Description of the attraction
The famous house of M. Voloshin in Koktebel is a cult place where all famous representatives of the Silver Age literature came. Marina Tsvetaeva, Nikolay Gumilyov, Andrey Bely, Maxim Gorky have been here …
Maximilian Voloshin
The life of the poet, publicist and artist Maximilian Voloshin was closely connected with the Crimea. He was born in Kiev in 1877, but he already studied at the Feodosia gymnasium. Then he entered Moscow University to study law, but did not finish his studies and left for Paris. During these years, he travels a lot, believing that the earth is a very small planet and you need to have time to visit everywhere. However, the passion for travel - on foot, with a staff, to various not the most famous, but very interesting places - remained with him forever.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, he begins to publish poetry - and enters as his own on Wednesday symbolist poets … He enters not only as a poet, but also as an art critic. His first poetry collection was published in 1910, and in 1914 his most famous book "Faces of Creativity", a collection of journalistic articles, was published.
He lives quite turbulently. Experiencing tremendous love and tragic separation from an exalted artist Margarita Sabashnikova … Comes up with E. Dmitrieva poetess Cherubina de Gabriak, and then in 1909, because of her, he arranged a duel on the Black River with Nikolay Gumilev … Continuously draws something - sketches, landscapes, cartoons. He not only draws himself, but also writes articles and books about artists, follows fashion trends in painting. For example, it was he, one of the first in Russia, who began to take an interest in the French impressionists. Voloshin during these years is fond of anthroposophy R. Steiner and visits him in Germany.
M. Voloshin categorically does not accept the First World War. Doesn't feel any patriotic mood - the war is terrible, and he refuses to participate in this "bloody massacre". However, they do not take him into the army for health reasons.
Maximilian Voloshin does not accept violence even in the most famous works of art. After the famous assassination attempt on the painting Repin “Ivan the Terrible is killing his son,” Voloshin said that the artist had crossed the permissible line of violence, and he himself provoked it.
During the revolution, he also prefers a position "above the fight" as much as possible in his position.
Voloshin in Koktebel
Despite the fact that most of his activities and interests are associated with the capital's literary circles, he periodically returns to Koktebel. Crimea seems to him to be a symbolic ancient " Cimmeria"- so these areas were once called by the ancient Greeks. He writes a poetic cycle "Cimmerian Twilight", draws a lot - and the "Cimmerian School" of painting is primarily associated with his name. These are the romantic painters, followed by the seascape I. Aivazovsky … They created in their works a mysterious, vivid and emotional image of the Crimean nature. Voloshin paints Crimean watercolors and signs his landscapes with poetic lines. He himself later admits that it was the Crimean nature that became the best teacher of painting for him.
WITH 1903 year they and their mother begin to build their own house in Koktebel. Voloshin's mother was a strong and harsh woman, but they always remained close and lived together. Construction has been going on for almost 10 years: they already live there, but all the time something is being altered and added. The layout of the house was originally designed for many guests: out of 22 rooms, 15 are small guest rooms. Guests were accommodated on the first floor, while the owner himself occupied the second.
Voloshin's house in Koktebel becomes a kind of "literary commune" where his friends, writers and artists, come. They have fun, arrange literary games, practical jokes, performances, fool around in every possible way. Voloshin - tall, bearded and apparently respectable - happily leads the whole crowd. But at the same time he does not leave the ground: he knows how to do carpentry, and take care of the garden, and take photographs.
Voloshin spends his revolutionary years in the south. Whites cannot understand in him the absence of hatred for the Bolsheviks, the Bolsheviks - the absence of hatred for whites. In the revolutionary Crimea, through which waves of turmoil roll, he tries to help everyone who asks for his help, but he himself refuses to leave Russia, like many of his friends and acquaintances. In the early 1920s, he is engaged in the preservation of the historical values of Crimea … Many modern museum collections are exactly the values that he saved from ruined estates and palaces.
Since 1924 he has been transforming his house into “ House of Creativity"- essentially not changing anything. Artists and writers still come here to their hospitable host. Voloshin are friends with A. Greenwho lives nearby in Feodosia. Until now, the "Green's" trail through the mountains, along which they walked to each other, is an attraction. Writers of the next, younger generation come here - Mikhail Bulgakov, Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky other. In 1925, almost 400 people visited it.
However, this is not an idyll. Voloshin periodically has to prove that he does not take money from those who come to him (because the Soviet state does not accept such commercial activity). They don't print it. Local authorities put up all sorts of obstacles. In 1929, the poet suffers a stroke. Dies in 1932 year in a deep depression: the new Soviet Russia, neither he nor his undertakings are needed.
Voloshin Museum
The museum was officially opened in 1984. In fact, he owes his existence to the poet's widow - Maria Stepanovna (Zablotskaya) … They met the poet in Feodosia in 1919. She was a paramedic, and he was sick.
Maria Stepanovna managed to preserve the house and memorial things. In the 30s, Voloshin's works were not just not published - his verses are expressly prohibited … For the authorities, his position, which he expressed during the revolution, is categorically unacceptable. It is quite possible to get a term for keeping his poems during these years. For example, a poet was arrested in 1936 N. Anufrieva … She lived her youth in the Crimea, was familiar with M. Voloshin, and now she was given 8 years in the camps for keeping his poems.
However, the widow continues to live in his house, preserves it during the occupation, hides books and paintings in the basement from the bombings. The House of Creativity in Koktebel (now the city is called "Planerskoye", and the House of Creativity belongs to the Literary Fund) also exists, but new modern buildings are being built for it. The creative intelligentsia still gathers here. Among the regulars of Planersky - Vasily Aksenov, Evgeny Evtushenko, Yulia Drunina, Marietta Shaginyan other.
Since the 1970s, Voloshin's legacy has gradually begun to return to readers. He settled in Koktebel Vladimir Petrovich Kupchenko - the second person to whom we owe the existence of the museum. He worked as a watchman at the House of Creativity, communicated with Maria Stepanovna. In the nineties, it was he who published the first biography of Voloshin, as well as many documents about him - memoirs, correspondence. V. Kupchenko is preparing the first full-fledged collection of Voloshin's works.
Now in the museum you can see the memorial rooms of M. Voloshin, untouched since the beginning of the XX century. It houses a huge library with autographs of almost all famous people of that time.
The collection of Silver Age paintings in this museum is one of the most extensive. Here are the works of Voloshin himself and his many friends. There are works A. Benois, K. Petrova-Vodkina, A. Lentulova, I. Ehrenburg and many others. Also in the collection there is a collection of Japanese prints, left over from the owner of the house.
One of the most famous exhibits is “Queen Taiakh”. Once in Paris, M. Voloshin saw a cast of an ancient Egyptian sculpture - and she struck him in the very heart with her beauty and resemblance to his then wife Margarita Sabashnikova. He ordered a cast from this portrait in Koktebel (and ordered another cast Professor Tsvetaeva, the father of the poetess Marina Tsvetaeva for her museum, now there is a cast and is located). The artist arranged the sculpture in his workshop so that moonlight fell on it on summer nights, dedicated poetry to it … He invented the name "Taiakh" himself - no ancient Egyptian queen or goddess exists. In fact, the Egyptian queen was called Mutnodzhemet. But she became for him the image of his tragic love, and the Taiakh cabin, the workshop, became a place of creative inspiration.
Numerous decorations are kept here: shells, figurines, "gabriacs" - dry roots of various exotic forms, which once gave the pseudonym Cherubina de Gabriac.
The museum holds exhibitions, regular Voloshin readings, continues to publish materials from its collections.
Interesting Facts
In early childhood M. Voloshin met an artist in Moscow Surikova … He was walking with his nanny and saw a man painting a winter Moscow landscape from an easel. This impressed the boy so much that from that moment he became interested in painting and decided to become an artist. Subsequently, he wrote a book about Surikov.
In 1917, in the capital, the bearded Max Voloshin was mistaken for Karl Marx by the workers.
Many said that Voloshin knew how to relieve pain with his hands, and once, snapping his fingers, he lit a curtain.
On a note
- Location: smt. Koktebel, st. Marine, 43.
- How to get there: the house is located on the very embankment, so you can get there either on foot from the Pgt Koktebel bus station or by boat from Feodosia.
- Official website:
- Opening hours: in summer from 10:00 to 18:00, in winter from 10:00 to 16:00.
- Ticket price: adult 170 rubles, concessionary 110 rubles.
