Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942) - photo 1
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942) - photo 2
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942) - photo 3
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942) - photo 4
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942) - photo 5
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942) - photo 6
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942) - photo 7
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942) - photo 8

Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942)

Lot 11
01.12.2021 10:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 4 500
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
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ID 681127
Lot 11 | Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942)
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 8 000
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont (1867-1942)
Letters to G.D. Grebenstchikoff. 1923-1937
Three autograph letters, two postcards signed and two typed letter signed (‘K. Balmont’) to George Dmitrievich Grebenstchikoff, Saint-Gilles, Clamart, Noisy-le-Grand and Capbreton, 29 September 1923 - 2 December 1926, 7 March 1934 - 6 February 1937; autograph manuscript poem, ‘To George Grebenstchikoff’; and two carbon-copy typescripts signed of the poems ‘Khrustal'nyy terem’ (‘Crystal tower’) and one other (the latter on a leaf also bearing one of the letter of 1 December 1936).

In Russian. Together approx 7 pages in autograph and 5 pages in typescript, various sizes.

'Perhaps I will rise again!': letters to the founder of the Churaevka artists' colony in Connecticut. Balmont praises Grebenstchikoff's writings for his depictions of the old (now lost) Russia, 'you know that I am a great and true admirer of your spirited, invigorating creativity, refreshing as a mountain spring'; and he discusses his own state of mind and his published collections including The Blue Horseshoe, Crystal Tower and Light Service. In 1925, he asks for news of Grebentschikoff’s endeavours in America, complaining of financial difficulties and the poor state of publishing, and mentions a forthcoming project including Merezhkovsky, Kuprin, Bunn, Zaitsev, Aldanov and others. The later letters express a sense of darkness and hopelessness, as well as his loathing of the internecine squabbles of émigré life, but reach at the end for a certain bucolic peace: 'we, with Yelenoi Konstantinovnoi, have settled in the forested area which is surrounded by forest and is fanned by a hum of the ocean. Life is very difficult, there are almost no income, but I am happy in the purity of сountry life and would never again choose to live in the city'; the bickering amongst the émigré community in Paris is 'a monstrous theatre of Satan. But here is God's spirit... I am not writing any longer and therefore – wallowing ... napping ... smoking, despairing, summoning upon myself all sorts of doom, but it does not come ... The sun is shining more often lately – perhaps I will rise again!'. Balmont's poem addressed to Grebenstchikoff (dated in the published editions to February 1923) makes a comparison of their characters with a fanciful animal origin, 'where anciently you were a moose, / I was a squirrel in the same forests'.

George Dmitrievich Grebenstchikoff (1883-1964), from a humble background in a mining family in Kazakhstan, began to publish reviews and short stories in local newspapers in 1905, followed by a play in 1909. Later that year, he visited Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and met Leo Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana; in 1912, he met Gorky, who encouraged him. Having emigrated from Russia in 1920, Grebentschikoff moved to the United States in 1924, going on to establish the Churaevka artists’ colony at Southbury, Connecticut, along with Ilya Tolstoy, son of the writer; he also continued to run the ‘Alatas’ publishing house, which he had founded in 1923. Grebentschikoff’s acquaintance with Balmont dates from the earliest days of his emigration, in Paris in 1920; his ‘Alatas’ publishing house later printed a number of Balmont’s works.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
17.11.2021 – 01.12.2021
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
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