The Centenary of "The Poet's House"

A hundred years ago this year the poet, artist, literary and art critic Maksimilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin (1877-1932) began building his house-which later became known as "The Poet's House"-in Kotebel, Crimea. In the years that followed this picturesque area of eastern Crimea-known since the time of the ancient Greeks as Bosporus Cimmerius-became a strong presence in Voloshin's poetry and his art and, indeed, one of its principal themes. His first collection of verse, published in 1910, contained over a dozen poems dedicated to Koktebel. In all, Voloshin has some sixty poems dedicated to this corner of eastern Crimea as well as a great many watercolor paintings of the area.

Thanks to Voloshin and his hospitality many of the most talented poets, writers, artists, musicians, actors and directors were able to live and work in "The Poet's House." A list of just the names of these eminent figures from Russian culture of the last century would take up more than a page of our journal. Among the best known of them, however, were Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelshtam, Valery Briusov, Andrei Bely, Kornei Chukovsky, Aleksei Tolstoi, Ilya Ehrenburg, Georgi Shengeli, Evgeny Zamiatin, and Mikhail Bulgakov.

In our section devoted to Voloshin's centenary we offer our readers the first publication in English of three of Voloshin's articles on the theatre; two new articles by Vladimir Kupchenko; and chapters on M.N, Izergina and her house in Koktebel, taken from Natalia Menchinskaia's memoirs.

© TSQ

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