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, having gone from a small employee in 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 future outlook of the poet, introducing him to the world of music, literature, 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 at the University of Moscow, and at the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl. In 1887 he was expelled from Moscow University for participation in student unrest and exiled to Shuya. Higher education never got it, but thanks to his diligence and curiosity, he became one of the most erudite and cultured people of his time. Balmont annually read a huge number of books, studied, according to various sources, from 14 to 16 languages, in addition to literature and art, he was fond of history, ethnography, and chemistry.
Poems began to write in childhood. The first book of poems "Collection of Poems" was published in Yaroslavl at the expense of the author in 1890. The young poet, after the release of the book, burned almost the entire small print run.
The decisive time in the formation of Balmont's poetic worldview was the mid-1890s. Until now, his poems have not stood out as something special among late populist poetry. Publication of the collections "Under the Northern Sky" (1894) and "In the Vastness" (1895), translation of two scientific papers The History of Scandinavian Literature by Gorn-Schweitzer and the History of Italian Literature by Gaspari, acquaintance with V. Bryusov and other representatives of the new trend in art, strengthened the poet's faith in himself and his special destiny. In 1898, Balmont released the collection "Silence", which finally marked the author's place in contemporary 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” ones (A. Blok, Andrei Bely, Vyach. Ivanov), he had his own position, associated with a wider understanding of symbolism as poetry, which, in addition to a specific meaning, has a hidden content, expressed with the help of hints, mood, musical sound. Of all the symbolists, Balmont most consistently developed the impressionistic branch. His poetic world is the world of the finest fleeting observations, fragile feelings.
Balmont's forerunners in poetry were, in his opinion, Zhukovsky, Lermontov, Fet, Shelley and E. Poe.
Widespread fame came to Balmont rather 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 best collections of the poet "We'll be like the sun" and the collection "Only Love" were published. And before that, for the anti-government poem "The Little Sultan", read at a literary evening in the City Duma, the authorities expelled Balmont from St. Petersburg, forbidding him to live in other university cities. And in 1902, Balmont went abroad, being 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 responds 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 leaves for France, where he lives until 1913. From here he makes trips to Spain, Egypt, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Ceylon, India.
The book The Firebird, published in 1907. The pipe of a Slav”, in which Balmont developed the national theme, did not bring him success, and from that time the gradual decline of the poet's fame begins. However, Balmont himself was not aware of his creative decline. He remains aloof from the fierce polemic between the Symbolists, which is being conducted on the pages of "Balance" and "The Golden Fleece", disagrees with Bryusov in understanding the tasks facing contemporary art, still writes a lot, easily, selflessly. One after another, the collections “Birds in the Air” (1908), “Round Dance of Times” (1908), “Green Heliport” (1909) are published. A. Blok speaks of them with unusual harshness.
In May 1913, after an amnesty was announced 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 Lightnings (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 in June 1920 to temporarily travel abroad. The temporary departure turned into long years of emigration for the poet.
In exile, Balmont published several poetry collections: A Gift to the Earth (1921), Haze (1922), Mine to Her (1923), Parted 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.

Konstantin Balmont

air way

MARCH THIRTEENTH

What, Vanya, is not white, not blush,

Where, Vanya, did you lose your blush?

Ali dropped on the track?

Did Ali give the red girl?

folk song

It couldn't go on like this anymore. Anything is better than this. The last degree of fall and weakness. Better death. And death is desired. I waited for deliverance from every day and every hour, but it did not come. I was waiting for some news, some coming. I thought that the door would open and my torment would end. Nothing, no one. Nothing.

And where to expect deliverance, when the pain and horror inside?

Melitta came up to me.

Do you have a headache again?

Yes, again.

What do we do? It will never end.

She spoke with pain, and that pain was about me. And I secretly translated: if this does not end, you need to end it.

Of course you do. Life pushed me to the decision. Every person who walked along the corridor of this hotel, every person who walked along the street, knew where he was going and why. He did his job and I couldn't do anything. It has been many months since I lost the ability to work. Yes, and what to work? Is reading books a job? And if I could read. But from reading two pages, sometimes from reading a few lines, I began to headache, the cobweb enveloped the brain, I helplessly began a long phrase for the fifth time, became frightened in the middle of it, began to think about one of her words, again returned to the beginning of the phrase and could not finish reading it to the end. Gradually, the pain in my left temple became stronger, and all the objects on the table started a secret war with me. I couldn't help but look at the inkwell and not think that there was little ink there and that it was covered with dust. But there was no way I could go to the window where the bottle of ink stood and pour fresh ink into the inkwell. The pencil was blunt on one end and gnawed on the other. Why gnawed? And who put all those books upside down again? I can neither read nor write if the books are lying on the table in disorder. And then we got up late. In an hour and a half you have to go to dinner. What can be done in an hour and a half, when it is painful to read one page? And behind the walls again scales, and the violinist will never stop playing. “Neurasthenia, my dear, neurasthenia,” the doctor told me and ordered me to come every day to his hydrotherapy establishment. But I walked in vain for two months. It didn't help me, on the contrary, it got worse. And I quit treatment. And there was no money for it. I already felt, except that nothing could help me. Deafly, but convincingly, I felt the same thing that the beast in the forest feels, which the roundup surrounded by a ring. The raid is still far away, but the beast knows that the ring is inevitably narrowing. I stopped even for myself to define certain sensations in exact words. Every thing spoke to me wordlessly, and I spoke wordlessly to everything around me. The soul exchanged with all things - secret signs, but only destroying instructions came from everything.

Well, let's go to dinner, - said Melitta.

We went outside.

That year was early spring. The winter blizzards had wept to the end back in February, and now it was the beginning of March. The snow melted. It was sunny.

We walked, and each metal pedestal irresistibly attracted my attention. It seemed to me that if you hit her chest with a running start, you would break your chest and death would be instantaneous. Reason immediately began to contradict, and said that this was impossible. But the very next pedestal attracted the eye, and it seemed that it was extremely desirable - to run up and hit the metal ledge with all your might.

We entered a passageway. Melitta entered the store to buy something. I stayed outside. And while she was there, I realized with relentlessness that if she did not return, then I could still live and wait, that perhaps time would restore my former clarity of thought and I would read my favorite books again, prepare for the future, because I felt that I had a whole world of images in me. I felt that it was either me or her. Why? I couldn't explain myself. She loved me and I loved her. But since we got married, something has come down on me like a curse, everything clear has become confusing, everything previously possible has become impossible. And this inability to work, which alone I could somehow endure, now because I was with her, was completely unbearable.

Some minutes passed. Few - and endless. Tense, lengthy. I looked with a superstitious feeling at the shop door and waited. My fate was being decided. I have to do something. Either she or me. The shop door opened and Melitta stepped out. She was silent, her eyes were lowered, her beautiful face was pale. Something sad and stubborn made her expression harden.

How I loved that face. It was Botticelli, and she dressed like one of the Botticelli women. And that was a long time ago, when Botticelli was not yet known in Russia and they were not talking about him. Neither did I, an ignorant provincial and unfinished student. Large gray eyes, with a longitudinal slit, a white prominent forehead, blond curly hair, patterned red lips. How they kissed and how they loved to kiss, those patterned lips. And after the kiss they left sadness in the heart. We got married against my parents' wishes, and now I was at odds with them. I was also at odds with most of my comrades after marrying her. She laughed aptly and devastatingly at our revolutionary designs, and I gradually moved away from the circle to which I had previously belonged. My peers, the keepers of the Narodnaya Volya relics, as she called them, considered me almost a traitor or even a traitor. After all, just then I began to write poetry and published a whole book of them, and there were absolutely no social tendencies in them at all. My comrades rejoiced that the book did not have the slightest success, and saw in this a worthy punishment for my apostasy.

Only two remained faithful to me: Petka, the son of a blacksmith, a medical student, my countryman, and a Mephistopheles nature, a law student Fomushka, a Siberian who, in his short life, had seen many tight-fisted people and therefore was always doubly moved by my naivety and inconsideration. And I was, it is true, timid and dreamy, and much was impossible for me, which is possible now. During these two days, March 12 and 13, I saw them both, and they strangely intertwined themselves in the story of my life.

When I returned home with Melitta after dinner, we wandered along the corridor, and she, like a child, was delighted at the window that had just been put up there. The large window that ended our long corridor, on the third floor, overlooked the hotel's paved courtyard, and opposite was another building of the hotel. We walked up to the window, hugging each other, and looked down for a long time. Some formless thought entered my brain in foggy layers, and everything - I was at the window, the opposite building, and this courtyard there, below - everything merged into one indefinable wholeness. I didn't say a word or make any movement as we stood at the window like that. But the souls hear each other - or was it just an accident? Melitta said: "That's high, and if you throw yourself, you still won't kill yourself, you'll only be disfigured." I didn't answer. I was even surprised, and there was a movement in me helplessly: “What does this have to do with me?”

Poems began to write in childhood. The first book of poems "Collection of Poems" was published in Yaroslavl at the expense of the author in 1890. The young poet, after the release of the book, burned almost the entire small print run.

Widespread fame came to Balmont rather 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 best collections of the poet "We'll be like the sun" and the collection "Only Love" were published.

1905 - two collections "The Liturgy of Beauty" and "Fairy Tales".
Balmont responds to the events of the first Russian revolution with the collections Poems (1906) and Songs of the Avenger (1907).
1907 book “The Firebird. Pipe Slav"

collections "Birds in the Air" (1908), "Dance of Times" (1908), "Green Heliport" (1909).

author of three books containing literary criticism and aesthetic articles: "Mountain Peaks" (1904), "White Lightnings" (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).

Konstantin Balmont is a Russian poet, translator, prose writer, critic, and essayist. Bright representative Silver Age. He published 35 collections of poetry, 20 books of prose. He translated a large number of works by foreign writers. Konstantin Dmitrievich is the author of literary studies, philological treatises, and critical essays. His poems "Snowflake", "Reeds", "Autumn", "By Winter", "Fairy" and many others are included in the school curriculum.

Childhood and youth

Konstantin Balmont was born and lived until the age of 10 in the village of Gumnishchi, Shuisky district, Vladimir province, in a poor but noble family. His father, Dmitry Konstantinovich, first worked as a judge, later took the post of head of the zemstvo council. Mother Vera Nikolaevna was from a family where they loved and were fond of literature. The woman arranged literary evenings, staged performances and published in the local newspaper.

Vera Nikolaevna knew several foreign languages, and she was characterized by a share of "free-thinking", "unwanted" people often visited their house. Later, he wrote that his mother not only instilled in him a love of literature, but from her he inherited his "mental system." In the family, in addition to Konstantin, there were seven sons. He was third. Watching his mother teach his older brothers to read and write, the boy taught himself to read at the age of 5.

The family lived in a house that stood on the banks of the river, surrounded by gardens. Therefore, when the time came to send the children to school, they moved to Shuya. Thus, they had to break away from nature. The boy wrote his first poems at the age of 10. But his mother did not approve of these undertakings, and he did not write anything for the next 6 years.

In 1876, Balmont was enrolled in the Shuya gymnasium. At first, Kostya proved himself to be a diligent student, but soon he got bored with all this. He became interested in reading, while he read some books in German and French in the original. He was expelled from the gymnasium for poor teaching and revolutionary sentiments. Even then, he was in an illegal circle that distributed leaflets from the People's Will party.

Konstantin moved to Vladimir and studied there until 1886. While still studying at the gymnasium, his poems were published in the capital's magazine "Picturesque Review", but this event went unnoticed. After he entered the Moscow University at the Faculty of Law. But even here he did not stay long.

He became close to Pyotr Nikolayev, who was a sixties revolutionary. Therefore, it is not surprising that after 2 years he was expelled for participating in student disorder. Immediately after this incident, he was expelled from Moscow to Shuya.

In 1889, Balmont decided to recover at the university, but due to a nervous breakdown, he again could not finish his studies. The same fate befell him at the Demidov Lyceum of Legal Sciences, where he entered later. After this attempt, he decided to leave the idea of ​​​​getting a "state" education.

Literature

Balmont wrote his first collection of poems when he was bedridden after an unsuccessful suicide. The book was published in Yaroslavl in 1890, but later the poet himself personally destroyed the main part of the circulation.

Nevertheless, the collection "Under the Northern Sky" is considered the starting point in the poet's work. He was greeted with admiration by the public, as were his subsequent works - "In the vastness of darkness" and "Silence". He was willingly published in modern magazines, Balmont became popular, he was considered the most promising of the "decadents".

In the mid-1890s, he begins to communicate closely with,. Soon Balmont became the most popular symbolist poet in Russia. In poetry, he admires the phenomena of the world, and in some collections he openly touches on “demonic” topics. This can be seen in "Evil Charms", the circulation of which was confiscated by the authorities for reasons of censorship.

Balmont travels a lot, so his work is permeated with images of exotic countries and multiculturalism. It attracts and delights readers. The poet adheres to spontaneous improvisation - he never made changes to the texts, he believed that the first creative impulse was the most correct.

Contemporaries highly appreciated "Fairy Tales", written by Balmont in 1905. The poet dedicated this collection of fairy-tale songs to his daughter Nina.

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont was a revolutionary in spirit and in life. Expulsion from the gymnasium and the university did not stop the poet. Once he publicly read the verse "Little Sultan", in which everyone saw a parallel with. For this, he was expelled from St. Petersburg and banned from living in university cities for 2 years.

He was an opponent of tsarism, so his participation in the First Russian Revolution was expected. At that time, he became friends with and wrote poems that looked more like rhymed leaflets.

During the December Moscow uprising of 1905, Balmont speaks to students. But, fearing arrest, he was forced to leave Russia. From 1906 to 1913 he lived in France as a political emigrant. Being in a kind of exile, he continues to write, but critics increasingly began to talk about the decline of Balmont's work. In his latest works, they noticed a certain stereotyped and self-repeating.

The poet himself considered his best book"Burning buildings. Lyrics of the modern soul. If before this collection his lyrics were filled with melancholy and melancholy, then “Burning Buildings” opened Balmont from the other side - “sunny” and cheerful notes appeared in his work.

Returning to Russia in 1913, he published a 10-volume complete set of works. He works on translations and lectures around the country. Balmont received the February Revolution enthusiastically, as did the entire Russian intelligentsia. But soon he was horrified by the anarchy that was happening in the country.

When did it start October Revolution, he was in St. Petersburg, according to him, it was a "hurricane of madness" and "chaos". In 1920, the poet moved to Moscow, but soon, due to the poor health of his wife and daughter, he moved with them to France. He never returned to Russia.

In 1923, Balmont published two autobiographies - "Under the New Sickle" and "Air Route". Until the first half of the 1930s, he traveled all over Europe, his performances were a success with the public. But he no longer enjoyed recognition among the Russian diaspora.

The sunset of his work came in 1937, when he published his last collection of poems, Light Service.

Personal life

In 1889, Konstantin Balmont married the daughter of an Ivanovo-Voznesensk merchant, Larisa Mikhailovna Garelina. Their mother introduced them, but when he announced his intention to marry, she spoke out against this marriage. Konstantin showed his inflexibility and even went to break with his family for the sake of his beloved.

Konstantin Balmont and his first wife Larisa Garelina

As it turned out, his young wife was prone to unjustified jealousy. They always quarreled, the woman did not support him either in literary or revolutionary endeavors. Some researchers note that it was she who addicted Balmont to wine.

On March 13, 1890, the poet decided to commit suicide - he threw himself onto the pavement from the third floor of his own apartment. But the attempt failed - he lay in bed for a year, and from his injuries he remained lame for the rest of his life.

In marriage with Larisa, they had two children. Their first child died in infancy, the second - son Nikolai - was ill with a nervous breakdown. As a result, Konstantin and Larisa separated, she married a journalist and writer Engelhardt.

In 1896 Balmont married a second time. His wife was Ekaterina Alekseevna Andreeva. The girl was from a wealthy family - smart, educated and beautiful. Immediately after the wedding, the lovers left for France. In 1901 their daughter Nina was born. In many ways, they were united by literary activity, together they worked on translations.

Konstantin Balmont and his third wife Elena Tsvetkovskaya

Ekaterina Alekseevna was not an imperious person, but she dictated the lifestyle of the spouses. And everything would have been fine if Balmont had not met Elena Konstantinovna Tsvetkovskaya in Paris. The girl was fascinated by the poet, looked at him as if at a god. From now on, he lived with his family, then for a couple of months he went on trips abroad with Catherine.

His family life was completely confused when Tsvetkovskaya gave birth to a daughter, Mirra. This event finally tied Konstantin to Elena, but at the same time he did not want to part with Andreeva. Mental torment again led Balmont to suicide. He jumped out of the window, but, like last time, survived.

As a result, he began to live in St. Petersburg with Tsvetkovskaya and Mirra, and occasionally visited Moscow to Andreeva and his daughter Nina. They later immigrated to France. There Balmont began to meet with Dagmar Shakhovskaya. He did not leave the family, but met with the woman regularly, writing letters to her daily. As a result, she bore him two children - a son, Georges, and a daughter, Svetlana.

But in the most difficult years of his life, Tsvetkovskaya was still next to him. She was so devoted to him that she did not even live a year after his death, she left after him.

Death

After moving to France, he yearned for Russia. But his health was deteriorating, there were financial problems, so there was no question of returning. He lived in a cheap apartment with a broken window.

In 1937, the poet was found mental illness. From that moment on, he no longer wrote poetry.

On December 23, 1942, he died in the Russian House shelter, not far from Paris, in Noisy-le-Grand. The cause of his death was pneumonia. The poet died in poverty and oblivion.

Bibliography

• 1894 - "Under the northern sky (elegies, stanzas, sonnets)"
• 1895 - "In the vastness of darkness"
• 1898 - Silence. Lyric poems»
• 1900 - “Burning buildings. Lyrics of the Modern Soul"
• 1903 - “We will be like the sun. Book of Symbols»
• 1903 - “Only love. Semitsvetnik"
• 1905 - “The Liturgy of Beauty. Elemental hymns»
• 1905 - "Fairy Tales (Children's Songs)"
• 1906 - "Evil Spells (Book of Spells)"
• 1906 - "Poems"
• 1907 - "Songs of the Avenger"
• 1908 - "Birds in the Air (Chanting Lines)"
• 1909 - "Green garden (Kissing words)"
• 1917 - "Sonnets of the Sun, Honey and the Moon"
• 1920 - "Ring"
• 1920 - "Seven Poems"
• 1922 - "Song of the working hammer"
• 1929 - "In the parted distance (Poem about Russia)"
• 1930 - "Complicity of Souls"
• 1937 - Light Service

The Scottish surname, unusual for Russia, came to him thanks to a distant ancestor - a sailor who forever anchored off the coast of Pushkin and Lermontov. The work of Balmont Konstantin Dmitrievich in Soviet times was forgotten for obvious reasons. The country of the hammer and sickle did not need creators who worked outside of socialist realism, whose lines did not speak about the struggle, about the heroes of war and labor ... Meanwhile, this poet, who has a really powerful talent, whose exceptionally melodic poems continued the tradition but for people.

“Create always, create everywhere…”

The legacy that Balmont left us is quite voluminous and impressive: 35 collections of poems and 20 books of prose. His verses aroused the admiration of compatriots for the lightness of the author's style. Konstantin Dmitrievich wrote a lot, but he never “forced lines out of himself” and did not optimize the text with numerous edits. His poems were always written on the first try, in one sitting. About how he created poems, Balmont told in a completely original way - in a poem.

The above is not an exaggeration. Mikhail Vasilyevich Sabashnikov, with whom the poet was visiting in 1901, recalled that dozens of lines formed in his head, and he wrote poetry on paper immediately, without a single edit. When asked about how he succeeds, Konstantin Dmitrievich answered with a disarming smile: “After all, I am a poet!”

Brief description of creativity

Literary critics, connoisseurs of his work, talk about the formation, flourishing and decline of the level of works that Balmont created. short biography and creativity point us, however, to an amazing capacity for work (he wrote daily and always on a whim).

The most popular works of Balmont are collections of poems by the mature poet "Only Love", "We'll Be Like the Sun", "Burning Buildings". Among the early works stands out the collection "Silence".

Creativity Balmont (briefly quoting the literary critics of the early XX century), with the subsequent general trend towards the fading of the author's talent (after the three above-mentioned collections) also has a number of "gaps". Noteworthy are "Fairy Tales" - cute children's songs written in a style later adopted by Korney Chukovsky. Also of interest are "foreign poems", created under the impression of what he saw on his travels in Egypt and Oceania.

Biography. Childhood

His father, Dmitry Konstantinovich, was a zemstvo doctor and also owned an estate. Mother, (nee Lebedeva), a creative nature, according to the future poet, “did more to foster a love of poetry and music” than all subsequent teachers. Konstantin became the third son in a family where there were seven children in total, and all of them were sons.

Konstantin Dmitrievich had his own special Tao (perception of life). It is no coincidence that the life and work of Balmont are closely related. Since childhood, a powerful creativity which manifested itself in the contemplation of the world outlook.

From childhood, he was sickened by schoolboyism and loyalty. Romanticism often took precedence over common sense. He never graduated from the school (Shuisky male heir to Tsesarevich Alexei), he was expelled from the 7th grade for participating in a revolutionary circle. He completed his last school course at the Vladimir Gymnasium under round-the-clock supervision of a teacher. He later recalled only two teachers with gratitude: a teacher of history and geography and a teacher of literature.

After studying for a year at Moscow University, he was also expelled for "organizing riots", then he was expelled from the Demidov Lyceum in Yaroslavl ...

As you can see, Konstantin did not easily start his poetic activity and his work is still the subject of controversy between literary critics.

Balmont's personality

The personality of Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont is quite complex. He was not "like everyone else." Exclusivity... It can be identified even by the poet's portrait, by his gaze, by his posture. It immediately becomes clear: before us is not an apprentice, but a master of poetry. His personality was bright and charismatic. He was an amazingly organic person, the life and work of Balmont are like a single inspirational impulse.

He began writing poems at the age of 22 (for comparison, Lermontov's first compositions were written at the age of 15). Before that, as we already know, there was an unfinished education, as well as an unsuccessful marriage with the daughter of a Shuisky manufacturer, which ended in a suicide attempt (the poet threw himself out of a window on the 3rd floor onto the pavement.) Balmont was pushed by disorder family life and the death of the first child from meningitis. His first wife Garelina Larisa Mikhailovna, a beauty of the Botticelli type, tortured him with jealousy, imbalance and disdain for dreams of great literature. He splashed out his emotions from discord (and later from divorce) with his wife in the verses “Your fragrant shoulders breathed ...”, “No, no one did me so much harm ...”, “Oh, woman, child, accustomed to play ..”.

self-education

How did the young Balmont, having become an outcast due to the allegiance of the education system, turned into an educated person, an ideologist of a new one? Self-education. It became for Konstantin Dmitrievich a springboard to the future ...

Being by nature a real worker of the pen, Konstantin Dmitrievich never followed any external system imposed on him from outside and alien to his nature. Balmont's work is entirely based on his passion for self-education and openness to impressions. He was attracted by literature, philology, history, philosophy, in which he was a real specialist. He loved to travel.

The beginning of the creative path

Inherent in Fet, Nadson and Pleshcheev, did not become an end in itself for Balmont (in the 70-80s of the XIX century, many poets created poems with motives of sadness, sadness, restlessness, orphanhood). It turned for Konstantin Dmitrievich into the path he paved to symbolism. He will write about this later.

Unconventional self-education

The unconventionality of self-education determines the features of Balmont's work. It was really a man who created with a word. Poet. And he perceived the world in the same way as a poet can see it: not with the help of analysis and reasoning, but relying only on impressions and sensations. “The first movement of the soul is the most correct”, - this rule, worked out by him, became immutable for his whole life. It raised him to the heights of creativity, it also ruined his talent.

Balmont's romantic hero early period his work is committed to Christian values. He, experimenting with combinations of different sounds and thoughts, erects a "cherished chapel".

However, it is obvious that under the influence of his travels in 1896-1897, as well as translations of foreign poetry, Balmont gradually comes to a different worldview.

It should be recognized that following the romantic style of Russian poets of the 80s. Balmont's work began, briefly evaluating which, we can say that he really became the founder of symbolism in Russian poetry. Significant for the period of the formation of the poet are considered poetry collections "Silence" and "In the boundlessness."

He outlined his views on symbolism in 1900 in the article "Elementary Words on Symbolic Poetry". Symbolists, unlike realists, according to Balmont, are not just observers, they are thinkers looking at the world through the window of their dreams. At the same time, Balmont considers “hidden abstraction” and “obvious beauty” to be the most important principles in symbolic poetry.

By its nature, Balmont was not a gray mouse, but a leader. A brief biography and creativity confirm this. Charisma and a natural desire for freedom... It was these qualities that allowed him, at the peak of his popularity, to "become a center of attraction" for numerous Russian Balmontist societies. According to Ehrenburg's memoirs (this was much later), Balmont's personality impressed even arrogant Parisians from the fashionable Passy district.

New wings of poetry

Balmont fell in love with his future second wife Ekaterina Alekseevna Andreeva at first sight. This stage in his life reflects the collection of poems "In the boundlessness." The verses dedicated to her are numerous and original: "Black-eyed doe", "Why does the moon always intoxicate us?", "Night flowers".

The lovers lived in Europe for a long time, and then, returning to Moscow, Balmont in 1898 published a collection of poems "Silence" in the Scorpio publishing house. The collection of poems was preceded by an epigraph chosen from Tyutchev's writings: "There is a certain hour of universal silence." The poems in it are grouped into 12 sections called "lyric poems". Konstantin Dmitrievich, inspired by the theosophical teaching of Blavatsky, already in this collection of poems noticeably departs from the Christian worldview.

The poet's understanding of his role in art

The collection "Silence" becomes the facet that distinguishes Balmont as a poet professing symbolism. Developing further the accepted vector of creativity, Konstantin Dmitrievich writes an article called "Calderon's personality drama", where he indirectly substantiated his departure from the classical Christian model. It was done, as always, figuratively. He considered earthly life "falling away from the bright Primary Source."

Innokenty Fedorovich Annensky talentedly presented the features of Balmont's work, his author's style. He believed that the "I", written by Balmont, does not in principle indicate belonging to the poet, it is initially socialized. Therefore, Konstantin Dmitrievich's verse is unique in its heartfelt lyricism, expressed in associating oneself with others, which the reader invariably feels. Reading his poems, it seems that Balmont is filled with light and energy, which he generously shares with others:

What Balmont presents as optimistic narcissism is in fact more altruistic than the phenomenon of public demonstration of poets' pride in their merits, as well as equally public hanging of laurels by them on themselves.

The work of Balmont, in short, in the words of Annensky, is saturated with the internal philosophical polemicism inherent in it, which determines the integrity of the worldview. The latter is expressed in the fact that Balmont wants to present the event to his reader comprehensively: both from the standpoint of the executioner and from the standpoint of the victim. He does not have an unambiguous assessment of anything, he is initially characterized by pluralism of opinions. He came to it thanks to his talent and diligence, a whole century ahead of the time when this became the norm of public consciousness for developed countries.

solar genius

The work of the poet Balmont is unique. In fact, Konstantin Dmitrievich purely formally joined various currents, so that it would be more convenient for him to promote his new poetic ideas, which he never lacked. In the last decade of the 19th century, a metamorphosis takes place with the poet's work: melancholy and transience give way to sunny optimism.

If in earlier poems the mood of Nietzscheanism was traced, then at the peak of the development of talent, the work of Konstantin Balmont began to be distinguished by specific authorial optimism and “sunshine”, “fiery”.

Alexander Blok, who is also a symbolist poet, presented a vivid description of Balmont's work of that period very succinctly, saying that it is as bright and life-affirming as spring.

The peak of creativity

Balmont's poetic gift sounded for the first time in full force in verses from the collection "Burning Buildings". It contains 131 poems written during the poet's stay in Polyakov's house.

All of them, according to the poet, were composed under the influence of “one mood” (Balmont did not think of creativity in a different way). “A poem should no longer be in a minor key!” Balmont decided. Starting with this collection, he finally moved away from decadence. The poet, boldly experimenting with combinations of sounds, colors and thoughts, created "lyrics of the modern soul", "torn soul", "wretched, ugly".

At this time, he was in close contact with the St. Petersburg bohemia. knew one weakness for her husband. He was not allowed to drink wine. Although Konstantin Dmitrievich was of a strong, wiry build, his nervous system(obviously, torn in childhood and youth) "worked" inadequately. After wine, he was "carried" to brothels. However, as a result, he found himself in a completely miserable state: lying on the floor and paralyzed by a deep hysteria. This happened more than once while working on Burning Buildings, when he was in company with Baltrushaitis and Polyakov.

We must pay tribute to Ekaterina Alekseevna, the earthly guardian angel of her husband. She understood the essence of her husband, whom she considered the most honest and sincere and who, to her chagrin, had affairs. For example, as with Dagny Christensen in Paris, the verses “The Sun Has Retired”, “From the Family of Kings” are dedicated to her. It is significant that the affair with the Norwegian, who worked as a St. Petersburg correspondent, ended on the part of Balmont as abruptly as it began. After all, his heart still belonged to one woman - Ekaterina Andreevna, Beatrice, as he called her.

In 1903, Konstantin Dmitrievich hardly published the collection “We Will Be Like the Sun”, written in 1901-1902. It feels like the hand of a master. Note that about 10 works did not pass through the censorship. The work of the poet Balmont, according to the censors, has become too sensual and erotic.

Literary critics, on the other hand, believe that this collection of works, presenting to readers a cosmogonic model of the world, is evidence of a new, the highest level poet's development. Being on the verge of a mental break, while working on the previous collection, Konstantin Dmitrievich, it seems, realized that it was impossible to “live in rebellion”. The poet is looking for truth at the intersection of Hinduism, paganism and Christianity. He expresses his worship of elemental objects: fire ("Hymn to Fire"), wind ("Wind"), ocean ("Appeal to the Ocean"). In the same 1903, the Grif publishing house published the third collection, crowning the peak of Balmont's work, “Only Love. Semitsvetnik.

Instead of a conclusion

Inscrutable Even for such poets "by the grace of God" as Balmont. Life and work are briefly characterized for him after 1903 in one word - "recession". Therefore, Alexander Blok, who in fact became the next leader of Russian symbolism, in his own way appreciated the further (after the collection “Only Love”) Balmont’s work. He presented him with a deadly characterization, saying that there is a great Russian poet Balmont, but there is no “new Balmont”.

However, not being literary critics of the last century, we nevertheless got acquainted with the late work of Konstantin Dmitrievich. Our verdict: it's worth reading, there's a lot of interesting stuff in there... However, we have no motives to distrust Blok's words. Indeed, from the point of view of literary criticism, Balmont as a poet is the banner of symbolism, after the collection “Only Love. Semitsvetnik "has exhausted itself. Therefore, it is logical on our part to complete this short story about the life and work of K. D. Balmont, the "solar genius" of Russian poetry.