BALMONT KONSTANTIN (1867-1942) and ELENA (1880-1943) Autograph letter from the Balmont couple addressed to V.F. Zeeler. Noisy-le-Grand, March 9, 1937

2 pp.; 21 x 13 cm. The main part of the letter is in the hand of Elena Konstantinovna Balmont, who asks for clarification of the situation regarding an article by the correspondent L.D. Lyubimov published in the newspaper ‘Vozrozhdenie’. The article ‘was prompted by Milyukov’s actions towards the poet Balmont. <...> these actions provoked indignation <...> among many other members of the Union as well. Neither K.D. nor I understand at all or know what this is about’. She also asks whether the identity papers are ready, since without papers it is ‘not entirely safe to go out’. On the second page is K.D. Balmont’s autograph postscript, in which he expresses his indignation at the ‘wild persecution of V.F. Zeeler and P.N. Milyukov’. The poet’s signature at the end of the text. Vladimir Feofilovich Zeeler (1874-1954) was a political and public figure, jurist and lawyer, and a prominent member of the Russian emigration. He sat on the boards of the ‘Union of Russian Lawyers’ and of ‘Rapid Aid’, which provided what help it could to Russian émigrés, and later became one of the founders of the newspaper ‘Russkaya mysl’’. He played a special role in the personal fortunes of the poet K.D. Balmont after his emigration to France in 1920. As Secretary General of the ‘Union of Writers and Journalists’, V.F. Zeeler constantly helped Russian writers and poets for 30 years, including K.D. Balmont, especially when the poet fell seriously ill and was in great financial need. Provenance: archive of the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists in Paris.