Balmont's work is brief. Features of Balmont's creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Unusual for Russia, the Scottish surname went 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 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 of pure poetry, wrote poems not parties, but for the 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. A brief 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 a mature poet "Only love", "We will be like the sun", "Burning buildings". Among the early works, the collection "Silence" stands out.

Balmont's work (briefly quoting the literary critics of the early 20th century), with the subsequent general tendency 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 they saw on their travels in Egypt and Oceania.

Biography. Childhood

His father, Dmitry Konstantinovich, was a zemstvo doctor and also owned an estate. Mother, Vera Nikolaevna (nee Lebedeva), a creative nature, according to the future poet, “did more to educate love forpoetry 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 dao (perception of life). It is no coincidence that the life and work of Balmont are closely related. From childhood, a powerful creative beginning was laid in him, which manifested itself in the contemplation of the world outlook.

He was sick of schoolboyism and loy alty from childhood. 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, it was not easy for Konstantin Balmont to begin his poetic activity. His biography and work are still the subject of controversy between literary critics.

Balmont's personality

The personality of Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont is rather complicated. 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 andcharismatic. He was an amazingly organic person, the life and work of Balmont are like a single inspirational impulse.

He started 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's reckless act was prompted by the disorder of 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 loy alty of the education system, turned into an educated person, an ideologist of a new literary trend? Quoting Konstantin Dmitrievich himself, his mind once "hooked" on one purely British word - selfhelp (self-help). 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 based entirely on his passion for self-education and openness toimpressions. 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

The romantic style 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 a little 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.

Romantic hero Balmont in the early period of his work is committed to Christian values. He, experimenting with combinations of different sounds and thoughts, is building 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 reallybecame the founder of symbolism in Russian poetry. Significant for the period of the poet's formation are the poetry collections "Silence" and "In the boundlessness".

He outlined his views on symbolism in 1900 in the article "Elementary words about 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 the 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 (it was already 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 poems 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 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.

Understanding the poet 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 overflowing with light and energy, which he generously shares with others:

What Balmont presents as optimistic narcissism is actually 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.

Balmont's work, in shortAnnensky's words, is saturated with the internal philosophical polemism inherent in it, which determines the integrity of the world perception. 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 hard work, a 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.

Nominally, it is generally accepted that the style in which Konstantin Dmitrievich wrote poetry belonged to the poetic current of symbolism.

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.

Peak of creativity

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

All of them, as the poet claimed, 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. Ekaterina Alekseevna 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 the company of B altrushaitis 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 poems “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 Balmontas 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, however, believe that this collection of works, presenting to readers a cosmogonic model of the world, is evidence of a new, highest level of development of the poet. Being on the verge of a mental break, while working on the previous collection, Konstantin Dmitrievich seems to have realized that it is 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

The ways of creativity are 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 the “new Balmont” is not.

However, not being literary critics of the last century, we nevertheless got acquainted with the late works 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 conclude this short story about the life and work of K. D. Balmont, the “solar genius” of Russian poetry.