Voloshin Maximilian Alexandrovich: biography, creative heritage, personal life. Is Maximilian Voloshin worthy of anathema? Voloshin maximilian alexandrovich briefly what he gave to people

Is Maximilian Voloshin worthy of anathema?

Maximilian Voloshin. Self-portrait. 1919

De mortuis aut bene, aut male

Today, May 28 marks the 135th anniversary of his birth, and August 11 marks the 80th anniversary of the death of the famous poet and painter of the "Silver Age" Maximilian Voloshin.

The following article is a revision of my term paper written in 1995. At that time, the personality and work of Voloshin attracted me with their mysteriousness. His poems were then quoted by some clergymen (and, surprisingly, still) are quoted exactly as some kind of spiritual revelation. At the same time, the most profound and authoritative researcher of Voloshin's life and work, V. Kupchenko, called him an occultist, giving sufficient grounds for this. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since 1995, but to my surprise, Voloshin's personality and work have not yet received a spiritual assessment (from the point of view of holy Orthodoxy). This prompted me to blow off the dust from my typewritten work in order to present here its main provisions.

Maximilian Voloshin attracted people during his lifetime and still attracts people not only as a person with a remarkable intellect, a brilliant poet and artist, and finally, as a great original, but also as a teacher of life. It is very important that he is not the type of the philosopher of modern times, diligently working under the shadow and behind the reliable walls of some university, but the type of the ancient sage, the philosopher in the open.

Here is the impression he makes on some people: “Maximilian Voloshin created a world full of love and brotherhood of people of art, a unique world that one can talk about with envy and delight ...” (Lev Ozerov); “Everyone who has been in this House felt the fabulous atmosphere of universal brotherhood, when personal conflicts are erased and what remains is the unifying one – love for art, nature, neighbor…” (German Filippov). As for the worldview, E. Mendelevich defines Voloshin as a Christian, A.K. Pushkin - as a pantheist, V. Kupchenko, as mentioned above - as an occultist. However, the latter adds: “Having tried on all world religions, Western and Eastern, in his youth, Voloshin returned “home” in his mature years - to Orthodoxy ...”

How does the poet himself evaluate himself? Here are the words from his "Autobiography" of 1925: "My poetic creed - see the poem" Journeyman "... My attitude to the state - see" Leviathan ". My attitude to the world - see "Corona Astralis". The wreath of sonnets "Corona Astralis" was written in 1909. From another "Autobiography" ("Across the Seven Years"), also referring to 1925, we learn that the years of the civil war "are the most fruitful", both in terms of quality and quantity of writing. So, 1925 can be called the time that followed the peak of the flowering of Voloshin's personality. If the poet's worldview had changed by 1925, he would have recorded it, however, to assess his attitude to the world, Voloshin refers us to 1909.

Marina Tsvetaeva reports the following interesting information about him: “Max belonged to a different law than human, and we, falling into his orbit, invariably fell into his law. Max himself was a planet. And we, revolving around him, in some other, larger circle, revolved together with him around the luminary, which we did not know. Max was knowledgeable. He had a secret that he didn't tell. Everyone knew this, no one knew this secret ... "

Testimony of Ilya Ehrenburg: “Max's eyes were friendly, but somehow distant. Many considered him indifferent, cold: he looked at life interested, but from the outside. There were probably events and people that really worried him, but he did not talk about it; he counted everyone among his friends, but it seems he did not have a friend.

The philosophy of life of Maximilian Aleksandrovich sounds quite clearly in the poem "The Valor of the Poet" (1923):

Creative rhythm from the oar rowing against the current,
In the turmoil of strife and wars to comprehend integrity.
To be not a part, but all: not on one side, but on both.
The viewer is captured by the game - you are not an actor or a spectator,
You are an accomplice of fate, revealing the plot of the drama.

Beginning in 1905, Anna Rudolfovna Mintslova, a follower of theosophy, had a great influence on Voloshin. Maximilian Alexandrovich cites in detail what she read from his hand (we can treat such information as we please - it is important that the poet himself valued them very highly): “In your hand there is an extraordinary separation of the lines of the mind and heart. I have never seen such a thing. You can only live with your head. You cannot love at all. The most terrible misfortune for you will be if someone loves you, and you feel that you have nothing to answer ... It will be the most terrible thing for you if someone loves you and sees that you are completely empty. Because it is not visible from the outside. You are very artistic…”

To better understand the poet's relationship to people, it will be useful to consider his relationship to nature. He calls the earth mother, and presents himself as a mediating link between the world of matter and the world of "spirit". Here is Voloshin's appeal to the earth:

I myself am your mouth, silent as a stone!
I, too, was exhausted in the shackles of silence.
I am the light of extinct suns, I am the frozen flame of words,
Blind and dumb, wingless, like you.

Voloshin presents himself as a spokesman, a liberator of nature. This idea is confirmed by the testimony of Andrei Bely: “Voloshin himself, as a poet, a painter of the brush, a sage, who took out the style of his life from the light sketches of the Koktebel mountains, the lapping of the sea and the flowery patterns of Koktebel pebbles, stands in my memory as the embodiment of Koktebel’s idea. And his grave itself, having flown to the top of the mountain, is, as it were, an expansion into space of a self-transforming personality.

What is the idea of Koktebel? Something hidden, enclosed in the depths of matter. And here Voloshin appears as a man who speaks on behalf of nature, on behalf of the earth itself, which is why he called himself: "I am the voice of the inner keys." In his paintings, he exposes the earth - so that the forces hidden in it become visible; rarefies water and air - so that their skeletons (underwater and air currents) become visible. The desire to express the hidden essence of the elements became the need of Maximilian Alexandrovich.

The idea that Voloshin is “the embodiment of the idea of Koktebel” is also expressed by Marina Tsvetaeva, however, in other words, dedicated to the appearance of the poet: “Max was a real child, a product, a fiend of the earth. The earth opened up and gave birth to: such a completely ready-made, huge dwarf, a dense giant, a little bit of a bull, a little bit of a god, on stocky, chiseled like pins, like steel, elastic, like pillars, stable legs, with aquamarines instead of eyes, with dense forest instead of hair, with all sea and earth salts in the blood ... "

Here is the impression in the poem "Maximilian Voloshin" by Georgy Shengeli:

A huge forehead and a red explosion of curls,
And clean, like an elephant's breath ...
Then - a calm, gray-gray look.
And a small, like a model, hand.
"Well, hello, let's go to the workshop" -
And the stairs creak painfully
Under the quick run of an experienced highlander,
And in the wind the linen chiton whips,
And, completely occupying the door frame,
He turns around and waits.
I loved this moment before sunset:
All golden then seemed Max.
He willingly painted himself as Zeus,
He got mad at me once
When I said that in his features
A trace of history with Europe is noticeable.
He was so proud that the silhouette of a rock
Enclosing the blue bay from the south,
It was an exact cast from his profile.
Here we are sitting at a small table;
He puts on a shoemaker's belt
On the forehead, so that the hair does not climb into the eyes,
Leaning towards transparent watercolor
And leads with a brush - and all the same earth,
Tears of rocks and spectra of clouds and the sea,
And the glow of cosmic aurora
Lie down on paper for the umpteenth time.
There was something mysterious about this
From year to year to write the same thing:
All the same Koktebel landscapes,
But in their Heraclitean movement.
So you can suffer when you are
Sick of love for a petty actress,
And I want from a thousand guises
Catch like a real one...
(…)
Everything dilapidated, and he became weaker,
But - like a malvasia, the conversation flows:
From irrefutable paradoxes
The head starts spinning!
Here he laughs at his own wit,
Here he rounds off the phrase with a smooth gesture:
Shining like a child - but look:
Like steel, gray eyes are calm.
And it seems: isn't it all a mask?
(…)
Isn't it a mask?
What the hell mask
When to Denikin, sparkling with anger,
He enters and orders
The poet was released from prison -
And listen to the general!

In this wonderful poem, reality is mixed with myth. As follows from the story of Voloshin himself (“The Case of N.A. Marx”), he sent a letter to Denikin, there was no meeting. Why is fiction needed (I do not claim that it belongs to G. Shengeli)? To make the figure of Maximilian look more spectacular.

Quite a few compared Voloshin with Zeus, with a lion, thereby elevating him to some kind of royal dignity. And in his own poems, he looks impressive, for example:

... And the world is like the sea before the dawn,
And I walk on the bosom of the waters,
And below me and above me
The starry sky trembles…
(1902)

When such thoughts come to someone's mind, one can speak with a high degree of certainty about the illness of the spirit, which is called "charm" in ascetic writings.
Here is a portrait of Voloshin, painted by himself, against the backdrop of a flame civil war:

The people, embraced by madness,
Bangs his head against stones
And the bonds break like a demoniac...
Do not be embarrassed by this game
Builder of the Inner City...
(Poem "Petrograd", 1917)

Next example:
And I stand alone between them
In roaring flames and smoke
And with all your might
(Poem "Civil War").

After reading these verses, the figure of the great “builder”, “prophet”, standing between two armies under crossfire, involuntarily arises in our imagination. However, the memoirs of Voloshin himself give a slightly different idea: he simply knew how to get along with both the Reds and the Whites, straighten the appropriate paper in time - so as not to be exposed to excessive danger. I say this not to condemn the poet, but to mark the line between reality and myth.

Testimony of Ivan Bunin: “Voloshin is busy trying to get out of Odessa and home to the Crimea. Yesterday he ran to us and happily told us that the matter was being arranged, and, as often happens, through a pretty woman ... I help Voloshin get into the Crimea also through the “naval commissioner and commander Black Sea Fleet Nemitz, who, according to Voloshin, is also a poet, “writes rondos and triplets especially well.” They are inventing some kind of secret Bolshevik mission to Sevastopol ... He was dressed like a traveler - a sailor suit, beret. In his pockets he kept a lot of different saving papers, for all cases: in case of a Bolshevik search at the exit of their Odessa port, in case of a meeting at sea with the French or volunteers - before the Bolsheviks, he had acquaintances in Odessa both in French command circles and in volunteer ".

Of course, Bunin is not impartial in his memoirs, but he is not inclined to distort the facts. There is a contradiction: on the one hand, we have before us a stern prophet, on the other, just a clever person.

Alexander Benois spoke about the pretense of Voloshin's appearance: “It is possible that “from the inside” he saw himself differently; perhaps he revered his figure for something imposing and downright "divine." The mask of the Greek deity, in any case, did not stick to him, but it was only a mask, and not his real face.

If we perceive Voloshin's appearance as a work of art, it is natural to ask the question: for what purpose was it created? And the second question: if a mask is noticeable in appearance, maybe all creativity is a kind of mask (as the theosophist Mintslova spoke about at the dawn of it)?

I will quote Alexandre Benois again: “His poems captivated me, but they did not inspire confidence in themselves, without which there can be no genuine delight. I “didn’t quite believe” him when, along the ledges of beautiful and sonorous words, he climbed to the very heights of human thought, from where only one can “talk with God” and where poetry turns into divination and broadcasting. But I can vouch for one thing: Maximilian was attracted to these "ascents" quite naturally, and it was precisely the words that attracted him. They appeared to him in fabulous variety and splendor, giving rise to those ideological selections that intoxicated him with grandeur and splendor ... The irony came from the fact that the plans and goals of Voloshin's poetry were colossal, and the realization of plans and the achievement of goals aroused feelings of a certain inconsistency. Alas, not the prophet by the grace of God, who, from the noblest motives, would like to be one, but the one who is really called to that. And homogeneous with this discord between breakthroughs, between the noble ambition (noble ambition) of Voloshin and what he was given to create, was his whole manner of being, right down to his appearance.

Contemporaries and later researchers of Voloshin's work point to his ability to be imbued with different forms of being, to express what is characteristic of various cultures of mankind. Moreover, his work did not differ in a wide variety of genres and style. If Pushkin, in his all-responsiveness, appears in the richness of his nature, Voloshin - mainly - in the richness of those forms that he reflected, in principle, the same type.

Maximilian Alexandrovich treated creativity mystically and understood it very broadly, embracing all kinds of manifestations. human life: from childbearing, from the manner of dressing, to art, science, religion (understood in its own way: namely, as a product of exclusively human creativity). In accordance with his philosophy, Voloshin saw in him (creativity) the path of matter to perfection, and here he adjoins the Neoplatonists with their abstruse mysticism.

We read in the poet's diary: “In the word there is a strong-willed element. The word is… the essence of will. It replaces reality, transfers to another area... The word is the future, not the past. Every desire is fulfilled if it is not expressed in a word. To prevent its execution, it must be said.

So, Voloshin perceives verbal creativity as a way of real impact on the world, he sees in the word the power of a magic spell. It is no coincidence that such names of poems as "The Spell" (1920), "The Spell on the Russian Land" (1920) appear. Even the words of the poem "Prayer for the City" are more reminiscent of magic formula than a Christian prayer:

Wandering through the crossroads
I lived and died
In madness and hard brilliance
hostile eyes;
Their bitterness, their anger and torment,
Their anger, their passion,
And every trigger and hand
I wanted to curse.
My city is covered in blood
sudden battles,
Cover with your love
Ring of prayers
Gather anguish and fire them
And lift up
On outstretched hands:
Understand... sorry!

This poem is dominated not by love, but by pride. For a Christian knows that any human truth, according to the word of the prophet, is the same as a rub thrown down on a fester. What is "to cover with your love" if not the apotheosis of conceit? The Christian works by the power of God, not by his own. Here, in fact, it is not prayer, but meditation, i.e. self-hypnosis with the subsequent release of the individual will outside.

Voloshin's work is only one of the manifestations of magic in art, which is characteristic of both ancient pagan cultures and modernism. To illustrate this idea, I will quote Voloshin's dialogue with Vyacheslav Ivanov, recorded in the diary of Maximilian Alexandrovich. Voloshin defines his goal: to absorb nature, to which Ivanov replies: “Well! And we want to transform, recreate nature. We are Bryusov, Bely, me. Bryusov comes to magic. Bely created a new word for this, his own "theurgism" - the creation of deities, this is different, but in essence the same. An ape could transform into a human, and a human will one day make the same leap and become a superhuman.” Voloshin: "Either the creation of a person, or the creation of a work of art - philosophy, religion - I combine all this under one concept of art." Ivanov: “Bely, in his article on Balmont, calls him the last poet of pure art. The last of this period. You may be the first glimpse of the next period."

In the poem "Journeyman" (1917), which was identified in 1925 as a poetic "creed", it is said:

Your daring spirit knows attraction
Constellations of ruling and willing planets...
Yes, releasing
From the power of a small, unconscious "I",
You will see that all phenomena -
signs,
By which you remember yourself
And fiber after fiber you collect
The fabric of your spirit, torn by the world.

Creativity is perceived by Voloshin as a construction of personality stretched out in time and contracted in space. This poem declares the rejection of feelings, will, consciousness - so that "from the depths of silence" a "word" is born. Apparently, he calls non-material individualities “words”. And his goal is to communicate with them and receive information from them.

The poem "Apprentice" concludes with the following words:

When will you understand
That you are not a son of the earth,
But the traveler through the universes,
That suns and constellations arose
And extinguished inside you
That everywhere - both in creatures and in things - languishes
divine word,
Called them to life
That you are the liberator of divine names,
who came to call
All spirits - prisoners, bogged down in matter,
When you understand that a person is born,
To smelt out of the world
Necessity and Reason
Universe of Freedom and Love, -
Then only
You will become a Master.

The word "Master" was chosen by the satanic sect of "freemasons" to name priests of high degrees of initiation. The use of this word by Voloshin is, of course, not a coincidence.

Here is an entry from his diary dated May 28, 1905: “Last Tuesday, the 22nd, I was initiated as a Freemason. Will. Sword hit." In addition, 1905 included an appeal to Theosophy. Diary entry dated July 20, 1905: “Almost nothing was news to me. All the theosophical ideas that I recognize now have been mine for a long time. Almost since childhood, as if they were innate.

V. Kupchenko lists the books that Voloshin was reading then: Esoteric Buddhism, Kabbalah, Voice of Silence, Secret Doctrine, Light on the Path, Christian Esotericism, books on magic, astrology, spiritualism, physiognomy, palmistry, alchemy, history of religions.

In 1913, Voloshin joined the "General Anthroposophical Society", which then separated from the Theosophical Society. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), who headed it, strove, like the Theosophists, to find a "synthesis of science and religion", but transferred the emphasis from Eastern teachings to Christianity. The poet takes part in the construction of the "anthroposophical temple" ("temple", as he later called it) in Dornach (Switzerland), but soon escapes from there to Paris. He could not bear any dogmas, including even anthroposophical ones, which is why later in the poem “The Ways of Cain” (1923) the poet writes:

Accepting the truth on faith -
She goes blind.
The teacher drives before him
Only a herd raped by the truth...

He left the anthroposophical sect, but remained faithful to the theosophical teaching, which he valued very highly. He believed that this doctrine stands above any religion and is the key to understanding anything. Maximilian Alexandrovich wrote: “Theosophy calls for the study of occult forces in human nature and, at the same time, recalls that at all times the normal path of moral purification, then spiritual rebirth, enlightenment, and then strength, power, the ability to apply the knowledge of hidden laws for the benefit of humanity."

In all likelihood, Voloshin ranked himself in the 3rd degree - otherwise he would not have become a prophet. Moreover, he possessed not only knowledge, but also power (from an occult, in our opinion, demonic source). There are testimonies of contemporaries about his psychic abilities.

Voloshin points out that the system of his worldview is revealed in the wreath of sonnets "Corona Astralis" (1909). These verses exude despair, close to the despair of fallen angels. Here are excerpts:

Pelid gazes sadly into the night...
But he is even sadder and sadder,
Our bitter spirit... And the memory torments us.

Our bitter spirit ... (And the memory torments us)
Our bitter spirit sprouted from the darkness like grass
It contains navi poison, grave poisons.
Time sleeps in it, as in the bowels of the pyramids.

The pain of extra-life insults smolders in us.
Sadness languishes, and the flame sharpens deafly,
And all sorrows unfurled banner
In the winds of melancholy rustles sadly.

But let the fire sting and sting
A melodious spirit strangled by bodies,
Laocoön entangled in knots
Flammable snakes, tensed ... and is silent.

And never - nor the happiness of this pain,
Neither the pride of bonds, nor the joy of bondage,
Nor our ecstasy of a hopeless prison

We will not give up Leta for all the oblivion!

Exiles, wanderers and poets -
Who longed to be, but could not become anything ...

From all sides from the mist they look at us
Pupils of strangers, always hostile eyes,
Not warmed by the light of the stars, nor by the sun,

Stir your way in the spaces of eternal darkness -
In ourselves we carry our exile -
In the worlds of love, unfaithful comets!

The images presented are reminiscent of Dennitsa's path, which, like lightning, fell from heaven into eternal darkness.

The theomachic, satanic beginning sounds in the poem "The Ways of Cain" (1915-1926). At the beginning of everything, Voloshin had a rebellion, this word is called the 1st chapter of the poem. His view of rebellion and rebellion is explained by the testimony of Anastasia Tsvetaeva, who preserved the words of the poet: “Do not forget, Asya, that there are people whose mission is the mission of denial ... Who are given to be rebellious all their lives. Riot. But this rebellion may be closer to God than faith. Do not forget that the paths to God are different. And that the way of theomachism, perhaps, is even more true than obedience to God.

In the chapter "Mutiny" Voloshin says this about the theomachist:

He affirms God by rebellion,
Creates - unbelief, builds - denial,
He is an architect
And he sculpted - death.
And clay is whirlwinds of its own spirit.

Theosophy puts the human consciousness at the head of everything, deifying it (“You are only what you think, thoughts are eternal”). Every person is recognized as "his own truth", regardless of its objective content.

Voloshin denies free will in man: “We are imprisoned in the moment. There is only one way out of it - to the past. We have been ordered to lift the veil of the future. Whoever raises and sees, he will die, i.e. will lose the illusion of free will, which is life. Illusion of the possibility of action. Mayan".

The premise - a person does not have free will - is followed by a logical conclusion: no person is responsible for any of his actions. This same conclusion leads to the following conclusions from the poet's diary below: (July 19, 1905) “From the stories about the speeches of Annie Besant. Do not be surprised if a significant and beautiful person commits deeds unworthy of him: spirit often outstrips matter. This is how he kills his shortcomings. From Oscar Wilde: The best remedy fight temptation - give in to it. “Facts say nothing about a person. Everything is in his will. Never judge by facts and actions. (August 11, 1905) “Buddha asked the saint what he wants to be before reaching final perfection - 2 times a demon or 6 times an angel. And the saint answered: of course, 2 times by a demon. In the Christian understanding, such statements are the justification of evil, the service of evil.

If in the poem “The Ways of Cain” the facts were simply stated, which are the history of the development of civilization, we, albeit with a stretch, could say that this is an objective view of the world, and nothing more. However, Voloshin gives an assessment of the presented facts, actually justifying any rebellion as one of the ways, and, moreover, the most perfect one, of the growth of the human "spirit". Therefore, the cycle "Ways of Cain" can be called an apology for evil (in the Christian sense of it).

In chapter 9, "The Rebel" (originally titled "The Prophet"), the poet's exhortation is:

Enough for you commandments on "not":
All "do not kill", "do not do", "do not steal" -
The only commandment: "Burn!"
Your god is in you
And don't look for another
Neither in heaven nor on earth:
Check the whole outside world:
Everywhere the law, causality,
But there is no love
Its source is you!…

Run not evil, but only extinction:
Both sin and passion are flowering, not evil;
Decontamination -
Not a virtue at all.

Chapter 12, The Thanob, evaluates Christianity:

Christianity was the burning poison.
The soul stung by him rushed about
In fury and writhing, drawing
The poisoned chiton of Hercules is flesh.

The question arises: how, with such assessments, with a claim to self-deification, combined with sophisticated blasphemy, Voloshin could be classified as a Christian? Orthodoxy? We find the answer in the diary: “In the logical area of the mind, I build as many combinations as I like and throw them without regret. Everything is possible here, everything is equally important and indifferent. Brilliance is in diversity and richness. This area is not to be loved. There is no sincerity here, but only combinations and the ability to make them. I feel like a master in this area.”

Voloshin, with the help of logic, could think in various ideological systems, leaving in his mind the core of theosophical teaching. When he lived in Western Europe, his poems bore the stamp of Catholicism, as B.A. Leman: “Maximilian Voloshin is the only Russian poet who managed to understand and convey to us the complex charm of Gothic and embody in Russian verse the intoxication of the mysticism of Catholicism.”

When Voloshin thoroughly imbued with Russia, something from Orthodoxy appeared in the verses. And it's natural. Maximilian felt like a prophet, and a prophet speaks in order to be heard. In order to have a chance to be heard in a country with an Orthodox culture, it is necessary to be imbued with the beginnings (at least external ones) of this culture. This does not contradict Theosophy, since from her point of view, she is above any religion, and can correct any religion - imperceptibly - which Voloshin did in his poems. For example, in the poem "Readiness" (1921), imbued, it would seem, with the spirit of Christian self-sacrifice, there is an idea of karma that is contrary to Christianity:

Didn't I myself choose the hour of birth,
Century and kingdom, region and people,
To go through torment and baptism
Conscience, fire and water?

Voloshin expressed the theosophical idea of the self-development of the human "spirit" either through good or evil, the difference between which is completely relative, in numerous reincarnations in the image of Stenka Razin, popular in Rus', anathematized for his atrocities:

We are infected with conscience: in each
Stenke - Saint Seraphim,
Surrendered to the same hangovers and cravings
We torment with the same will.

Similar thoughts are present in other verses:

Ah, in the most inert and dark
The spirit of the world is captivated!
Driven by the scourge of passions -
Crucified seraphim
Sharpened in flesh:
They are stinged with a burning sting,
The Lord is in a hurry to burn.

There are also poems in which theosophical ideology is invisible (for example, "The Creature" - about Seraphim of Sarov). There is no contradiction here - after all, Theosophy does not set itself the goal of an open struggle against religions. She is for gradual penetration into them in order to subjugate them.

From the testimonies of contemporaries, we know that many treated Maximilian Alexandrovich Voloshin with confidence and revered him as a teacher of life. Reverence close to religious was highly desirable for Voloshin, because the prophet, what he wanted to be, needs not only to be heard, but also to be believed. We know that Maximilian was called "the peddler of ideas" and "the peddler of friends" (words by M. Tsvetaeva). Religion requires a miracle, and Voloshin gave it - as a psychic, a poet-soothsayer, a penetrating painter, a subtle psychologist. There were people who fell under his charm, his influence. But there were also those who saw the mask of a hypocrite on him. The point, it seems to me, is that, wearing any disguise, outwardly confessing any faith, he remained a Theosophist. Agreeing and imbued with sympathy for the ideas, worldview of any person, he sought trust and found in this person support yourself, while remaining, as they say, on your mind. Such behavior is called cunning or cunning.

It also extended to politics. Loudly declaring that in the Civil War he was neither for one nor for the other, but for all at once, Voloshin saw "his own truth" on both sides and was therefore able to arouse confidence in himself. But at the same time, he had his own view of events, being a member of the Masonic lodge Grand Orient of France, which cannot be called apolitical. I will quote the diary (entry dated July 12, 1905): “Yesterday in the Masonic lodge I read my report on Russia - sacred sacrifice”(highlighted by me. - o. S.K.).

Historical cataclysms, skillfully provoked, provide the best opportunity to influence certain ideas on mass consciousness, which was Voloshin's business - "prophesy". Maximilian Alexandrovich - a poet, an artist, an unusually sympathetic person - is the mask of Voloshin the occultist.

With the seeming integrity of his nature, indefatigability in life, Voloshin resembles, for example, N.K. Roerich, artist, poet, thinker. There is also a difference: Voloshin did not leave any original philosophical (religious) treatise. Perhaps that is why he has so far escaped the fate of E.P. Blavatsky (whom he always revered) and N.K. Roerich, who were anathematized at the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in November 1994 - as preachers of theomachy, anti-Christian ideas.

Voloshin has an impact close to religious on many creative people, the best proof of which is the abundance of myths that have grown around this person: Maximilian Voloshin's peacemaking was part of his myth-making: the myth of a great, wise and kind man. His image became - through the efforts of the poet himself and his inner circle - something like an icon, with some clearly postulated characteristic features, so that images involuntarily emerge when thinking about him: a lion, Zeus, the sun, a chiton, curls and a beard, mountains , sagebrush and sea. Here is a wonderfully figurative picture that M. Tsvetaeva gives: “Voloshin died at 1 o'clock in the afternoon - at his very “own” hour. “At noon, when the sun is at its zenith, i.e. on the very top of the head, at the hour when the shadow is defeated by the body, and the body is dissolved in the body of the world - at its own time, at Voloshin's hour.

Voloshin's grave - on top of the mountain - to dominate the so-called noosphere. There is no cross on it - such is the testament. Becoming a Theosophist, he denied Christ as the only begotten Son of God. The task of the Church is to bear witness to his renunciation, i.e. anathematize - in order to stop the temptation of his work among the faithful children of the Russian Orthodox Church. This will undoubtedly be a manifestation of love towards the poet himself, for the less temptation to produce his work condemned by the Church, the less he will be tortured at the truly Terrible Judgment of God.

O. Sergiy Karamyshev

Photograph of the poet, taken in Odessa by photographer Maslov.

Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin (real name Kirienko-Voloshin) is a poet, translator, literary critic, essayist, art critic, artist.

Maximilian's childhood passed in Moscow, where the family lived from 1881 to 1893. At the same time, he wrote his first poems.

In 1893 the family moved to the Crimea. Maximilian's mother bought a plot of land in Koktebel, where the family lived permanently.

In 1897, Maximilian graduated from the gymnasium in the city of Feodosia. In the same year, M. Voloshin moved to Moscow and entered the law faculty of the university.

In 1903, the first publication of poems by M.A. Voloshin.

The first and only record of reading poetry by M. Voloshin was in April 1924 (M. Voloshin read two poems: “The Burning Bush” and “Every day is getting quieter and quieter”).

“With the head of Zeus and the body of a bear,” this is how Valentin Kataev unfriendly, but truthfully, gave an idea of the appearance of Maximilian Voloshin. Like, there was such an aesthetic, mediocre sybarite poet, who fell out of the era and was forgotten by almost everyone. In his time he preached fashionable truths, like Moses descended from Sinai. There was a house left - something like a museum, and a grave, attractive for holidaymakers, where instead of flowers it is customary to bring outlandish sea pebbles. Yes, there was a well-organized official oblivion, for decades Voloshin was not published in the USSR, because he did not fit into a well-planned literary framework. But everyone went, the “pilgrims” went to his Koktebel house and rewrote verses in tune with the soul from four weighty typewritten collections bound in canvas.

Portrait of M. Voloshin by A. Golovin

Today, without Voloshin, mention of the Silver Age is not complete, his poetry collections and volumes of prose are printed, watercolors and memoirs are published, and not only at home. In 1984, the French publishing house "YMCA-PRESS" released almost complete collection poems and poems with extensive commentary. Today (June-July 2010), within the framework of the "France-Russia" year, the exhibition "Voloshin in Paris" is opened on Sulpice Square in the French capital. And this is quite understandable - Voloshin considered Paris his spiritual homeland, he lived there repeatedly and for a long time. It is believed that Voloshin Russian museums owe an excellent collection of new French art, since the collector and philanthropist Sergei Shchukin trusted his taste, erudition and insight. Voloshin's erudition and contacts were immense. He communicated with Balmont, Bely, Benois, Bryusov, Blok, Merezhkovsky, Meyerhold, Stanislavsky, Gumilyov, Tsvetaeva, Surikov, Saryan. Let's add here Modigliani, Verhaarn, Maeterlinck, Rodin, Steiner. His portraits were created by such famous contemporaries as Golovin, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Vereisky, Kruglikova, Petrov-Vodkin, Diego Rivera. For a hundred years now, one of the corners of Paris has been adorned with a sculptural portrait of the poet, made by Edward Wittig. However, Voloshin was not only a poet, but also a translator, literary critic, essayist, art critic and, of course, an artist. He seemed interested in everything in the world, from archeology and geography to magic, the occult, Freemasonry and Theosophy. He owned a colossal library:

Portrait of Voloshin by D. Rivera. Paris, 1916

Shelves of books rise like a wall.

Here at night they talk to me

Historians, poets, theologians.

World war and revolution destroyed the concept of the old and familiar values. “Our age is sick with neurasthenia,” Voloshin declared, remaining a Robinson in his own artistic and poetic world, imbued with high morality and humanism. But even an undemanding poet in everyday life had to think about a way to survive. “I decided to go to Odessa to give lectures, hoping to earn money. I had Tsetlins in Odessa, who called me to them.

And so, at the end of January of the chaotic 1919, Voloshin arrived in our city and stopped at 36 Nezhinskaya, with his friends, who were still in Paris, Maria and Mikhail Tsetlin. "I came to Odessa as the last concentration of Russian culture and intellectual life." It was here that the last stop before the Great Exodus was. Against the backdrop of a motley intervention, unemployment, typhus and a half-starved life, the city was flooded with refugees from the Soviet of Deputies: industrialists, financiers, officials, speculators, terry banditry flourished, but cultural life was seething in parallel. Here were A. Tolstoy, E. Kuzmina-Karavaeva, Teffi, G. Shengeli, I. Bunin, V. Doroshevich, T. Shchepkina-Kupernik, A. Vertinsky, I. Kremer. I. Poddubny spoke. Dozens of newspapers and magazines were published. Adalis, Bagritsky, Bisk, Grossman, Inber, Kataev, Shishova, Fioletov, Olesha, Babadzhan gathered for literary evenings.

Voloshin reads poetry at meetings and in clubs, participates in debates, makes presentations in the Literary-Artistic and Religious-Philosophical Societies, publishes in the press, speaks in the Oral Newspaper of the Union of Journalists, prepares a collection of his translations from E. Verhaarn for the Omphalos publishing house ". He also translates A. de Regnier “with rapture” and communicates friendly with young Odessa poets. Y. Olesha writes: “He treated us, young poets, condescendingly<...>He recited poetry excellently<...>Who did he sympathize with? What did he want for his country? Then he did not answer these questions.” However, Voloshin's answers were: "A person is more important to me than his convictions" and "I have a claim to be the author of my own social system."

Self portrait, 1919

In the tenacious memory of Bunin, Voloshin of 1919 was preserved as follows: "... he speaks with the greatest willingness and a lot, his whole body shines with sociability, goodwill towards everything and everyone, pleasure from everyone and everything - not only from what surrounds him in this bright, crowded and warm dining room, but even, as it were, from all that huge and terrible thing that is happening in the world in general and in dark, terrible Odessa, in particular, already close to the arrival of the Bolsheviks. brown velvet blouse, black pants so shiny and shoes broken<...>He was in great need at that time.” In the funds of the Koktebel House-Museum, there was a photograph of the poet, taken in Odessa by the photographer Maslov.

On the day the Bolsheviks arrived, April 4, Voloshin sent Alexei Tolstoy to emigration, but he himself refused to leave, explaining: "... when a mother is sick, her children stay with her." May Day was approaching and Voloshin decided to participate in the festive decoration of the city, offering to decorate the streets with colored banners with geometric shapes and poetic quotations, but the new government recalled his publications in the Socialist-Revolutionary press and removed him from the team of artists.

Portrait of Voloshin by G. Vereisky

I wanted to go home, to Koktebel. Voloshin uses his acquaintance with the chairman of the Odessa Cheka and receives permission to travel to the Crimea. But how? A man of incredible biography, Rear Admiral Alexander Nemitz, comes to the rescue and highlights the only available oak tree “Cossack” with three sailors-security officers, supposedly sent to communicate with Sevastopol.

And behind the city

All in a red frenzy

splashed banners,

All inflamed with anger and fear,

Chills of rumors, tremors of expectations,

Tormented by hunger, fads, blood,

Where late spring slips furtively

In transparent lace of acacias and flowers...

Four days of navigation were not calm, the sea was blocked by French destroyers, and one of the officers landed on a suspicious oak tree. Voloshin spoke to him without an interpreter, introduced himself as a refugee, it turned out along the way that there were mutual acquaintances in Paris, and everything, in general, worked out. The ship reached the Crimean shores, where, for a start, it was still fired from machine guns. At the same time, Voloshin translated Henri de Regnier.

House-Museum of M. Voloshin in Koktebel

There are many impressions about the outstanding personality of the poet and artist. He excited and amazed not only his friends, but even enemies. It's funny that some features of Voloshin during the Civil War are guessed in Professor Maxim Gornostaev from Konstantin Trenev's very revolutionary play "Love Yarovaya", created in the mid-1920s. Lives in the Crimea, but also appeared in Odessa, the Soviet government issued him a safe-conduct for a house and books. Character traits appearance - a beard and a wild hairstyle. His wife calls "Max". Therefore, the daring revolutionary sailor Shvandya is convinced that this is either Karl Marx, or, in extreme cases, his younger brother. In one of Gornostaev's remarks, Voloshin's motive sounded: “Man has been working for tens of thousands of years. From a half-beast to a demigod, he grew up. He crawled out of the cave on all fours, and now he flew up to the sky. His voice is heard for thousands of miles. Is it a man or a god? Turns out it's all a ghost. We are the same half-beasts.”

Grave of M.A. Voloshin in Koktebel. The photos were taken by S. Kalmykov with an interval of 45 years.

Portrait of Voloshin by Petrov-Vodkin

So, is the unique poet and artist only in the past? Judge for yourself. In Odessa in 2002-2003. two amazing books were published under the auspices of the World Club of Odessans - a reprint edition of the rarest poetic collection “The Ark” (Feodosia, 1920) with a poem by Voloshin and his beautifully published poem “Saint Seraphim”. Memorial plaque installed in Kyiv, where Maximilian Voloshin was born. More recently, a monument was erected to him in Koktebel.

Voloshin bequeathed his house to the Union of Writers.

Sergey Kalmykov, local historian

Maksimilian Voloshin, poet, artist, literary critic and art critic. His father, lawyer and collegiate adviser Alexander Kiriyenko-Voloshyn, came from a family of Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, his mother, Elena Glazer, came from Russified German nobles.

Voloshin's childhood passed in Taganrog. The father died when the boy was four years old, and the mother and son moved to Moscow.

"The end of adolescence is poisoned by the gymnasium", - wrote the poet, to whom study was not a joy. But he devoted himself to reading with rapture. First Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Gogol and Dostoevsky, later Byron and Edgar Allan Poe.

In 1893, Voloshin's mother purchased a small plot of land in the Tatar-Bulgarian village of Koktebel and transferred her 16-year-old son to a gymnasium in Feodosia. Voloshin fell in love with the Crimea and carried this feeling through his whole life.

In 1897, at the insistence of his mother, Maximilian Voloshin entered the Faculty of Law at Moscow University, but did not study for long. Having joined the All-Russian student strike, he was suspended from classes in 1899 for "negative outlook and campaigning" and sent to Feodosia.

“My family name is Kiriyenko-Voloshyn, and it comes from Zaporozhye. I know from Kostomarov that in the 16th century there was a blind bandura player Matvey Voloshin in Ukraine, who was flayed alive by the Poles for political songs, and from Frantseva’s memoirs that the name of the young man who took Pushkin to the gypsy camp was Kiriyenko- Voloshin. I wouldn't mind if they were my ancestors."
Autobiography of Maximilian Voloshin. 1925

In the next two years, Voloshin made several trips to Europe. He visited Vienna, Italy, Switzerland, Paris, Greece and Constantinople. And at the same time he changed his mind about recovering at the university and decided to engage in self-education. Wanderings and an insatiable thirst for knowledge of the surrounding world became the engine, thanks to which all the facets of Voloshin's talent were revealed.

See everything, understand everything, know everything, experience everything
All forms, all colors to absorb with your eyes,
To walk all over the earth with burning feet,
Take it all in and make it happen again.

He studied literature in the best European libraries, listened to lectures at the Sorbonne, attended drawing lessons in the Parisian workshop of the artist Elizaveta Kruglikova. By the way, he decided to take up painting in order to professionally judge other people's work. In total, he stayed abroad from 1901 to 1916, living alternately either in Europe or in the Crimea.

Most of all, he loved Paris, where he visited often. In this Mecca of art of the early twentieth century, Voloshin communicated with the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, writers Anatole France, Maurice Maeterlinck and Romain Rolland, artists Henri Matisse, Francois Léger, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera, sculptors Emile Antoine Bourdelle and Aristide Maillol. The self-taught intellectual surprised his contemporaries with his versatility. At home, he easily entered the circle of symbolist poets and avant-garde artists. In 1903, Voloshin began to build a house in Koktebel according to his own design.

“... Koktebel did not immediately enter my soul: I gradually realized it as the true home of my spirit. And it took me many years of wandering along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to understand its beauty and uniqueness ... ".
Maximilian Voloshin

In 1910, the first collection of his poems was published. In 1915 - the second - about the horrors of war. He did not accept the First World War, just as he later did not accept the revolution - "the cosmic drama of being." IN Soviet Russia his "Iveria" (1918) and "Deaf and Dumb Demons" (1919) are published. In 1923, the official persecution of the poet begins, he is no longer published.

From 1928 to 1961, not a single line of his was published in the USSR. But in addition to poetry collections, the creative baggage of Voloshin the critic contained 36 articles on Russian literature, 28 on French, 35 on Russian and French theater, 49 on events in French cultural life, 34 articles on Russian fine arts and 37 on art France.

After the revolution, Voloshin constantly lived in the Crimea. In 1924, he created the "Poet's House", reminiscent of both a medieval castle and a Mediterranean villa. The Tsvetaeva sisters, Nikolai Gumilyov, Sergei Solovyov, Korney Chukovsky, Osip Mandelstam, Andrei Bely, Valery Bryusov, Alexander Grin, Alexei Tolstoy, Ilya Ehrenburg, Vladislav Khodasevich, artists Vasily Polenov, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Boris Kustodiev, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Aristarkh Lentulov, Alexander Benois ...

Maximilian Voloshin. Crimea. In the vicinity of Koktebel. 1910s

In the Crimea, the gift of Voloshin the artist was also truly revealed. The self-taught painter turned out to be a talented watercolorist. However, he painted his Cimmeria not from life, but according to his own method of finished image, thanks to which from under his brush came out impeccable in form and light views of the Crimea. “The landscape should depict the land on which you can walk- said Voloshin, - and the sky through which you can fly, that is, in landscapes ... you should feel the air that you want to breathe in deeply ... "

Maximilian Voloshin. Koktebel. Sunset. 1928

“Almost all of his watercolors are dedicated to the Crimea. But this is not the Crimea that any photographic camera can take, but this is some kind of idealized, synthetic Crimea, the elements of which he found around him, combining them at will, emphasizing the very thing that in the vicinity of Feodosia leads to comparison with Hellas, with the Thebaid, with some places in Spain, and in general with everything in which the beauty of the stone skeleton of our planet is especially revealed.
Art critic and artist Alexandre Benois

Maximilian Voloshin was a fan of Japanese prints. Following the example of the Japanese classics Katsushika Hokusai and Kitagawa Utamaro, he signed his watercolors with lines of his own poems. Each color for him had a special symbolic meaning: red is earth, clay, flesh, blood and passion; blue - air and spirit, thought, infinity and the unknown; yellow - the sun, light, will, self-awareness; purple - the color of prayer and mystery; green - the vegetable kingdom, hope and joy of being.

Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin (real name Kiriyenko-Voloshin; 1877-1932) was born in Kyiv into a family of a lawyer, his mother, Elena Ottobaldovna, née Glaser, was engaged in translations. After the death of her husband, E. O. Voloshin and his son moved to Moscow, and in 1893 - to the Crimea.

In 1897, he entered the Faculty of Law of Moscow University (he completed two courses), at which time he began to publish bibliographic notes in the Russian Thought magazine. Participated in student riots, which attracted the attention of the police (establishing surveillance, perusal of letters). He makes his first trips abroad, in order, in his words, "to know the whole of European culture in its original source."

In the autumn of 1900 he leaves for Central Asia and in "the steppes and deserts of Turkestan, where he drove camel caravans" (on surveys for the construction of the Orenburg-Tashkent railway) is experiencing a life change: "the opportunity to look at the entire European culture in retrospect - from the height of the Asian plateaus." He publishes articles and poems in the Russian Turkestan newspaper. In the spring of 1901 - again in France, listens to lectures at the Sorbonne, enters the literary and artistic circles of Paris, educates himself, writes poetry.

Returning to Moscow in early 1903, he easily becomes "his own" in the symbolist environment; starts publishing. From that time on, living alternately at home, then in Paris, he does a lot to bring Russian and French art closer together; Since 1904, from Paris, he regularly sends correspondence for the newspaper Rus and the magazine Vesy, and writes about Russia for the French press.

In April 1906, he marries the artist M. V. Sabashnikova and settles with her in St. Petersburg, in the same house where the famous “tower” salon of Vyacheslav Ivanov was (their complex relationship was reflected in many of Voloshin’s works); in the summer of 1907, after a break with his wife, he wrote the cycle Cimmerian Twilight in Koktebel.

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; in 1915 - a book of passionate poems about the horror of war - "Anno mundi ardentis 1915" ("In the year of the burning world 1915"). At this time, he pays more and more attention to painting, paints watercolor landscapes of the Crimea, exhibits his works at exhibitions of the World of Art.

After February Revolution the poet practically lives permanently in the Crimea, compiles a collection of selected "Iverny" (Moscow, 1918), translates Verharn, creates a cycle of poems "The Burning Bush" and a book of philosophical poems "The Ways of Cain" (1921-23), where the image of a desecrated, exhausted homeland - "Crucified Russia". Since the mid-1900s, Voloshin's friends, literary youth, have been gathering in Koktebel, and his house has become a kind of center of artistic and artistic life.

My house Voloshin bequeathed to the Union of Writers.

Maximilian Alexandrovich Voloshin(surname at birth -Kirienko-Voloshin; May 16, 1877, Kyiv, Russian Empire - August 11, 1932, Koktebel, Crimean ASSR, RSFSR, USSR) - Russian poet, translator , landscape painter, art and literary critic.

Maximilian Kirienko-Voloshin (born May 16 (28), 1877 in Kyiv, in the family of a lawyer, collegiate adviser).

Soon after the birth of their son, Voloshin's parents had a break in relations, Maximilian stayed with his mother, Elena Ottobaldovna (nee Glazer, 1850-1923), the poet maintained family and creative relations with her until the end of her life. Maximilian's father died in 1881.

Early childhood was spent in Taganrog and Sevastopol.

Voloshin began his secondary education at the 1st Moscow Gymnasium.

When he and his mother moved to the Crimea in Koktebel (1893), Maximilian went to the Feodosia gymnasium (the building has been preserved, now it houses the Feodosia State Financial and Economic Institute (FSFEI)). The walking path from Koktebel to Feodosia is about seven kilometers through a mountainous desert area, so Voloshin lived in rented apartments in Feodosia.

From 1897 to 1899, Maximilian studied at Moscow University, was expelled "for participation in the riots" with the right to be reinstated, did not continue his studies, and took up self-education. 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, he easily becomes "his own" among the Russians. symbolists; starts publishing. From that time on, living alternately at home, then in Paris, he does a lot to bring Russian and French art closer together; since 1904, from Paris, he regularly sends correspondence for the newspaper Rus and the magazine Libra, and writes about Russia for the French press.

On March 23, 1905, he became a Freemason in Paris, having received initiation in the Masonic Lodge "Labor and True True Friends" No. 137 (VLF). In April of the same year, he moved to the Mount Sinai Lodge No. 6 (VLF).

In April 1906, he marries the artist Margarita Vasilievna Sabashnikova and settles with her in St. Petersburg. Their complex relationship was reflected in many of Voloshin's works.

In 1907, Voloshin decides to leave for Koktebel. He writes the cycle "Cimmerian Twilight". Since 1910, he has been working on monographic articles about K. F. Bogaevsky, A. S. Golubkina, M. S. Saryan, advocates for the art groups "Jack of Diamonds" and "Donkey's Tail" (although he himself stands outside the literary and artistic groups ).

On November 22, 1909, a duel took place between Voloshin and N. Gumilyov on the Black River. Gumilyov's second was Evgeny Znosko-Borovsky. Voloshin's second was Count Alexei Tolstoy. The reason for the duel was the poetess Elizaveta Dmitrieva, with whom Voloshin composed a very successful literary hoax - Cherubina de Gabriac. He asked her for a petition to join the anthroposophical society, their correspondence lasted a lifetime, until the death of Dmitrieva in 1928.

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; in 1915 - a book of passionate poems about the horror of war - "Anno mundi ardentis 1915" ("In the year of the burning world 1915"). At this time, he pays more and more attention to painting, paints watercolor landscapes of the Crimea, and exhibits 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 the affected painting by Repin." 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, etc.), he began the construction of the Goetheanum - the church of St. John, symbol of the brotherhood of peoples and religions .

In 1914, Voloshin wrote a letter to the Minister of War of Russia Sukhomlinov refusing to military service and participation in the "carnage" 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. M. Voloshin often signs his watercolors: “Your wet light and matte shadows give the stones a turquoise shade” (about the Moon); “The distances are thinly carved, washed away by the light of the cloud”; “Purple hills in saffron twilight”... These 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, organizing dash, clouds melting in the ashen 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).

On March 9, 1927, the marriage of Maximilian Voloshin with Maria Stepanovna Zabolotskaya (1887-1976) was registered, who, having become the wife of the poet, shared the difficult years (1922-1932) with him and was his support. After the death of the poet, she managed to preserve his creative heritage and the Poet's House itself, which is a vivid example of civic courage.

Voloshin died after a second stroke on August 11, 1932 in Koktebel and was buried on Mount Kuchuk-Yanyshar near Koktebel. Voloshin bequeathed his house to the Union of Writers.

The work of Maximilian Alexandrovich had and has great popularity. Among the people who were influenced by his writings were Tsvetaeva, Zhukovsky, Anufrieva and many others.

Bibliography

Voloshin M. Autobiography. // Memories of Maximilian Voloshin. - Collection, comp. Kupchenko V.P., Davydov Z.D. - M., Soviet writer, 1990 - 720 p.
Voloshin M. About myself. // Memories of Maximilian Voloshin. - Collection, comp. Kupchenko V.P., Davydov Z.D. - M., Soviet writer, 1990 - 720 p.
Voloshin M. Poems. 1900-1910 / Frontispieces and drawings. in the text of K. F. Bogaevsky; Region A. Arnstam. - M .: Grif, 1910. - 128 p.
"Faces of creativity" (1914)
Voloshin M. Anno mundi ardentis. 1915 / Region L. Bakst. — M.: Zerna, 1916. — 70 p.
Voloshin M. Iverny: (Selected Poems) / Obl. S. Chekhonina (Art. B-chka "Creativity". N 9-10) - M .: Creativity, 1918. - 136 p.
Voloshin M. Deaf and mute demons / Fig., screensavers and front. author; Portrait poet in the region K. A. Shervashidze. - Kharkov: Kamena, 1919. - 62 p.
Voloshin M. Strife: Poems about the Revolution. - Lvov: Living Word, 1923. - 24 p.
Voloshin M. Poems about terror / Obl. L. Golubev-Pagryanorodny. - Berlin: Book of Writers in Berlin, 1923. - 72 p.
Voloshin M. Deaf and dumb demons / Region. Iv. Puni. Ed. 2nd. - Berlin: Book of Writers in Berlin, 1923. - 74 p.
Voloshin M. Ways of Russia: Poems / Ed. and with preface. Vyach. Zavalishina. - Regensburg: Echo, 1946. - 62 p.
Maximilian Voloshin is an artist. Collection of materials. - M .: Soviet artist, 1976. - 240 p. ill.

Painting works

"Spain. By the sea" (1914)
"Paris. Place de la Concorde at Night (1914)
“Two trees in the valley. Koktebel (1921)
"Landscape with Lake and Mountains" (1921)
"Pink Twilight" (1925)
"Hills parched with heat" (1925)
"Moon Vortex" (1926)
"Lead Light" (1926)