Poplavsky.
The Drowning
Uncle.
Posting #2.
“My
Second?..”
A. S. Pushkin. Eugene Onegin.
As I was working on my chapter Mr. Lastochkin (A Swallow’s
Nest of Luminaries), I read how N. S. Gumilev once had a duel with the
Russian poet Maximilian Alexandrovich Voloshin. Having become interested in yet
another poet about whom I learned from Marina Tsvetaeva’s memoirs, I strove to
find out more about him. Thanks to these efforts, I discovered lots of useful
information for myself.
1.
To begin with, Maximilian
Alexandrovich Voloshin was born in the city of Kiev, moving to Moscow later on.
In Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita,
Maximilian Alexandrovich Poplavsky likewise comes to Moscow from Kiev.
2.
The poet’s father
died when Max was just 4-years-old. After his father’s death, his mother, a
Russified German, moved to the Crimea with her son, where she bought a plot of
land in Koktebel. From 1903 to 1913 she had a house built on this land. The
house would later become a refuge for both sides of the Russian Civil War: the
Reds and the Whites. In particular, one of the people saved by Max Voloshin
from the Whites in Koktebel was the “Red” Osip Mandelstam. [See my chapter A Swallow’s Nest of Luminaries: The
God-Fearing Lecher.] Hence, Poplavsky’s patronymic “Andreevich” is the same
as the first name of Osip Mandelstam’s character in Master and Margarita: Andrei Fokich Sokov. The connection is in Max
Voloshin saving Osip Mandelstam from inevitable death at the hands of the
Whites.
3.
Thirdly, I was quite
struck to find out that M. A. Voloshin was married to Margarita Vasilievna Sabashnikova,
niece of the Sabashnikov brothers – Mikhail and Alexei – owners of the biggest
publishing house in Russia. In our home library in Moscow my husband and I had
quite a few books from these publishers. The quality of paper was out of this
world: thick dense pages, the edges uneven, as though hand-cut. I still
remember holding in my hands a priceless Euripides. I’d like the Sabashnikov
tradition of book-printing to return in Russia. I would also like a return of
the magnificent scholarly and superbly aesthetic venture known as Academia which published works of
classical literature with an abundance of commentary and illustrations in the
1920’s-1930’s. I vividly remember the large-format 6-volume boxed edition of A.
S. Pushkin illustrated with facsimiles of his writings and drawings, plus
topnotch illustrations by other artists. I suggest that this Soviet gem of
publishing and literary-historical scholarship be reprinted in its full glory
and become available to the culture-hungry Russian citizenry.
Thanks to Margarita Vasilievna Voloshina, nèe
Sabashnikova, it now becomes clear why her husband Maximilian becomes Berlioz’s
uncle from Kiev. Only through his wife does he become one. In 1894-1895,
V. Ya. Bryusov published three collections of Russian Symbolists, under various pennames. For several years
starting in 1898 he worked at Bartenev’s magazine The Russian Archive. Bryusov was also the principal author and editor
of the Literary Journal The Scales,
also participating in which were Balmont and Voloshin.
In 1910, Struve invited Bryusov to edit the journal Russian Thought. In 1912 Bryusov wanted
to publish the novel Peterburg written
by his former rival in the love triangle with Nina Petrovskaya – Andrei Bely,
at the time when Struve rejected Bely’s novel.
V. Ya. Bryusov, who happens to be the prototype of M.
A. Berlioz in Bulgakov’s novel Master and
Margarita, also worked at the Brockhaus Publishing House, writing scholarly
articles about Pushkin, Gogol, Baratynsky, Tyutchev, and Alexei Tolstoy.
But none of his can compare to the publishing house of
the Brothers Sabashnikov, which is why Bulgakov makes M. A. Voloshin, through
his wife Margarita Vasilievna Voloshina, nèe Sabashnikova, V. Ya. Bryusov’s “uncle,” so to speak.
This is precisely how we can explain this strange
“kinship” between Berlioz and Poplavsky. We are talking about publishing
houses.
A very interesting story! Introducing Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina into the picture points to
M. A. Voloshin’s marital infidelity.
Unfortunately, this leads to Voloshin’s duel with the
famous Russian poet N. S. Gumilev. Not so much through a love triangle as
through behind the stage intrigue. The plot was spun around an unknown Russian
poetess Elizaveta Ivanovna Dmitriyeva. Either due to her young age, or due to
her behavior, she was suddenly a person of interest to such famous poets as
Gumilev and Voloshin, and probably others too, such as the poet Vyacheslav
Ivanov. The unknown and probably not very talented poetess had not been
published. That was until Voloshin offered her a deal on the condition that she
stop her relationship with Gumilev. In exchange, Voloshin offered her his help
and delivered on his promise.
His idea was to create a mystical figure under a
fictitious glamorous foreign name “Cherubina
de Gabriak.” And so Elizaveta Ivanovna Dmitriyeva started writing ‘her
poems,’ essentially ghosted by Voloshin, under this intriguing name.
The intrigue was so well manufactured that the poems
were highly sought and the poetess became an overnight celebrity. But there was
a snag. Either Gumilev found out about this hoax or Dmitriyeva, being a
blabbermouth, could not keep the secret between herself and Voloshin, but certain
rumors started spreading about Gumilev. Apparently, Gumilev made an unseemly
comment regarding Dmitriyeva. What happened next is described by the famous
writer Alexei Tolstoy. The incident took place in public at the Mariinsky
Theater in St. Petersburg. –
“A
heavy scene took place two paces away from me. The poet [Voloshin] ran up to N.
S. Gumilev and insulted him. Others rushed toward the two of them… But Gumilev
challenged Voloshin to a duel…”
Next, A. Tolstoy writes about Gumilev’s bravery:
“...Gumilev
pressed his demand to fire at the distance of five paces, till the death
[sic!] of one of the duelists. He [Gumilev], because of all this confusion,
mystification and the lies – had no other way out…”
Can you believe that this is written by one of
Voloshin’s seconds?! Obviously, it was supposed to be clear to everyone that
the “confusion, mystification and the
lies” were coming from Voloshin’s and Dmitriyeva’s side.
That’s why when Alexei Tolstoy, “according to the rules as the last offer,” suggested
that the duelists make peace, “Gumilev interrupted
him, saying hollowly and irritably: I
came to fight, not to make peace.”
Tolstoy writes that he noticed how Gumilev “was steadily, with an
icy hatred looking at Voloshin.” Tolstoy asked to prepare to shoot
and started counting: “One – two – three... A reddish light sparked from Gumilev’s side,
and a shot was made...”
To be continued…
***
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