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Three Historians of the Imperial Russian Ballet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Roland John Wiley
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Extract

As interest in the history of Russian ballet grows, it is logical – inevitable, one hopes – that Russian writers of a century ago who specialized in ballet be scrutinized ever more closely. Who were the ballet historians of the time? What were their credentials? their points of view? To consider just three – Alexander Pleshcheyev, Konstantin Skalkovsky and Sergei Khudekov – formidable names with reputations to match, is not to deny the importance of yet others who in many ways also deserve our attention. But there are good reasons to start with these three.

All were publitsisty or “publicists”, a useful if not precisely translatable term that connotes writers on current affairs, who went beyond regular journalism to compile histories of Russian ballet based in part on their long firsthand experience. None was a dancer or a historian by profession, so all came to ballet with a larger vision: ballet was a beloved avocation. This left them open to certain biases, but these do not detract substantially from their value as commentators on the scene. Indeed, their broader outlook is precisely what lends significance and credibility to their work. All were Petersburgers; their writings tell us little about the second imperial company in Moscow. All present to the modern scholar difficulties of access: the works of Pleshcheyev and Skalkovsky are preserved only in major western collections, and much of Khudekov's work is virtually unavailable outside the USSR.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Fall 1980 , pp. 3 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1980

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References

Notes

1. Here follow the phonetic spellings and stresses of these names: Aleksándr Alekséyevich Pleshchéyev; Kónstantin Apollónovich Skal'kóvskii; Sergéi Nikoláevich Khudekóv.

2. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' [Encyclopedic Dictionary], ed. F.A. Brokgaus [= Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus] and I.A. Efron. 82 vols. + 4 Supplements. St. Petersburg, 1890–1907.

3. Russkaya periodicheskaya pechat' (1702–1894) [The Russian Periodical Press (1702–1894)], ed. Dement'ev, A.G., Zapadov, A.V., Cherepakhov, M.S. (Moscow, 1959), p. 499.Google Scholar

4. Borisoglebskii, M., compiler. Proshloe baletnogo otdeleniya peterburgskogo teatral'nogo uchilishche, nyne leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo khoregraficheskogo uchilishcha. Materialy po istorii russkogo baleta [The Past of the Ballet Division of the Petersburg Theater School, now the Leningrad State Choreographic School. Materials for the History of Russian Ballet], 2 vols. (1938–1939) [hereinafter: Borisoglebsky], II, 101.Google Scholar

5. Moe vremya [My Time] (Paris, 1939), p. [5].

6. Borisoglebsky, II, 101.

7. Kuprin, A.I., quoted in Moe vremya, p. 11.Google Scholar

8. Nash balet (St. Petersburg, 1896); all citations hereinafter are from the second edition (St. Petersburg, 1899).

9. Nash balet, p. [i].

10. Ibid., pp. 273, 278. The present writer has made no attempt to duplicate the versification of the original in these translations.

11. Ibid., p. 7.

12. Ibid., p. 177.

13. Chto vspomnilos' (za 50 let) [What is Remembered (after 50 Years)] (Paris, 1931), p. [3].

14. Moe vremya, p. 13.

15. “Pod seniyu kulis”… [“In the Protection of the Wings”…] (Paris, 1936), p. 11.

16. Moe vremya, p. [5].

17. Pleshcheyev, A[leksandr] A[lekseyevich], “Recollections of K.A. Skalkovsky,” Istoricheskii vestnik [Historical Messenger], 106 (October-December 1906), 940.Google Scholar

18. Bertenson, V.B., “From Recollections of K.A. Skalkovsky,” Istoricheskii vestnik [Historical Messenger], 126 (October-December 1911), 512.Google Scholar

19. “Recollections of K.A. Skalkovsky,” p. 944.

20. G[linskii], B., “Konstantin Apollonovich Skalkovsky,” Istoricheskii vestnik [Historical Messenger], 104 (April-June 1906), [971].Google Scholar

21. Nash balet, p. iv.

22. Glinskii, “Konstantin Apollonovich Skalkovsky,” 978.

23. Glinskii, “Konstantin Apollonovich Skalkovsky,” 977.

24. Pleshcheyev, “Recollections of K.A. Skalkovsky,” 946.

25. Glinskii, “Konstantin Apollonovich Skalkovsky,” 976–77.

26. Pleshcheyev, “Recollections of K.A. Skalkovsky,” 938.

27. V teatral'nom mire [In the Theater World] (St. Petersburg, 1899], p. xxii.

28. The title of the second edition is Tantsy, balet ikh istoriya i mesto v ryadu izyashchnykh iskusstv [Dances, Ballet, Their History and Place Among the Fine Arts] (St. Petersburg, 1886). The use of pseudonyms, initials and other abbreviations of names in signing articles was widespread in Russian journalism of the time. All three of the writers here considered used them; see Masanov, Ivan Filippovich, Slovar' psevdonimov russkikh pisatelei uchenykh i obshchestvennykh deyatelei [Dictionary of Pseudonyms of Russian Writers, Scholars and Social Figures], 4 vols. (Moscow, 1956–1960), IV, 372Google Scholar [Pleshcheyev], 434–35 [Skalkovsky], 503 [Khudekov].

29. V teatral'nom mire (St. Petersburg, 1899).

30. Here questions of attribution again arise. Skalkovsky gives no credit to any other writer in V teatral'nom mire, yet some of the text is identical with passages that Vera Krasovskaya attributes to Nikolai Bezobrazov (balletomane and administrative subordinate to Skalkovsky at the Department of Mines) in various reviews in the Petersburg Gazette that she quotes in her Russkii baletnyi teatr vtoroi poloviny XIX veka [Russian Ballet Theater of the Second Half of the XIX Century] (Leningrad and Moscow, 1963).

31. V teatral'nom mire, pp. 8 – 11.

32. Ibid., p. 32.

33. Ibid., p. 33.

34. Ibid., p. 54.

35. Ibid., p. 66.

36. Ibid., pp. 242–43.

37. Bertenson, “From Recollections of K.A. Skalkovsky,” 513.

38. History of Dances, IV, 88–89. In a footnote to this passage Khudekov continues with other information about himself [concerning the librettist's honorarium for The Vestal], written in the third person. Borisoglebsky, II, 303, attributes Le Roi Candaule to Khudekov without comment.

39. Khudekov wrote the libretto but the others withdrew. See Krasovskaya, Vera Mikhailovna, Russkii baletny teatr nochala XX veka [Russian Ballet Theater of the Beginning of the XX Century], 2 vols. (Leningrad, 1971–1972), I, 256.Google Scholar

40. P.V.B. [= Petr Vasil'evich Bykov?], “S.N. Khudekov,” Vsemirnaya illyustratsiya [World Illustration], No. 1198 [the issue for 4 January 1892], pp. 33–34.

41. Russkaya periodicheskaya pechat' (1702–1894), pp. 498–99.

42. P.V.B., “S.N. Khudekov,” p. 34.

43. Spectator, , “Methuselah of the Ballet,” Peterburgskaya gazeta, 16 January 1903, p. 5.Google Scholar

44. See the present writer's “About Nijinsky's Dismissal,” The Dancing Times, 70 (1979–1980), 176–77, 183, 243–45.

45. Istoriya tantsev, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg/Petrograd, 1913–1918).

46. Russkii baletny teatr vtoroi poloviny XIX veka, p. 266.

47. Borisoglebsky, II, 78.

48. Borisoglebsky, I, 13, fn. **.

49. Borisoglebsky, II, 303.

50. P.I. Chaikovskii i baletnyi teatr ego vremeni (Moscow, 1956), p. 31, fn. 2.

51. Russkii baletnyi teatr vtoroi poloviny XIX veka, p. 266, fn. 1.

52. Istoriya, IV, 79.

53. Ibid., 87.

54. Ibid., 89–90.

55. Ibid., 90.

56. Nash balet, p. 271.

57. Ibid., p. 273.

58. V teatral'nom mire, pp. 118, 121, 123.

59. Ibid., pp. 123–24.

60. Ibid., p. 124.

61. Istoriya tantsev, III, 353.

62. Ibid., IV, 121.

63. Ibid.

64. Ibid., p. 122, fn.

65. Ibid., p. 122.