Il viaggio per la Cimmeria come dimensione della vita e dell’arte: il mito di Koktebel’ nei poeti russi del primo Novecento

A poet and an artist who was born in Kiev and who lived for many years in Koktebel, Maximilian Voloshin transformed this small hamlet in Eastern Crimea into a kind of Mecca for writers that attracted authors belonging to different literary movements. It was in the works of some of Voloshin’s guests that the myth of Koktebel was born. At the heart of this myth, there is Voloshin’s conception of the Eastern Crimea: a mystical union of nature’s forces in perfect harmony with human beings. In my article I shall try to describe “the myth of the Crimea” in Voloshin’s and Mandelstam’s works and to determine at least some aspects of the value of travel to Koktebel in Russian culture of the “Silver Age”.