Focus on: Sergei Diaghilev

Sergei Diaghilev (1872 – 1929) is the founder of the Ballets Russes and one of the most influential art patrons of the 20th century. This article dives into his life, and aims at understanding the complex relationship of the Ballets Russes with the politics of Russia through the path of the one that embodies the company: its impresario Diaghilev.

1872 – An artistic childhood

Diaghilev was born in 1872 in a wealthy family of industrial in Russia. He was surrounded by art from a young age, as his parents’ house regularly hosting concerts and spectacles. He was also encouraged to practice arts and did so by studying musical composition.

1896 – The finding of a professional vocation

Having graduated in law in 1896, Diaghilev will was not to become a lawyer but to follow a musical carrier. However, this dream will not last long, as his musical composition professor Rimsky Korsakov quickly told Diaghilev he did not have the talent to become a musician… Not an art creator himself, Diaghilev found his true vocation: being a patron of arts. As he once said about himself, “[he does] nothing, but [he is] indispensable”.

1899 to 1904 – The World of Art

With a group of friends, Diaghilev founded the Russian Art Magazine “Mir iskusst va” (“World of Art”), of which he was the editor in chief. This magazine, of avant-garde influence, will have a modernizing effect on Russian arts. It is the start of Diaghilev’s impact on arts.

1899 to 1901 – First production experiences

Diaghilev, known for his magazine, quickly gets a position in the Russian artistic world as he becomes responsible for the production of the Annual of the Imperial Theatres. What is interesting here regarding the political is that Diaghilev started his carrier by working for the imperial tsarist regime, through their theatres. However, Diaghilev will soon be dismissed for motives that are quite predictive of his following carrier. Indeed, it is because he was too progressive, modern and innovative that he had to leave the Mariisnky Theatre. His homosexuality may also have played a role in how he was perceived by the conservative Russia of the time.

1901 to 1905 – An interest in Russian arts

After being dismissed, Diaghilev travelled all across Russia, searching for all kinds of Russian arts. In 1905, he gathered all his best findings into an historic exhibition of Russian art treasures, that he organized at the Tauride Palace in St Petersbourg.
But Diaghilev also wants the Western world to know about Russian art… In a context of political alliance between Russia and France, Diaghilev decides to travel all the way to Paris in order to present the art of his country to another population.

1906 to 1909 – The beginning of the carrier abroad

1906 marks the arrival of Diaghilev Russian art in France, with his Russian art exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris. The French audience is extremely keen on that exotic, oriental Russian art. They imagined Russia to be a land of vivid splendeur and noble savagery, and they are not disappointed. Diaghilev comes back the next year with concerts devoted to the work of Russian nationalist composers, and the year after with production of Russian operas.

1909 to 1929 – The Ballets Russes

In 1909, it is with a whole team of Russian ballet dancers from the Mariinski Theater that Diaghilev comes back in Paris. It is the first season of the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet, and it is a huge success. The public is particularly impressed by Vaslav Nijinski, the virtuose young dancer. For more precisions, see our article on the Ballets Russes.

The 20 years following years of Diaghilev’s life are marked by the seasons of the Ballets Russes, his impressive discoveries of new talents and their creation of masterpieces. But they are also marked by Diaghilev’s fights for the survival of the company, between everlasting economic distress and tough departures (Nijinski, Massine).

1929 – Death and legacy

Sergei Diaghilev was known for being an impressive man, pacific and kind but ferocious and passionate when it came to his company. His impact on the world of arts lasted long before his death in Venise in 1929, as he stimulated a revolution in the ballets, music and every art that he approached. According to Rhonda K. Garelick, Coco Chanel is said to have stated that “Diaghilev invented Russia for foreigners.

However, the Russian art historians will not mention him for more than half a century. The independent, progressive aspect of the character as well as his aristocratic origins (White Russian) and homosexuality did not match the Russian regime’s ideology. Diaghilev is thus not as famous a figure in Russia as he is in the Western world, which is quite paradoxical.