May 26, 2011

Summer Chtenia: Sneak peek at Voloshin


Summer Chtenia: Sneak peek at Voloshin

The summer issue of Chtenia is about to go to print, and, yet again, it has shaped up into an eclectic and yet harmonious collection of excellent writing.  One of the poets we're including in this issue is Maximilian Voloshin, the free spirit extraordinaire, a painter and a mythologue. 

I was privileged to serve as a sounding board for Lydia Razran Stone who tackled the translation, and in the course of discussing the poem and Voloshin's aesthetics with her I came to realize how little known this artist is and how interesting. Voloshin, to me, has come to seem almost like Walt Whitman's long-lost cousin--same passion, same love of life, same sense of cosmic proportion, only with more disciplined rhyme and meter. Voloshin was also a painter--some of his paintings can be seen in his old home, now museum in Koktebel (Gurzuf, actually). Voloshin's imagination was captivated by the ancient, mythical past of Crimea -- whose shores make appearances in Ancient Greek myths, and later were home to nomadic tribes. Remember Conan the Barbarian? Well, as originally conceived by Robert E. Howard, Conan was a Cimmerian, i.e. a guy from Cimmeria, or Cymmeria as it's sometimes spelled -- an ancient historical name for Crimea (if I have it straight, the Cimmerians were pushed out by the Scythians... or maybe the other way around).

The landscapes Voloshin painted of Crimea could very well serve as settings for Conan's adventures -- here's a wild, mysterious land that holds memories of many vanished tribes, its hills like the many-colored hides of their horses.

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of our Books

Woe From Wit (bilingual)
June 20, 2017

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.

Marooned in Moscow
May 01, 2011

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

White Magic
June 01, 2021

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.

Faith & Humor
December 01, 2011

Faith & Humor

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.

Steppe
July 15, 2022

Steppe

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.

How Russia Got That Way
September 20, 2025

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.

Murder at the Dacha
July 01, 2013

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955