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.

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Some of our Books

Fish
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Fish

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.

Marooned in Moscow
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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.

The Samovar Murders
November 01, 2019

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.

Faith & Humor
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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.

The Little Humpbacked Horse
November 03, 2014

The Little Humpbacked Horse

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.

A Taste of Chekhov
December 24, 2022

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.

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