According to the biographical notes found in the famous anthology of Twentieth Century Russian Poetry, which covers Russian Lyrical verse from the Symbolist Movement (1894-1925), Mirra Lokhvitskaya was the daughter of a famous St. Petersburg criminal lawyer. She attended the Moscow Aleksandrian Institute, where early on she attracted attention to her poetic talents. Her first, modest-in-quality, collection of verse was published by the Russian intellectual and aesthetic public; in 1887 she received the coveted Pushkin Prize for poetry for her first major volume of collected verse. She won this prize again in 1905; however the award was presented posthumously.

Mirra's total output consists of six lengthy volumes. Her work is of unique originality and rather high in quality. It was being published during the heyday of the "Silver Age of Russian Culture," a period of renaissance in art, music, and poetry. Russia's 20th century artistic genius finds its magnificent expression here; it is a time of artistic greatness in which Russia makes significant contributions to European culture. As part of The World of Art Movement, Anton Chekhov, Konstantin Stanislavsky, Alexander Scriabin, Vasily Kandinsky, Sergei Rakhmaninov, Igor Stravinsky, (Balett Russe), Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, and many, many other modern Russian artists wove their masterpieces.

To give you an idea of her poetic style and themes, I will quote from one of Lokhvitskaya’s poems dedicated to her son.

My Sky The sky and all the delights of the sky I see In my child's sweet face-and I cannot tear my eyes away... Innocent angel, by chance fallen to the earth, How much happiness you've brought! Child, how dear you are to me! The wind gusts and your curls flicker with gold, They glisten 'round your dear tiny head like a halo, You're just like a little cloud, drenched by the light of dawn, Pure like the forest lily-of-the-valley, May's charming bloom! With a gentle caress your deep blue eyes Look into my soul and seem like the color of the sky, Darkening for an instant before the storm... I contemplate the sky in your gaze, child! Where is that land of which our fairy tales murmur? I'd carry you in my arms to that wondrous realm, Silently, barefoot on sharp stones would I walk, If only to spare you--the thorns of earth's path! God! When You sent me a child, You opened the sky for me! My mind was cleansed of vain, petty desires! Into my breast You breathed new, mysterious powers! In my burning heart You kindled--the flame of immortal love! June 30, 1894 (volume I, p. 103)

Literary journals of the day printed Lokhvitskaya's verse enthusiastically. As one of her contemporaries, Vasily Nemerovich-Donchenko (brother of Vladimir) recalled in his reminiscences: "...(editors) would mellow when receiving the short Sapphic hymns of Lokhvitskaya for publication...", and another quote from the same memoir: "Into what a beautiful world she transformed those who knew how to listen to her poems. They frequently carried Vladimir Soloviev and myself into a magic, poetic dreamland." (Vas. Iv. Memoirs, Nemerovich-Donchenko. Na kladbischakh vospominaniya. Revel: Bibliofil, 1921. pp.143-148). After the turn of the century, elements of mysticism and motifs of suffering entered Lokhvitskaya's verse. Her poem “Krest” (“The Cross”) resembles Zinaida Gippius’ metaphysical treatment of such abstract cosmic notions as time, eternity, and the cross as a symbol of suffering. For example:

I love the beauty of the sun And the Hellenic Muse's creations, But I worship the Cross, The Cross, as a symbol of suffering. What meaning has the discord between time and place? We'll all dissolve into infinity. And poised above us in the gloom of black eternity Alone--the mournful Cross.

Valery Bryusov, a leading critic and proponent of the Russian Symbolist School, once remarked that Goethe's words about the two souls, which reside in man could be applied to Mirra Lokhvitskaya. Her first soul aspired to clarity, meekness, and purity. It was filled with love of and sympathy for people, and a fear of evil. Her second soul expressed sensual passion, "heroic egoism", and disdain for the crowd. According to Bryusov, these "two souls" within the poet began to struggle with each other in her subsequent works. She became attracted by sin, and as a result the verse acquired a demonic tenor. On the artistic level, these songs of sin and passion are particularly striking. Psychologically, the battle between the poet's two souls and her desperate search for salvation imparted to her subsequent volumes of verse a profound and tragic tone.

She is admired for the artistic perfection of her verse, its color and melodiousness. With a refined poetic vocabulary and keen observation, she conveyed both her maidenly dreams and the charms of sorcery--themes reminiscent of the Middle Ages.

Mirra's poems are striking in their sensual evocations of fragrances and their imaginative ingenuity. The drama, which forms their poetic center, is based on medieval witchcraft trials and is poignant in its intensity. As one critic from “Russkoe bogatstvo” (“Russian Wealth”), who reviewed Lokhvitskaya's first three volumes of poems, claimed: "Amidst the multitude of contemporary poets, who have lost their way in the misty maze of decadent rhetoric, Mirra Lokhvitskaya's poetry shines (...) Like a beautiful nocturnal butterfly." Her poetry, spirited and melodious, aspires “…to leave the humdrum of life for the sunlit realm of dream where there is only love, happiness, and the fullness of life (....)." The kingdom of nature is the real temple in which are sung her best hymns, and in which are found her best consolations.

Lokhvitskaya, in fact, found graceful and poetic words to express her love of men, children, nature, suffering and loneliness. Her lyrics reveal the vitality of life, its elemental force, color, and the flame of passion. They resemble the poems of Konstantin Bal’mont and Rostaine, though different in their oriental and even biblical inspiration. The idea and music of "The Song of Songs" underlie her entire work. The emphasis is on the divine nature of human flesh, its mysterious perfection, the force of Eros, which is ever present in human blood, and its complete harmony with everything earthly--sun, air, grass, water, trees. Sensation is at the very core of Lokhvitskaya's poetic universe. Her poetry displays the craving for rationalization of earthly existence, which may be found in Salome, Sulamith, Balkis, and Sappho, in the women of Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and in Aubrey Vincent Beardsley.

Excerpt from the poem "The Queen of Sheba":

"I kiss the delicate traces Of my queen's lovely feet! Her eyes, like two stars, Glimmer through dark lashes... What say I?...two stars?!... Bright flashes of summer lightning are they! And by them is my heart consumed, Filled with the madness of love! Oh, who can compare with her, With my beloved! Her cheeks Are like lilies, flowers of the field, Drenched in the evening's glow... What say I?! - the lily's bloom?!- Scarlet roses are her cheeks! And by them is my heart enraptured, Filled with the madness of love! How intoxicatingly subtle The perfumes of her gown! She captivates the eye, like the light of the moon, The charm of a wondrous beauty... What say I?!- The light of the moon?!- Rather the brilliance of the southern sun! And by it is my heart bedazzled, Filled with the madness of love!"

The singularity of her poetic voice and vision is unparalleled in the history of Russian versification, excluding Pushkin. For in her poetry the Hellenic cult of beauty is perfectly unified with the orgiastic outburst of oriental passions. The critic Nikolai Poyarkov maintained that: “Mirra Lokhvitskaya's poetry frequently and characteristically reflects the sunlit and mysterious Orient, with its intoxicating types of incense, bright flowers and narcotics; the Orient with its instantaneous passion and sensual love, the Orient of magnificent apparel and sparkling precious stones."

There is another unique aspect to her poetry, especially as it pertains to being a Russian poet. Lokhivitskaya's work is free from the "civic" motifs, such as the desire to propagandize political and social reforms so peculiar to Russian poets before 1894, before the coming of the symbolist-modernist era. Her verse is indeed sensual and unabashedly erotic. This type of poetry was a great departure and a source of perplexity for the Russian reader brought up in the "civic" tradition of Russian literature. In her poetry, Lokhvitskaya exercised the freedom of expression to which other Russian women writers were calling attention. Mainly the freedom for Russian women to express their individuality, to lay bare their passionate, erotic, aspects of their emotions, to explore and portray elements of their nature which outmoded and stereotyped definitions of "female" and "femininity" had excluded. The so-called one-sidedness of her poetic talent--"to sing of love and sensuality"--was alien to these critics. They denied her poetic inspiration, craftsmanship, originality, and the refinement of form, imagery, and thought. In volume II of her verse (St. Petersburg, 1900) she gave this answer to her critics:

I do not know why they reproach me For having too much fire in my poems. For striving to meet the lively sunbeam and refusing to heed the accusations of gloom. For shining like a star in my elegant verses, With a diadem on my opulent hair, For weaving myself a necklace of rhymes, For singing of love, for singing of beauty. I will not buy immortality with my death. And as for my songs, I love melodious ones. And the insanity of my petty dreams Will be voiced in my passionate, my feminine verse.

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"I love you . . ." I love you as the sea loves the sunrise, As Narcissus loves the glimmer and the coldness of dreamy waters. I love you as the stars love the crescent moon, As the poem loves its creator inspired by fancy. I love you like the flame that attracts the moth to its Death, from exhaustive love and haunted by melancholy. I love you as the rushes love the eager wind. I love you with all my will, and all the strings of my soul. I love you as I love enchanting dreams, More than the sun itself, more than the happiness itself, more than life or the joy of spring.

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“If my happiness were ....” If my happiness were a free eagle, And proudly soared in the blue heavens, I would pull my bow with its vibrant arrow, And he would be mine, dead or alive. If my happiness were a magnificent flower, Blossoming on a steep craggy cliff, I would reach for it, unafraid of the heights, I would pick it and breathe and breathe its sweet aroma. If my happiness were an antique ring, And buried in a river under flowing sand, A mermaid I would be and dive after it into the depths, So it would shimmer on my hand. If my happiness were to be locked in your heart, Night and day I would temper it with a sacred flame, So it belonged to me for all eternity, So that only I would keep its beat pulsating and alive.

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“Elegy” I wish to die in Spring, With the return of joyful May, When all the world Is resurrected with sweet breath of spring. All that I love in life, I'll view with a pure smile, And bless my death And call it beautiful! March 5, 1893

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“The Sleeping Swan.” My earthly life is a ringing, An indistinct rustle of rushes It lulls the sleeping swan My disquieted soul. Far off one catches a glimpse of hurrying ships Greedily plying. Peacefully in the midst of the bay, Where sadness breathes like the weight of the world. But the sound, born of trembling Blends with the rustling of the rushes And shakes the awakening swan My immortal soul. It surges into a world of freedom Where the waves echo the sighing storms And where the ever changing waters Reflect eternal azure.

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“In My Chestnut Curls….” In my chestnut curls There are many golden locks; My dreams are virginal and pure In my fiery reveries. Within me has merged the radiance of day And cheerless gloom of night. I love the affable rays of the sun As well a whispered secrets allure me. To the end of my days I am destined To soar the heights, though dangling over an abyss, Espying in the mist a starry light Woven from a wreath of stars.

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“My Secret World.” My secret world is a hippodrome of harmonious melodies Which are the pinnacle of beauty’s absolute freedom. This contest hums at times, profoundly powerful Then, tingling or sweetly melodious; Then, like shields, clanging in a clash. My dreams are radiantly light visions, Having shaken off the heavy dust of earth. They are like incense from heaven, Soaring towards peaks of rebirth On rosy, azure-blue wings. My soul is a living reflection Of the suffering of earth’s clouds. In it are found radiant reflections of bright stars In it are found holy consuming fires for the purest of sacrifices. The laurel and the myrtle have triumphantly blossomed in my soul.

© Copyright 1996 Casimir Norkeliunas, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved

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