4 - Lou Andreas-Salomé's Russian Diary, 1900
from II - Diaries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
Summary
The diary of Lou Andreas-Salomé from her second Russian trip with Rilke is a precious piece of Rilkeana, although Rilke's name appears only in the title she gave it, “Rußland mit Rainer.” (As far as the present author knows, no corresponding diaristic records exist of their first Russian trip, undertaken from 25 April to 15 June 1899 and including both the cicisbeo Rainer and Lou's husband, “der Loumann,” Friedrich Carl Andreas, the Iranist. This time the couple, Lou and Rainer, without Professor Andreas, set out from Berlin on 7 May 1900 and reached Moscow on 9 May; the latter stretch of the trip, from Warsaw on (they had to change stations), had been made third-class. The opening pages of the diary, which Lou began to keep on 13 May (in the diary, the dates in the Russian or Julian calendar, that is, 30 April, precede those in the Gregorian) have to do with industrious museum and palace visits, for example, to the Orunshenaya Palace in the Kremlin, with its vast historical armory, and the Terem or Belvedere, where Lou was struck by the splendor and yet the simplicity of the chambers, which told her something about the Russian indifference to rank, and the Russian resemblance between czar and peasant. The travelers visited contemporary celebrities in the arts (the sculptress Anna Semyonovna Golubkina, “a figure larger than life,” and the painter Sergei Alexandrovich Levitzki) and an exhibit of the works of the artists' group called the Wanderers.
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- Young Rilke and his Time , pp. 122 - 133Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008