Konstantin dmitrievich balmont biography. Balmont, Konstantin Dmitrievich - a short biography. Important milestones in the life of Konstantin Balmont

Balmont Konstantin Dmitrievich is a Russian poet who worked in the direction of symbolism, translator, essayist, one of the most significant figures in the poetry of the Silver Age. Among the authors whose works were translated by Balmont are Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, William Blake, Oscar Wilde, Herman Zuderman. Among his works are memoirs, philological treatises, historical and literary studies, critical essays, poetry and prose collections. The great poet was born in the Vladimir region, in the village of Gumnishchi, Shuisky district, on June 15, 1867. Balmont's father served in the Shuisky district court, and his mother was engaged in literature, staged amateur performances and appeared in print. Little Balmont learned to read on his own when he spied on the literacy lessons that his mother gave to his older brother. She also introduced him to the best examples of Russian poetry (Nekrasov, Lermontov, Pushkin).

10 years after the birth of Konstantin Dmitrievich, his family moved to Shuya, because it was time to send the older children to study. In 1877, the young Balmont entered the Shuya gymnasium, but he quickly got bored with his studies, although he made great strides in his studies. The future poet spent more and more time reading, he read French and German books in the original. At the age of ten, he began to compose his first poems. In 1884, Balmont was expelled from the gymnasium for participating in a revolutionary circle and distributing the proclamations of the People's Will. The poet transferred to a gymnasium in Vladimir, where he lived with a Greek teacher. Three of his poems were published in the magazine "Picturesque Review", which caused a negative reaction from Balmont's mentor. He forbade him to publish his works until the end of the gymnasium. Later, the poet compared training there with imprisonment.

Later, in 1886, Konstantin Dmitrievich entered the law faculty of Moscow State University, but a year later he was expelled for participating in the riots. Attempts to get a "state education" continued in 1888, but Balmont abandoned them. In 1889, the poet publishes his first "Collection of Poems", which did not receive any public response, which is why Balmont destroyed the entire print run. The heyday of creative activity falls on the 1890s. At this time, the creator reads a lot, learns foreign languages ​​and travels. In 1894 he translated Gorn's History of Scandinavian Literature, and in 1897 Gaspari's History of Italian Literature.

At this time, there is also a tragic episode in the life of the poet - in 1890 he tried to commit suicide by jumping from the window of the third floor. He spent almost a year in bed, and Balmont later called this time incredibly productive and cheerful. In 1894, the poet publishes his poetry collection Under the Northern Sky, publishes his works in such publishing houses as Scorpio, Libra. In 1895 and 1898 two new books appeared - "In the vastness" and "Silence". 1896 - a trip abroad, to Europe. At this time he travels, lectures in England on Russian poetry. The event of 1901 made him a hero in St. Petersburg. Balmont participates in a mass demonstration of students, a little later in the hall of the City Duma he reads the poem "Little Sultan", where there is criticism of the political regime in Russia. In 1903, Balmont's fourth collection of poetry was published under the title Let's Be Like the Sun. He won great popularity among readers and brought success to the author. In 1905, Konstantin Dmitrievich again traveled abroad, visiting Mexico, California.

In 1905, Balmont took an active part in revolutionary actions, read poetry and lectures to students. His enthusiasm for the revolution was shallow, in 1906 the poet left for Paris. Collections of his poems are banned in Russia, among them "Songs of the Avenger", "Evil Spells", "Green Heliport". Balmont returned to Russia only in 1915. At the same time, his theoretical study entitled "Poetry as Magic" was published, which can be regarded as a continuation of the declaration "Elementary Words on Symbolic Poetry", issued in 1900. Here Balmont writes about the essence and purpose of lyric poetry, speaks of "incantatory and magical" power the words. During these years, the poet wrote more than 200 sonnets, of which he compiled the collection Sonnets of the Sun, Sky and Moon. Many critics accused the author of the monotony of creativity and an excess of "banal prettiness".

Balmont warmly accepts the revolution of 1917, but quickly becomes disillusioned with the new government. In 1920 he made his last move to France, where he wrote several negative articles about the Bolsheviks and the new regime. In Paris, Konstantin Dmitrievich published several poetry collections (“Gift to the Earth”, “Bright Hour”, “Haze”), in 1923 - the memoirs “Under the New Sickle” and “Air Route”. Balmont yearned for his native side, regretting that he had left it forever. This theme is often raised in his poems. In those years, the health of the creator is getting worse, financial problems arise. He is diagnosed with a serious mental disorder. His life was cut short on December 23, 1942 from pneumonia, in Noisy-le-Grand. Balmont became the first representative of symbolist poetry, who received all-Russian fame. His poetry was distinguished by incredible musicality, airiness and beauty.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont (June 3, 1867, Gumnishchi village, Shuisky district, Vladimir province - December 23, 1942, Noisy-le-Grand, France) - symbolist poet, translator, essayist, one of the most prominent representatives of Russian poetry of the Silver Age. Published 35 collections of poetry, 20 books of prose, translated from many languages. Author of autobiographical prose, memoirs, philological treatises, historical and literary studies and critical essays.

Konstantin Balmont was born on June 3 (15), 1867 in the village of Gumnishchi, Shuisky district, Vladimir province, the third of seven sons.

It is known that the poet's grandfather was a naval officer.

Father Dmitry Konstantinovich Balmont (1835-1907) served in the Shuya district court and zemstvo: first as a collegiate registrar, then as a justice of the peace, and finally as chairman of the district zemstvo council.

Mother Vera Nikolaevna, nee Lebedeva, came from a colonel's family, in which they loved literature and were engaged in it professionally. She appeared in the local press, arranged literary evenings, amateur performances. She had a strong influence on the worldview of the future poet, introducing him to the world of music, literature, history, and was the first to teach him to comprehend the "beauty of the female soul."

Vera Nikolaevna knew foreign languages ​​well, read a lot and "was not alien to some free-thinking": "unreliable" guests were received in the house. It was from his mother that Balmont, as he himself wrote, inherited "unbridledness and passion", his entire "mental system".

The future poet learned to read on his own at the age of five, spying on his mother, who taught her older brother to read and write. The touched father presented Konstantin on this occasion with the first book, "something about savage oceanians." Mother introduced her son to samples of the best poetry.

When the time came to send older children to school, the family moved to Shuya. Moving to the city did not mean a separation from nature: the Balmont house, surrounded by a vast garden, stood on the picturesque bank of the Teza River; his father, a hunting lover, often traveled to Gumnishchi, and Konstantin accompanied him more often than others.

In 1876, Balmont entered the preparatory class of the Shuya gymnasium, which he later called "a nest of decadence and capitalists, whose factories spoiled the air and water in the river." At first, the boy made progress, but soon he got bored with his studies, and his performance decreased, but the time came for drunken reading, and he read French and German works in the original. Impressed by what he read, at the age of ten he began to write poetry himself. “On a bright sunny day they arose, two poems at once, one about winter, the other about summer” he recalled. These poetic endeavors, however, were criticized by his mother, and the boy did not try to repeat his poetic experiment for six years.

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

Through the efforts of his mother, Balmont was transferred to the gymnasium of the city of Vladimir. But here he had to live in an apartment with a Greek teacher, who zealously performed the duties of a "supervisor".

At the end of 1885, Balmont made his literary debut. Three of his poems were published in the popular St. Petersburg magazine "Picturesque Review" (November 2 - December 7). This event was not noticed by anyone except the mentor, who forbade Balmont to publish until the end of his studies at the gymnasium.

The acquaintance of the young poet with V. G. Korolenko dates back to this time. The famous writer, having received a notebook with his poems from Balmont's comrades at the gymnasium, took them seriously and wrote a detailed letter to the gymnasium student - a benevolent mentor's review.

In 1886, Konstantin Balmont entered the law faculty of Moscow University, where he became close friends with P. F. Nikolaev, a sixties revolutionary. But already in 1887, for participating in the riots (related to the introduction of a new university charter, which students considered reactionary), Balmont was expelled, arrested and imprisoned for three days in Butyrka prison, and then sent to Shuya without trial.

In 1889, Balmont returned to the university, but due to severe nervous exhaustion he could not study either there or at the Yaroslavl Demidov Lyceum of Legal Sciences, where he successfully entered. In September 1890, he was expelled from the lyceum and left attempts to get a "state education" on this.

In 1889 Balmont married Larisa Mikhailovna Garelina., daughter of an Ivanovo-Voznesensk merchant. A year later, in Yaroslavl, at his own expense, he published his first "Collection of Poems"- some of the youthful works included in the book were published as early as 1885. However, the debut collection of 1890 did not arouse interest, close people did not accept it, and soon after the release, the poet burned almost the entire small edition.

In March 1890, an incident occurred that left an imprint on Balmont's entire subsequent life: he tried to commit suicide by throwing himself out of a third floor window, suffered serious fractures and spent a year in bed.

It was believed that despair from his family and financial situation pushed him to such an act: marriage quarreled with Balmont's parents and deprived him of financial support, the immediate impetus was the Kreutzer Sonata read shortly before. The year spent in bed, as the poet himself recalled, turned out to be creatively very fruitful and led to "unprecedented flowering of mental excitement and cheerfulness".

It was during this year that he realized himself as a poet, saw his own destiny. In 1923, in the biographical story The Airway, he wrote: “In a long year, when I, lying in bed, no longer expected that I would ever get up, I learned from the pre-morning chirping of sparrows outside the window and from the moonbeams that passed through the window into my room, and from all the steps that reached up to my hearing, the great tale of life, understood the holy sanctity of life. And when I finally got up, my soul became free, like the wind in the field, no one else had power over it, except for a creative dream, and creativity flourished in a riotous color..

Some time after his illness, Balmont, who by this time had parted with his wife, lived in need. He, according to his own recollections, for months “didn’t know what it was to be full, and went up to the bakery to admire the rolls and bread through the glass”.

Professor of Moscow University N. I. Storozhenko also provided great assistance to Balmont.

In 1887-1889, the poet actively translated German and French authors, then in 1892-1894 he took up work on the works of Percy Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe. This period is considered the time of his creative development.

Professor Storozhenko, in addition, introduced Balmont to the editorial office of the Severny Vestnik, around which the poets of the new direction were grouped.

On the basis of his translation activity, Balmont became closer to the philanthropist, a connoisseur of Western European literatures, Prince A. N. Urusov, who in many ways contributed to the expansion of the literary horizons of the young poet. At the expense of the philanthropist, Balmont published two books of translations by Edgar Allan Poe (“Ballads and Fantasies”, “Mysterious Tales”).

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

Collection "Under the northern sky", published in 1894, is considered to be the starting point of Balmont's creative path. The book received a wide response, and reviews were mostly positive.

If the debut of 1894 did not differ in originality, then in the second collection "In boundlessness"(1895) Balmont began to search for "new space, new freedom", the possibilities of combining the poetic word with the melody.

The 1890s were for Balmont a period of active creative work in a wide variety of fields of knowledge. The poet, who had a phenomenal capacity for work, mastered "one after another many languages, reveling in work, like a man possessed ... he read entire libraries of books, from treatises on Spanish painting he loved to studies on Chinese and Sanskrit."

He enthusiastically studied the history of Russia, books on the natural sciences and folk art. Already in his mature years, addressing novice writers with instruction, he wrote that a debutant needs “to be able to sit on a philosophical book and an English dictionary and Spanish grammar on your spring day, when you really want to ride a boat and maybe you can kiss someone. To be able to read 100, and 300, and 3,000 books, among which there are many, many boring ones. Love not only joy, but also pain. Silently cherish in yourself not only happiness, but also the melancholy piercing into the heart..

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

In 1896, Balmont married the translator E. A. Andreeva and went with his wife to Western Europe. Several years spent abroad provided the novice writer, who was interested, in addition to the main subject, in history, religion and philosophy, with great opportunities. He visited France, Holland, Spain, Italy, spending a lot of time in libraries, improving his knowledge of languages.

In 1899, K. Balmont was elected a member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.

In 1901, an event occurred that had a significant impact on the life and work of Balmont and made him "a true hero in St. Petersburg." In March, he took part in a mass student demonstration on the square near the Kazan Cathedral, the main demand of which was the abolition of the decree on sending unreliable students to the military service. The demonstration was dispersed by the police and the Cossacks, among its participants were victims.

On March 14, Balmont spoke at a literary evening in the hall of the City Duma and read a poem "Little Sultan", who in a veiled form criticized the terror regime in Russia and its organizer, Nicholas II (“That was in Turkey, where conscience is an empty thing, a fist, a whip, a scimitar, two or three zeros, four scoundrels and a stupid little sultan reign there”). The poem went from hand to hand, it was going to be published in the Iskra newspaper.

According to the decision of the "special meeting", the poet was expelled from St. Petersburg, for three years he lost the right to reside in the capital and university cities.

In the summer of 1903, Balmont returned to Moscow, then headed to the Baltic coast, where he took up poetry, which was included in the collection Only Love.

After spending autumn and winter in Moscow, at the beginning of 1904 Balmont again found himself in Europe (Spain, Switzerland, after returning to Moscow - France), where he often acted as a lecturer.

The poetic circles of Balmontists created in these years tried to imitate the idol not only in poetic self-expression, but also in life.

Already in 1896, Valery Bryusov wrote about the “Balmont school”, including, in particular, Mirra Lokhvitskaya.

Many poets (including Lokhvitskaya, Bryusov, Andrei Bely, Vyach. Ivanov, M. A. Voloshin, S. M. Gorodetsky) dedicated poems to him, seeing in him a “spontaneous genius”, an eternally free Arigon, doomed to rise above the world and completely immersed "in the revelations of his bottomless soul."

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

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

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

In 1904-1905, the Scorpion publishing house published a collection of Balmont's poems in two volumes.

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

In 1905, Balmont returned to Russia and took an active part in political life. In December, the poet, in his own words, "took some part in the armed uprising of Moscow, more in poetry." Having become close with Maxim Gorky, Balmont began active cooperation with the social democratic newspaper Novaya Zhizn and the Parisian magazine Krasnoye Znamya, which was published by A. V. Amfiteatrov.

In December, during the days of the Moscow uprising, Balmont was often on the streets, carried a loaded revolver in his pocket, and made speeches to students. He even expected reprisals against himself, as it seemed to him, a complete revolutionary. His enthusiasm for the revolution was sincere, although, as the future showed, it was not deep. Fearing arrest, on the night of 1906 the poet hastily left for Paris.

In 1906, Balmont settled in Paris, considering himself a political emigrant. He settled in the quiet Parisian quarter of Passy, ​​but spent most of his time on long journeys.

Two collections of 1906-1907 were compiled from works in which K. Balmont directly responded to the events of the first Russian revolution. The book "Poems" (St. Petersburg, 1906) was confiscated by the police. "Songs of the Avenger" (Paris, 1907) were banned from distribution in Russia.

In the spring of 1907, Balmont visited the Balearic Islands, at the end of 1909 he visited Egypt, writing a series of essays that later compiled the book “The Land of Osiris” (1914), in 1912 he traveled to southern countries, which lasted 11 months, visiting the Canary Islands, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, Ceylon, India. Oceania and communication with the inhabitants of the islands of New Guinea, Samoa, and Tonga made a particularly deep impression on him.

March 11, 1912 at a meeting of the Neophilological Society at St. Petersburg University on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of literary activity in the presence of more than 1000 people K. D. Balmont was proclaimed a great Russian poet.

In 1913, an amnesty was granted to political emigrants on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, and on May 5, 1913, Balmont returned to Moscow. At the Brest railway station in Moscow, a solemn public meeting was arranged for him. The gendarmes forbade the poet to address the audience who met him with a speech. Instead, according to press reports of the time, he scattered fresh lilies of the valley among the crowd.

In honor of the return of the poet, solemn receptions were arranged in the Society of Free Aesthetics and the Literary and Artistic Circle.

In 1914, the publication of the complete collection of Balmont's poems in ten volumes was completed, which lasted seven years. At the same time he published a collection of poetry "White architect. Mystery of the four lamps»- your impressions of Oceania.

At the beginning of 1914, the poet returned to Paris, then in April he went to Georgia, where he received a magnificent reception (in particular, a greeting from Akaki Tsereteli, the patriarch of Georgian literature) and conducted a course of lectures that were very successful. The poet began to study the Georgian language and set about translating Shota Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin"

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

In 1915, Balmont's theoretical study was published "Poetry is like magic"- a kind of continuation of the declaration of 1900 "Elementary words about symbolic poetry". In this treatise on the essence and purpose of lyric poetry, the poet attributed to the word "incantatory and magical power" and even "physical power."

Balmont welcomed the February Revolution, began to cooperate in the Society of Proletarian Arts, but soon became disillusioned with the new government and joined the Cadets party, which demanded that the war continue to a victorious end.

Having received permission from A.V. Lunacharsky at the request of Jurgis Baltrushaitis to temporarily go abroad on a business trip, together with his wife, daughter and distant relative A.N. Ivanova, on May 25, 1920, Balmont left Russia forever and reached Paris through Revel.

In Paris, Balmont and his family settled in a small furnished apartment.

The poet immediately found himself between two fires. On the one hand, the émigré community suspected him of being a Soviet sympathizer.

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

Soon Balmont left Paris and settled in the town of Capbreton in the province of Brittany, where he spent 1921-1922.

In 1924 he lived in the Lower Charente (Chateleyon), in 1925 - in the Vendée (Saint-Gilles-sur-Vi), until late autumn 1926 - in the Gironde (Lacano-Ocean).

In early November 1926, after leaving Lakano, Balmont and his wife went to Bordeaux. Balmont often rented a villa in Capbreton, where he communicated with many Russians and lived intermittently until the end of 1931, spending here not only the summer but also the winter months.

Balmont unequivocally declared his attitude towards Soviet Russia soon after he left the country.

“The Russian people are truly tired of their misfortunes and, most importantly, of the shameless, endless lies of merciless, evil rulers,” he wrote in 1921.

In the article "Bloody Liars" the poet spoke about the ups and downs of his life in Moscow in 1917-1920. In the emigrant periodicals of the early 1920s, his poetic lines about the "actors of Satan", about the "blood drunk" Russian land, about the "days of Russia's humiliation", about the "red drops" that went to the Russian land, regularly appeared. Some of these poems are included in the collection "Marevo"(Paris, 1922) - the poet's first emigrant book.

In 1923, K. D. Balmont, along with M. Gorky and I. A. Bunin, was nominated by R. Rolland for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1927, a publicist article "A Little Bit of Zoology for Little Red Riding Hood" Balmont reacted to the scandalous speech of the Soviet plenipotentiary representative in Poland D.V. Bogomolov, who at the reception said that Adam Mickiewicz in his famous poem “To Friends-Moskals” (the generally accepted translation of the title is “Russian Friends”) allegedly turned to the future - to modern Bolshevik Russia. In the same year, an anonymous appeal “To the Writers of the World” was published in Paris, signed “Group of Russian Writers. Russia, May 1927".

Unlike his friend, who gravitated towards the “right” direction, Balmont generally adhered to “left”, liberal-democratic views, was critical of ideas, did not accept “conciliatory” tendencies (Smenovekhovism, Eurasianism, and so on), radical political movements (fascism). At the same time, he avoided the former socialists - A.F. Kerensky, I.I. Fondaminsky and watched with horror the “leftward” movement of Western Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

Balmont was outraged by the indifference of Western European writers to what was happening in the USSR, and this feeling was superimposed on a general disappointment with the entire Western way of life.

It was generally accepted that emigration took place for Balmont under the sign of decline. This opinion, shared by many Russian émigré poets, was subsequently disputed more than once. In different countries, Balmont during these years published books of poems “Gift to the Earth”, “Bright Hour” (1921), “Haze” (1922), “Mine - to her. Poems about Russia "(1923), "In the Parted Distance" (1929), "Northern Lights" (1933), "Blue Horseshoe", "Light Service" (1937).

In 1923 he published books of autobiographical prose Under the New Sickle and Air Way, in 1924 he published a book of memoirs Where is My Home? (Prague, 1924), wrote documentary essays "Torch in the Night" and "White Dream" about his experiences in the winter of 1919 in revolutionary Russia. Balmont made long lecture tours in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, in the summer of 1930 he traveled to Lithuania, while simultaneously translating West Slavic poetry, but Russia remained the main theme of Balmont's works during these years: memories of her and longing for the lost.

In 1932, it became clear that the poet was suffering from a serious mental illness. From August 1932 to May 1935, the Balmonts lived without a break in Clamart near Paris, in poverty. In the spring of 1935, Balmont ended up in a clinic.

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

At the end of 1936, Balmont and Tsvetkovskaya moved to Noisy-le-Grand near Paris. The last years of his life, the poet stayed alternately either in a charity house for Russians, which was kept by M. Kuzmina-Karavaeva, or in a cheap furnished apartment. In the hours of enlightenment, when mental illness receded, Balmont, according to the recollections of those who knew him, with a feeling of happiness opened the volume of "War and Peace" or reread his old books; he could not write for a long time.

In 1940-1942, Balmont did not leave Noisy-le-Grand. Here, in the Russian House shelter, he died on the night of December 23, 1942 from pneumonia. He was buried in the local Catholic cemetery, under a gray stone tombstone with the inscription: "Constantin Balmont, poète russe" ("Konstantin Balmont, Russian poet").

Several people came from Paris to say goodbye to the poet: B.K. Zaitsev with his wife, the widow of Y. Baltrushaitis, two or three acquaintances and daughter Mirra.

The French public learned about the poet's death from an article in the pro-Hitler Paris Gazette, which made, "as it was then customary, a thorough reprimand to the late poet for having once supported the revolutionaries."

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

Personal life of Konstantin Balmont

Balmont told in his autobiography that he began to fall in love very early: “The first passionate thought about a woman was at the age of five, the first real love was nine years old, the first passion was fourteen years old.”

“Wandering through countless cities, I am always delighted with one thing - love,” the poet admitted in one of his poems.

In 1889 Konstantin Balmont married Larisa Mikhailovna Garelina, the daughter of a Shuisky manufacturer, "a beautiful young lady of the Botticelli type." The mother, who facilitated the acquaintance, sharply opposed the marriage, but the young man was adamant in his decision and decided to break with his family.

“I was not yet twenty-two years old when I ... married a beautiful girl, and we left in early spring, or rather, at the end of winter, to the Caucasus, to the Kabardian region, and from there along the Georgian Military Highway to the blessed Tiflis and Transcaucasia”, he wrote later.

But the wedding trip did not become a prologue to a happy family life.

Researchers often write about Garelina as a neurotic nature, who showed love to Balmont "in a demonic face, even devilish", tormented by jealousy. It is generally accepted that it was she who addicted him to wine, as indicated by the confessional poem of the poet "Forest Fire".

The wife did not sympathize with either the literary aspirations or the revolutionary moods of her husband and was prone to quarrels. In many ways, it was the painful connection with Garelina that prompted Balmont to attempt suicide on the morning of March 13, 1890. Soon after his recovery, which was only partial - he had a limp for the rest of his life - Balmont broke up with L. Garelina.

The first child born in this marriage died, the second - the son Nikolai - subsequently suffered from a nervous breakdown.

After breaking up with the poet, Larisa Mikhailovna married the journalist and literary historian N. A. Engelgardt and lived peacefully with him for many years. Her daughter from this marriage, Anna Nikolaevna Engelhardt, became the second wife of Nikolai Gumilyov.

Poet's second wife Ekaterina Alekseevna Andreeva-Balmont(1867-1952), a relative of the famous Moscow publishers Sabashnikovs, came from a wealthy merchant family (the Andreevs owned shops of colonial goods) and was distinguished by a rare education.

Contemporaries also noted the external attractiveness of this tall and slender young woman "with beautiful black eyes." For a long time she was unrequitedly in love with A. I. Urusov. Balmont, as Andreeva recalled, quickly became interested in her, but did not meet reciprocity for a long time. When the latter arose, it turned out that the poet was married: then the parents forbade their daughter to meet with her lover. However, Ekaterina Alekseevna, enlightened in the "latest spirit", looked at the rites as a formality and soon moved to the poet.

The divorce process, allowing Garelina to enter into a second marriage, forbade her husband to marry forever, but, having found an old document where the groom was listed as unmarried, the lovers got married on September 27, 1896, and the next day they went abroad, to France.

With E. A. Andreeva, Balmont was united by a common literary interest, the couple carried out many joint translations, in particular Gerhart Hauptmann and Odd Nansen.

In 1901, their daughter Ninika was born - Nina Konstantinovna Balmont-Bruni (died in Moscow in 1989), to whom the poet dedicated the collection Fairy Tales.

In the early 1900s in Paris, Balmont met Elena Konstantinovna Tsvetkovskaya(1880-1943), the daughter of General K. G. Tsvetkovsky, then a student of the Sorbonne Faculty of Mathematics and a passionate admirer of his poetry. Balmont, judging by some of his letters, was not in love with Tsvetkovskaya, but soon began to feel the need for her as a truly faithful, devoted friend.

Gradually, the "spheres of influence" were divided: Balmont either lived with his family, or left with Elena. For example, in 1905 they went to Mexico for three months.

The poet's family life was completely confused after E.K. Tsvetkovskaya had a daughter in December 1907, who was named Mirra - in memory of Mirra Lokhvitskaya, the poetess, with whom he had complex and deep feelings. The appearance of the child finally tied Balmont to Elena Konstantinovna, but at the same time he did not want to leave Ekaterina Alekseevna either.

Mental anguish led to a breakdown: in 1909, Balmont made a new suicide attempt, again jumped out of the window and survived again. Until 1917, Balmont lived in St. Petersburg with Tsvetkovskaya and Mirra, coming from time to time to Moscow to Andreeva and his daughter Nina.

Balmont emigrated from Russia with his third (civil) wife E.K. Tsvetkovskaya and daughter Mirra.

However, he did not break off friendly relations with Andreeva either. Only in 1934, when Soviet citizens were forbidden to correspond with relatives and friends living abroad, this connection was interrupted.

Unlike E. A. Andreeva, Elena Konstantinovna was "worldly helpless and could not organize life in any way." She considered it her duty to follow Balmont everywhere: eyewitnesses recalled how she, “leaving her child at home, followed her husband somewhere to a tavern and could not take him out of there for a day.”

E. K. Tsvetkovskaya was not the last love of the poet. In Paris, he resumed his acquaintance with the princess, which had begun in March 1919. Dagmar Shakhovskoy(1893-1967). “One of my dear ones, half-Swede, half-Polish, Princess Dagmar Shakhovskaya, nee Baroness Lilienfeld, Russified, sang Estonian songs to me more than once,” Balmont described his beloved in one of his letters.

Shakhovskaya gave birth to Balmont two children - George (George) (1922-1943) and Svetlana (b. 1925).

The poet could not leave his family; meeting with Shakhovskaya only occasionally, he often, almost daily, wrote to her, confessing his love over and over again, talking about his impressions and plans. 858 of his letters and postcards have been preserved.

Balmont's feeling was reflected in many of his later poems and in the novel Under the New Sickle (1923). Be that as it may, not D. Shakhovskaya, but E. Tsvetkovskaya spent the last, most disastrous years of his life with Balmont. She died in 1943, a year after the death of the poet.

Mirra Konstantinovna Balmont (in marriage - Boychenko, in her second marriage - Autina) wrote poetry and published in the 1920s under the pseudonym Aglaya Gamayun. She died in Noisy-le-Grand in 1970.

Works by Konstantin Balmont

"Collection of poems" (Yaroslavl, 1890)
"Under the northern sky (elegies, stanzas, sonnets)" (St. Petersburg, 1894)
"In the vastness of darkness" (M., 1895 and 1896)
"Silence. Lyric poems "(St. Petersburg, 1898)
"Burning buildings. Lyrics of the modern soul "(M., 1900)
“We will be like the sun. The Book of Symbols (Moscow, 1903)
"Only love. Semitsvetnik" (M., "Vulture", 1903)
"The Liturgy of Beauty. Elemental hymns "(M., "Vulture", 1905)
"Fairy tales (children's songs)" (M., "Vulture", 1905)
"Collected poems" M., 1905; 2nd ed. M., 1908.
"Evil Spells (Book of Spells)" (M., "Golden Fleece", 1906)
"Poems" (1906)
"Firebird (Svirel Slav)" (M., "Scorpio", 1907)
"The Liturgy of Beauty (Elemental Hymns)" (1907)
"Songs of the Avenger" (1907)
"Three heydays (Theater of youth and beauty)" (1907)
"Only love". 2nd ed. (1908)
"Round dance of times (All-glasnost)" (M., 1909)
"Birds in the Air (Sung Lines)" (1908)
“Green garden (Kissing words)” (St. Petersburg, Rosehip, 1909)
"Links. Selected Poems. 1890-1912" (M.: Scorpion, 1913)
"The White Architect (The Mystery of the Four Lamps)" (1914)
"Ash (Vision of a tree)" (M., ed. Nekrasov, 1916)
"Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and Moon" (1917; Berlin, 1921)
"Collection of Lyrics" (Books 1-2, 4-6. M., 1917-1918)
"Ring" (M., 1920)
"Seven Poems" (M., "Zadruga", 1920)
Selected Poems (New York, 1920)
"Solar thread. Izbornik "(1890-1918) (M., ed. Sabashnikovs, 1921)
"Gamayun" (Stockholm, "Northern Lights", 1921)
"Gift to the Earth" (Paris, "Russian Land", 1921)
"Bright Hour" (Paris, 1921)
"Song of the working hammer" (M., 1922)
"Green" (Paris, 1922)
"Under the new sickle" (Berlin, "Word", 1923)
"Mine - Her (Russia)" (Prague, "Flame", 1924)
"In the parted distance (Poem about Russia)" (Belgrade, 1929)
"Complicity of Souls" (1930)
Northern Lights (Poems about Lithuania and Russia) (Paris, 1931)
"Blue Horseshoe" (Poems about Siberia) (1937)
"Light Service" (Harbin, 1937)

Collections of articles and essays by Konstantin Balmont

"Mountain Peaks" (M., 1904; book one)
"Calls of antiquity. Hymns, songs and plans of the ancients” (Pb., 1908, Berlin, 1923)
“Snake Flowers” ​​(“Travel Letters from Mexico”, M., Scorpio, 1910)
"Sea Glow" (1910)
"Dawn Glow" (1912)
"Edge of Osiris". Egyptian essays. (M., 1914)
"Poetry as magic" (M., Scorpio, 1915)
"Light sound in nature and Scriabin's light symphony" (1917)
"Where is my house?" (Paris, 1924)

Born on June 15, 1867 in the village of Gumnishchi, Vladimir province, where he lived until the age of 10. Balmont's father worked as a judge, then as head of the zemstvo council. The love of literature and music was instilled in the future poet by his mother. The family moved to Shuya when the older children went to school. In 1876, Balmont studied at the Shuya gymnasium, but soon he got tired of studying, and he began to pay more and more attention to reading. After being expelled from the gymnasium for revolutionary sentiments, Balmont transferred to the city of Vladimir, where he studied until 1886. In the same year, he entered the university in Moscow, the department of law. Studying there did not last long, a year later he was expelled for participating in student riots.

The beginning of the creative path

The poet wrote his first poems as a ten-year-old boy, but his mother criticized his undertakings, and Balmont no longer attempted to write anything for the next six years.
For the first time the poet's poems were published in 1885 in the magazine "Picturesque Review" in St. Petersburg.

In the late 1880s, Balmont was engaged in translation activities. In 1890, due to a poor financial situation and an unsuccessful first marriage, Balmont tried to commit suicide - he jumped out of the window, but survived. Having received serious injuries, he lay in bed for a year. This year in the biography of Balmont can hardly be called successful, but it is worth noting that he turned out to be creatively productive.

The debut collection of poems (1890) of the poet did not arouse public interest, and the poet destroyed the entire circulation.

Rise to glory

The greatest flowering of Balmont's work falls on the 1890s. He reads a lot, learns languages ​​and travels.

Balmont is often engaged in translations, in 1894 he translated Horn's History of Scandinavian Literature, in 1895-1897 Gaspari's History of Italian Literature.

Balmont published the collection "Under the Northern Sky" (1894), began to publish his works in the publishing house "Scorpio", the magazine "Scales". Soon new books appeared - "In the boundlessness" (1895), "Silence" (1898).

Having married for the second time in 1896, Balmont leaves for Europe. He has been traveling for several years. In 1897 he lectured in England on Russian poetry.

The fourth collection of Balmont's poetry, Let's Be Like the Sun, was published in 1903. The collection became especially popular and brought great success to the author. At the beginning of 1905, Konstantin Dmitrievich again leaves Russia, he travels around Mexico, then goes to California.

Balmont took an active part in the revolution of 1905-1907, mainly giving speeches to students and building barricades. Afraid of being arrested, the poet leaves for Paris in 1906.

Having visited Georgia in 1914, he translated into Russian S. Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin", as well as many others. In 1915, returning to Moscow, Balmont travels around the country with lectures.

Last emigration

In 1920, due to the poor health of his third wife and daughter, he left with them for France. He never returned to Russia again. In Paris, Balmont published 6 more collections of his poems, and in 1923 - autobiographical books: "Under the new sickle", "Air way".

The poet yearned for Russia and more than once regretted that he had left. These feelings were reflected in his poetry of that time. Life in a foreign land became more and more difficult, the poet's health deteriorated, there were problems with money. Balmont was diagnosed with a serious mental illness. Living in poverty on the outskirts of Paris, he no longer wrote, but only occasionally read old books.

Konstantin Balmont- biography and creativity

Biographical note.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Balmont Konstantin Dmitrievich (1867 -1942). The Silver Age in Russia lasted only a couple of pre-revolutionary decades, but gave Russian poetry many bright names. And for a whole decade Konstantin Balmont reigned on the poetic Olympus.

He was born near Shuya, in the family of a provincial nobleman. He learned to read by attending the lessons of his mother, who taught his older brother. Mother formed the beginnings of Konstantin's worldview, introducing him to the world of high art.

Education at the gymnasium ended with an exception due to the distribution of the People's Will proclamations. Nevertheless, he managed to get an education (1886), although the poet had painful impressions about this period. Balmont's debut (1885) in a famous magazine went unnoticed; the published collection also did not evoke responses.

The second collection, "In the Vastness" (1894), was marked by a completely new form and rhythm. His poetry keeps getting better. Having got out of lack of money, the poet travels, works hard, lectures on Russian poetry in England. In the collection of poems "Burning Buildings" (1900), readers saw that Balmont, who would control the souls of the Russian intelligentsia of the early 20th century.

Konstantin Balmont becomes the leader of symbolism. He is imitated, envied, fans are trying to break into the apartment. The poet, inclined towards romanticism, takes part in the revolution of 1905, because of which he was forced to hide abroad.

Upon returning to his homeland, Balmont publishes a ten-volume edition of his works. He is engaged in translations, lectures. The poet welcomed the February Revolution, but soon lost interest in its slogans. And the revolution of October 1917 caused him rejection. Balmont seeks permission to leave and leaves his homeland forever.

In exile, the poet avoids circles hostile to the USSR. Help is nowhere to be found. In addition, Balmont contains two families, and the financial situation is becoming increasingly difficult. He wrote his last collection of poems, Light Service (1937), already suffering from a mental illness. In recent years, he settled in a charity home, where he died of pneumonia in the winter of 1942.

Konstantin Balmont returned to Russian readers when the first anthologies of poets of the Silver Age were published in the sixties.