Konstantin Balmont - Biography

Biography

Konstantin Balmont was born in v. Gumnishchi, Shuya, then of Vladimir Guberniya (now of Ivanovskaya oblast), the third of the seven sons of Russian nobleman, lawyer and senior state official Dmitry Konstantinovich Balmont and Vera Nikolayevna (née Le′bedeva) The latter, having come from a family of military men where enthusiasm for literature and theater was almost hereditary, had the most profound influence over her son: she introduced him to the world of music, history and folklore. Vera Nikolayevna knew several foreign languages and often received guests who might have been deemed 'politically risque' at the time. It was from her that Konstantin Balmont, as he later remembered, inherited 'tempestuousness of character' and rabble-rouser mentality.

Balmont who learned reading at the age of five (watching secretly his elder brother’s family lessons) cited Pushkin, Nekrasov, Koltsov and Nikitin as his first favorites. He insisted, though, that "the family house, the garden, creeks, marshy lakes, whispering leaves, butterflies, birds and sunrises" were his first poetry teachers. Ten years spent in his family’s Gumnishchi estate Balmont always remembered with great love and warmth, referring to the place as "a tiny kingdom of silent comfort".

In 1876 the family moved to the town of Shuya where Vera Nikolayevna owned a two-story, rather decrepit-looking house. A ten year old Konstantin joined the preparatory class of a local gymnasium, an institution he later described rather hatefully as "the home of decadence and capitalism, able only of air and river contamination".

It was here at school that, rather vexed with the educational system's restrictions, he became interested in French and German poetry and started writing verses of his own. His first two poems, though, were criticized by his mother in such a harsh manner that for the next six years he made no attempts to repeat this first poetic venture What he became involved in instead was an illegal circle (formed by students and some traveling teachers) which printed and distributed Narodnaya Volya proclamations. "I was happy and I wanted everybody to be happy. The fact that only a minority, me included, was entitled to such happiness, was for me outrageous", he later wrote, explaining his early enchantment with revolutionary activities.

Mother transferred her son to another gymnasium, in Vladimir, but here the boy had to live in the house of a Greek teacher who took upon himself a duty of a warden, bringing much psychological suffering to a disgruntled youth. In the late 1885 Balmont made his publishing debut: three of his poems appeared in a popular St. Petersburg magazine Zhivopisnoye obozrenye. This event (as a latter day biographer put it) "has been noticed by nobody except for his (tor)mentor" whose ultimatum included a veto on any further publications until the graduation day. Balmont was graduated in 1886 году., having spent «one and a half years in a prison-like conditions» «Gimnasium I curse with all my might. It ruined my nervous system completely», the poet remembered in 1923.

In 1886 Balmont joined the Law school of the Moscow University where he socialised a lot with leftist activists (among them P. F. Nikolayev). Next year Balmont was arrested for participation in the students' demonstrations (the unrest was triggered by a new set of rules for students introduced by the authorities), spent three days in prison, then expelled from the University and sent back home to Shuya.

In 1889 Balmont returned to the University but soon quit again due to nervous breakdown. He joined Demidovsky Law college in Yaroslavl but after having been expelled in September 1890 decided that of formal education he’d had enough. «I simply couldn’t bring myself to studying law, what with living so intensely with true passions of my heart and being deeply involved in studying German literature», he wrote in 1911. At least one family member supported his decision: it was an elder brother, infatuated in the same way with studying philosophy Otherwise, "…at the age of 13 I learned the English word self-help, fell in love with the intellectual work and went on with it until my dying days", Balmont wrote in th 1930s.