Evgeny Golovin is a Russian poet, writer, metaphysician, literary critic, author of numerous essays on the topics of European poetry, Dionysianism and literature of a restless presence. A brilliant expert on alchemical texts, Hermeticism and medieval mysticism. A key figure in the Moscow intellectual underground of the 60-80s of the twentieth century. Master of poetic and literary translation. One of the best translators of poems by Arthur Rimbaud. A regular participant in esoteric meetings at Vitaly Mamleev’s apartment in Yuzhinsky Lane.
Approximation
The biography and personal life of Evgeny Vsevolodovich Golovin is partially known. Only the date of birth is known - August 26, 1938. A great mystery is shrouded in his life until thirty years. Very little information about his parents and education. We only know about Yevgeny Vsevolodovich’s mother from his own words that she was “cold, normal, and not child-loving” as a woman. Apparently, she was the first “snow queen” in Golovin’s life, still at a simple, not mystical level. In the future, the Snow Queen - a woman of night and cold, will become one of the fundamental installations of the Golovinsky worldview.
Perplexities
Some of his close friends were genuinely perplexed as to where he actually came from? Where does this scholar, encyclopedist and mystic come from all his knowledge? Indeed, in the years of his youth, in the Soviet Union of the fifties, it was in no way possible to learn this knowledge. It was very difficult to find literature about secret doctrines, mysticism, alchemy, paganism and Hermeticism, about everything that formed the basis of the knowledge and interests of Yevgeny Vsevolodovich.
A photo of Yevgeny Vsevolodovich Golovin in his youth is presented below.
But he, contrary to fate, found a source and fell to it. This source turned out to be a special repository of the Lenin Library, where, by some miracle, Golovin had access. There, he, one of the first in the country, got acquainted with the works of Rene Genon, Julius Evola, Miguel Serrano, Fulcanelli and others. Thus, domestic traditionalism was born.
Rejection
For such an exceptional person as Yevgeny Vsevolodovich Golovin, personal life and biography, in essence, have no meaning. He was a man who did not pay attention to everyday life, that is, the external circumstances of life did not in any way affect his internal attitudes and thoughts. Evgeny Vsevolodovich often said that the house is not important for a man, but only the ease of getting up and the readiness to embark on a long journey at any time are important.
Evgeny Vsevolodovich was outside the country, outside the era and outside of society. Around him, wars, repression, pestilence, shifts in social formations and any other disasters could erupt, which happened during his life. But he still remained what he is, regardless of the social system, intellectual fashion and trends of public opinion. Evgeni Vsevolodovich Golovin is eternal, like his beloved Dionysus and Hermes Trismegistus, as the doctrines of seekers of the spiritual path and adherents of ancient sacred cults are eternal. How eternal is the ocean.
Golovin hated society and everything connected with it. Once lost, the passport did not even try to be restored and lived for so many years, and then in the USSR it was, to put it mildly, unsafe and uncomfortable. But he was not afraid of losing social support, he despised it, as he despised life and gray everyday life. He had a phobia for the world around him, he saw him as fake, unreal, someone's evil joke and was very afraid to poison him. Golovin considered this world a prison and saw a way out of it only in spiritual pursuits, poetry and antiquity.
Rapture
Evgeny Vsevolodovich was so different that he did not even have a chance to adapt to this life. Although beautiful in this world, he still found. He considered alcohol not evil, but, on the contrary, a means of metaphysical disclosure. He loved alcohol for its alchemical sublimation, for the fact that it helped to find the gap in everyday life, made it possible to escape from the boredom of philistine life, and provided a narrow passage to freedom of thought. After drinking, Golovin dissolved, and communication began - his supernatural conversations about life and death, about the poetry of Dante, Shakespeare, Lotreamon and Rimbaud, about Pan's antics and about the frantic passion of the Bacchantes. From the outside, for ordinary people it looked like ordinary booze and, of course, was condemned.
Women
The wife of Yevgeny Vsevolodovich Golovin, and he was officially married only once, was called Alla Ponomareva. In this marriage, he had a daughter, Elena. The couple parted, and Golovin did not marry anymore, but sailed through life as a mysterious and attractive ship, sometimes calling into the houses of women as a quiet bay or harbor. But it was impossible to keep him, he moved in his rhythm and in his direction, somewhere in the space of meanings, away from the dull routine and gray everyday life. Somewhere north. Eugene Vsevolodovich considered women to be creatures confused in matter, tied to life and comfort, but could not live without them. Women at least kept him near the ground, supported the anchor of his ship. Without them, perhaps he would have sailed beyond all horizons, farther from the Earth, drawn by violent winds known only to him alone.
Poetry
Poet Eugene Vsevolodovich Golovin was real, true. A true poet always takes risks. Because he creates his creations from nothing. He enlivens the flashes of the nonexistent, gives it shape. If the poet does not touch Nothing, then this is not a poet, this is a crook who calls himself a poet. Only one who comes into contact with Nothing understands what death is. The rest do not understand this, they only repeat what was written by poets, philosophers and mystics. They are in a dream and do not think about death. Those who do not think of death are already dead.
A poet creates something out of Nothing. This is just scary. No one knows, not even the poet himself, how Something will behave when it becomes. This is the risk. And Golovin took a chance. He risked his whole life and enjoyed this risk.
But the poet is alive, he looks death in the face, and he is troubled. Death with its greatness drives the poet crazy and makes him crazy. The poet loses support and remains face to face with death, and holds the battle until the very end, until his very victory. Such poets were so beloved by Golovin: Rambo, Trakl, Baudelaire, Poe, Nuvo, de Nerval, Nietzsche, Cro, Verlaine. Golovin himself was such a poet.
In the verses of Yevgeny Vsevolodovich Golovin, very different (from hooligan to philosophical, from rude to lyrically tender), there is an aggravation of the perception of the world. The space is expanding, new dimensions, new meanings and new possibilities appear. But it will not work to follow the poet. The path of each is strictly individual. The poet only reveals the abyss and shows the existence of other paths that are different from the usual ways of life.
Books
Evgeny Vsevolodovich Golovin has only seven published books. These are books of poems and songs, collections of stunningly deep essays on poetic and mythological topics, recordings of his conversations. Like any prophet, Golovin did not create any complete philosophical doctrine. He, like Zen masters, leaving behind only parables and koans, preferred lectures and conversations. It was in conversations that his gift of eloquence was manifested, and characteristic intonation began to act, transforming reality and introducing the listener into an intellectual trance and other unexpected existential states. His voice, wandering somewhere in sky-high heights, awakened in the listeners the ancient deep elements, dissected reality and destroyed installations.
In his conversations, Golovin is deliberately mysterious, his statements are the opposite of any commonplace, his actions are unexpected, not schematic, and radical. This is what the prophets say and behave, despite the established norms, prohibitions and traditions, thereby discovering completely new postulates and ideas. They are not afraid to switch to absurdity and shocking, they are not afraid to be ridiculous and ridiculous, they are not afraid of anything at all.
Environment
The whole life of Yevgeny Vsevolodovich Golovin complemented his work and was a vivid illustration of his views. In 1962, he appeared at the esoteric Yuzhinsky evenings and instantly joined a very motley company of underground connoisseurs of metaphysics, and soon became one of the leaders of this association. The Yuzhinsky circle at that time was just taking shape and consisted of weekly meetings of extraordinary personalities in the apartment of the writer Yuri Mamleev in Yuzhinsky Lane. In this circle, their formation took place: Heydar Dzhemal, Sergey Zhigalkin, Valentin Provotorov. The main "nerve" of these meetings was the search for the Beyond and longing for Truth. Golovin, with his Dionysian existence and eternal search for meanings, fully corresponded to these attitudes.
Mamleev himself was already a well-known writer in narrow circles of samizdat and had considerable weight among the non-conformist public. He accepted Golovin immediately and unconditionally, their friendship continued throughout the rest of his life.
Evgeni Vsevolodovich Golovin died on October 29, 2010. Friends installed a menhir on his grave.