The outstanding poet and artist, philosopher and critic Maximilian Alexandrovich Voloshin spent a significant part of his life in the Crimea. The house in Koktebel, where Max lived, became a poetic mecca that attracted creative people from all over Russia. Marina Tsvetaeva, Valery Bryusov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vikenty Veresaev, Maxim Gorky, Pyotr Konchalovsky and many other outstanding personalities stayed here. Today, Voloshin's house is one of the most visited literary and art museums in Crimea.

In the land of blue peaks

A small village on the Black Sea, located at the foot of the ancient volcano Karadag - a favorite place for artists, poets, writers, in general, creative people. The mystical beauty of Koktebel is sung by talented writers and captured on the canvases of famous painters. For one of them, the "country of blue peaks", as the word "Koktebel" is translated from the Turkic, became a source of inspiration, a home and, ultimately, the last refuge. This, as you might guess, is about the poet Maximilian Voloshin.

My dream has since been drunk
Foothills heroic dreams
And Koktebel stone mane;
His wormwood is intoxicated by my longing,
My verse sings in the waves of its tide,
And on the rock that closed the swell of the bay,
Fate and winds sculpted my profile,

Wrote once Voloshin. Indeed, the cliff of Mount Kok-Kaya with its outlines resembles a male profile. Marina Tsvetaeva, who visited Koktebel in 1911, will share her impressions: “At the top of the mountain. I am writing and I see: on the right, limiting the huge Koktebel bay, more like a flood than a bay, a stone profile that goes into the sea ... Maxine's profile. The poet himself associated the rock face with his own.

True, even before Voloshin moved to the Crimea, the face of another famous poet was recognized in the Koktebel profile. There is a postcard with a view of the village, published in Feodosia in 1910, on which it is written: “Koktebel. Mountain profile of Pushkin. The guidebooks of 1911 and 1914 also indicate that this is "Pushkin's profile".

Well, everyone has the right to see in stone blocks what is close to him. But hardly anyone will argue with the fact that the Koktebel face can truly be called a monument to a poet - a man with a rebellious, passionate soul, who merged with the elements in a creative impulse, a creator who creates himself.

My blood is poor

One of the first of the Russian intellectuals, the beauty of Koktebel was appreciated by the famous ophthalmologist Professor E. A. Junge. Being an energetic and versatile person, he acquired a piece of land in the Koktebel valley and decided to turn it into a blooming garden. Junge dreamed of building a reservoir here, planting vineyards on the slopes of the hills, and laying a convenient road to Feodosia. However, there were not enough funds to implement grandiose plans. After the death of the professor, his heirs sold part of the land, on which the first dachas appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. One of the plots near the sea was acquired by Elena Ottobaldovna, the mother of the poet Voloshin. The Voloshin's neighbors were the children's writer N. I. Manaseina, the poetess P. S. Solovieva, and the opera singer V. I. Kastorsky. Thus, Koktebel became a resort of the intelligentsia.

The fate of Maximilian Voloshin is closely connected with the Crimea. Max received his secondary education at the Feodosia gymnasium, then entered the law faculty of Moscow University. After the revolution, the poet settled in Koktebel, in a family dacha by the sea. Here the poet is destined to survive the tragic events of the civil war. The Voloshin House becomes a haven for both Reds and Whites. Not accepting violence, regardless of its origin, Maximilian helped the underground communists under the Whites, and white officers under the Bolsheviks. The poet played an important role in the release of Mandelstam, who was captured by the Wrangelites.

The post-revolutionary period - a period of changing ideals and a total reassessment of values ​​- radically changed the worldview of people. Max Voloshin did not escape this fate either. Being a democrat by nature, he enthusiastically accepted proletarian sentiments. Appearance the poet emphasized his closeness to the people. Voloshin went barefoot, in a canvas shirt with a belt, tied his hair with a strap. In the same way, the artist treated his own life.

The poet will dedicate the following poetic lines to the house in which Tsvetaeva, Bryusov, Bulgakov, Veresaev, Maxim Gorky, Konchalovsky, Green will be visiting:

Come in, my guest, shake off the ashes of life
And the mold of thoughts at my doorstep...
From the bottom of centuries will greet you strictly
The huge face of Queen Taiah.
My blood is poor. And times are tough.
But the shelves of books are rising like a wall.
Here at night they talk to me
Historians, poets, theologians.

What is Voloshin's dacha? The house was erected in 1903 under the guidance and drawings of the poet. Its architecture reflects the conflicting views and non-standard thinking of the owner. The asymmetric structure consists of two separate structures, connected into a single whole. If you look at the building on the left side, you can find an ordinary rural house with white walls and a balcony. Made of orange brick, the right side of the building features a protruding trihedral trapezoid wall with high windows. It resembles a fragment of an ancient castle. Looking at this part of the house, a romantic impression is created. After all, the house was built by a poet. By the way, Voloshin vehemently criticized the bad taste of the Russian bourgeoisie. In one of the articles devoted to the architectural appearance of Feodosia, the poet writes: “Ekaterininskaya embankment with its palaces in the style of Turkish baths, brothels and lemonade kiosks, with its concrete Erechtheions, gypsum “Milos”, naked pistachio ladies from decadent postal maps is completely completed "Museum of Bad Taste". The Bolsheviks and anarchists, in whose hands Feodosia had been twice, did not want to render her the only service they were capable of: they did not blow up these villas.

Fortunately, the Bolsheviks did not cry out for all the villas. However, all more or less decent buildings were nationalized, and Voloshin's dacha almost escaped the same fate. IN Soviet time thanks to the help of A. Lunacharsky, the poet managed to save his Koktebel monastery. The way out was the organization of the house of creativity. After going through all the licensing procedures, in 1924 Voloshin was issued a safe-conduct, which read: "Maximilian Voloshin, with the full approval of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR, arranged in Koktebel in his house a free rest home for writers, artists, scientists ...".

In the spring of 1927, Maximilian Voloshin married Maria Stepanovna Zabolotskaya. The poet's faithful friend will courageously share the difficult years with him and become a real support in life. After the death of Voloshin, Maria Stepanovna will preserve his creative heritage, as well as interior and household items that surrounded the writer during his lifetime.

Voloshin died on August 11, 1932 and was buried near Koktebel on Mount Kuchuk-Yanyshar. The funeral was attended by N. Chukovsky, G. Storm, Artobolevsky and A. Gabrichevsky

House-Museum of Voloshin

Today, in the ancient building of the beginning of the 20th century, the house of the famous sweat Maximilian Voloshin, there is a memorial museum that has become famous all over the world. Everything in the poet's house remained unchanged. Interior items that are 100 years old remember the times of Tsvetaeva, Bulgakov and Mandelstam. Since the time of Voloshin, exclusive pieces of furniture have been preserved, decorated with inlay, painting, and burning, among them a desk for A.N. Tolstoy, made by the poet himself.

The museum collection consists of Voloshin's personal belongings: paintings, documents, manuscripts, translations, letters, as well as a unique collection of books, numbering about 10,000 volumes. Many of them are rare and have autographs of the authors.

Thanks to Voloshin, the sound of poetry does not subside in Koktebel. Poetry festivals are held annually in the writer's house. Creative people come from all over Russia, Ukraine and neighboring countries to communicate, be inspired by the atmosphere of the Crimean South Coast and then create imperishable works of art.

One of the remarkable representatives of the Silver Age was a multifaceted and very original (he was called the most eccentric Russian of the early 20th century) man - Maximilian Voloshin (1877-1932). He very organically fit into that wonderful period of Russian literature, to which the words of the poetess A. Akhmatova are so suitable: “And the silver month froze brightly over the silver age ...”, although M. Voloshin himself did not belong to any of the trends that were then dominant in Russian art.

A talented person is talented in everything

In May 1877 in Kyiv, in the family of a collegiate adviser (rank VI class, corresponding to an army colonel) A. M. Kiriyenko-Voloshin and E. O. Glazer, a son was born. Immediately after the birth of the child, the mother, who absorbed the free customs of that time, left her husband, who died three years later, and never remembered him again. Little Max she brought up herself in accordance with her extravagant disposition. And, probably, she was right if the encyclopedist Maximilian Voloshin appeared in Russia as a result of her upbringing, a qualified and talented translator, a wonderful, original poet and an amazing artist. In addition, he was an interesting literary critic. And, in confirmation of all that has been said, it is as if nature itself created the profile of a bearded man on Karadag, whom Maximilian Voloshin became incredibly similar to over time.

Unusual fate

And his fate was lucky. This cheerful person, the foolish hoaxer, in principle, lived until the end of his days, how and where he wanted, wrote what he wanted, though he did not publish it. And later, only for the storage of his poems, people could disappear without a trace. Even his estate, which consisted of two 2-storey mansions and a spacious outbuilding, was not taken away by the Bolsheviks. And in Koktebel, until the very death of this “shaggy Zeus”, hundreds of friends and friends of his friends came to Koktebel in the summer. Voloshin's estate was something like a free sanatorium, a house of creativity for poets, writers and artists.

Turning year

Maximilian Voloshin studied at gymnasiums - Feodosia and two Moscow ones, at Moscow University (at the department of law), and everywhere he comprehended the sciences unimportantly. And then, years later, he said that ten years spent in educational institutions, did not enrich him with a single thought, and that the years are thrown away. However, he attended courses of lectures of interest to him at the Sorbonne and was trained in the workshops of artists in Paris.

In 1900, which m. Voloshin considers the year of his formation, he was expelled from Moscow to Central Asia for participating in student protests. It is here that he decides to devote himself to art and literature, for which, in his opinion, it was necessary for him to "go to the West."

From dropouts to encyclopedists

Whose biography until 1912 will be closely connected with Paris, traveled all over Europe and visited Egypt. Over the years, a half-educated student turned into an erudite - he wandered around the cities, spending a lot of time in libraries, absorbing, like a sponge, the culture of ancient and medieval civilizations. He was actively engaged in translations, opening Russian poets to the French, and French to his compatriots. His critical articles were intensively published in popular Russian publications, and by the time he returned to Koktebel he already had a literary name.

Talented hoaxer

But in 1913, this absolutely free man, whose views always differed from the views of those around him (and his mother’s credo was the motto: grow up as anyone, just not like the others) committed two acts, the result of which was a boycott announced to him. The first story was a talented hoax with the poetess Elizaveta Dmitrieva. They published a cycle of poems under the pseudonym Cherubina de Gabriac. The poems were wildly popular. But the exposure was also difficult, as a result, defending the honor of a woman, M. Voloshin shot himself in a duel with N. Gumilyov. Maximilian Alexandrovich's second was Count A. Tolstoy.

Contrary to public opinion

The second story quarreled Voloshin with many literary friends. In February or the month of February, he gave a lecture at the Polytechnic Museum, in which he dared to express his opinion, different from everyone else, about the reason for the maniac's attack on I. Repin's painting "Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son." In 1914, a book of his essays "Faces of Creativity" was published, which became very popular. And in 1910 the first collection of his poems was published, before that neither M. Gorky nor V. Ivanov published his poetry.

Plot in Crimea

Some researchers believe that even today neither the scale of the personality nor the creative heritage of the artist, poet and literary critic named Maximilian Voloshin is completely appreciated. Koktebel is inextricably linked with his name. The idea to settle there belonged to his mother. Back in 1893 (Max was 16 years old at the time), she was one of the first to buy a piece of land here by the sea, believing that only the air, nature and centuries-old history of Crimea, in which so many different cultures left their mark, suits her invaluable Maximilian, in whom mixed so many different bloodlines.

legendary house

Since returning from abroad, the poet and artist has been living almost all the time in his estate, which is gradually becoming a kind of center of cultural thought in Russia. Although, according to rumors, not only thought here. In the most difficult years of the Civil War, Maximilian Voloshin's house was a haven for all his friends, regardless of their "color" - he saved the Reds from the Whites, and the Whites from the Reds. He did not emigrate, although his friend A. K. Tolstoy in 1918 (who returned to Soviet Russia in 1923) begged him to flee abroad. Voloshin did not leave his homeland.

Singer of Cimmeria

While in Koktebel, M. Voloshin painted a lot - according to contemporaries, two watercolors a day. Many of his works are accompanied by beautiful poetry. He was in love with his Cimmeria (among the ancient Greeks - " Nordic countries”), wrote about her and drew her. Maximilian Voloshin painted his paintings in cycles. Some of them took part in exhibitions of artists of the World of Art. But they for a long time were not familiar to the general public, although now excellent collections, accompanied by poems, can be found in the public domain. Many of the master's works are kept in the museum named after him and in Feodosia, in the Aivazovsky Museum.

Legacy Keeper

The Maximilian Voloshin Museum in his house in Koktebel opened in 1984. It owes its existence to the widow of Maximilian Alexandrovich M. S. Voloshina (nee Zabolotskaya), who until 1976 not only lived in the former estate, but carefully kept and collected everything that was connected with her beloved husband. She knew that someday the inhabitants of Russia would appreciate the legacy of the great artist and poet.

The museum hosts the presentation of the annual Maximilian Voloshin International Prize for the best poetic book, the days of its presentation are called Voloshin September. The poet and artist were buried nearby - on Mount Kuchuk-Yanyshar. Under one slab rests next to him and his wife.

These words of V. Kuchelbecker, written in 1845, turned out to be most applicable to the times to come. The martyrology of Russian poets, gradually replenished throughout the 19th century, began to grow more and more rapidly in the 20th century. Dozens and hundreds of names have already entered into it with an invisible hand (the real lists of the dead have not been completed to this day) ...

The fate of Maximilian Voloshin (1877 - 1932) was extremely lucky against this background. The poet survived in civilian life (being in the thick of things); was not repressed in the 20s; escaped the tsunami of the Great Terror (not having lived to see it!). Moreover: in the years when private property was confiscated with vigilant zeal, he remained the owner of the whole estate (two two-storey houses and two outbuildings). Until 1929, he continued to write everything he thought (later, even the storage of many of his poems was fraught with grave consequences ...).

And yet, Voloshin's life was by no means cloudless. Illness (a consequence of what he experienced in 1918 - 1922), bullying by "local authorities", attacks by party criticism, excommunication from literature and premature death - all this allows him to be counted among the victims of the Great Experiment. From 1928 to 1961, who was under a complete ban, then "permitted" as an artist, Voloshin in 1977, in connection with the 100th anniversary, was admitted - with reservations - to the history of Russian literature. But only in last years his work broke out of the archival walls and went into print in an ever-increasing volume: not only poems, but also articles, and diaries, and memoirs, and letters. All this material still requires reflection, but even now it is clear: the view of Voloshin as a secondary, provincial (according to the place of residence!) Phenomenon of Russian literature is untenable. Before us is a phenomenon of Russian culture - and culture (at least) European. Recognition of this, I think, is not far off.

Part 1

Maximilian Alexandrovich Kiriyenko-Voloshin was born in Kyiv on May 16 (28), 1877 - "on Spirits Day, when the earth is a birthday girl," in his words. The father died early, the mother, a strong-willed and original woman, was engaged in upbringing. From four to sixteen years - Moscow; here - the first verses, familiarization with nature ("forests of Zvenigorod district"). In 1893 - the first turn in fate: moving to the Crimea (Feodosia with its Genoese and Turkish ruins and Koktebel: sea, wormwood, heaps of the ancient volcano Karadag). In 1897 - the end of the gymnasium and again Moscow: the Faculty of Law of the University. In 1900 - the second turn: expulsion to Central Asia (for participating in student strikes) and there the decision to devote himself to literature and art - why settle abroad, "go west."

Paris has become a kind of retort in which a half-educated Russian student, a recent socialist, turned into a European and erudite - an art and literary critic, an anarchist in politics and a symbolist in poetry. "I travel around countries, museums, libraries... In addition to the technique of the word, I master the technique of brush and pencil... Interest in occult knowledge." This period of accumulation, defined by Voloshin as "wanderings of the spirit," lasted at least until 1912.

During the same time, Voloshin acquired a literary name (his first article appeared in print in 1900, poetry - in 1903, the first collection was published in 1910); experienced a deep passion for the artist M. V. Sabashnikova (which ended in a short marriage in 1906 - 1907); became the initiator and co-author of the loudest literary hoax in Russia (see "The History of Cherubina"). This period of becoming a "break with the magazine world" ended in 1913: at a time when "all of Russia" poured out in sympathy for I. E. Repin, whose painting "Ivan the Terrible and his son" was attacked, Voloshin dared to have "his own judgment" about the incident. The growing popularity of the poet was reflected in the mention of his name in the works of Vlas Doroshevich (1907), Sasha Cherny (1908), A. Radakov (1908), Pyotr Pilsky (1909), A. Izmailov (1912).

However, a new turn in the fate of the poet occurred, I think, not during the period of the "Repin story", with the "boycott" that followed it, but in 1914-1915. First World War like a bolt of lightning pierced Voloshin's poems - and the Parnassian poet, in whose work critics saw "not so much the recognition of the soul as the creation of art" (V. Bryusov), appeared as a prophet, "deeply and mournfully captured by events" (V. Zhirmunsky). At the same time, in his attitude to the war (collection "Anno mundi ardentis 1915" - M., 1916), Voloshin again found himself with a special opinion: in contrast to the jingoistic intonations of most poets, he mourned the "year of Lies and Wrath", prayed about not falling out of love with the enemy.

The banner of victory rises... What is that, Russia, to you? Stay humble and poor - Faithful to your fate...

(This poem, "Russia", Voloshin did not even dare to include in the collection, noting that it "should not be printed now".)

The revolution and civil war contributed to another serious transformation of Voloshin. A student of the French masters, a European and an "intellectual", he turned his soul and thoughts to Russia. And in his work, he unexpectedly found such piercing and precise words about today's day that they penetrated into the heart of everyone. “It was as if a completely different poet appeared, courageous, strong, with a simple and wise word,” recalled V.V. Veresaev. Critic V.L. Lvov-Rogachevsky wrote that Voloshin embodied the themes of the revolution "into powerful, formidable images" and "saw a new tragic face of Russia, organically fused with its ancient historical face" (Lvov-Rogachevsky V. Latest Russian Literature. M. , 1923. S. 286 - 287).

The poet proved his love for the motherland with his life. When the Grigoryevites approached Odessa in the spring of 1919 and A. N. Tolstoy called Voloshin to go abroad with him, Maximilian Aleksandrovich answered: "When a mother is sick, her children stay with her." He did not succumb to the temptation in November 1920, during the "great exodus" from the Crimea, before the entry of Frunze's troops there. And in January 1920, having gone through all the horrors of the Red Terror, with the onset of famine, he continued to stand his ground:

At that time, the poet believed that the trials that befell the country were sent from above and would benefit her:

And Voloshin does not take the position of an outside observer: he actively participates in saving the centers of culture in the Crimea and in the educational work of the new government. In 1920 - 1922 he travels around the Feodosia district "with a hopeless task of protecting artistic and cultural values", gives a course on the Renaissance at the People's University, gives lectures in Simferopol and Sevastopol, teaches at the Higher Command Courses, participates in the organization of Feodosia art workshops ... However, she herself his significant socio-cultural action is the creation of the "House of the Poet", a kind of house of creativity - the first in the country and without bureaucratic subsequent ones.

In a letter to L. B. Kamenev in November 1924, turning to the party boss for assistance in his undertaking, Voloshin explained: “Poets and artists came here from year to year, which created from Koktebel(near Feodosia) a kind of literary and artistic center. During my mother's lifetime, the house was adapted for renting out in the summer, and after her death, I turned it into a free home for writers, artists, and scientists.<...>The doors are open to everyone, even those who come from the street."

It was a summer haven mainly for the intelligentsia, whose position in Soviet Russia was still quite difficult at that time. Thrown out, for the most part, from habitual life, traumatized by the trials that fell to the lot of everyone, barely making ends meet, representatives of the artistic intelligentsia found free shelter in the "Poet's House", rest from the turmoil big cities, a hospitable and sensitive host, rich, without looking back, communication with their own kind. Writer and painter, ballerina and pianist, philosopher and orientalist, translator and teacher, lawyer and accountant, actress and engineer - here they were equal, and all that was required of each: "joyful acceptance of life, love for people and contributing their share of intellectual life" (as Voloshin wrote on May 24, 1924 to A.I. Polkanov).

What this island of warmth and light was for the guests of Voloshin was best defined by L. V. Timofeeva (L. Dadina), the daughter of a Kharkov professor, who came to Koktebel and Theodosius since 1926: "You need to know our Soviet everyday life, our life - the struggle for a piece of bread, for the integrity of the last that has been preserved - and then only for the few, for the integrity of the family hearth; you need to know these nights of waiting for the arrival of the NKVD with another arrest or nights when have a hard day work, you come to a half-heated room, take off your only pair of soaking wet shoes, dry them by the stove, wash them, prepare dinner for tomorrow, patch up endless holes, and all this in a state of humiliation, in drowning out the natural call to normal life, normal joys, to understand , with what contrast Koktebel and M.A. immediately struck me, with his humanity, with which he awakened in everyone the human heart that had long been compressed into a ball, with that real universal love that was in it "(Dadina L.M. Voloshin in Koktebel, Feodosiya, New Journal, 1954, No. 39).

In 1923, 60 people passed through the House, in 1924 - three hundred, in 1925 - four hundred ...

However, there was still no complete idyll: "Soviet reality" continually intruded into the Voloshin semblance of Thelema Abbey. The local village council treated Voloshin as a dacha owner and a "bourgeois", from time to time demanding his eviction from Koktebel. The financial inspection could not believe that the poet did not rent "rooms" for money - and demanded payment of tax for the "maintenance of the hotel." Komsomol activists invaded the house, calling for donations to Povitroflot and Osoaviakhim - then stigmatizing Voloshin for his refusal, which they regarded as a "counter-revolution" ... Again and again they had to turn to Moscow, ask for intercession from Lunacharsky, Gorky, Yenukidze; collect signatures of guests under the "certificate" of the free of charge of their home ...

Gradually it became clear that the ideologization of all spiritual life was intensifying; unanimity is established throughout the country. Already in 1923, B. Tal attacked Voloshin with the accusation of counter-revolution (j. "On Post", 1923, No. 4). One after another, V. Rozhitsyn and L. Sosnovsky, S. Rodov and V. Pravdukhin, N. Korotkov and A. Lezhnev attacked him ... As a result, Voloshin's collections of poems, scheduled for publication in 1923 and 1924, did not ; The 30th anniversary of literary activity was celebrated in 1925 only with a short note in Izvestia. Exhibition of Voloshin landscapes organized by State Academy Artistic Sciences in 1927 (with a printed catalog) was, in essence, Voloshin's last appearance on the public stage.

The persecution organized in 1928 finished off the poet: local shepherds presented him with a bill for the sheep allegedly torn apart by his two dogs, and the “workers' and peasants'” court upheld this delusional accusation, despite its obvious deceit. The gloating of local residents (to whom M. S. Voloshina provided medical care for several years), the humiliating treatment of him by the judges, the forced need to part with the animals (one dog had to be poisoned) shocked Maximilian Alexandrovich. In December 1929, he suffered a stroke - and his work practically ceased ...

Collectivization (with a concentration camp for exiled "kulaks" near Koktebel) and the famine of 1931, I think, deprived Voloshin of his last illusions about the imminent degeneration of "people's" power. Increasingly, the poet is seized by a "mood of acute hopelessness" (recorded July 1, 1931); the ever-loving love of life is thinking about suicide (recorded on July 7, 1931)... An attempt to transfer his house to the Writers' Union (and thereby preserve the library, the archive collected over many years, provide some kind of status to his wife) encounters the indifference of literary officials. V. Vishnevsky, B. Lavrenev, L. Leonov, P. Pavlenko get off with empty promises, and then, without notifying Voloshin, the board leases the house to Partizdat! (“The story with the house greatly crippled M.A.,” testified M.S. Voloshina.)

And here are Voloshin's notes of 1932. "I am rapidly and irresistibly aging, both physically and spiritually" (January 23); "Days of deep depression" (March 24); "I want events, the arrival of friends, a change in life" (May 6). By inertia, he is still fussing about a trip to Essentuki (doctors recommend) ... but the will to live was clearly gone. In July, a long-standing and aggravated asthma at the end was complicated by pneumonia - and on August 11, at 11 o'clock in the afternoon, the poet died. He was only 55 years old.

Part 2

Voloshin's first poems, written while studying at the gymnasium, bear the imprint of his passion for Pushkin, Nekrasov, Maikov, and Heine. In painting, he recognized only the Wanderers, considering Repin "the greatest painter of all ages and peoples." However, already in 1899, the Impressionists were discovered, and in literature - G. Hauptmann and P. Verlaine; in 1900, the young man sees in symbolism a "step forward" in comparison with realism. And in January 1902, in the lecture "The Experience of Reassessing the Artistic Significance of Nekrasov and Aleksey Tolstoy," Voloshin already appears as an ardent supporter of the "new art", despised by the "public" as decadence).

From now on, he adopts Goethe's formula: "Everything transient is only a symbol" and looks at the world accordingly. His admiration is caused by the works of little-understood Odilon Redon, and in poetry, along with Heredia and Verharn, he takes the "dark" Mallarme and P. Claudel as his teacher. It is not surprising that acquaintance with K. D. Balmont in the autumn of 1902 quickly turns into friendship, and at the beginning of 1903, Voloshin, as his own, converges with other Russian symbolists and with artists of the "world of art" ...

It is no coincidence that we are trying to trace the aesthetic and literary evolution of the young Voloshin at the same time. At first, only anxiously dreaming of becoming a poet, he saw art criticism as his goal in life - and went to Paris, hoping to "prepare for the work of art criticism" ("On Myself", 1930). And in order to "survive, realize the differences and daring of art", he decides to become an artist. (Voloshin also considered painting as a means of developing "accuracy of epithets in poetry".) And the artist's vision left a clear imprint on Voloshin's poetry: the colorfulness and plasticity of his poems were noted by almost all critics who wrote about him.

As a rule, up to 1916, the bookishness, the coldness of Voloshin's poetry, its "head" character, were also affirmed. There were reasons for this, since the poet gave special meaning the form of a verse, minted it and honed it. Voloshin's predilection for ancient, biblical, and especially occult associations also contributed to this impression. And if the first two layers were familiar to an intelligent reader (the gymnasium provided the basis for this knowledge), then the third, as a rule, seriously complicated the perception of his poems. And Voloshin believed that his "attitude to the world" is most fully expressed in the most complex and thoroughly occult wreath of sonnets "Corona Astralis". And he noted in 1925 in his "Autobiography": "I was valued, perhaps, most of all for plastic and colorful depiction. The religious and occult element seemed vague and incomprehensible, although here I strove for clarity, concise expressiveness." In any case, this pure mysticism - the constant feeling of the mystery of the world and the desire to penetrate into it - was the second, after the picturesque, feature of Voloshin the poet, which distinguished him from the circle of Russian symbolists.

It should be noted that Voloshin's constant appeal to myth in his early (before 1910) poems is largely due to the influence of the eastern Crimea on him, which kept ancient memories not only in the antiquities of Feodosia and Kerch, but in the very landscape of this desert, sun-scorched land. .

And the poet felt himself a Hellenic: "I, embraced at noon, As if with strong wine, I smell of the sun and mint, And the animal rune ..." Without fear of ridicule, he walked barefoot in Koktebel, in a bandage on his head, in a long shirt, which the townsfolk honored (and for good reason!) and chiton, and toga. In the perception of Cimmeria (as the poet called the eastern Crimea), he adjoined Konstantin Bogaevsky, who also sought to show the antiquity and cultural wealth of these hills and bays in his historical landscapes. The discovery of Cimmeria in poetry (and then in 1917 in painting) was another contribution of Voloshin to Russian culture.

One of the recognized masters of the sonnet, Voloshin also became a pioneer of free verse and "scientific poetry" (cycle "Ways of Cain"); with a whole suite of beautiful poems, he paid his debt to his beloved Paris and developed the infrequently encountered genre of poetic portrait (the cycle "Appearances").

The poet admitted that, starting from 1917, his poetic palette had changed, but he believed that he "approached Russian modern and historical themes with the same creative method as the lyrical themes of the first period." However, there is a difference. Poems about the revolution and the civil war were written by the poet, firstly, painfully hurt by the events that hit the country, and secondly, a person who thinks more deeply and voluminously. And these verses met the spiritual needs of people, touched the most sensitive strings in them, and in one and in the other camp. Voloshin managed in the "molten years" of the civil war to find a point of view that was acceptable to both the Whites and the Reds, he managed to rise spiritually "above the fray".

This position was based on the poet's religiosity (it was religion that taught at all times to evaluate events in the perspective of eternity). "Trying on" in his youth all world religions, Western and Eastern, Voloshin finally returned "home" - to Orthodoxy. Again and again he turned to the fate of Russian religious ascetics, creating in the last period of his life the poems "Protopope Avvakum", "Saint Seraphim", the poems "The Tale of the Monk Epiphany" and "The Mother of God of Vladimir". And his call: "All power to the patriarch!" (an article in the newspaper Tauride Voice on December 22, 1918) was by no means a desire to stun the layman, as Veresaev interpreted it, but an attempt to indicate the only, in his opinion, possible way of reconciliation. (It was not for nothing that I. Ehrenburg saw him in the church at the same time: the poem “How Antip ran after the owner”, 1918.) But in order to realize this appeal, the multimillion-dollar masses had to prefer their material interests (for which, first of all, there was a struggle) spiritual . What has always been on the shoulder only a few ...

Nevertheless, as already mentioned, these "unrealistic" appeals resonated in the souls of people. Voloshin's poems were distributed by the Whites in leaflets, while the Reds read them from the stage. Voloshin became the first Samizdat poet in Soviet Russia: since 1918, his poems about the revolution have been circulating "in thousands of lists." "I was told that they penetrated into eastern Siberia not from Russia, but from America, through China and Japan," Voloshin himself wrote in 1925 ("Autobiography"). And ready for the fact that in the coming cataclysms "all the signs will be licked by the flame", he hoped that "perhaps, reverently memory Random verse will keep orally ..." ("Descendants", 1921).

Part 3

The situation was more complicated with Voloshin's articles on the revolution: before them, the "editors of periodicals" slammed shut in the same way as they had once after the "Repin story." And in these articles (in the cycle of poems "The Ways of Cain") Voloshin showed himself as an inspired thinker and prophet. These thoughts were hatched by him throughout his life, but now, in extreme conditions, most of them were based on the rejection of the "machine" - a technical civilization based on a blind faith in science, on the primacy of the materiality of many achievements of civilization (speed of movement, comfort of dwellings, increase in yields), the poet raises the question: at what cost does a person get these benefits and, most importantly, where does this path lead in general?

As a result, man "cheapened" the spirit "for the joys of comfort and philistinism" and "became a slave of his own vile creatures." Machines are increasingly disrupting the balance of human relations with the environment. The "greed" of machines pushes people to fight for sales markets and sources of raw materials, leading to wars in which man - with the help of machines! - destroys his own kind. The right of the fist (the most humane!) has been replaced by the "right of gunpowder", and "appearances of monstrous shadows" looming on the threshold, to which the "future of the earth" is given (Voloshin wrote this, referring to "intra-atomic energy", in January 1923 !).

One of the few poets, Voloshin, saw in the theory of the class struggle "kakangelie" ("bad news" - Greek), "dividing the world with a new enmity." Always opposed to the "spirit of party spirit" (as aimed at satisfying private and selfish interests), he considered the "bet on the worker" unlawful. You should bet on creative forces, he believed: "On the inventor, organizer, initiators."

Voloshin accepted the revolution with open eyes, without illusions: as a grave inevitability, as retribution for the sins of a rotten monarchy (and, in the words of Dostoevsky, "everyone is for everything, Before everyone is to blame"). “Our revolution turned out to be not a coup, but a collapse, it opened the period of a new Time of Troubles,” he defined in the summer of 1919. But at the same time, psychologically, Russia presented “the only way out of that impasse that was finally determined and closed during the European War "(Crucified Russia, 1920). Very early, Voloshin saw the fateful fate of the Russian intelligentsia - to be "opened" "in the cyclone of revolutions" ("Russia", 1924). And, in fact, Stalinism predicted, back in 1919 predicting a monocratic and monarchist government for Russia, "regardless of what we want" ("Russian Revolution and the Coming Autocracy"). In the article "Russia Crucified," the poet explained: "Socialism is condensed state in its essence," so he will seek a foothold "in dictatorship, and then in Caesarism." Voloshin's prediction that the West, unlike Russia, "will survive without wasting culture" (Russia, 1924) also came true.

Of course, Voloshin also made mistakes. So, the denial of everyday gratitude by him is doubtful.

Do not give to the giver: give
to another,
To give to others -

he called. Only then, in his opinion, "a gift thrown into the sea Will excite souls, expanding like a wave ..." ("Rebel", 1923). This way of including everyone in the circle of unselfishness and love is too contrary to human nature, traditions, and, alas, is hardly real. Although, as an ideal, as a task for the future, such an idea has the right to exist. And it is quite typical for the heretic poet, who claimed "rebellion" as the beginning of any creativity. ("And the one who has adapted freezes at the passed step...")

It seems that Voloshin's rejection of the Brest Peace, in which he proceeded from Russia's loyalty to the allied duty towards France, England, and Serbia, was just as good-hearted. Putting above all the duty of honor and conscience of the state, the poet forgot about real people in the trenches who did not start a war, but were forced to pay with their lives for other people's interests. Although later he himself admitted that the Bolsheviks were right - and in his poem about the Brest peace "there is no necessary historical perspective and understanding" ("Russia crucified").

Sometimes Voloshin was clearly going overboard in pursuit of paradoxes, in an eternal quest to discover a new, unfamiliar aspect of an idea. (So ​​he somewhat "played" in mystification with Cherubina de Gabriac, as a result of which dramatic situations more than once occurred in the story, conceived as a comic one.) But all this was the other side of the fearlessness of Voloshin's thinking, the freedom and looseness of which he stood out among many writers of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. ("Walker on the roads of thought and word," - defined M. Tsvetaeva.)

This freedom was inseparable from the civil and human courage of the poet. He was always ready for everything that fate would send, and on November 17, 1917, he formulated his attitude to its vicissitudes: “Can it be anything scary if you carry your whole world in yourself? When death is the least terrible of all possible misfortune?" Not everyone could, like him, declare on the territory occupied by the Whites: "The boycott of Bolshevism by the intelligentsia, unsuccessful in design and deplorable in execution, was a serious political mistake that can be excused psychologically, but should by no means be justified and made a rule" (" Solomon's Court", 1919). In Soviet times, he was not afraid to assert: "Art in its essence is by no means democratic, but aristocratic, in the exact sense of the word:" aristos "is the best" ("Note on the direction of the folk art school", circa 1921).

All this fully corresponded to Voloshin's credo:

Isn't it too much said about the state?.. But let us remind you: the state (not the country!) is an instrument of political power, a mechanism of coercion and limitation. And the first condition of poetry is freedom, lack of control...

Part 4

In addition to the fact that Voloshin was a poet and translator, artist and art critic, literary and theater critic, he was a very attractive person. An interesting interlocutor-erudite, endowed with mild humor; a sensitive listener, tolerant and understanding, the poet numbered his friends in tens and hundreds. Moreover, among these friends there were diametrically opposed views: only Voloshin, who tried to find his good and creative beginning in everyone, united them in himself. M. Tsvetaeva wrote: “Max’s sharp eye on a person was a collective glass, collective means incendiary. Everything that was his own, that is, creative, in a person flared up and grew into a feasible fire and garden. Not a single person Max - knowledge, experience , talent - did not crush "(M. Tsvetaeva. Living about living. 1933). The poet himself formulated: “You need to know EVERYTHING about a person, so that he can neither lie nor disappoint, and, knowing everything, remember that an angel is hidden in everyone, on whom a devilish mask has grown, and he must be helped to overcome it, remember yourself.<...>And you should never expect or demand anything from people. But everything beautiful in them should be rejoiced as a personal gift "(letter to E. P. Orlova dated September 13, 1917).

It is impossible not to mention that the poet always reserved the right to an independent judgment about each person: between him and his vis-a-vis, with all the closeness, there was certainly a certain strip. "Close to everyone, a stranger to everything," he once said about himself (1905), and later repeated: "I leave everyone and do not forget anyone" (1911). I. Ehrenburg even doubted: "He counted everyone among his friends, but it seems that he did not have a friend."

This is wrong. You can name at least two people with whom Voloshin carried friendship through his whole life: these are the Feodosians Alexandra Mikhailovna Petrova (1871 - 1921) and the artist Konstantin Fedorovich Bogaevsky (1872 - 1943); experience of friendly relations with them - from 1896 and 1903, respectively. One can recall dozens more names of people whose friendship was not so long, but close enough and just as impeccable: A. M. Peshkovsky, Ya. A. Glotov, K. D. Balmont, E. S. Kruglikova, A. V Golyptein, sisters A. K. and E. K. Gertsyk, M. O. and M. S. Tsetlin, M. V. Zabolotskaya (the second wife of the poet), A. G. Gabrichevsky ...

However, you can't name everyone! (The card file compiled by V. Kupchenko contains more than six thousand names - and this, obviously, is not all.)

Of course, among these people were those who changed their attitude towards Voloshin over the years, were unfriendly and even hostile towards him (among them - A. A. Akhmatova, I. A. Bunin, M. A. Kuzmin, poet B. A. Sadovskoy , wife of O. Mandelstam N. Ya. Khazin). But the vast majority remembered him with a feeling of deep respect, admiration, love. Few people have written so many memoirs about anyone else: we have taken into account 112 authors (and 13 more people left entries about Voloshin in their diaries). Among them are such names as A. Bely, V. Ya. Bryusov, I. A. Bunin, V. V. Veresaev, E. K. Gertsyk, E. F. Gollerbakh, A. Ya. Golovin, V. A. Kaverin, N. A. Krandievskaya-Tolstaya, E. S. Kruglikova, V. G. Lidin, S. K. Makovsky, Yu. K. Olesha, A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, G. K. Paustovsky, V. A. Rodzhestvensky, A. N. Tolstoy, V. F. Khodasevich, A. I. Tsvetaeva, I. G. Ehrenburg. Among those who honored the memory of the poet with an obituary are A. V. Amfiteatrov, A. N. Benois, P. B. Struve ...

It should be noted that the memoirs written in the USSR could not but be influenced by the attitude that was established in the 1930s and 1950s towards the “decadent” symbolists: one could write about them only by exposing and criticizing their “delusions”. (Many therefore, no doubt, did not take up the pen.) And how many people from Voloshin's entourage died in the camps!

So such a number of grateful memoirs is the best indicator of what mark Maximilian Alexandrovich left in the hearts and souls of people who knew him. Even I. Ehrenburg, who in 1920 quarreled with Voloshin and did not accept much of him, admitted that he "during the years of trials turned out to be smarter, more mature, and even more humane than many of his fellow writers ...". Well, M. I. Tsvetaeva, not constrained by any censorship, wrote in 1933 a real panegyric to her friend and teacher - an essay "Living about Living", creating his most profound and inspirational image.

Fate was merciful to Voloshin in the sense that his archive was preserved with rare completeness (surviving both the thirties, fatal for Russian culture, and the occupation of Crimea by the German fascists in the forties). The credit for this is primarily to M. S. Voloshina (1887 - 1976), but in some ways it fits the concept of a miracle ... Long years all this wealth lay under a bushel - and only from the end of the 80s began to come to the reader in an increasingly powerful stream in magazine and book publications. So only now we are present at the true discovery of Maximilian Voloshin, in all the diversity of his faces and facets.

Polygons of Maximilian Voloshin.

“Tell me, is it really all that they say about the order in your house, is it true?” The guest asked Max. “What do they say?” - “They say that everyone who comes to your house must swear: they say, I consider Voloshin higher than Pushkin! That you have the right of the first night with any guest. And that, while living with you, women dress in “half pajamas”: one walks around Koktebel in the lower part on a naked body, the other in the upper. Also, that you pray to Zeus. Heal with the laying on of hands. Guess the future by the stars. Walk on water, like on dry land. Tamed a dolphin and milk it daily like a cow. Is this true?" "Of course it's true!" - proudly exclaimed Max ...

He was asked: "Are you always so pleased with yourself?". He answered pathetically: “Always!”. They liked to be friends with him, but they were rarely taken seriously. His poems seemed too "ancient", and watercolor landscapes - too "Japanese" (they were appreciated only decades later). Voloshin himself was called a hardworking drone, or even a pea jester. He even looked eccentric: vertically challenged, but very broad in the shoulders and thick, a lush mane of hair hid an already short neck. Max was proud of his appearance: “Seven pounds of male beauty!”, And he loved to dress extravagantly. For example, he walked the streets of Paris in knee-length velvet pants, a cape with a hood and a plush top hat - passers-by always turned to him.

Round and light, like a rubber ball, he “rolled” all over the world: he drove camel caravans through the desert, laid bricks at the construction of an anthroposophical temple in Switzerland... its quirky was forever looking for contraband. Women gossiped: Max looks so little like a real man that it’s not shameful to invite him to the bathhouse to rub his back. He himself, however, liked to start a rumor about his male “security”. At the same time, he had countless novels. In a word, Voloshin was the most eccentric Russian of the early twentieth century. Everyone agreed in this opinion, with the exception of those who knew his mother ...

Voloshin's mother Elena Ottobaldovna left first Kyiv, then Moscow - she believed that the Crimea - the best place to raise a son. Here you have mountains, and stones, and ancient ruins, and the remains of Genoese fortresses, and settlements of Tatars, Bulgarians, Greeks ... “You, Max, are a product of mixed blood. The Babylonian mix of cultures is just for you, ”the mother said.

She welcomed her son's interest in the occult and mysticism, and was not at all upset that he lagged behind in the gymnasium. Everything was allowed to Max, with the exception of two things: to eat in excess of the norm (he was already overweight), and to be like everyone else.

WIFE and TAIAH

The novel began in Paris - both listened to lectures at the Sorbonne. “I found your portrait,” Max said and dragged Amorya to the museum: the stone Egyptian princess Taiah smiled with a mysterious amorous smile. “They merged for me into a single being,” Max told his friends. - Each time you have to make an effort on yourself to believe: Margarita is from perishable flesh and blood, and not from eternal alabaster. I have never been so in love, but I dare not touch it - I consider it blasphemy! “But do you have enough sanity not to marry a woman of alabaster?”, Friends were worried. But Max loved his Koktebel too much! He sent there everything that, in his opinion, was worth admiration: thousands of books, ethnic knives, bowls, rosaries, castanets, corals, fossils, bird feathers ... In a word, first Max sent a copy from the Taiah statue to Koktebel, and then ...

... Having got married, they boarded the train. Three days to Feodosia, then - in a cab along the edge of the sea. Approaching the house, Margarita saw a strange sexless creature in a long linen shirt, with an uncovered gray head. It greeted Max with a hoarse bass: “Well hello! matured! It became like a profile on Karadag!”. - “Hello, Pra!” Voloshin answered. Margarita was at a loss: a man or a woman? Who is the husband? Turned out to be a mother. However, the address “Pra”, given to Elena Ottobaldovna by one of the guests, went to her unusually.

Max himself, having arrived home, dressed in the same knee-length tunic, girded himself with a thick cord, put on shoes in dudes, and even crowned his head with a wreath of wormwood. One girl, seeing him with Margarita, asked: “Why did this princess marry this janitor?” Margarita was embarrassed, and Max burst into a happy laugh. He laughed just as joyfully when the local Bulgarians came to ask him to wear pants under the tunic - they say, their wives and daughters are embarrassed.

Bohemian friends of Max reached out to Koktebel. Voloshin even came up with a name for them: “Order of Obormots”, and wrote a charter: “The requirement for residents is love for people and making a share in the intellectual life of the house.”

Meanwhile, vague news came from St. Petersburg about how the Symbolists were building a new human community, where Eros enters into flesh and blood ... In general, it was decided to go to St. Petersburg. They settled on Tavricheskaya, in house number 25. A floor above, in a semicircular attic, lived the fashionable poet Vyacheslav Ivanov, symbolists gathered here on Wednesdays. Max began to vigorously recite, argue, quote, while Amorya had quiet conversations with Ivanov: that the life of a real artist should have been permeated with drama, that friendly couples are out of fashion and worthy of contempt. Once Lydia, Ivanov's wife, told her: “You entered our life with Vyacheslav. If you leave, a void will form.” It was decided to live together.

And Max? He is superfluous, and should roll into his Koktebel, walk around there in a tunic, since he is not enough for anything more daring ... Max Amorya did not condemn and did not force him to do anything. In parting, he even sent Ivanov a new cycle of his poems - he, however, responded to them with great harshness. Only those closest to him knew: Max is not as thick-skinned as he wants to appear. Soon after parting with his wife, he wrote to his cousin: “Explain to me what is my ugliness? Everywhere, and especially in the literary environment, I feel like a beast among people - something out of place. What about women? My essence bothers them very soon, and only irritation remains”…

... And Margarita and the Ivanovs did not succeed in “families of a new type”. adult daughter Lydia from her first marriage - the blond beast Vera - very soon took her place in “ triple alliance". And when Lydia died, Vyacheslav married Vera. Gentle Amore could only write endless sketches for the planned picture, in which Ivanov portrayed Dionysus, and she herself - Sorrow. The painting was never finished.

Max did not grieve for long. There is no Amory - there is Tatida, Marevna, Violet - blue-eyed, Irish, who left her husband and rushed after Voloshin to Koktebel. But all this is so, fleeting novels. Maybe only one woman hooked him seriously. Elizaveta Ivanovna Dmitrieva, student of the Sorbonne in the course of Old French and Old Spanish literature. Lame from birth, plump, disproportionately large-headed, but sweet, charming and witty. Gumilyov was the first to be captivated. It was he who persuaded Lilya to go to Koktebel for the summer, to Voloshin.

In the crowd of guests, Nikolai and Lilya followed Max through the mountains, he stopped every now and then to caress the stones or whisper with the trees. Once Voloshin asked: “Do you want me to light the grass?”. He stretched out his hand, and the grass caught fire, and the smoke streamed up to the sky ... What was it? Energy unknown to science, or another hoax? Lilya Dmitrieva did not know, but the Zeus-likeness of Max struck her down.

And when she saw a stone profile on Karadag, to the right of Koktebel, she was not too surprised: “Voloshin, is this your portrait? I would like to see how you did it ... Maybe, especially for me, you will capture your face again - to the left of Koktebel, under a pair of the first? “On the left is a place for my death mask!” Max exclaimed pathetically. Pra herself smiled encouragingly as she listened to their dialogue. Could Voloshin not fall in love with Lilya after that? Having received his resignation, Gumilyov lived with Voloshin for another week, walked, caught tarantulas. Then he wrote a wonderful poem "Captains", released the spiders and left.

Gumilyov, by the way, was also one of the editors of Apollo. And he did everything to return the envelope with Dmitrieva's poems unopened. It turned out that he never forgave his unfaithful lover. All this became the plot of a great hoax, invented and staged by Max Voloshin. Real dueling pistols were hard to find, and so old that they could well remember Pushkin and Dantes. For seventy years, St. Petersburg has lost the habit of duels, and the duel of poets - miraculously ended without bloodshed - was called vaudeville in the newspapers. The police solved this case, having found a galosh of one of the seconds on the Black River. So the tragedy turned into a farce. St. Petersburg had no time to discuss the details of the scandalous duel between Voloshin and Gumilyov, when a new sensation broke out: Cherubina de Gabriak does not exist!

ROBOT FIGHT

Since then, Voloshin did not seriously fall in love and did not think about marriage. From now on, his main concern was the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcreating a "summer station for creative people in Koktebel." Max's hospitality has now reached some kind of universal scale (the record was set in 1928 - 600 people)!

Some kind of terraces and sheds were constantly attached to the house, there were more and more “turnarounds” from summer to summer. Which caused a lot of anxiety to respectable neighbors - the family of the Koktebel landowner Deisha-Sionitskaya. This highly moral lady, in defiance of the “Order”, founded the Society for the Improvement of the Koktebel Village, and the war began!

The Beautification Society, concerned that the “Obs” swim naked, men and women mixed up, set up poles on the beach with arrows in different directions: “for men” and “for women”. Voloshin personally sawed these poles into firewood and burned them. The Beautification Society complained to the police. Voloshin explained that he considered it indecent to put up inscriptions before him, which people are accustomed to seeing only in complete certain places. The court exacted a fine of several rubles from Voloshin. "Dumbass" led by Pra dark night staged a cat concert for Deisha-Sionitskaya and smeared her gates with tar.

Surprisingly, even in 1918, when leapfrog began in Feodosia with a change of power, just a dozen kilometers away, in Koktebel, the republic of poets and artists flourished. Here they received, fed and saved everyone who needed it. It was like a game of Cossack robbers: when General Sulkevich drove the Reds out of the Crimea, Voloshin hid a delegate from the underground Bolshevik congress. “Keep in mind that when you are in power, I will do the same with your enemies!” Max promised the saved goodbye. And he didn't cheat.

Under the Bolsheviks, Max launched a vigorous activity. Leaving the "brats" on Elena Ottobaldovna, he went to Odessa. He united local artists in a trade union with painters: “It's time to return to medieval workshops!”. Then he took up the organization of the writing shop. He ran, beamed, negotiated with the authorities. He appeared at the first meeting during the parade: in some kind of cassock, with a Tyrolean hat hanging over his shoulders. With small graceful steps he went to the stage: “Comrades!”. What followed was drowned out by a wild cry and whistling: “Down with! To hell with the old, dilapidated hacks! The next day, Odessa Izvestia published: “Voloshin is creeping towards us, every bastard is now in a hurry to cling to us.” Discouraged Max returned to Koktebel. And since then, he did not like to leave there.

In 1922, famine began in the Crimea, and the Voloshins had to eat eagles - they were caught in Karadag by an old neighbor woman, covering them with a skirt.

Everything would be fine, but Elena Ottoboldovna began to noticeably surrender. Max even lured a paramedic for her from a neighboring village - Marusya Zabolotskaya. Marusya looked like the only inorganic element of this all-tolerant house - too ordinary, too angular, too crowded. She did not draw, did not compose poetry. But she was kind and sympathetic - she treated local peasants completely free of charge and up to last day took care of Pra.

When the 73-year-old Elena Ottobaldovna was buried in January 1923, faithful Marusya was crying next to Max. The next day she exchanged her ordinary dress for short linen trousers and an embroidered shirt. And although at the same time she lost the last signs of femininity, she became similar to Pra. Could Voloshin not marry such a woman?

From now on, Marusya took care of the guests. This house has become for bohemia the only island of freedom, light and celebration in the ocean of gray Soviet everyday life. And there were songs, and raising hands to the sky, and jokes, and an eternal battle with adherents of a dull order. Instead of the swept away story of Deisha-Sionitskaya and Voloshin, the Koktebel peasants were now at enmity - the same ones who ran to Marusa for free treatment. One day they presented Max with a bill for sheep allegedly torn apart by his dogs. The Workers' and Peasants' Court upheld this delusional accusation, and Voloshin, under the threat of eviction from Koktebel, was ordered to poison the dogs. What was it like for him, who had never hurt a fly in his entire life?!

The thing is that Koktebel has become a popular resort, and the locals have adapted to renting rooms to summer residents. And Voloshin, with his exorbitant hospitality, spoiled the whole business. “It's not communist to let non-residents live for free!” the peasants were indignant. However, the financial inspection to Voloshin had the exact opposite claim: they did not believe in the free “station for creative people” and demanded payment of tax for the maintenance of the hotel.

On August 11, 1932, at 11 am, the fifty-five-year-old Voloshin died. He bequeathed to bury himself on the Kuchuk-Yenishar hill, which limits Koktebel on the left, just as Karadag limits it on the right. The coffin, which seemed almost square, was placed on a cart: the weight was such that the horse stood up, not reaching the top. For the last two hundred meters, friends carried Max in their arms - but the promise once made to Lila Dmitrieva was fulfilled: wherever you look, both to the right and to the left of Koktebel, one way or another turned out to be Max Voloshin.

Having been widowed, Marya Stepanovna Voloshina did not change the Koktebel order. And while she was alive, she received in the house everyone whom Max loved so much: poets, artists, just wanderers. The payment for living was still love for people and making a share in intellectual life ...

Photos: Didulenko Alexander and other authors can see: , .
In chapter

Maximilian Alexandrovich Voloshin (surname at birth - Kirienko-Voloshin). Born on May 16 (28), 1877 in Kyiv - died on August 11, 1932 in Koktebel (Crimea). Russian poet, translator, landscape painter, art and literary critic.

Maximilian Voloshin was born on May 16 (28 according to the new style) May 1877 in Kyiv.

Father - Kiriyenko-Voloshin, lawyer, collegiate adviser (died in 1881).

Mother - Elena Ottobaldovna (nee Glazer) (1850-1923).

Shortly after his birth, his parents separated, Maximilian was brought up by his mother, with whom he was very close until the end of her life.

Early childhood passed in Taganrog and Sevastopol.

He began to receive secondary education at the 1st Moscow Gymnasium. Knowledge and performance did not shine. He recalled: “When my mother presented reviews of my Moscow successes to the Feodosia gymnasium, the director, the humane and elderly Vasily Ksenofontovich Vinogradov, spread his hands and said: “Madame, we, of course, will accept your son, but I must warn you that We can't fix idiots."

In 1893, he and his mother moved to the Crimea in Koktebel. There, Maximilian went to the Feodosia gymnasium (the building has been preserved - now it houses the Feodosia Academy of Finance and Economics). Since the walking path from Koktebel to Feodosia through the mountainous desert terrain was long, Voloshin lived on rented apartments in Feodosia.

The views and attitudes of the young Maximilian Voloshin can be judged from the questionnaire that has come down to our time.

1. What is your favorite virtue? - Self-sacrifice and diligence.

2. What is your favorite quality in a man? - Femininity.

3. What is your favorite quality in a woman? - Courage.

4. Your favorite pastime is Traveling and talking together.

5. A distinctive feature of your character? - Dispersion.

6. How do you imagine happiness? - Control the crowd.

7. How do you imagine misfortune? - Lose faith in yourself.

8. What are your favorite colors and flowers? - Blue, lily of the valley.

9. If you were not you, what would you like to be? - Peshkovsky.

10. Where would you prefer to live? - Where I am not.

11. Who are your favorite prose writers? - Dickens, Dostoevsky.

From 1897 to 1899, Voloshin studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, was expelled "for participation in the riots" with the right to reinstatement, did not continue his studies, and took up self-education.

In 1899, for active participation in the All-Russian student strike, he was expelled for a year and exiled to Feodosia under covert police supervision. On August 29 of the same year, he and his mother leave for Europe for almost half a year, on their first trip abroad.

Returning to Moscow, Voloshin externally passed the exams at the university, transferred to the third year, and in May 1900 he again set off on a two-month trip around Europe along the route he himself developed. This time - on foot, with friends: Vasily Isheev, Leonid Kandaurov, Alexei Smirnov.

Upon his return to Russia, Maximilian Voloshin was arrested on suspicion of distributing illegal literature. He was transferred from Crimea to Moscow, kept in solitary confinement for two weeks, but was soon released, depriving him of the right to enter Moscow and St. Petersburg. This hastened Voloshin's departure to Central Asia with a survey party for the construction of the Orenburg-Tashkent railway. At that time - in a voluntary exile.

In September 1900, a survey party headed by V.O. Vyazemsky, arrived in Tashkent. It includes M.A. Voloshin, who, according to the certificate, was listed as a paramedic. However, he showed such remarkable organizational skills that when the party left for the expedition, he was appointed to the responsible position of head of the caravan and head of the camp.

He recalled: “1900, the turn of two centuries, was the year of my spiritual birth. I walked with caravans through the desert. Nietzsche and Vl. Solovyov’s Three Conversations overtook me here. Asian plateaus and reassess cultural values".

In Tashkent, he decides not to return to the university, but to go to Europe, to educate himself.

In the 1900s he traveled a lot, studied in the libraries of Europe, listened to lectures at the Sorbonne. In Paris, he also took drawing and engraving lessons from the artist E. S. Kruglikova.

Returning to Moscow at the beginning of 1903, Voloshin easily became "his own" among Russian symbolists, began to actively publish. Since that time, living alternately at home, then in Paris, he did a lot to bring Russian and French art closer together.

Since 1904, from Paris, he regularly sent correspondence for the newspaper Rus and the magazine Libra, and wrote about Russia for the French press. Later, in 1908, the Polish sculptor Edward Wittig created a large sculptural portrait of M.A. Voloshin, which was exhibited at the Autumn Salon, was acquired by the Paris City Hall and in next year was installed at 66 Exelman Boulevard, where it stands to this day.

"In these years, I'm just an absorbent sponge. I'm all eyes, all ears. I wander around countries, museums, libraries: Rome, Spain, Corsica, Andorra, Louvre, Prado, Vatican ... National Library. In addition to the technique of the word, I master the technique of the brush and pencil... Stages of the wandering of the spirit: Buddhism, Catholicism, magic, Freemasonry, occultism, theosophy, R. Steiner. A period of great personal experiences of a romantic and mystical nature," he wrote.

March 23, 1905 in Paris became a Freemason, having received initiation in the Masonic lodge "Labor and true faithful friends» No. 137 (Grand Lodge of France - VLF). In April of the same year, he moved to the Mount Sinai Lodge No. 6 (VLF).

Since 1906, after marrying the artist Margarita Vasilievna Sabashnikova, he settled in St. Petersburg. In 1907 he broke up with his wife and decided to leave for Koktebel. He began to write the cycle "Cimmerian Twilight".

Since 1910, he worked on monographic articles about K. F. Bogaevsky, A. S. Golubkina, M. S. Saryan, advocated artistic groups"Jack of Diamonds" and "Donkey's Tail", although he himself stood outside the literary and artistic groups.

With the poetess Elizaveta (Lilya) Dmitrieva, Voloshin composed a very successful literary hoax - Cherubina de Gabriac. He asked her for a petition to join the Anthroposophical Society.

The first collection of "Poems. 1900-1910" came out in Moscow in 1910, when Voloshin became a prominent figure in the literary process: an influential critic and an established poet with a reputation as a "strict parnassian".

In 1914, a book of selected articles on culture, Faces of Creativity, was published, and in 1915, a book of passionate poems about the horror of war, Anno mundi ardentis 1915 (In the Year of the Burning World, 1915), was published.

At this time, he paid more and more attention to painting, painted watercolor landscapes of the Crimea, exhibited his works at exhibitions of the World of Art.

On February 13, 1913, Voloshin gave a public lecture at the Polytechnic Museum "On the artistic value of Repin's damaged painting." In the lecture, he expressed the idea that in the painting itself “self-destructive forces lurk”, that it was its content and art form that caused aggression against it.

In the summer of 1914, carried away by the ideas of anthroposophy, Voloshin arrived in Dornach (Switzerland), where, together with like-minded people from more than 70 countries (including Andrei Bely, Asya Turgeneva, Margarita Voloshina), he began the construction of the First Goetheanum, a cultural center founded by R. Steiner anthroposophical society. The first Goetheanum burned down on the night of December 31, 1922 to January 1, 1923.

In 1914, Voloshin wrote a letter to the Russian Minister of War, Sukhomlinov, refusing military service and participation in the "bloody massacre" of the First World War.

After the revolution, Maximilian Voloshin finally settled in Koktebel, in a house built in 1903-1913 by his mother, Elena Ottobaldovna Voloshina. Here he created many watercolors that formed his Koktebel Suite.

Voloshin perceived the events of 1917 and the coming to power of the Bolsheviks as a catastrophe, he wrote:

It's over with Russia ... On the last
We chatted it, chatted it,
Slipped, drank, spat,
Smudged on dirty squares,
Sold out on the streets: is it not necessary
To whom the land, republics, yes freedom,
Civil rights? And the homeland of the people
He himself dragged out on the pus, like carrion.
Oh Lord, open, scatter,
Send us fire, ulcers and scourges,
Germans from the west, Mongol from the east,
Give us into slavery again and forever
To redeem humbly and deeply
Judas sin until the Last Judgment!

Often he signed his watercolors: “Your wet light and matte shadows give the stones a turquoise hue” (about the Moon); “The distances are thinly carved, washed away by the light of the cloud”; "In saffron twilight purple hills." The inscriptions give some idea of ​​the artist's watercolors - poetic, perfectly conveying not so much the real landscape as the mood it evokes, the endless untiring variety of lines of the hilly "country of Cimmeria", their soft, muted colors, the line of the sea horizon - some kind of magical, all-organizing dash , clouds melting in the ash moon sky. That allows us to attribute these harmonious landscapes to the Cimmerian school of painting.

During the years of the Civil War, the poet tried to moderate enmity by saving the persecuted in his house: first the Reds from the Whites, then, after the change of power, the Whites from the Reds. The letter sent by M. Voloshin in defense of O. E. Mandelstam, who was arrested by the Whites, very likely saved him from execution.

In 1924, with the approval of the People's Commissariat of Education, Voloshin turned his house in Koktebel into a free house of creativity (later - the House of Creativity of the Literary Fund of the USSR).

Maximilian Voloshin died after a second stroke on August 11, 1932 in Koktebel and was buried on Mount Kuchuk-Yanyshar near Koktebel. N. Chukovsky, G. Storm, Artobolevsky, A. Gabrichevsky participated in the funeral.

Voloshin bequeathed his house to the Union of Writers.

On August 1, 1984, the solemn opening of the museum "House-Museum of Maximilian Voloshin" took place in Koktebel. On June 19, 2007, a memorial plaque was opened in Kyiv on the house where Maximilian Alexandrovich Voloshin was born (house number 24 on Taras Shevchenko Boulevard in Kyiv).

The International Voloshin Competition, the International Voloshin Prize and the Voloshin September Festival were established.

In 2007, the name of M. A. Voloshin was given to Library No. 27, located in Novodevichy Proezd in Moscow.

Crimean alien. Voloshin's mysticism

Personal life of Maximilian Voloshin:

In his youth, he was friends with Alexandra Mikhailovna Petrova (1871-1921), the daughter of a colonel, head of the border guards in Feodosia. She was fond of spiritualism, then theosophy, later, not without the participation of Voloshin, she came to anthroposophy.

In 1903 in Moscow, visiting the famous collector S.I. Shchukin, Maximilian met a girl who struck him with her peculiar beauty, sophistication and original worldview - Margarita Vasilievna Sabashnikova. She was an artist of the Repin school, a fan of Vrubel's work. She was known in the artistic environment as a subtle portrait painter and colorist. In addition, she wrote poetry (worked in the direction of symbolism).

On April 12, 1906, Sabashnikova and Voloshin got married in Moscow. But the marriage turned out to be short-lived - a year later they broke up, maintaining friendly relations until the end of Voloshin's life. One of the external reasons for the gap was Margarita Vasilievna's infatuation with Vyacheslav Ivanov, with whom the Voloshins lived next door in St. Petersburg.

In 1922 M.V. Voloshina was forced to leave Soviet Russia, settled in the south of Germany, in Stuttgart, where she lived until her death in 1976, she was engaged in spiritual painting of the Christian and anthroposophical direction.

Soon after parting with Sobashnikova, in 1907 Voloshin left for Koktebel. And in the summer of 1909, young poets and Elizaveta (Lilya) Dmitrieva, an ugly, lame, but very talented girl, came to him.

Voloshin and Dmitrieva soon created the most famous literary hoax of the 20th century: Cherubina de Gabriac. Voloshin invented the legend, the literary mask of Cherubina and acted as an intermediary between Dmitrieva and the editor of "Apollo" S. Makovsky, but only Lilya wrote poems under this pseudonym.

On November 22, 1909, a duel took place between Voloshin and Gumilyov on the Black River. According to the "Confession", written by Elizaveta Dmitrieva in 1926 shortly before her death, the main reason was the immodesty of N. Gumilyov, who talked everywhere about his affair with Cherubina de Gabriac.

Giving Gumilyov a public slap in the face in the studio of the artist Golovin, Voloshin stood up not for his literary hoax, but for the honor of a woman close to him - Elizaveta Dmitrieva.

Gumilyov's second was Evgeny Znosko-Borovsky. Voloshin's second was Count Alexei Tolstoy.

However, the scandalous duel brought only ridicule to Voloshin: instead of a symbolic slap in the face, Voloshin gave Gumilyov a real slap in the face, lost a galosh on the way to the place of the duel and forced everyone to look for it, then basically did not shoot at the enemy. Whereas Gumilyov fired twice at Voloshin, but missed. Voloshin deliberately fired into the air, and his pistol misfired twice in a row. All participants in the duel were punished with a fine of ten rubles.

Opponents after the fight did not shake hands with each other and did not reconcile. Only in 1921, having met Gumilyov in the Crimea, Voloshin answered his handshake.

Elizaveta Dmitrieva (Cherubina de Gabriak) left Voloshin immediately after the duel and married her childhood friend, engineer Vsevolod Vasiliev. For the rest of her life (she died in 1928), she corresponded with Voloshin.

Lilya Dmitrieva (Cherubina de Gabriac)

in 1923 his mother Elena Ottobaldovna died. On March 9, 1927, Voloshin officially married Maria Stepanovna Zabolotskaya, a paramedic who helped him take care of his mother in her last years of life.

It is believed that this marriage somewhat extended the life of Voloshin himself - all the remaining years he was ill a lot, almost did not leave the Crimea and needed constant professional care.

Bibliography of Maximilian Voloshin:

1900-1910 - Poems
1914 - Faces of creativity
1915 - Anno mundi ardentis
1918 - Iverny: (Selected Poems)
1919 - Deaf and dumb demons
1923 - Strife: Poems about the Revolution
1923 - Terror Poems
1946 - Ways of Russia: Poems
1976 - Maximilian Voloshin - artist. Collection of materials
1990 - Voloshin M. Autobiography. Memories of Maximilian Voloshin
1990 - Voloshin M. About himself
2007 - Voloshin Maximilian. “I was, I am...” (Compiled by Vera Terekhina

Paintings by Maximilian Voloshin:

1914 - “Spain. By the sea"
1914 - “Paris. Place de la Concorde at night»
1921 - “Two trees in the valley. Koktebel"
1921 - "Landscape with lake and mountains"
1925 - "Pink Twilight"
1925 - "Hills parched with heat"
1926 - "Moon Vortex"
1926 - "Lead Light"

The image of Maximilian Voloshin is present in the 1987 film “It’s not always summer in Crimea” directed by Willen Novak. The role of the poet was played by an actor.

Master class program

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Setting the light, composing, coloring the frame... According to Maxim Voloshin, the author of the master class, still life is exactly the genre that slowly develops these basic skills of strong artistic photography. However, not only any spectacular photograph is based on this knowledge, but also a valuable, selling frame.

That's why in this master class:

• all participants will leave with interesting shots, replenish their portfolios with still lifes.
• amateur photographers will improve their skills in working with lighting, framing and color matching.
• photographers learn how to take interesting pictures at home, using a minimum of equipment and space.
• professionals will learn a set of useful techniques. You can’t do without them if still life, product photography or stock photography are the leading genres for you

Date: May 19 at 12:00 Price: 1200 UAH for school graduates, 1500 UAH - for guests
5 hours of practice and theory with coffee breaks, buns and socializing.

Part I. Composition and light in still life (1 hour)

1. What makes a still life "beautiful"? About the importance of lighting schemes from the experience of masters, the choice of objects, the location of objects, texture.
2. How to get started? Studying masterpieces, thinking through history, sketching.
3. The choice of objects - practical recommendations: color, shape, size, texture, thematic.
4. Fundamentals of composition: eye movement - “the rule of a strong hand”, the golden ratio and points of power. Conclusions and practical recommendations.
5. Examples of lighting schemes in still life. One light source: light from a window at the level of the subject, light from above at 45º to the subject. Volumetric forms, glare and reflections.
6. Light brush. Simulation of multiple light sources.
7. An idea of ​​the possibilities of using still life techniques in other genres of photography

Coffee break

Part II. Equipment, shooting techniques, post-processing (1.5 hours)

1. Lens choice. Why 85 mm? Focal length, aperture and depth of field. We are exploring options.
2. Tripod selection. Benefits of a tripod with a swivel column.
3. Remote control. Benefits of using the remote control remote control and shooting directly to the computer. An overview of the software for shooting.
4. How to choose and prepare a table for composition?
5. Light modifiers: gobos, diffusers, reflectors, black flags. How do I use them?
6. Backgrounds and surfaces for composition. Creating an atmosphere and managing your own mood. Handmade background.
7. Additional equipment: do-it-yourself flag holder, clothespins, foil, plasticine, tweezers, gloves, sticks and brushes.
8. Light brush. Light brush with your own hands. Smartphone as a light brush: advantages and disadvantages, programs like Softbox.
9. Basic principles of image processing. Lightroom and Photoshop - we use together and separately. Features of combining layers and overlaying textures. Using some plugins. Preparation of work for posting on the Internet and for printing.

Coffee break

Part III. Still life photography practice (2 hours). Frames for portfolio. Ideas for tricky still lifes! (new)

1. Practicing shooting techniques with imitation of light from a window. One constant light source.
2. Setting up a light source, using a diffuser, setting flags and reflectors: how to save image volume.
3. Practice with the light brush. Usage various options brushes (flashlight with diffusers, led-panel, smartphone / tablet). Development of object lighting scenarios.
4. Technique for shooting flying objects. Ideas for trick still lifes.
5. Practice shooting several frames for subsequent editing.

I am sure that at the end of the master class you will find a good mood and spectacular pictures! MC participants are encouraged to:

• be able to set up your camera and have basic concept about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, depth of field;
• have a camera with a lens of 85-100 mm (if you have a crop matrix, then 50-65 mm), a dim flashlight (keychain) or a smartphone, a tripod.