Mikhail Alekseyevich Kuzmin (born October 18, 1872, Yaroslavl, Russia—died March 1, 1936, Leningrad, Russia, U.S.S.R. [now St. Petersburg, Russia]) was a Russian poet and prose writer, composer, critic, and translator who was one of the most influential figures of the Russian Silver Age.
Kuzmin was born into a family of Russian provincial nobility (with some French ancestry on his mother’s side) and spent his childhood years in Saratov. From age 12 he lived in St. Petersburg, where he graduated from a gymnasium, attended the conservatory, and studied at a private music school. Although from his youth he possessed an outstanding breadth of interests and knowledge, Kuzmin began to associate with the literary and artistic elite only at age 32, after the first publication of his verse and prose in Zelyony sbornik stikhov i prozy (1905; “The Green Collection of Verse and Prose”) and subsequent publications (both in 1906) of his first novel, Krylya (Wings), and a lieder cycle, Aleksandriyskiye pesni (Alexandrian Songs) in the leading Symbolist journal Vesy (“Libra,” or “The Scales”). Kuzmin’s debut was an instant sensation, owing at least in part to his overt treatment of homosexuality (in Wings, in particular).
Even those early publications made apparent Kuzmin’s striking originality: his nuanced understanding of other cultures and his distinct and colloquial authorial voice, as well as the philosophical and religious depth of his writing, masked by an ostensibly simple, unpretentious style—in contrast to the typically knotty writing of his Symbolist contemporaries. From that point on, Kuzmin was a full-fledged member of Russia’s cultural elite. He counted as friends such figures as artists Konstantin Somov and Sergey Sudeykin, entrepreneur Serge Diaghilev, theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold, and poets Aleksandr Blok and Vyacheslav Ivanov. Kuzmin was commissioned to write music for actress and producer Vera Komissarzhevskaya’s theatre productions, including a production of Blok’s noted Balaganchik (1907; A Puppet Show, published in English in Aleksandr Blok’s Trilogy of Lyric Dramas). The most prestigious journals and publishers vied for Kuzmin’s writings. For those who knew him, Kuzmin became the emblem of Russia’s artistic life early in the 20th century. Except for poet Anna Akhmatova—who presented Kuzmin as practically a devil figure in her autobiographical Poema bez geroya (“Poem Without a Hero”)—most of his contemporaries remembered him in their memoirs as a man of extraordinary charm.
In the early 1910s, Kuzmin’s artistic pursuits became an important source of income for him. He began to contribute to popular magazines and to write light verse and music. His operetta Zabava dev (1911; “The Maidens’ Amusement”) became a popular hit. Only from 1916 on did his poetry regain the combination of inner complexity and outward simplicity that had made him famous at the outset of his career. After the revolution of 1917, Kuzmin wrote prolifically—poetry, prose, and critical essays—but it soon became clear that the Soviet regime was unappreciative. For Kuzmin, however, it was a period of growth during which his writings acquired a new seriousness and philosophical depth, as in his poetry collections Nezdeshniye vechera (1921; “Otherworldly Evenings”) and Paraboly (1923; “Parabolas”), his play Smert Nerona (1929; Death of Nero), and the unfinished novel Rimskiye chudesa (“Roman Miracles”). His readership began to shrink. Even the best among his late collections of poetry, Forel razbivayet lyod (1929; “The Trout Breaking the Ice”), was barely noticed by Soviet or Russian émigré critics.
What little of Kuzmin’s work that was published in the later years of his life were his translations of such classic writers as Apuleius, Shakespeare, Boccaccio, and Homer. During those years, Kuzmin remained keenly interested in contemporary culture, working on, among other things, a translation (never finished) of Bertolt Brecht’s Die Dreigroschenoper (1928; The Threepenny Opera).
The personal diary Kuzmin kept from 1905 to 1934 (published only in part) occupies a special place in his legacy and has been prized by historians of Russian culture for its unique intimate view of the country’s cultural life during that period. Interest in Kuzmin’s works and life was revived in the 1970s and ’80s, with the publication of a three-volume edition of his poetry (1977) and a 12-volume collection of his prose (1984–2000). Several editions of Kuzmin’s works also have been published in Russia since 1990.