The Russian Journey of Emile Verhaarn

On November 23, 1913, at the invitation of the “chief Russian symbolist” Valery Bryusov, the Belgian poet and playwright Emile Verharn and his wife Martha arrived in Russia.

Valery Bryusov was the first in Russia (since 1906, when Verhaern’s Poems on Modernity was published in his translation) to translate and publish the works of the Belgian poet, who soon became widely known.

Later, Alexander Blok, Maximilian Voloshin, Ellis (Lev Kobylinsky) began to work on translations of the poems of the “great Belgian”. Moreover, interest in his work was not limited only to the circle of refined intelligentsia. Verharn’s poems were also read by public figures, especially those of the left. So, according to Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin during the years of his second emigration (from 1908 to April 1917) “read Verharn on sleepless nights”, and Anatoly Lunacharsky in his articles compared Verharn’s work with “Mont Blanc, from where the best streams originate contemporary poetry.”

So the visit of the “great Belgian” to Russia, which lasted from November 23 to December 12, 1913, was a great event for the Russian intelligentsia. According to Vladimir Polushin’s book “Nikolai Gumilyov: The Life of the Executed Poet”, on November 23, Emil and Marta Verhaern arrived in St. Petersburg, where they were met by Valery Bryusov. Accompanied by him, they visited the Hermitage and went to Tsarskoye Selo.

On November 25, the public of the Northern capital honored Emile Verharn at the Hotel De France.

After St. Petersburg, the Verharn couple went to Moscow, however, already without Valery Bryusov. It so happened that the long-awaited visit of the poet, whose work Bryusov had been “obsessed with” for a long time (as evidenced by his diaries), coincided with a tragic event in his personal life that did not allow him to return to Moscow with them: November 24 in Moscow due to tragic romance with Bryusov, the 22-year-old poetess Nadezhda Lvova committed suicide. Due to a nervous shock and well-founded fears that he would be blamed for the death of a young girl, he simply did not dare to return there.

Therefore, the Verharn couple in Moscow had to be met by Bryusov’s wife, Ioanna Matveevna. As reported in the article by the candidate of philological sciences, leading researcher at the Silver Age Museum department (State Literary Museum) Monika Orlova “Once again around the death of the poetess Nadezhda Lvova” (published in the October magazine, No. 4, 2017), 28 or on November 29, a breakfast was held at the house at 32, First Meshchanskaya Street, arranged for Verhaarn and invited guests by Joanna Matveevna. On December 1, Bryusov nevertheless returns to Moscow and from the next day accompanies Verhaarn in his walks around the city. As he later wrote, “Verhaarn’s characteristic feature was an insatiable curiosity… Those who had the opportunity to accompany Verhaern on his walks around Moscow and Petrograd will remember with what perseverance the Belgian poet strove to become more familiar with the details of Russian life.”

And to Moscow, as the Belgian poet himself admits, he had a special relationship: “Never a single city has attracted me to itself with such force as Moscow” (from Moscow Memories by Emile Verkharn, published in Russkiye Vedomosti and reprinted in the magazine “Moscow”, 1964, No. 11).

Before Verharn’s departure from Russia, the correspondent of the Russkoye Slovo newspaper managed to interview him, in which the poet summed up his Russian journey in a peculiar way:

“Verharn was very pleased with his stay in Russia.

“I am fascinated by Russia,” the poet said to our collaborator. – Of course, the main foundation of your country – the Russian village – I only caught a glimpse. But Petersburg and Moscow made an indelible impression on me. I do not agree with those European travelers who are captivated by Moscow and leave St. Petersburg cold. In my opinion, both Russian capitals, although different, sharply different, almost opposite, are equally beautiful. Petersburg is full of calm grandeur. Its monumentality, its huge scale makes an impression. Moscow, on the other hand, is beautiful with its exceptional, bizarre originality. In this city full of contrasts, infinitely multifaceted, there is some kind of fabulous sophistication.

I got to know Moscow better than Petersburg. Among the monuments of Moscow antiquity, the most amazing, in my opinion, is the fantastic St. Basil’s Cathedral. When you see this multi-colored building, unsurpassed in lightness and elegance, you cannot believe your eyes that it was made of stone. It seems that only in a tree could this magical architecture be embodied. I confess that until now, having not seen the Moscow church, I did not suspect that it was possible to convey with a stone the impression of a wooden building so vividly.

New Moscow impressed me mainly with its theatres. Productions by Stanislavsky, the ballet of the Bolshoi Theatre, The Sorochinskaya Fair at the Free Theatre, I have never seen such a high development of the spectacle.

“Some of my Russian friends,” Verhaarn continued, “complained to me about the difficult times Russia is now going through. Of course, for me, a foreigner, it is embarrassing to talk about this, it is embarrassing to touch the painful wounds of a society alien to me. But it seems to me personally that a people in which such great possibilities lie, a people called to create the culture of the future, should cheerfully experience an era of political and social adversity. Similar eras happened in all countries. France was defeated in 1870. In the 17th century, after the Thirty Years’ War, it seemed that the very name of Germany was about to disappear. My homeland groaned for centuries now under the Spanish, then under the Austrian yoke. No, under no circumstances of the most difficult historical life should Russian society lose heart. The future of the Russian people is grandiose. You need to firmly and strongly believe in it.

“My present trip to Russia,” Verhaarn finished, “was the first, but not the last. In two years I am thinking of visiting your homeland for the second time…”

However, these plans were not destined to come true: this trip to Russia for Verhaarn was the first and last. In 1914, the First World War began, and in November 1916, he died in Rouen, falling under a train.

“Fate has its own logic. She probably needed that on November 14 at 4:41 p.m., while boarding an already departing train at the Rouen station, Emile Verharn fell off the footboard of the car, fell under the wheels and was crushed. Perhaps there is some higher truth in the fact that he was destined to see the defeat of his native Belgium – to die at the moment when (we believe!) Her resurrection is already close. Maybe he should have died along with old Belgium and in anticipation of a new one, as Moses died at the turn of the promised land,” wrote Vladislav Khodasevich in an article dedicated to the death of the poet.

But Verhaarn’s memories of Russia remained, as well as the poem “Russia”, which was published in 1916, the year of his death, in the collection “Scarlet Wings of War”:

“The villages of Asia, European cities –

Moscow, Irkutsk, Arkhangelsk, row by row,

You lift up crowns of ice, –

White Russia is proud of its outfit.

God knows what kind of fire ignites you,

What kind of coals burning inventions

They call you to sacrifice, so that at some terrible hour,

Perhaps one would give one’s life for a haze of an idea.

Sergei Ishkov.