Mikhail
Kuzmin : A Life in Art by
John E. Malmstad, Nikolay Bogomolov
Mikhail Kuzmin
(1872-1936), Russia's first openly gay writer, stood at the
epicenter of the turbulent cultural and social life of
Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad for over three decades. A poet of
the caliber of Aleksandr Blok, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris
Pasternak, Osip Mandelshtam, and Marina Tsvetaeva (and
acknowledged as such by them and other contemporaries), Kuzmin was
also a prose writer, playwright, critic, translator, and composer
who was associated with every aspect of modernism's history in
Russia, from Symbolism to the Leningrad avant-gardes of the 1920s.
This biography, the first in any language to be based on full and
uncensored access to the writer's private papers, including his
notorious Diary, places Kuzmin in the context of his society and
times and contributes to our discovery and appreciation of a
fascinating period and of Russia's long suppressed gay history.
Honorable Mention, 2000 Wayne S. Vucinich
Book Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic
Studies
"The work of Malmstad and Bogomolov is a
monumental enterprise, a thorough and highly informative study
that opens an entirely new perspective on the so-called Silver Age
of Russian literature." --Tomas Venclova, New Republic
"One cannot praise this biography too
highly; the narrative is fascinating. To do this for a Russian
poet, none of whose verse exists in a good English translation, is
a remarkable achievement. Malmstad and Bogomolov have devoted
three decades to their subject and their period, and move easily
in Kuzmin's milieu." -- Donald Rayfield, Times
Literary Supplement [UK]
"This definitive biography...draws heavily
on unpublished materials and is aimed, despite the relative
unavailability of Kuzmin's work in translation, at the widest
possible readership...This book substantially increases our
knowledge not only of Kuzmin but of the whole period in which he
lived (particularly where it concerns the revolutionary gay scene
in St. Petersburg)." -- Rosamund Bartlet, Times
Higher Educational Supplement[UK]
"Meticulously detailed, Malmstad's
monumental study explores the private agonies of Kuzmin's
complicated personal life; insists in his contribution to Russian
letters; and offers a fascinating depiction of the intermeshed
lives of Russia's artistic elite during the Silver Age and the
first two decades of the Soviet Union." -- M. G. Levine, Choice
"Kuzmin created a cultural role unique for
Russia in the primacy the poet gave to aesthetic concerns, in the
balance between art and life that he achieved, and in the ways in
which he chose to represent his (homo)sexual self. Kuzmin is
immensely fortunate: though belatedly, he has received perhaps the
most thorough and clear-headed treatment of all twentieth-century
Russian poets." -- Irina Paperno
"This monumental work sets standards for
literary scholarship. Tightly packed with information to a large
extent totally new for the reader, it is free from pedantry, keeps
the reader in suspense, is continuously engaging, and is well
tailored to the English-speaking audience." -- Lazar
Fleishman, Stanford University
"Not only the first scholarly biography of
Mikhail Kuzmin, but ipso facto a major new study of the
Russian Silver Age that illuminates some of its most important
facets--literary, theatrical, musical and the gay subculture that
contributed in such a major way to its luster. As a narrative, I
really found it difficult to put down. Mikhail Kuzmin: A Life
in Art is a splendid work of scholarship, well-wrought,
engaging, indispensable to anyone interested in the culture of the
Russian Silver Age." -- Ronald Vroon, University of
California, Los Angeles
Mikhail Kuzmin (1872-1936), Russia's first
openly gay writer, stood at the epicenter of the turbulent
cultural and social life of Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad for
over three decades. A poet of the caliber of Aleksandr Blok,
Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelshtam, and Marina
Tsvetaeva (and acknowledged as such by them and other
contemporaries), Kuzmin was also a prose writer, playwright,
critic, translator, and composer who was associated with every
aspect of modernism's history in Russia, from Symbolism to the
Leningrad avant-gardes of the 1920s.
Only now is Kuzmin beginning to emerge from the
"official obscurity" imposed by the Soviet regime to
assume his place as one of Russia's greatest poets and one of this
century's most characteristic and colorful creative figures. This
biography, the first in any language to be based on full and
uncensored access to the writer's private papers, including his
notorious Diary, places Kuzmin in the context of his society and
times and contributes to our discovery and appreciation of a
fascinating period and of Russia's long suppressed gay history.
