Max Voloshin (Maximilian Alexandrovich Kirienko-Voloshin, 1877-1932)
Poem 'To Balmont'. 1915
Autograph manuscript signed ('Maximilian Voloshin'), of his poem 'Bal'montu' ('To Balmont', here untitled), n.p., n.d.

In Russian. A fair copy, 24 lines on one page, 212 x 140mm, on a bifolium, irregularly cut down from a larger leaf.

'Ogromnyy lob, kleymennyy shramom,
Bezbrovyy vzglyad zelenykh glaz,
V chasy toski podobnykh yamam,
I khmel'nykh lokonov ekstaz'.

An evocation of his fellow Symbolist poet, Konstantin Balmont. The poem speaks of Balmont's physical appearance ('Huge forehead branded with a scar...'), his presence reminiscent of a Velasquez portrait – and the poet's brilliance behind it, 'your voice playing with verse...'.

The composition of the poem is dated Paris, 15 February 1915: Voloshin, who had been at Dornach in Switzerland at the outbreak of the First World War, arrived in the French capital in January 1915, and published his collection Anno mundi ardentis 1915 there. In 1916, he returned to Russia, and spent the rest of his life at Koktebel in the Crimea, where he turned increasingly to painting in watercolour. Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942) had found himself caught in France at the outbreak of the war, and was only to return to Russia in May 1915, travelling via England, Norway and Sweden.

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