The book presents two main memoir sources about the life and creative wanderings of the great German (and in today's optics - all-European) poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). Memoirs of an aristocrat book. Maria von Thurn und Taxis and the most famous intellectual in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, Lou Andreas-Salomé, are published in Russian for the first time. In a detailed, information-rich afterword, the translator (who carried out the project “Small collected works of R.-M. Rilke in seven books” in 2012-2013, awarded the Bazhov Literary Prize) shows the existential and philosophical context of the poet’s fate in his continuous search for “living humanity” "The publishing layout is saved in a4.pdf format.