Kuzmin M.A. (1872-1936), writer, composer

Categories / Literature. Book Publishing/Personalia
Categories / Art/Music, Theatre/Personalia
KUZMIN Mikhail Alexeevich (1872-1936, Leningrad), poet, prose writer, playwright, composer, critic, and arts theorist. Living in St. Petersburg from 1884, he studied at the Conservatory from 1891 but failed to graduate. Kuzmin's musical pieces were popular in St. Petersburg. He made his debut as a writer in 1905. He visited the so-called Ivanov Wendesdays Literary Meetings and wrote for Apollo Magazine regularly. One of the ideologists and founders of postsymbolism in St. Petersburg, he was a strong influence on modern Russian poetry, his works combining a light and informal tone with careful treatment of each poetic level - from a phone to a strophe - such as Nets, a book of poems written in 1908, Lakes in Autumn written in 1912, Guide written in 1918, etc. His pieces were played at Comedian's Camp Cabaret. In prose, Kuzmin demonstrated the so-called principal of beautiful clarity where he rejected complicated images deliberately and strived for a systematic and harmonious composition, as seen in Wings and Travellers by Sea and Land. Trout Breaks the Ice was his last book of poems written in 1929, implementing his artistic principles in the most consistent way. Writing for the World Literature publishers and St. Petersburg's theatres and periodicals in the post-revolutionary period, he became the leader of the literary group of emotionalists in the early 1920s, which included A. D. Radlov, A. I. Piotrovsky, K. K. Vaginov. Kuzmin's Diary of 1931 published in the New Literary Review (Novoe Lliteraturnoe Obozrenie), issue 7, and Diary of 1934 published in St. Petersburg in 1994 is a valuable source of information about Leningrad's artistic life, the largest part of his diaries from 1905 through to 1929 remain unpublished. He lived at 28 Ninth Line of Vasilievsky Island in 1902-04, 35 Tavricheskaya Street in 1910-12, and 17 Spasskaya Street from 1915, renamed into Ryleeva Street in 1923. He was buried at Literatoskie Mostki.

Reference: Михаил Кузмин и русская культура XX века: Тез. и материалы конф. Л., 1990; Богомолов Н. А., Малмстад Д. Э. Михаил Кузмин: искусство, жизнь, эпоха. М., 1996.

D. N. Akhapkin. Kuzmin Mikhail Alexeevich
Piotrovsky Boris Borisovich
Radlova Anna Dmitrievna
Vaginov (Vagenheim) Konstantin Konstantinovich
9th Line of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 28
Ryleeva St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 17
Tavricheskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 35
Богомолов Н. А., Малмстад Д. Э. Михаил Кузмин: искусство, жизнь, эпоха. М., 1996
Михаил Кузмин и русская культура XX века: Тез. и материалы конф. Л., 1990 Ivanov's Wednesdays, Literary and Artistic Meetings
Apollon (Apollo), journal
Comedians Halt, Cabaret
World of Literature, publishing house, 1918-1924
Literatorskie (Literary) Mostki, the museum-necropolis