Maksimilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin

(pseudonym of Kirienko-Voloshin). Born May 16 (28), 1877, in Kiev; died Aug. 11, 1932, in Koktebel’, now Planerskoe. Russian poet.

Voloshin began publishing in 1900. He was widely traveled: he knew all of Russia and Europe and had visited Egypt. In 1900 he settled in Koktebel’. His main collections are Poems (l91Q)’,Anno mundi ardentis (1916), Iverni (1918), and the book of articles Faces of Creation (1914). Voloshin did not belong to any literary group. His poems, not free from the decadent mood, were marked by philosophical depth, precise form, and refined lyricism. In an attempt to cut himself off from the sharp political struggle during the years of the Civil War, Voloshin tried to reconcile the hostile sides, hiding Reds from the Whites and Whites from the Reds in his house. His poems of this period are marked by tragedy. In 1924, with the approval of the People’s Commisariat for Enlightenment, Voloshin turned his house in Koktebel’ into a free House of Creation. At the present time it is the House of Creation of the Literary Fund of the USSR. Voloshin was also a watercolorist. His works are on exhibit in the I. K. Aivazovskii Gallery in Feodosiia.