Maximilian Voloshin between Spirit and Matter
Journal: Scholars' Bank (University of Oregon)
Year: 2021

This thesis considers in tandem the verbal and visual production of the Russian modernist poet and artist Maximilian Voloshin (1877-1932), whose work, I argue, was polarized between the spiritual and the material realms. This tension between spirit and matter is manifested in his poetry, prose, and visual works, as well as in his life-creation practices (zhiznetvorchestvo). I contend that Voloshin understood his creative task as being to display the true essence of things by purifying ideas or s