Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars

ALSO BY SOLOMON VOLKOV

The Magical Chorus:

A History of Russian Culture from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn

Shostakovich and Stalin:

The Extraordinary Relationship Between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator

Conversations with Joseph Brodsky

St. Petersburg: A Cultural History

From Russia to the West:

The Musical Memoirs and Reminiscences of Nathan Milstein

Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky:

Conversations with Balanchine on His Life, Ballet, and Music

Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Translation copyright © 2011 by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.aaknopf.com

This translation is from an unpublished Russian-language manuscript by Solomon Volkov, copyright © by Solomon Volkov.

All illustrations are from the personal collection of Solomon Volkov.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Volkov, Solomon.

Romanov riches: Russian writers and artists under the tsars / by Solomon Volkov; translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis.—1st ed.

p. cm.

“Translation is from an unpublished manuscript”—T.p. verso.

“Published in … Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto”—T.p. verso.

“This is a Borzoi book”—T.p. verso.

eISBN: 978-0-307-59552-2

1. Romanov, House of—History. 2. Romanov, House of—Art patronage. 3. Russia—Kings and rulers—Biography. 4. Authors, Russian—Biography. 5. Russian literature—History and criticism. 6. Artists—Russia—Biography. 7. Composers—Russia—Biography. 8. Arts, Russian—History. 9. Russia—Intellectual life. 10. Russia—History—1613–1917. I. Title.

DK37.8.R6V55 2011

700.9470903—dc22

2010045132

Jacket image: Crest of the Romanov Imperial House, Bettmann / Corbis

Jacket design by Helen Yentus and Jason Booher

v3.1

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Photo Insert

Introduction

PART I

CHAPTER 1

The First Romanovs: From Tsar Mikhail to Peter I

CHAPTER 2

Kantemir, Lomonosov, and Barkov

CHAPTER 3

Catherine the Great and the Culture of Her Era

PART II

CHAPTER 4

Paul I and Alexander I; Karamzin and Zhukovsky

CHAPTER 5

Alexander I, Zhukovsky, and Young Pushkin

CHAPTER 6

Nicholas I and Pushkin

PART III

CHAPTER 7

Lermontov and Briullov

CHAPTER 8

Gogol, Ivanov, Tyutchev and the End of the Nicholas I Era

PART IV

CHAPTER 9

Alexander II, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky

CHAPTER 10

Herzen, Tolstoy, and the Women’s Issue

CHAPTER 11

Tchaikovsky and Homosexuality in Imperial Russia

PART V

CHAPTER 12

Dostoevsky and the Romanovs

CHAPTER 13

Alexander III, the Wanderers, and Mussorgsky

CHAPTER 14

Nicholas II and Lenin as Art Connoisseurs

Notes

A Note About the Author

A Note About the Translator

Tsar Mikhail (1596–1645), the first in the Romanov dynasty

Ivan Susanin, the peasant who saved Tsar Mikhail, as portrayed by the bass Ossip Petrov, in a photograph

The composer Mikhail Glinka (1804–1857), whose opera A Life for the Tsar (1836) glorified Mikhail’s accession to the throne in 1613

The second Romanov on the throne, Tsar Alexei (1629–1676)

Peter the Great (1672–1725), Tsar Alexei’s famous and controversial son

The poet and diplomat Antioch Kantemir (1709–1744), Tsar Peter’s apologist

The multitalented Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765)

Ivan Barkov (c. 1732–1768), the Russian François Villon

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) who was vilified in Soviet times as a “depraved and criminal woman”

The state minister Gavrila Derzhavin (1743–1816), Catherine’s most esteemed poet

Alexander I (1777–1825), Napoleon’s nemesis

Nikolai Karamzin (1766–1826), Alexander’s court historian

Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), Russia’s greatest poet

The poet Vassily Zhukovsky (1783–1852), Pushkin’s mentor and protector

The popular fabulist Ivan Krylov (1769–1844)

Nicholas I (1796–1855), who called Pushkin “the wisest man in Russia”

The poet Mikhail Lermontov (1814–1841), Pushkin’s heir

Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852), in a drawing by his friend Alexander Ivanov

The painter Alexander Ivanov (1806–1858), Gogol’s protégé

The painter Karl Briullov (1799–1852), Nicholas I’s favored artist

The progressive critic Vissarion Belinsky (1811–1848), Gogol’s early advocate and later foe

The poet Fedor Tyutchev (1803–1873), Nicholas I’s unofficial spokesman