the Tsvetkovsky gave birth to Merru's daughter. This event finally tied Constantine to Elena, but at the same time he did not want to divert with Andreva. Sincere torment again led Balmont to suicide. He jumped out of the window, but, as the last time, remained alive.

As a result, he began to live in St. Petersburg with Flower and Mirra and occasionally visited Moscow to Andreva and daughter Nina. Later they immigrated to France. There, Balmont began to meet with Dagmar Shakhovskaya. He did not leave the family, but met with a woman regularly, every day wrote her letters. As a result, she gave birth to him two children - the Son of George and daughter Svetlana.

But in the most difficult years of his life with him, there was still a flowering. She was so predicted that he did not live after his death, went after him.

Death

Having moved to France, he won in Russia. But his health has deteriorated, there were financial problems, so there was no speech about the return. He lived in a cheap apartment with a broken window.

In 1937, the poet discovered a mental illness. From now on, he no longer wrote poems.

On December 23, 1942, he died in the "Russian House" shelter, not far from Paris, in Nyazi-le-Gran. The cause of his death was inflammation of the lungs. The poet in poverty and oblivion.

Bibliography

• 1894 - "Under the Northern Sky (Elegia, Stans, Sonnets)"
• 1895 - "In the vastness of the Mraka"
• 1898 - "Silence. Lyrical poems "
• 1900 - "Last minute buildings. Lyrics of the modern soul "
• 1903 - "We will be like the sun. Character Book »
• 1903 - "Only love. Seiscle
• 1905 - "Liturgy of beauty. Spontaneous hymns »
• 1905 - "Faine fairy tales (children's songs)"
• 1906 - "Evil spells (book of climbing)"
• 1906 - "Poem"
• 1907 - "Avenger Songs"
• 1908 - "Birds in the air (rows of singing)"
• 1909 - "Green Vertograd (words of the kiss)"
• 1917 - "Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and Moon"
• 1920 - "Ranger"
• 1920 - "Seven poems"
• 1922 - "Song of the work hammer"
• 1929 - "Dali (poem about Russia)"
• 1930 - "Summary of Shower"
• 1937 - "Lighthouse"