Details
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942)
A quotation on the eve of the February Revolution. 1917
Autograph quotation signed (‘K. Balmont’), the last stanza of his poem ‘Ya v etot mir prishol, chtob videt' Solntse’ (‘I came to this world to see the Sun’), Moscow, 19 February 1917.

In Russian. Four lines on one page, approx. 107 x 269mm, cut down from a larger leaf.

Ya v etot mir prishol, chtob videt' Solntse,
A yesli den' pogas,
Ya budu pet'… Ya budu pet' o Solntse
V predsmertnyy chas!

One of Balmonts most celebrated early poems, quoted on the eve of the February Revolution. ‘I came to this world to see the Sun / And if the day is out / I will sing ... I will sing about the Sun / In the hour of death!’. The poem was composed in 1902. The date of the quotation is extraordinary, only four days before the outbreak of the February Revolution.
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