Konstantin Leontiev, a Russian philosopher

Konstantin Nikolayevich Leontyev (Russian: Константи́н Никола́евич Лео́нтьев) (January 25, 1831, Kudinovo, Kaluga Governorate–November 24, 1891, Sergiyev Posad) was a conservative, monarchist Russian philosopher who advocated closer cultural ties between Russia and the East in order to oppose the catastrophic egalitarian, utilitarian and revolutionary influences from the West. He advocated Russia's cultural and territorial expansion eastward to India, Tibet, and China.

Biography[link]

Leontiev was born and grew up on his father's estate. His father, a nobleman, was a military officer who was discharged due to "riotous behavior." Despite this fact, due to the intervention of Russian Empress Leontiev's brothers were able to enter imperial Corps of Pages. He was engaged at the age of twenty-three but broke off this relationship for the sake of "freedom and art," a decision that made things difficult for him. After completing medical school in Moscow Leontiev saw service as a doctor during the Crimean War. In 1861, he carried off a local Crimean girl, the daughter of a Greek merchant, from Feodosia, eventually marrying her.

He later lived in various Ottoman towns as a Russian consular agent, devoting his leisure time to writing oriental fiction on many themes, some of which included a condemnation of homophobia and implied that he may have been bisexual.^[1][2] In the summer of 1871, after praying to the Virgin Mary, he was cured of cholera and dysentary and promised Her that he would take monastic vows. Later that fall he moved to the Russian monastery on Mount Athos. In 1880, he moved to the censorship department in Moscow, where he published several acclaimed analyses of Leo Tolstoy's novels. Seven years later, he secretly took the tonsure at the Optina monastery, famous for its startsy. He died as a monk in the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra.

Works and political thought[link]

Leontiev's most remarkable book is a volume of essays entitled The East, Russia, and Slavdom (1885–86). Like Nikolay Danilevsky and Fyodor Dostoyevsky before him, he was ill at ease with the Western consumer society and the cult of material prosperity. Leontyev regarded traditional Russian Byzantism as a blessing and a strong antidote against further liberalisation of the country's society. His aesthetic and political theories had some similarities to those of Friedrich Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler. Preceding the latter's theory of the cyclical nature of civilizations and the West's decline by several decades, Leontiev proposed that all societies undergo a state of flowering and increasing complexity followed by one of "secondary simplification", decay and ultimately death. Leontiev felt that the West had reached the beginning of the latter stage.

A pessimist, Leontiev made several predictions that turned out to come true. He prophesied that in the next, that is twentieth century, there would be a bloody revolution in Russia led by an "anti-Christ" that would be socialist and tyrannical in nature, and whose rulers would wield more power than their tsarist predecessors. He said that "Socialism is the feudalism of the future" ^[3] He felt that only the harshest reaction could prevent this scenario. Leontiev also predicted that Germany would grow strong enough to make one or two, but no more, wars and that China would one day threaten Russia's power. He also claimed that technology would one day lead to universal destruction.

See also[link]

conservatism portal

• Russian philosophy
• Sobornost

Bibliography[link]

• Against the Current: Selected Writings, Konstantin Leontiev, Wybright and Talley Publishers, New York, 1969.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Narod.ru (Russian)
• Pravoslavie.ru (Russian)

Mikhail Fokine, costumed for the role of Lucien d'Hervilly, in Marius Petipa's production of the ballet Paquita.
Saint Petersburg, 1898.

Michel Fokine (a French transliteration; English transliteration Mikhail Fokin; Russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович Фо́кин, Mikhaíl Mikháylovich Fokín) (23 April [O.S. 11 April] 1880 – 22 August 1942) was a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer.

Biography[link]

Fokine was born in Saint Petersburg, as son of a prosperous, middle-class merchant and at the age of 9, he was accepted into the Saint Petersburg Imperial Ballet School (Vaganova Ballet Academy). In 1898, on his 18th birthday, he debuted on the stage of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Paquita, with the Imperial Russian Ballet (now the Mariinsky Ballet). In 1902, he became a teacher of the ballet school. Among his students were Desha Delteil and Bronislava Nijinska.

Fokine aspired to move beyond stereotypical ballet traditions. Virtuoso ballet techniques to him were not an end in themselves, but a means of expression. He also believed that many of the ballets of his time used costuming and mime that did not reflect the themes conveyed in the ballets. Therefore, Fokine sought to strip ballets of their artificial miming and outdated costumes. In addition, as a choreographer, he initiated a reform that took ballerinas out of their pointe shoes and also experimented with a freer use of the arms and torso. He presented his reformist ideas to the management of the Imperial theatre, but did not win their support. Some of his early works include the ballet Acis and Galatea (1905) and The Dying Swan (1907), which was a solo dance for Anna Pavlova, choreographed to the music of Le Cygne.

In 1909, Sergei Diaghilev invited Fokine to become the choreographer of his Ballets Russes in Paris. However, Fokine broke off the collaboration in 1912, jealous of Diaghilev's close association with Vaslav Nijinsky.

The Paris premiere of the opera The Golden Cockerel in 1914 was an Opera-Ballet, with Fokine.

He moved to Sweden with his family in 1918 and later established his home in New York City, where he founded a ballet school and continued to appear with his wife, Vera Fokina. He became a United States citizen in 1932.

Fokine staged more than 70 ballets in Europe and the United States. His best known works were Chopiniana (later revised as Les Sylphides), Le Carnaval and Le Pavillon d'Armide. Among his works for the Ballets Russes were The Firebird, Petrushka, Le Spectre de la Rose and Daphnis et Chloé. Also, for the Ballets Russes, he created a ballet out of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. His pieces are still performed by the leading ballet troupes of the world, the Mariinsky Ballet having performed a retrospective of his works at London's Covent Garden in late July 2011.

Fokine died in New York on 22 August 1942.

See also[link]

• List of Russian ballet dancers

References[link]

• Beaumont, C. W., Michel Fokine and His Ballets, ISBN 1-85273-050-1

Articles[link]

• Sunday NY Times, Jack Anderson, September 7th, 1980

External links[link]

• Fokine, Michel, 1880-1942. Papers: Guide. in the Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
• Fokine, Michel (1880 - 1942) at Australia Dancing
• The Fokine Estate archive
• Michel Fokine at Find a Grave