B almont Konstantin Dmitrievich (1867, June 15, village of Gumnishchi, Vladimir province - 1942, December 23) - Russian poet, translator, essayist.

Born in the village of Gumnishchi, near the city of Vladimir. Father, Balmont Dmitry, was a judge. Mother - Lebedeva Vera, comes from the family of a general, where the cultural development of a person was considered the main thing. She had a strong influence on Constantine's passion for music and literature.

At the age of five he already knew how to read, which he taught himself. The first poets whose work I became acquainted with were: , . In 1876, the family moved to Shuya, where Balmont studied at the gymnasium. At the age of ten he began writing his own poetry. By that time he had read many books in German and French. In 1884 he was expelled due to his participation in a “revolutionary” circle.

That same year, Balmont moved to the city of Vladimir, where he continued his studies at the gymnasium for two years. In 1886 he entered Moscow University at the Faculty of Law. Konstantin had a rebellious character, and the free atmosphere at the university only strengthened it. He took part in a student revolt against innovations at the university and was soon expelled and spent several days in Butyrka prison. He soon returned to study, but never received a law degree due to loss of interest. He wrote that all the knowledge in the field of literature, history, philosophy, and philology that he received was acquired as a result of self-education. He followed the example of his older brother, who was very interested in philosophy.

1890 Balmont attempts suicide by jumping from a third-floor window. After this, he remained lame for the rest of his life. Apparently, Balmont had a genetic tendency to mental illness. This began to manifest itself in the early years of the writer's life and had an influence throughout his life. Many historians and biographers believe that Balmont’s creative abilities were positively influenced by his mental disorders.

Balmont's debut as a poet was plagued by many failures. For several years, none of the newspapers agreed to publish his poems. In the end, he decided to do everything himself and published a book of poems in 1890. But the book was not a success; even friends and family did not approve of it. This reaction to his book hurt Konstantin so much that he burned all the copies.

Instead of writing poetry, Balmont focuses on translating the works of foreign poets and writers. He had amazing linguistic abilities, speaking more than ten languages. This gave him the opportunity to read European literature and translate it into Russian. He worked with English and Spanish poetry and translated the works of Calderon, Ibsen, Whitman, Allan Poe and many Armenian and Georgian poets. In 1893 he published translations of all of Percy Shelley's works in Russian. Balmont dealt with works in many other languages: Baltic and Slavic, Indian and Sanskrit.

Working as a translator brought much more fruit than writing poetry. Translations of Edgar Allan Poe's works were published in almost every magazine that was published at the time. This fact gave Balmont the courage to once again try his hand at being a poet. The collections “Under the Northern Sky” in 1894 and “Silence” in 1898 finally brought him the recognition and fame that he had been looking for for so long. In addition to the obvious content, Balmont's symbolist poetry carried a hidden message, expressed through veiled allusions and melodic rhythms of language.

At the beginning of the century, Balmont reached the pinnacle of poetic activity. The books “Let’s Be Like the Sun” and “Only Love” are considered the author’s best creations. He brought moral and almost physical liberation from the traditional gloomy and sad poetry that complained about life in Russia. His proud optimism and life-affirming enthusiasm encourage freedom from the restrictions that society imposes. Balmont's poetry became a new philosophy, marking the beginning of the Silver Age of Russian poetry.

In subsequent works, Balmont changed his writing style to a more aggressive one. Many of his contemporaries took this as a call for revolution. Balmont protested in his works mainly against injustice, but his lifelong rebellion ended with the writing of the controversial poem “The Little Sultan,” in which he criticized Nicholas II, thereby earning discontent with the authorities. Konstantin was expelled from St. Petersburg and received a ban on living in university cities in Russia.

Balmont left the country and became a political emigrant. He enjoyed traveling and used this time to curb his thirst for adventure. It seems that the world has not yet known a poet who spent a lot of time there on the deck of a ship or looking out of a train window. He traveled through Europe, Mexico, Egypt, Greece, South Africa, Australia, Oceania, New Zealand, Japan, India. His contemporaries said that he saw more countries than all other Russian writers combined.

In 1905, Balmont published another book of poems entitled “Liturgy of Beauty.” Critics noticed a deterioration in Balmont's poetic works - he began to repeat his old ideas, images and techniques. His praise of life was no longer perceived convincingly, as if it had been feigned and the author himself did not believe his words.

In 1913, in honor of the three hundredth anniversary of the House of Romanov, all political immigrants were awarded an amnesty and Balmont was able to come to Russia. He was a supporter of the February Revolution in 1917, but was soon horrified by the chaos and subsequent civil war. To a greater extent, he could not agree with the new policy aimed at suppressing the individual. He received a temporary visa and left Russia forever in 1920.

Balmont and his family settled in Paris. Here he wrote most of his works - about 50 books. Despite this, his best years as a writer were long gone; his poems indicated a weakening of his creative powers. He did not maintain contact with the Russian emigrant society and lived in isolation from it. Despite this, he was very homesick and the only way to alleviate his suffering was poetry, which he dedicated to her.

After 1930, signs of mental instability began to become more pronounced and his condition began to deteriorate due to poverty, nostalgia and loss of poetry writing skills. Balmont, in fact, went crazy.

Balmont died in Nazi-occupied France at the age of 79 from pneumonia. He was buried in the city of Noisy-le-Grand.

Konstantin Balmont had a huge influence on Russian literature and poetry, freed it from old ideas and introduced new ways of expressing thoughts and ideas.

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

The greatest representative of poetry of the early twentieth century, Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont, was born on June 3, 1867 in the village of Gumnishchi, Vladimir province. His father was listed as a judge in the city zemstvo, and his mother was engaged in literature. She often held literary evenings and appeared in amateur performances.

It was his mother who introduced Balmont to literature, history, music and literature, influencing the boy’s perception. As the poet wrote later, from his mother he learned the unbridledness and passion of nature, which became the basis of his entire subtle soul.

Childhood

Konstantin had 6 brothers. When the time came to teach the elders, the family settled in the city. In 1876, little Balmont went to the gymnasium. The boy soon got bored with his studies, and he spent all his days reading voraciously. Moreover, German and French books were read in the original. What he read inspired Balmont so much that at the age of 10 he wrote poetry for the first time.

But, like many boys of that time, little Kostya was exposed to rebellious revolutionary sentiments. He met a revolutionary circle, where he actively participated, which is why he was expelled in 1884. He completed his studies in Vladimir, and somehow graduated from high school in 1886. Then the young man was sent to Moscow University to study to become a lawyer. But the revolutionary spirit did not go away, and a year later the student was expelled for leading student riots.

The beginning of a creative journey

The 10-year-old boy's first poetic experience was severely criticized by his mother. Touched to the quick, the boy forgets about poetry for 6 years. The first published work dates back to 1885, and it appeared in the magazine “Picturesque Review”. From 1887 to 1889 Konstantin began to work closely on translating books from German and French. In 1890, due to poverty and a sad marriage, the newly minted translator is thrown out of the window. He spends about a year in the hospital with severe injuries. As the poet himself wrote, the year spent in the ward entailed “an unprecedented flowering of mental excitement and cheerfulness.” During this year, Balmont published his debut book of poetry. There was no recognition, and, stung by the indifference to his work, he destroys the entire circulation.

The rise of a poet

After an unsuccessful experience with his own book, Balmont began self-development. He reads books, improves languages, and spends time traveling. From 1894 to 1897 is engaged in translations of “History of Scandinavian Literature” and “History of Italian Literature”. New, now successful, attempts to publish poetry appeared: in 1894 the book “Under the Northern Sky” was published, 1895 - “In the Boundless”, 1898 - “Silence”. Balmont's works appear in the newspaper "Scales". In 1896, the poet married again and left with his wife for Europe. The travels continue: in 1897 he gives lessons on Russian literature in England.

A new book of poems was published in 1903 with the title “Let us be like the sun.” She achieved unprecedented success. In 1905, Balmont again left Russia and went to Mexico. Revolution of 1905-1907 the traveler greeted him passionately and took direct part in it. The poet was regularly on the street, had a loaded revolver with him and read speeches to students. Fear of arrest forces the revolutionary to leave for France in 1906.

Having settled in the outback of Paris, the poet still spends all his time away from home. In 1914, visiting Georgia, he translated Rustaveli’s poem “The Knight in the Skin of a Tiger.” In 1915 he returned to Moscow, where he lectured students on literature.

Creative crisis

In 1920, Balmont again left for Paris with his third wife and daughter, and never left its borders. Six more collections of poetry were published in France; in 1923, autobiographies “Under the New Sickle” and “Air Route” were published. Konstantin Dmitrievich missed his homeland very much, and often regretted leaving it. Suffering poured out into poetry of that period. It became increasingly difficult for him, and soon he was diagnosed with a serious mental disorder. The poet stopped writing and devoted more and more time to reading. He spent the end of his life in the Russian House shelter in the French countryside. The great poet died on December 23, 1942.

August (“How clear is August, gentle and calm...”) SonnetWithout a smile, without words (“On the diamond cover of snow...”)Swamp (“Oh, a miserable life, without storms, without sensations...”)“The first sparks of dawn scattered...” (Dawn)“In the dead of night, by an obscure crowd...” (Picture) Sonnet“In a sad moment, in a sad hour of the night...” (Nightmare) Sonnet“The dew sparkled in the field...” In the capital (“The fresh smell of fragrant hay reminded me of distant days...”)“Inhaling the refreshing sea air...” (Separation)"Evening. Seaside. Sighs of the wind..." (The boat of languor)“Hearing the wind, the poplar bends...” (Sadness)“Wherever I am, everywhere, like a shadow, is with me...” (Ghost)Mountain King ("Mountain King on a long journey...") Scandinavian song“Lord God, bow your eyes...” (Prayer)“Lord, Lord, listen, I’m crying, I’m sad...” (Why?)Sadness (“Hearing the wind, the poplar bends...”)Two voices (“Swifts glide in the clear azure of the sky...”)“The granite rocks are dormant, the Viking shelter is empty...” (Near the Scandinavian rocks)Spirits of the Plague ("We hasten, we sail...")“Your fragrant shoulders breathed...” “There is beauty in the constancy of suffering...” “Even the last snow in the misty valley...” (Emerging Life) Sonnet“Life has tired me...” (Death, lull me to sleep)Zarnitsa (“Like in the skies, engulfed in a heavy sleep...”)Nascent life (“The last snow in the misty valley...”) SonnetZarya (“The first sparks of dawn splashed...")For what? (“Lord, Lord, listen, I’m crying, I’m sad...”)“The earth is covered in darkness. The day of worries is over...” (Swallows) Sonnet“Like in heaven, enveloped in a heavy sleep...” (Zarnitsa)“Like living statues, in the sparkles of the moonlight...” (Fantasy)“How clear is August, gentle and calm...” (August) SonnetPicture (“In the dead of night, by an obscure crowd...”) Sonnet“When the Moon sparkles in the darkness of the night...” (Moonlight) Sonnet“When between the foggy clouds...” Lullaby (“Scented linden flowers are blooming...”)Nightmare (“In a sad moment, in a sad hour of the night...”) Sonnet“Lilies of the valley, buttercups. Love caresses..." (Song without words)Swallows (“The earth is covered in darkness. The day of worries is over...”) Sonnet“The fragrant linden flowers are blooming...” (Lullaby)Moonlight (“When the Moon sparkles in the darkness of the night...”) SonnetM*** (“You are the rustle of a tender leaf...”)“There is a thread between the past and the future...” (Ariadne’s thread)Dream (“The glass of the Baltic waters shook slightly in the wind...”)“I hate the roar of giant cities...” Prayer (“Lord God, bow your eyes...”)“We are in a hurry, we are sailing...” (Plague Spirits)“On the diamond cover of snow...” (Without a smile, without words)“Don’t believe anyone who tells you...” (Death)“No, no one did so much harm to me...” Ariadne's thread ("Between the past and the future, a thread...")Norwegian girl (“Your eyes, blue and pure...”)“Oh, if only I had a cold heart...” “Oh, woman, child, accustomed to play...” “Oh, a miserable life, without storms, without sensations...” (Swamp)“Oh, gentle bird, you won’t understand me...” “There is only one beauty in the world...” “Your eyes, blue and pure...” (Norwegian girl)In memory of I. S. Turgenev (“The days are passing. And now ten years ...”)Song of Judith (“Let the cymbals sing...”) From the BibleSong without words (“Lilies of the valley, buttercups. Love caresses...”)Under the northern sky Elegies, stanzas, sonnetsGhost (“Wherever I am, everywhere, like a shadow, with me...”)“Let the cymbals sing...” (Song of Judith) From the BibleSlavery (“You cling to me like a flexible vine...") SonnetSeparation (“Inhaling the refreshing sea air...”)Native painting (“Flocks of birds. Ribbon roads...”)“The fresh smell of fragrant hay reminded me of distant days...” (In the capital)“Swifts glide in the clear azure of the sky...” (Two voices)Death (“Don’t believe anyone who tells you...”)Death (“Severe ghost, demon, omnipotent spirit...”) SonnetDeath, lull me to sleep ("Life has tired me...")“Flocks of birds. Roads ribbon..." (Native painting)“The glass of the Baltic waters trembled slightly in the wind...” (Dream)“A stern ghost, a demon, an omnipotent spirit...” (Death) Sonnet“You are the rustle of a tender leaf...” (M***)“You cling to me like a flexible vine...” (Slavery) SonnetNear the Scandinavian rocks (“Granite rocks are slumbering, the Viking shelter is empty...”)By the fjord (“Gloomy northern sky...”)“The poor flower on your chest has died...” (Flower)“Bright May is leaving. My sky is darkening..." “The days are passing. And now ten years..." (In memory of I. S. Turgenev)Fantasy (“Like living statues, in the sparkles of the moonlight...”)“The northern sky is gloomy...” (Near the fjord)Flower (“The poor flower on your chest has died...”)Seagull (“Seagull, a gray seagull rushes with sad cries...”)The boat of languor (“Evening. Seaside. Sighs of the wind...”)“I know what it means to cry madly...” “I parted with the sad Moon...”

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont (June 3, 1867, village of Gumnishchi, 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. He published 35 collections of poetry, 20 books of prose, and 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, née Lebedeva, came from a colonel’s family, in which they loved literature and studied it professionally. She appeared in the local press, organized literary evenings and 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 a stranger to some freethinking”: “unreliable” guests were received in the house. It was from his mother that Balmont, as he himself wrote, inherited “unbridledness and passion” and his entire “mental structure.”

The future poet learned to read on his own at the age of five, watching his mother, who taught her older brother to read and write. The touched father gave Konstantin his first book on this occasion, “something about the savages of the Oceanians.” The mother introduced her son to examples of the best poetry.

When the time came to send the older children to school, the family moved to Shuya. Moving to the city did not mean a break from nature: the Balmonts’ house, surrounded by an extensive garden, stood on the picturesque bank of the Teza River; Father, a lover of hunting, often went 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 became bored with his studies, and his performance decreased, but the time came for binge reading, and he read French and German works in the original. Impressed by what he read, he began writing poetry himself at the age of ten. “On a bright sunny day they appeared, 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 attempt 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 subsequently explained the background to this early revolutionary mood as follows: “I was happy, and I wanted everyone to feel just as good. It seemed to me that if it was good only for me and a few, it was ugly.”.

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

At the end of 1885, Balmont's literary debut took place. 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 he completed his studies at the gymnasium.

The young poet’s acquaintance 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 favorable mentoring review.

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

In 1889, Balmont returned to the university, but due to severe nervous exhaustion he was unable to 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 abandoned his attempts to obtain a “government education.”

In 1889, Balmont married Larisa Mikhailovna Garelina, daughter of an Ivanovo-Voznesensk merchant. A year later, in Yaroslavl, with his own funds, he published his first "Collection of poems"- some of the youthful works included in the book were published back in 1885. However, the debut collection of 1890 did not arouse interest, close people did not accept it, and soon after its 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, jumped out of a third floor window, received serious fractures and spent a year in bed.

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

It was in this year that he realized himself as a poet and saw his own destiny. In 1923, in his biographical story “The Air Route,” he wrote: “In a long year, when I, lying in bed, no longer expected that I would ever get up, I learned from the early morning chirping of sparrows outside the window and from the moon rays passing through the window into my room, and from all the steps that reached up to my hearing, the great fairy tale of life, understood the sacred inviolability of life. And when I finally got up, my soul became free, like the wind in a field, no one any longer had power over it except a creative dream, and creativity blossomed wildly.”.

For some time after his illness, Balmont, who by this time had separated from his wife, lived in poverty. According to his own recollections, he spent months “I didn’t know what it was to be full, and I went to bakeries to admire the rolls and breads through the glass”.

Moscow University professor N.I. Storozhenko also provided Balmont with enormous assistance.

In 1887-1889, the poet actively translated German and French authors, then in 1892-1894 he began working on the works of Percy Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe. It is this period that is considered the time of his creative development.

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

On the basis of his translation activities, Balmont became close to the philanthropist, an expert in Western European literature, Prince A. N. Urusov, who greatly contributed to expanding the literary horizons of the young poet. With the help of a patron of the arts, Balmont published two books of translations of Edgar Allan Poe (“Ballads and Fantasies”, “Mysterious Stories”).

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 “frenzied 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 in 1894 was not distinguished by originality, then in the second collection "In the Vast"(1895) Balmont began searching for “a new space, a new freedom”, the possibilities of combining the poetic word with melody.

The 1890s were a period of active creative work for Balmont in a wide variety of fields of knowledge. The poet, who had a phenomenal capacity for work, mastered “many languages ​​one after another, reveling in his work like a man possessed... he read entire libraries of books, starting with treatises on his favorite Spanish painting and ending with studies on the Chinese language and Sanskrit.”

He enthusiastically studied the history of Russia, books on natural sciences and folk art. Already in his mature years, addressing aspiring writers with instructions, he wrote that a debutant needs “to be able to sit over a philosophical book and an English dictionary and Spanish grammar on a spring day, when you really want to ride a boat and maybe kiss someone. Be able to read 100, 300, and 3,000 books, including many, many boring ones. To love not only joy, but also pain. Silently cherish within yourself not only happiness, but also the melancholy that pierces your heart.”.

By 1895, Balmont met Jurgis Baltrushaitis, which gradually grew into a friendship that lasted many years, and S. A. Polyakov, an educated Moscow merchant, mathematician and polyglot, translator of Knut Hamsun. It was Polyakov, the publisher of the modernist magazine “Vesy”, who five years later established the symbolist publishing house “Scorpion”, where Balmont’s best books were published.

In 1896, Balmont married translator E. A. Andreeva and went with his wife to Western Europe. Several years spent abroad provided the aspiring writer, who was interested, in addition to his main subject, in history, religion and philosophy, with enormous 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 military service. The demonstration was dispersed by the police and Cossacks, and there were casualties among its participants.

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

By decision of the “special meeting” the poet was expelled from St. Petersburg, deprived of the right to reside in capital and university cities for three years.

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

After spending the 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 poetry circles of the Balmontists that were created during 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 among it.

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,” the 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 bloody stain,
The stench of gunpowder and smoke,
In which the mind is dark...
Our king is a blind misery,
Prison and whip, trial, execution,
The hanged king is twice as low,
What he promised, but didn’t dare give.
He is a coward, he feels with hesitation,
But it will happen, the hour of reckoning awaits.
Who began to reign - Khodynka,
He will end up 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 adaptations of Indian cosmogonic myths and legends, were later included in “Snake Flowers” ​​(1910). This period of Balmont’s creativity ended with the release of the collection "Liturgy of Beauty. Elemental hymns"(1905), largely inspired by the events of the Russo-Japanese War.

In 1905, Balmont returned to Russia and took an active part in political life. In December, the poet, in his own words, “took some part in the armed uprising of Moscow, mostly through poetry.” Having become close to Maxim Gorky, Balmont began active collaboration with the Social Democratic newspaper “New Life” and the Parisian magazine “Red Banner”, which was published by A. V. Amphiteatrov.

In December, during the days of the Moscow uprising, Balmont often visited 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 passion for the revolution was sincere, although, as the future showed, shallow. 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 traveling long distances.

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) was banned for 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 formed the book “The Land of Osiris” (1914), in 1912 he made a trip to the 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.

On 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 gathered K. D. Balmont was proclaimed a great Russian poet.

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

In honor of the poet’s return, ceremonial receptions were held at the Society of Free Aesthetics and the Literary and Artistic Circle.

In 1914, the publication of Balmont's complete collection of poems in ten volumes was completed, which lasted seven years. At the same time he published a collection of poetry "White architect. The 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 gave a course of lectures that had great success. The poet began to study the Georgian language and took up translation Shota Rustaveli's poem "The Knight in the Skin of a Tiger".

From Georgia, Balmont returned to France, where the outbreak of the First World War found him. Only at the end of May 1915, by a roundabout 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 sketch was published "Poetry as Magic"- a kind of continuation of the 1900 declaration “Elementary words on symbolic poetry.” In this treatise on the essence and purpose of lyric poetry, the poet attributed to the word “incantatory magical power” and even “physical power.”

Balmont welcomed the February Revolution, began collaborating in the Society of Proletarian Arts, but soon became disillusioned with the new government and joined the Cadet Party, which demanded the continuation of the war to a victorious end.

Having received, at the request of Jurgis Baltrushaitis, from A.V. Lunacharsky permission to temporarily go abroad on a business trip, together with his wife, daughter and distant relative A.N. Ivanova, Balmont left Russia forever on May 25, 1920 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 emigrant community suspected him of being a Soviet sympathizer.

On the other hand, the Soviet press began to “brand him as a crafty deceiver” who “at the cost of lies” achieved freedom for himself and abused the trust of the Soviet government, which generously released him 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-Vie), and until the late autumn of 1926 in the Gironde (Lacano-Océan).

At the beginning of November 1926, after leaving Lacanau, 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 unambiguously stated 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 unscrupulous, 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 emigrant periodicals of the early 1920s, his poetic lines about “the actors of Satan”, about the “blood-drunk” Russian land, about the “days of humiliation of Russia”, about the “red drops” that went into the Russian land regularly appeared. A number of these poems were included in the collection "Haze"(Paris, 1922) - the poet’s first emigrant book.

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

In 1927, in a journalistic article "A Little 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 stated that Adam Mickiewicz in his famous poem “To Muscovite Friends” (the generally accepted translation of the title is “Russian Friends”) was supposedly addressing 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 (smenovekhism, Eurasianism, and so on), radical political movements (fascism). At the same time, he shunned the former socialists - A.F. Kerensky, I.I. Fondaminsky and watched with horror the “leftward movement” of Western Europe in the 1920-1930s.

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

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

In 1923, he published books of autobiographical prose, “Under the New Sickle” and “Air Route,” and 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 made a trip to Lithuania, while simultaneously translating West Slavic poetry, but the main theme of Balmont’s works during these years remained Russia: memories of it and longing for what was 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 in Clamart near Paris, in poverty. In the spring of 1935, Balmont was admitted to the clinic.

In April 1936, 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 organizing the evening entitled “Writers for Poets” 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 alternately stayed in a charity home for Russians, which was maintained by M. Kuzmina-Karavaeva, and in a cheap furnished apartment. In hours of enlightenment, when mental illness subsided, Balmont, according to the recollections of those who knew him, with a feeling of happiness opened the volume of “War and Peace” or re-read his old books; He had not been able to 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 and his wife, the widow of Yu. Baltrushaitis, two or three acquaintances and daughter Mirra.

The French public learned about the poet's death from an article in the pro-Hitler Parisian Messenger, which gave, as was then customary, a thorough reprimand to the late poet for the fact that at one time he supported the revolutionaries.

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

Personal life of Konstantin Balmont

Balmont said 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 at the age of nine, the first passion was at the age of fourteen.”

“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 Shuya manufacturer, “a beautiful young lady of the Botticelli type.” The mother, who facilitated the acquaintance, sharply opposed the marriage, but the young man was adamant in his decision and decided to break with his family.

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

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

Researchers often write about Garelina as a neurasthenic nature, who showed love to Balmont “in a demonic face, even a devilish one,” and tormented him with jealousy. It is generally accepted that it was she who turned him to wine, as evidenced by the poet’s confessional poem “Forest Fire.”

The wife did not sympathize with either the literary aspirations or the revolutionary sentiments of her husband and was prone to quarrels. In many ways, it was the painful relationship with Garelina that pushed Balmont to attempt suicide on the morning of March 13, 1890. Soon after his recovery, which was only partial - the lameness remained with him for the rest of his life - Balmont broke up with L. Garelina.

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

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

The poet's second wife Ekaterina Alekseevna Andreeva-Balmont(1867-1952), a relative of the famous Moscow publishers Sabashnikovs, came from a wealthy merchant family (the Andreevs owned colonial goods shops) and was distinguished by 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 reciprocate for a long time. When the latter arose, it turned out that the poet was married: then the parents forbade their daughter to meet her lover. However, Ekaterina Alekseevna, enlightened in the “newest spirit,” looked at the rituals as a formality and soon moved in with the poet.

The divorce proceedings, 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.

Balmont and E. A. Andreeva were united by a common literary interest; the couple carried out many joint translations, in particular of 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), daughter of General K. G. Tsvetkovsky, then a student at the Faculty of Mathematics at the Sorbonne 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” 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 became completely confused after E.K. Tsvetkovskaya gave birth to a daughter in December 1907, who was named Mirra - in memory of Mirra Lokhvitskaya, a 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.

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

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

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

Unlike E. A. Andreeva, Elena Konstantinovna was “helpless in everyday life and could not organize her life in any way.” She considered it her duty to follow Balmont everywhere: eyewitnesses recalled how she, “having abandoned her child at home, followed her husband somewhere to a tavern and could not get him out of there for 24 hours.”

E.K. Tsvetkovskaya turned out to be not the poet’s last love. In Paris, he resumed his acquaintance with the princess, which began in March 1919. Dagmar Shakhovskoy(1893-1967). “One of my dear ones, half-Swedish, half-Polish, Princess Dagmar Shakhovskaya, nee Baroness Lilienfeld, Russified, more than once sang Estonian songs to me,” - this is how Balmont characterized his beloved in one of his letters.

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

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

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

Mirra Konstantinovna Balmont (in her 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 (elegy, stanzas, sonnets)” (St. Petersburg, 1894)
“In the vastness of darkness” (Moscow, 1895 and 1896)
"Silence. Lyrical poems" (St. Petersburg, 1898)
“Burning buildings. Lyrics of the modern soul" (Moscow, 1900)
“We will be like the sun. Book of Symbols" (Moscow, 1903)
"Only love. Seven Flowers" (M., "Grif", 1903)
"Liturgy of Beauty. Elemental hymns" (M., "Grif", 1905)
“Fairy Tales (Children's Songs)” (M., “Grif”, 1905)
"Collected Poems" M., 1905; 2nd ed. M., 1908.
“Evil Spells (Book of Spells)” (M., “Golden Fleece”, 1906)
"Poems" (1906)
“The Firebird (Slavic Pipe)” (M., “Scorpio”, 1907)
"Liturgy of Beauty (Spontaneous Hymns)" (1907)
"Songs of the Avenger" (1907)
“Three Flowerings (Theater of Youth and Beauty)” (1907)
"Only love". 2nd ed.(1908)
“Round Dance of the Times (Vseglasnost)” (M., 1909)
"Birds in the Air (Singing Lines)" (1908)
“Green Vertograd (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)” (Moscow, ed. Nekrasov, 1916)
"Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and Moon" (1917; Berlin, 1921)
“Collected lyrics” (Books 1-2, 4-6. M., 1917-1918)
“Ring” (M., 1920)
“Seven Poems” (M., “Zadruga”, 1920)
"Selected Poems" (New York, 1920)
“Solar yarn. Izbornik" (1890-1918) (M., published by Sabashnikov, 1921)
"Gamajun" (Stockholm, "Northern Lights", 1921)
“Gift to the Earth” (Paris, “Russian Land”, 1921)
"Bright Hour" (Paris, 1921)
“Song of the Working Hammer” (M., 1922)
"Haze" (Paris, 1922)
“Under the New Sickle” (Berlin, Slovo, 1923)
“Mine - Her (Russia)” (Prague, “Flame”, 1924)
“In the widening distance (Poem about Russia)” (Belgrade, 1929)
"Complicity of Souls" (1930)
“Northern Lights” (Poems about Lithuania and Rus') (Paris, 1931)
"Blue Horseshoe" (Poems about Siberia) (1937)
"Light Service" (Harbin, 1937)

Collections of articles and essays by Konstantin Balmont

“Mountain Peaks” (Moscow, 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)
“Glow of Dawn” (1912)
"The Land of Osiris" Egyptian essays. (M., 1914)
“Poetry as magic” (M., Scorpio, 1915)
“Light and sound in nature and Scriabin’s light symphony” (1917)
"Where is my house?" (Paris, 1924)