St Petersburg полностью

A year after Tchaikovsky’s death, on October 20, 1894, Alexander III expired unexpectedly, not yet fifty years old. The energetic and seemingly healthy tsar was suddenly brought down by an incurable case of nephritis. When Alexander III ascended the throne in 1881, he had a choice according to one of his councilors: “lose everything or oppress everything.” Alexander chose to be “oppressor.” Still, despite his dictatorial mien, he gained the respect of many, including Benois, who had been presented to the emperor; the young aesthete recalled that Alexander III created a “strange and awesome” impression. Benois was particularly astounded by the emperor’s steely, light blue eyes; when Alexander concentrated his cold gaze on someone, it could have the effect of a blow.88

Benois to his final days (he died in Paris in 1960) insisted that Alexander III’s reign had been “in general, extremely significant and beneficial” and had prepared the way for the flowering of Russian culture in the early twentieth century, the so-called Silver Age. In that we can believe him; after all, he was one of the leaders of that Silver Age. He was also convinced that had Alexander III reigned another twenty years, the history of the entire world would have been much more benign.

In contrast, the heir to the throne, the future Nicholas II, with his “unprepossessing and rather folksy” looks left Benois unimpressed. Nicholas reminded him of a “small-time army officer.”89 In early 1894, with the first sign of Alexander III’s illness, a court general wrote in his diary, “The sovereign had the flu…. It is terrible to think what would happen if the tsar were to die, leaving us to the hands of the child-heir (despite his twenty-six years), knowing nothing, prepared for nothing.” On the day of the emperor’s death, next to his laconic notation, “The tsar passed away at two fifteen,” the courtier added a prophetic phrase in English: “A leap in the dark!”90

A decidedly conservative ruler, Alexander III realized nevertheless the importance of rapid economic and industrial development for Russia, and he tried to create the most beneficial conditions for that purpose. The changes came in an avalanche. In Petersburg, giant factories were built and powerful new banks appeared on the scene. A reactionary political commentator wrote with horror of “the bulky figure of capital entering our modest country.” The sense of insecurity was widespread, but so was the anticipation of immense riches. Petersburg was in a fever.

Right after Alexander III’s death, the enormous boom prepared by his rule began, with Russian industry growing at 9 percent annually. Even the revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin maintained that Russia in that period had “the most advanced industrial and financial capitalism.”

This frantic economic activity, new for Petersburg, created numerous nouveaux riches who wanted to be acknowledged as the true masters of the city. They wanted to feel like generous patrons of the arts and were prepared to spend substantial sums to support national culture. The motivation was simple and logical: an economically strong Russia had to take its rightful place in the family of civilized nations. The flowering of Russian culture would undoubtedly help that process along. Therefore, Russian culture had to be Westernized, and as quickly as possible. In this quest for rapid Westernization the desires of factory owners, market speculators, and bankers coincided with the dreams of the vast majority of the Petersburg intelligentsia. This created a receptive climate in Petersburg for the ideas of Benois, Diaghilev, and other innovators. In Benois’s words, they were calling for a “departure from the backwardness of Russian artistic life, getting rid of our provincialism, and approaching the cultural West,” which was then realized with considerable speed and success.

In 1895, Diaghilev wrote to his stepmother, whom he loved dearly, “I am, first of all, a great charlatan, although brilliant, and secondly, a great charmer, and thirdly, very brazen, and fourthly, a man with a great amount of logic and small amount of principles, and fifthly, I believe, without talent; however, if you like, I believe I have found my true calling—patronage of the arts. For that, I have everything, except money, mais ça viendra.”91

In this remarkable attempt at self-analysis, with a certain coquetry forgivable in a man of twenty-three, there is a prediction that came to pass very quickly. Always behaving as if he had money (he had none), Diaghilev managed to find enough financial support to organize three exhibits a few years later. The last, opened in 1898—with great pomp, as Benois recalled (there was an orchestra) and with unheard of refinement (numerous hothouse plants and flowers in the hall)—served as the first manifesto of the artistic intentions of the Benois-Diaghilev group.