In the most stagnant years of the Soviet period, the Crimean village of Koktebel became that island of freedom, where romantics, poets, mystics and astrologers aspired. The amazing natural aura gave them a powerful impulse of creative inspiration.
And this piece of the Crimean land, which bore the ancient name of Cimmeria, became known to the whole world thanks to Maximilian Voloshin. A subtle artist, deep poet, philosopher, traveler, seer and psychic lived his best years in Koktebel. An admirer of the theories of Johann Caspar Lavater, who laid the foundation for the science of physiognomy and predicted fate by faces, Voloshin had in his library the works of the legendary Swiss and often used them in his predictions. So, Maximilian predicted the tragic fate of his close friends and guests of Koktebel: Osip Mandelstam, Mikhail Bulgakov, Marina Tsvetaeva.
Local residents knew about Voloshin's visionary gift. Once a neighbor came to him and said: “I have to go to Yalta tomorrow on business. Will this trip be successful? Voloshin replied: “You don’t need to go to Yalta tomorrow, because heavy rain is possible, the road will become slippery, and the cart may fall into the abyss!” The guest disobeyed and still set off, but suddenly the blue sky was covered with clouds, a downpour hit, and on a steep serpentine the cart with the horse and rider really fell into the abyss.
Voloshin also possessed the magical ability of pyrokinesis. Guests of his estate recalled how he kindled a fire with his eyes.
Maximilian was born in Kiev on May 16, 1877. Early childhood was spent in Taganrog and Sevastopol, then Moscow became the refuge of the Voloshin family, where Max studied at the gymnasium. When he turned 17, his mother, Elena Ottobaldovna, bought a house in Koktebel, which Voloshin later called "the true homeland of the spirit."
Two years of student life in Moscow left Voloshin with a feeling of emptiness and fruitless searches. In 1899, the tsarist authorities exiled him to the Crimea for organizing student riots. A year later, he managed to go abroad and visited Italy, Switzerland, France and Germany. When he returned, he was admitted to the exams and began his third year at the Faculty of Law. For his revolutionary activities he was exiled to Central Asia.
The six months he spent in the desert with a camel caravan was a defining moment in his spiritual life. In exile, he read a lot and (in his words) "felt Asia, the East, antiquity and the whole relativity of European culture."
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In 1901 Voloshin settled in Paris, where he met with the local bohemian (artists, poets, musicians). He published articles on the artistic life of the French capital, philosophical poems and essays in many newspapers and magazines. He made friends with a Tibetan lama and touched Buddhism in its primary sources. In 1902 he went to Rome, where he studied Catholicism. At the same time he got acquainted with black magic, occultism, Freemasonry, Theosophy. Maximilian was greatly influenced by his meeting with the Austrian mystic philosopher Rudolf Steiner.
In 1906 Voloshin married the daughter of a millionaire, Margarita Sabashnikova. A year later, she went to Max's idol - the poet Vyacheslav Ivanov. "He took possession of her by right of the strong!" - threw a big naive child and resigned himself to the loss. He found his family happiness with Maria Zabolotskaya, who shared with the poet all the hardships and joys of life in Koktebel.
TIME OF TROUBLES
In 1910, Voloshin's first book of poetry was published, which brought the poet all-Russian glory. Max spent the years of the Imperialist War in the "Koktebel castle". He painted many amazingly talented, light, transparent watercolors. Created amazing poems about the war.
Voloshin possessed a subtle instinct that made it possible to distinguish secret signs of the future in an unsightly and evil reality. This is how he described the landscape around him in the spring of 1917: “Thayalo. Moscow is a mess. Troops and groups of demonstrators were passing through the wet snow under the Kremlin walls … And then suddenly and to horror it became clear that this was just the beginning, that the Russian revolution would be long, crazy, bloody, that we were on the verge of a new Great Ruin of the Russian land, a new Troubled time.
While visiting a Moscow friend, Voloshin argued with him about what the capital would be like in 2000. To make his arguments more convincing, Maximilian took a pencil and sketched a picture of the future Moscow. What is striking is that it surprisingly resembled the modern Novy Arbat with its skyscrapers and sparkling supermarket windows.
Subsequently, the magical gift of foresight, presented to Voloshin by nature, more than once surprised his acquaintances. Long before he began his close exploration of the moon, he predicted what this planet would look like. The poet wrote: “No dusk, no air, no water. Only the sharp sheen of granites, shales, spars. Neither trails of dawn, nor evenings of sunsets illuminate the black sky! Nikolai Gumilyov called him “the poet of cosmic premonitions”.
ABOVE THE BATTLE
Voloshin lived through the terrible years of the Civil War, when the Crimea several times passed either to white or to red, in Koktebel. He strove to be "above the battle" and admitted in his poems that "both the white leader and the red officer" found shelter in his house.
The poet defended and hid people, because he believed: "the mass destruction of Russian citizens is intolerable idiocy." Marina Tsvetaeva later wrote: “Max, with his amazement, turned every hand raised for a blow into a lowered one, and sometimes into an extended one. He did it easily and sincerely."
Several times only a miracle saved him from being shot. And in June 1919, risking his life, he himself saved Koktebel and its population from death. Then the cruiser "Cahul", two British destroyers and a barge with a white landing of General Slashchev entered the bay. Suddenly, Koktebel's cordon guards opened fire on the cruiser. The powerful ship deployed its deadly weapons and prepared to raze the insolent village to the ground. And then Voloshin attached a white handkerchief to a long stick, jumped into the boat and swam towards the guns. The commander and officers of the cruiser knew his poetry perfectly, and therefore with respect and attention listened to Maximilian's fiery speech and unanimously decided not to shoot at Koktebel.
And when the Reds came to Crimea, the bloodthirsty mastermind of terror, Bela Kun, allowed the poet to delete those whom Voloshin knew from the execution lists. So he managed to save dozens of people from death.
THE LAST HOSPITAL
The poet managed to survive the harsh years of internecine massacre, and in 1923 he turned his mansion into a kind of "House of Creativity". Representatives of the Soviet intelligentsia found a free shelter there. A. Tolstoy, M. Gorky, M. Bulgakov, M. Prishvin, V. Polenov rested there. K. Chukovsky, A. Bely, A. Tvardovsky, M. Shaginyan and many others. During the day they traveled to the surrounding mountains, engaged in creativity, swam in the warm sea, and in the evening they gathered in Voloshin's living room and read poetry, played music, sang.
Here are lines from one denunciation of the 1920s: “I report that, being a mystic and symbolist, Voloshin examines all phenomena from a special angle of view. Often the views of the owner of the Koktebel estate do not coincide with the party line and are openly counter-revolutionary in nature!"
During the years of rampant Stalinist repressions, he could hardly have survived. He was too extraordinary, independent and bright personality. Max was saved from a terrible fate in 1932 by death.
The poet was buried on the high Koktebel mountain Kuchuk-Yanishar. The place of his final resting place invariably attracts connoisseurs of the poet's work. According to a long-standing tradition, they bring not flowers to the grave, but colored Koktebel pebbles rolled by the sea. As a symbol of eternal love and respect.
Author: Vladimir Petrov