On the History of the Crimean ‘Literary Nests’ at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: Letters from Vasilii Komarovich to Maksimilian Voloshin

Abstract

The present article includes two letters and a postcard found in the Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences which were written by the outstanding literary critic and textologist Vasilii Komarovich to the famous symbolist poet Maksimilian Voloshin. These texts are published in their entirety for the first time. They enrich the idea of Koktebel’ as a cultural locus which played a decisive role in the creative path of many writers, poets, artists and scientists of the first half of the XX century. They also clarify the circumstances of the creation of the poetic masterpieces by Voloshin and of Komarovich’s literary texts, the relationship between which is now understood more clearly. A geocultural approach allows us to see the estate-summer cottage complex of Koktebel’ as the cultural mycelium of the first decades of the XX century – it gave the world enduring fruits of artistic creativity and of the humanities.

Keywords

• komarovich
• voloshin
• unpublished letters
• koktebel’
• cultural locus