K. Balmont

The article studies the reception of the Anglo-American writer Lafcadio Hearn in Russia. The author analyzes the literary influence of L. Hearn on K. Balmont and his individual mythology, reveals the connection with such Russian cultural figures as S. Eisenstein and P. Florensky. The essay “Living God” by L. Hearn is compared with its translation by K. Balmont. The use of color in works by L. Hearn is considered from the standpoint of Eisenstein’s sound and visual correspondences.

In the article the motive of the music of the moon in K. D. Balmont’s poetry is researched on the material of his poems, prose and aesthetic articles. Its symbolic value and evolution in books of the early, mature and late periods are explored. The following conclusions are drawn. In the early lyric poetry of Balmont the moon is associated with the oxymoronic motive of the ‘sounding silence’.