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  NATASHA

  Orlando Figes

  Orlando Figes

  NATASHA'S DANCE

  A Cultural History of Russia

  Copyright © 2002 by Orlando Figes

  ISBN: 08050-5783-8

  For Lydia and Alice

  Contents

  List of Illustrations and Photographic Acknowledgements - ix

  Notes on the Maps and Text - xv

  Maps - xviii

  Introduction - xxv

  1 EUROPEAN RUSSIA - I

  2. CHILDREN OF I 8 I 2. - 69

  3. MOSCOW! MOSCOW! - 147

  4. THE PEASANT MARRIAGE - 217

  5. IN SEARCH OF THE RUSSIAN SOUL - 289

  6. DESCENDANTS OF GENGHIZ KHAN - 355

  7. RUSSIA THROUGH THE SOVIET LENS - 431

  8. RUSSIA ABROAD - 523

  List of Illustrations

  and Photographic

  Acknowledgements

  Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be happy to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.

  CHAPTER OPENERS

  1. Benjamin Paterssen: Vue de la grande parade au Palais de l'Empereur

  Alexandre 1er a St Petersburg, c. 1803. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

  2. Adolphe Ladurnier: View of the White Hall in the Winter Palace,

  St Petersburg, 1838. State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg/

  Petrushka, Moscow

  3. St Basil's Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow, during the late nineteenth

  century (photo: David King Collection, London)

  4. A typical one-street village in central Russia, c. 1910. Photograph

  by Netta Peacock. Victoria Albert Museum Picture Library,

  London

  5. Natalia Goncharova: backdrop design for The Firebird (1916)

  Victoria Albert Museum Picture Library, London

  6. Scvthian figures: late nineteenth-centurv archaeological engraving

  List of Illustrations and Photographic Acknowledgements

  7. Anna Akhmatova at the Fountain House. Copyright © Museum of Anna Akhmatova in the Fountain House, St Petersburg

  8. Igor and Vera Stravinsky arriving at Sheremetevo Airport in Moscow, 21 September 1962. Reproduced from Igor and Vera Stravinsky, A Photograph Album 1921-1971 (London: Thames Hudson, 1982)

  TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS

  1. Shifting the huge granite rock for the pedestal of The Bronze Horseman. Engraving after a drawing by A. P. Davydov, 1782

  2. Seventeenth-century Muscovite costumes. Engraving from Adam Olearius, Travels to Muscovy and Persia (Hamburg: Schleswig, 1669)

  3. The Sheremetev theatre at Ostankino. Photograph copyright © William C. Brumfield.

  4. Gerard de la Barthe: A Cure Bath in Moscow, 1790. Pushkin Museum, Moscow (photo: AKG London)

  5. The 'peasant prince': Sergei Volkonsky in Irkutsk. Daguerreotype by A. Lavignon, 1845 (photo: Novosti, London)

  6. Alexei Venetsianov: Cleaning Beetroot, 1820. Copyright © 2002, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg/Petrushka, Moscow

  7. A wet nurse in traditional Russian dress. Early-twentieth-century photograph. Private collection. Reproduced from Chloe Oblensky, The Russian Empire: A Portrait in Photographs (London: Jonathan Cape, 1979)

  8. Monument to the millennium of Russia in the square in front of St Sophia's Cathedral, Novgorod. Photograph by Mikhail Mikeshin, early 1910s

  9. Maria Volkonsky and her son Misha. Daguerreotype, 1862. Reproduced from Christine Sutherland, The Princess of Siberia: The Story of Maria Volkonsky and the Decembrist Exiles (London: Methuen, 1984)

  10. Etienne-Maurice Falconet: The Bronze Horseman. Monument to Peter the Great, 1782 (photo: Hulton Archive, London)

  11. Viktor Gartman: design tor the Kiev city gate (photo: Novosti/ Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  12. Vladimir Shervud: Russian Museum, Red Square, Moscow. Photograph, early 1900s (photo: Alexander Meledin Collection/Mary Evans Picture Library, London)

  13. Ilia Repin: sketches for The Volga Barge Haulers, 1870. National Gallery, Prague

  14. Tolstoy's estate at Yasnaya Polyana. Late-nineteenth-century photograph

  15. Elena Polenova: 'Cat and Owl' carved door, Abramtsevo workshop, early 1890s. Courtesy Izobrazitel'noe Iskusstvo, Moscow

  16. Church at Abramtsevo. Designed by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1881-2. Photograph copyright © William C. Brumfield

  17. Gusli player. Reproduced from Chloe Oblensky, The Russian Empire: A Portrait in Photographs (London: Jonathan Cape, 1979)

  18. Nikolai Roerich: costumes for the Adolescents in the first production of The Rite of Spring, Paris, 1913 (photo: Lebrecht Collection, London)

  19. Stravinsky transcribes a folk song sung by a peasant gusli player on the porch of the Stravinsky house at Ustilug, 1909 (photo: Fondation Theodore Strawinsky/Lebrecht Collection, London)

  20. Hermits at a monastery in northern Russia (photo: Popperfoto, Northampton)

  21. Group of Komi people in typical clothing. Photograph, c. 1912, by S. I. Sergei. Reproduced from L. N. Molotova, Folk Art of the Russian Federation from the Ethnographical Museum of the Peoples of the U.S.S.R. (Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1981)

  22. Vasily Kandinsky: sketches of buildings in the Komi region. From the Vologda Diary, 1889. Centre Pompidou, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris. (Copyright © Photo CNAC/MNAM Dist. RMN) © AD AGP, Paris and DACS, London 2002

  23. Masked Buriat shaman with drum, drumstick and horse-sticks. Photograph by Toumanoff, early 1900s

  24. Watercolour copy of a lost self-portrait with Circassian sword and cloak by Mikhail Lermontov, 1837 (photo: Novosti, London)

  25. Vladimir Stasov: study of the Russian letter 'B' from a fourteenth-century manuscript of Novgorod. Reproduced in Stasov, Russkii naroodnyi ornament, 1872) (photo copyright © British Library, London [ref. 7743])

  26. Vladimir Stasov: title page of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera score Sadko, 1897. Photograph copyright © British Library, London [ref. G.1073.a]

  27. Akhmatova and Punin in the courtyard of the Fountain House, 1927. Copyright © Museum of Anna Akhmatova in the Fountain House, St Petersburg

  28. Liubov Popova: stage design for Meyerhold's 1922 production of the Magnanimous Cuckold. Tretyakov Gallery Moscow (photo: Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  29. Alexander Rodchenko: 'To Her and Me', illustration from Mayakovsky's Pro eto, 1923. Private collection. © DACS 2002

  30. 'The Russian house inside the Italian cathedral'. Final shot from Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalgia, 1983 (photo: Ronald Grant Archive, London)

  31. Sergei Efron and Marina Tsvetaeva, 1911. Courtesy Viktoria Schweitzer

  COLOUR PLATE SECTION 1

  1. Nikolai Argunov: Portrait ofPraskovya Sheremeteva, 1802. Copyright © 2002, State Museum of Ceramics and XVIII Century Estate, Kuskovo/Petrushka, Moscow

  2. Vasily Tropinin: Portrait of Pushkin, 1827. Pushkin Museum, Moscow (photo: AKG London)

  3. Alexei Venetsianov: Morning of the Lady of the Manor, 1823. Copyright © 2002, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg/Petrushka, Moscow

  4. Alexei Venetsianov: In the Ploughed Field: Spring, 1827. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (photo: Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  5. Vasily Perov: Hunters at Rest, 1871. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (photo: Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  6. Interior of the Terem Palace, the Kremlin, Moscow, restored by Fedor Solntsev (photo: Novosti, London)

  7. Vasily Surikov: The Boyar's Wife Morozova, 1 884. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (photo: Scala, Florence)

  8. Imperial Presentation Kovsh by Mikhail Perkin for Faberge, 1906. Copyright © Phototheque de la Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris

  9. Siren vase by Sergei Vashkov for Faberge, 1908. Copyright ©
2002, State Historical Museum, Moscow/Petrushka, Moscow

  10. Ilia Repin: Portrait of Vladimir Stasov, 1873. Copyright © 2002, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

  11. Ilia Repin: The Volga Barge Haulers, 1873. Copyright © 2002, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg/Petrushka, Moscow

  12. Ivan Kramskoi: The Peasant Ignatiy Pirogov, 1874. Copyright © 2002, Kiev Museum of Russian Art, Kiev, Ukraine/Petrushka, Moscow

  13. Leon Bakst: Portrait of Diaghilev with His Nanny, 1906. Copyright © 2002, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg/Petrushka, Moscow

  COLOUR PLATE SECTION 2

  14. Original score by Igor Stravinsky for The Rite of Spring, 1913. Private Collection (photo: Bridgeman Art Library, London). Copyright 1912, 1921 by Hawkes Son (London) Ltd. Reproduced by permission of Boosey Hawkes Music Publishrs Ltd

  15. Viktor Vasnetsov: set design for Mamontov's production of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Snow Maiden at Abramtsevo, 1881 (photo: Novosti, London)

  16. Nikolai Roerich's set and costumes for The Rite of Spring, reproduced by the Joffrey Ballet for its revival of the original ballet in 1987. (Copyright © Herbert Migdoll

  17. Nikolai Roerich: The Idols, 1901. Copyright © 2002, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg/Petrushka, Moscow

  18. Nikolai Roerich: costume designs for The Snow Maiden, 1921, lor the Chicago Opera Company production, 1922. Courtesy Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York

  19. Vasily Kandinsky: Motley Life, 1907. Copyright © Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2002

  10. Vasily Kandinsky: All Saints II, 1911. Copyright © Stadtische

  Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2002

  21. Vasily Kandinsky: Oval No. 2, 1925. Centre Pompidou, Musee National d'Art Moderne, CCI, Paris. (Copyright © Photo CNAC/ MNAM l)isr.RMN)(0 AD AGP, Paris and DACS, London 2002

  22. Shaman bird head dress, cedar wood, first half of nineteenth century. From the collection of Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg

  23. Isaak Levitan: Vladimirka, 1 892. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (photo: Scala, Florence)

  24. Vasily Vereshchagin: Surprise Attack, 1871 (photo: Christie's Images, London)

  25. Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin: Bathing the Red Horse, 1912. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (photo: Scala, Florence)

  26. Kazimir Malevich: Red Cavalry, 1930. State Russian Museum, St Petersburg (photo: Scala, Florence)

  27. Natan Altman: Portrait of Anna Akhmatova, 1914. Copyright © 2002, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg/Petrushka, Moscow © DACS 2002

  Notes on the Maps and Text

  MAPS

  Place names indicated in the maps are those used in Russia before 1917. Soviet names are given in the text where appropriate. Since 1991, most Russian cities have reverted to their pre-revolutionary names.

  RUSSIAN NAMES

  Russian names are spelled in this book according to the standard (Library of Congress) system of transliteration, but common English spellings of well-known Russian names (Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky, or the Tsar Peter, for example) are retained. To aid pronounciation some Russian names (Vasily, for example) are slightly changed (in this case, from Vasilii).

  DATES

  From 1700 until 1918 Russia adhered to the Julian calendar, which ran thirteen days behind the Gregorian calendar in use in western Europe. Dates in this book are given according to the Julian calendar until February 1918, when Soviet Russia switched to the Gregorian calendar.

  USE OF METRIC

  All measurements of distance, weight and area are given in the metric system.

  NOTES

  Literary works cited in this hook are, wherever possible, from an English-language translation available in bookshops.

  Maps

  INTRODUCTION

  In Tolstoy's War and Peace there is a famous and rather lovely scene where Natasha Rostov and her brother Nikolai are invited by their 'Uncle' (as Natasha calls him) to his simple wooden cabin at the end of a day's hunting in the woods. There the noble-hearted and eccentric 'Uncle' lives, a retired army officer, with his housekeeper Anisya, a stout and handsome serf from his estate, who, as it becomes clear from the old man's tender glances, is his unofficial 'wife'. Anisya brings in a tray loaded with homemade Russian specialities: pickled mushrooms, rye-cakes made with buttermilk, preserves with honey, sparkling mead, herb-brandy and different kinds of vodka. After they have eaten, the strains of a balalaika become audible from the hunting servants' room. It is not the sort of music that a countess should have liked, a simple country ballad, but seeing how his niece is moved by it, 'Uncle' calls for his guitar, blows the dust off it, and with a wink at Anisya, he begins to play, with the precise and accelerating rhythm of a Russian dance, the well-known love song, 'Came a maiden down the street'. Though Natasha has never before heard the folk song, it stirs some unknown feeling in her heart. 'Uncle' sings as the peasants do, with the conviction that the meaning of the song lies in the words and that the tune, which exists only to emphasize the words, 'comes of itself. It seems to Natasha that this direct way of singing gives the air the simple charm of birdsong. 'Uncle' calls on her to join in the folk dance.

  'Now then, niece!' he exclaimed, waving to Natasha the hand that had just struck a chord. Natasha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face

  'Uncle', and setting her arms akimbo, also made a motion with her shoulders and struck an attitude.

  Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an emigree French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit, and obtained that manner which the pas de chale would, one would have supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that 'Uncle' had expected of her. As soon as she had struck her pose and smiled triumphantly, proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at first seized Nikolai and the others that she might not do the right thing was at an end, and they were all already admiring her.

  She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision, that Anisya Fyodorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was in Anisya and in Anisya's father and mother and aunt, and in every Russian man and woman.1

  What enabled Natasha to pick up so instinctively the rhythms of the dance? How could she step so easily into this village culture from which, by social class and education, she was so far removed? Are we to suppose, as Tolstoy asks us to in this romantic scene, that a nation such as Russia may be held together by the unseen threads of a native sensibility? The question takes us to the centre of this book. It calls itself a cultural history. But the elements of culture which the reader will find here are not just great creative works like War and Peace but artefacts as well, from the folk embroidery of Natasha's shawl to the musical conventions of the peasant song. And they are summoned, not as monuments to art, but as impressions of the national consciousness, which mingle with politics and ideology, social customs and beliefs, folklore and religion, habits and conventions, and all the other mental bric-a-brac that constitute a culture and a way of life. It is not my argument that art can serve the purpose of a window on to life. Natasha's dancing scene cannot be approached as a literal record of experience, though memoirs of this period show that there were indeed noblewomen who picked up village dances in this way.2 But art can be looked at as a record of belief- in this case, the write's yearning for

  a broad community with the Russian peasantry which Tolstoy shared with the 'men of 1812', the liberal noblemen and patriots who dominate the public scenes of War and Peace.

  Russia invites the cultural historian to probe below the surface of artistic appearance. For the past two hundred years the arts in Russia have served as an arena for pol
itical, philosophical and religious debate in the absence of a parliament or a free press. As Tolstoy wrote in 'A Few Words on War and Peace' (1868), the great artistic prose works of the Russian tradition were not novels in the European sense.3 They were huge poetic structures for symbolic contemplation, not unlike icons, laboratories in which to test ideas; and, like a science or religion, they were animated by the search for truth. The overarching subject of all these works was Russia - its character, its history, its customs and conventions, its spiritual essence and its destiny. In a way that was extraordinary, if not unique to Russia, the country's artistic energy was almost wholly given to the quest to grasp the idea of its nationality. Nowhere has the artist been more burdened with the task of moral leadership and national prophecy, nor more feared and persecuted by the state. Alienated from official Russia by their politics, and from peasant Russia by their education, Russia's artists took it upon themselves to create a national community of values and ideas through literature and art. What did it mean to be a Russian? What was Russia's place and mission in the world? And where was the true Russia? In Europe or in Asia? St Petersburg or Moscow? The Tsar's empire or the muddy one-street village where Natasha's 'Uncle' lived? These were the 'accursed questions' that occupied the mind of every serious writer, literary critic and historian, painter and composer, theologian and philosopher in the golden age of Russian culture from Pushkin to Pasternak. They are the questions that lie beneath the surface of the art within this book. The works discussed here represent a history of ideas and attitudes - concepts of the nation through which Russia tried to understand itself. If we look carefully, they may become a window on to a nation's inner life.