(This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)
This book was digitized and reprinted from the collections of the University of California Libraries. It was produced from digital images created through the libraries mass digitization efforts. The digital images were cleaned and prepared for printing through automated processes. Despite the cleaning process, occasional flaws may still be present that were part of the original work itself, or introduced during digitization. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library at www.hathitrust.org.
("... K. Bal'mont po pravu schitaetsya odnim iz luchshih r...)
"... K. Bal'mont po pravu schitaetsya odnim iz luchshih russkih poetov. Poryvistyj, uvlekayuschijsya i uvlekayuschij, on obogatil russkuyu poeziyu tselym ryadom novyh chuvstv, obrazov i myslej. Broshennye im devizy prodolzhayut zhit' do sih por. ..." (N.Gumilev) "... Bal'mont prezhde vsego - novyj chelovek". K novoj poezii" on prishel ne cherez soznatel'nyj vybor. On ne otverg starogo" iskusstva posle rassudochnoj kritiki; on ne postavil sebe zadachej byt' vyrazitelem opredelennoj estetiki. Bal'mont kuet svoi stihi, zabotyas' lish' o tom, chtoby oni byli po-ego krasivy, po-ego interesny, i esli poeziya ego prinadlezhit novomu" iskusstvu, to eto stalos' pomimo ego voli. On prosto rasskazyvaet svoyu dushu, no dusha u nego iz teh, kotorye lish' nedavno stali rastsvetat' na nashej zemle. V etom vsya sila bal'montovskoj poezii, vsya ee zhiznennost', hotya v etom i vse ee bessilie. ..." (V.Bryusov)
Der Weg durch die Luft (Classics To Go) (German Edition)
(Konstantin Dmitrijewitsch Balmont (* 3.jul./ 15. Juni 186...)
Konstantin Dmitrijewitsch Balmont (* 3.jul./ 15. Juni 1867greg. auf dem Gut Gumnischtschi bei Wladimir; 23. Dezember 1942 in Noisy-le-Grand bei Paris) war ein russischer Lyriker des Symbolismus aus dem sogenannten silbernen Zeitalter der russischen Poesie. (Auszug aus Wikipedia)
(Imya Konstantina Bal'monta bylo zasluzhenno populyarnym v...)
Imya Konstantina Bal'monta bylo zasluzhenno populyarnym v nachale XX veka. Bezgranichnaya shirota tematiki, mnogoobrazie osvoennyh poetom sub'ektov liriki, obnazhennost' vseh protivorechij vnutrennego mira, liricheskoe prelomlenie mifov russkogo i mirovogo fol'klora, podcherknutaya muzykal'nost' - vot cherty, kotorye gromko zayavleny byli Bal'montom i s ego legkoj ruki stali dostoyaniem obschim dlya vsej literatury Serebryanogo veka.
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont was a Russian symbolist poet and translator. He was one of the major figures of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.
Background
Konstantin Balmont was born at his family's estate Gumnishchi, Shuya (then Vladimir Governorate, now Ivanovo Oblast), the third of the seven sons of a Russian nobleman, lawyer and senior state official Dmitry Konstantinovich Balmont and Vera Nikolayevna (née Le′bedeva) who came from a military family.
Education
He was expelled for revolutionary activities from the Gymnasium, or secondary school, and, later, from the University of Moscow.
Career
His first Collection of Verses (1890), which reflected his political sympathies, met an unresponsive public. However, he soon became one of the leading figures in the Symbolist movement, enjoying a tremendous popularity, and it is chiefly as a Symbolist that we remember him. His Under Northern Skies, In the Infinite, Silence, Burning Buildings, Let Us Be Like the Sun, and Only Love, all published between 1894 and 1903, are generally considered the finest examples of his poetry. In 1904 he began the extensive travels which took him to Mexico, western Europe, the Orient, Africa, and the South Seas. When the Russian Revolution came, he welcomed it with great enthusiasm, but later changed his mind and spent the rest of his life in exile. His later work was of an inferior nature. He died in Paris during the German Occupation.
Konstantin Balmont has been characterized variously as theatrical, pretentious, erratic and egotistical. Boris Zaitsev, ridiculing good-humouredly his best friend's vain eccentricities, remembered episodes when Balmont "could be altogether different person: very sad and very simple. " Andrey Bely spoke of Balmont as of a lonely and vulnerable man, totally out of touch with the real world. Inconsistency marred his creativity too: "He failed to connect and harmonize those riches he's been given by nature, aimlessly spending his spiritual treasures, " Bely argued.
Connections
In 1889, ignoring his mother's warnings, Balmont married Larisa Mikhaylovna Garelina, a daughter of Shuya-based factory-owner, described as a neurasthenic who "gave the love of a truly demonic nature". This led first to Balmont's ties with his family being severed, then his March 13, 1890, suicide attempt. The couple's first son died in infancy; the second, Nikolai, suffered from mental illness. Later some critics warned against demonizing Larisa Garelina, pointing to the fact that years later she married the well-known Russian journalist and literature historian Nikolai Engelgardt and enjoyed perfectly normal family life with him. Their daughter Anna Engelgardt became the second wife of poet Nikolai Gumilyov.
On 27 September 1896 Balmont married Yekaterina Alekseyevna Andreyeva, a well-educated woman who came from the rich merchants' family, related to the well-known Moscow publishers' clan of Sabashnikovs. Andreyeva and Balmont had much in common; they formed a tandem of translators and worked together on the works of Gerhart Hauptmann and Oscar Wilde.
In the early 1900s, while in Paris, Balmont met Yelena Konstantinovna Tsvetkovskaya, general K. G. Tzvetkovsky's daughter, a student of mathematics at the University of Paris and the poet's ardent fan. Balmont, as some of his letters suggested, wasn't in love with her, but soon found himself in many ways dependent upon the girl who proved to be a loyal, devoted friend. Balmont's family life got seriously complicated in 1907 when Tsvetkovskaya gave birth to a daughter Mirra, named so by her father in the memory of the poet Mirra Lokhvitskaya, who died in 1905 and with whom he had passionate platonic relations. Torn apart between the two families, in 1909 Balmont attempted suicide for the second time (jumping out a window) and again survived. Up until 1917 he lived in Saint Petersburg with Tsvetkovskaya and Mirra, occasionally visiting Yekaterina and Nina in Moscow. While in France Balmont continued to correspond with Andreyeva up until 1934.
Balmont and Tsvetkovskaya, according to Teffi, communicated in a bizarrely pretentious manner. "She was always calling him 'a poet', never – 'my husband'. A simple phrase like 'My husband asks for a drink' in their special argot would turn into something like: 'A poet is willing to appease his thirst'. " Unlike Andreyeva, Yelena Tsvetkovskaya was helpless in domestic life and had no influence over Balmont whatsoever.
From 1919 Balmont was romantically linked with Dagmar Shakhovskaya, who followed Balmont to France in 1921. They lived apart except for brief periods, although Dagmar bore Balmont two children: Georges and Svetlana. Balmont sent her letters or postcards almost daily; in all, 858 of them survived, mostly from 1920-1924. It was Elena Tsvetkovskaya, though, who remained with Balmont until his dying day. She died in 1943, surviving her husband by a year. Mirra Balmont was a published poet, who used the pseudonym Aglaya Gamayun. She died in Paris in 1970.