Nezhinsky ballerina biography. God's clown. Who was the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky - a genius or a sick person? Taming a wild beast

Proof of genius, the rich inner world of Nijinsky for a long time were his diaries, first published in 1936. Until their originals were discovered in 1979.

ABOUT unusual fate personal notes of Vaslav Nijinsky, as well as some little-known facts of his biography, are told by the historian Cyril Fitz Lyon, who translated the originals of Nijinsky’s diaries from Russian to English language commissioned by Sotheby's auction management.

...his legend

— The first edition contained only excerpts from the diaries; about 60% of the text was published. Translations were carried out under intensive editing Nijinsky's wife Romola, which not only greatly altered and distorted the text, but also rearranged entire events in time. When reading excerpts from the diaries, many researchers were filled with doubts about their authenticity.

The fact is that, despite popular opinion, Nijinsky was not a particularly educated and comprehensively developed person. Even him sister Bronislava testifies that he studied poorly and often it was she who did his homework for him. Yes, he knew a little painting, but this was more likely the result of his trips with Diaghilev and visits with him largest museums peace. Nijinsky gained information about literature by visiting friends of Diaghilev, who was a member of the World of Art circle. Diaghilev was very educated person, which ultimately could not but affect Nijinsky’s development. Lidia Sokolova, who began working with Nijinsky in 1913, said that when you call out to him, he turns around with such a literally brutal expression on his face that you think he’s going to punch you in the stomach. He hardly ever spoke to anyone and always looked like he lived on some other planet. In the excerpts published by Romola, Nijinsky appears as a kind of philosopher, a great mind who approached God. It all looked extremely strange.

Therefore, after the original diaries suddenly appeared at auction, which no one had ever seen and which had long been considered lost, it really became a sensation. Some parts of his diaries are difficult not only to understand, but even to read. Although, to be fair, it should be noted that there are many such moments that reflect quite deep emotions and original ideas are expressed, which makes us assume that in his madness he is more normal than he has been in his entire life. And it was from this mixture that Romola created the image of a mad genius. And he was neither one nor the other.

Vaslav Nijinsky as Vayu in Nikolai Legat’s updated production of the ballet “The Talisman” by Marius Petipa, St. Petersburg, 1910. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

...his wife

- So, the original diaries were hidden by his wife?

“In any case, no one saw them until 1979, when, shortly after Romola’s death, they were put up for sale at Sotheby’s.

— Nijinsky’s wife can still be understood...

— From a purely human perspective, of course, it’s possible. After all, Vaslav Nijinsky was and remains a legend. She apparently tried to preserve this myth - the atmosphere of the 30s craved legends and beautiful stories. In addition, Romola then found herself very strapped for money. In her opinion, she only corrected the story, making it more digestible for the public. In fact, romantic story Nijinsky's life was nurtured precisely when in his real life there was less romance than ever before. Beginning in 1919, his illness was already at such a stage that Nijinsky could not even brush his teeth on his own. For the most part, these notes are simply indecent, too intimate. To publish all this would be to kill the legend. By the way, Nijinsky knew that his wife would make money from his diaries. He also writes about this.

— How did the originals come into your hands?

— Then they called me from the auction management and asked me to translate the diaries into English in 3 weeks. It was just hell of a job. In order not only to translate, but even to understand what Nijinsky wanted to say in some chapters, I sometimes had to embark on research. Nijinsky was a Pole, although educated in Russia, and often not only used Polish grammar in constructing Russian sentences, but also confused Russian words.

...his men

— You said that only after the discovery of the originals did the true relationship between Nijinsky and Diaghilev become known. But they were not a secret before.

- This is true, but few people knew that, so to speak, Nijinsky’s unconventional orientation was not given to him by nature. Nijinsky was born completely normal man and remained so until his death, which is again confirmed in his diaries. And also his hasty marriage. Nijinsky wanted to break out of the vicious circle, to escape from these unnatural relationships.

It all started in 1907, when I saw him Prince Pavel Lvov, known not only for his wealth and patronage of the arts, but also as a “lover” of beautiful young people. Moreover, this happened with the full approval of Nijinsky’s mother, which could not but affect the artist’s already unstable psyche. Expensive gifts, beautiful courtship, a big name and noisy approval of the mother, who believed that marriage would prevent her son from making a career, and assured Vaclav that the prince would be able to take care of his fate, did their job. After Lvov, it was Diaghilev’s turn. By the way, I would like to destroy another myth that Nijinsky was allegedly sold to Diaghilev as unnecessary. Pavel Lvov really loved Nijinsky, and when Serge Diaghilev hinted to him that if he wanted happiness and fame for his friend, he should give it up, Lvov made this sacrifice. Soon, instead of a gold ring with a diamond, a huge platinum ring with a sapphire from Cartier sparkled on Nijinsky’s finger. And all this time Nijinsky remained a normal man, which is confirmed, by the way, by his constant trips to brothels. The doctors to whom Nijinsky was forced to turn after these visits were paid first by Lvov, then by Diaghilev.

...his madness

- So, maybe this split was one of the reasons for his later onset of madness?

- Most main reason was heredity. His older brother suffered from the same illness. The cause of Nijinsky’s brother’s death was not made public for a very long time, but here’s what I managed to find out myself. Stasik Nijinsky was kept in one of the St. Petersburg houses for the mentally ill when the revolution broke out. According to one of Lenin’s completely idiotic theories, which, in my opinion, he really sincerely believed in, schizophrenia as a disease simply did not exist in nature, but was exclusively a whim of capitalists. Lenin spoke quite a lot about this then. So, soon after the revolution, many of these houses were opened, and their inhabitants were “released.” Stasik Nijinsky was one of these “liberated” people. Where he then went and how he died, no one will probably ever know. And although Nijinsky’s sister Bronislava testifies that Vaslav’s madness is in no way connected with the state of his brother’s psyche and that Stasik’s problems supposedly began after he fell out of a window as a child, then, even if we accept her version, there were also reasons for the sad fate of Vaslav Nijinsky other hereditary conditions. His maternal grandmother was prone to chronic depression and eventually starved herself to death. So, be that as it may, Vaclav was always different from the other boys, he was always a bad student and did eccentric things.

Vaslav Nijinsky in Scheherazade. Circa 1912. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

— One of the most eccentric actions was his unauthorized dressing up in “Giselle” in a tightly fitted leotard based on Benoit’s design. Which shocked the audience and caused confusion in the royal box. He was the first to replace male dancers' wide trousers with tights.

“This really shocked the public, but the popular belief that this caused confusion in the royal box is completely wrong. My mother was just at that ballet and later said that the Empress Mother laughed very much when she saw Nijinsky in this leotard, which, in general, she was not particularly seen in public. It was for this laugh that he was fired from the troupe. The Mariinsky Theater could have survived the shocked audience, and even because of the “confusion in the royal box,” the management would not have parted with Nijinsky, but such fun on the part of Her Imperial Majesty was perceived as ridicule of ballet, and the theater could not forgive Nijinsky for this.

“I was flying on a plane and crying. I don’t know why, I got the impression that he was about to destroy the birds... People visit churches in the hope of finding God there. He is not in churches, or rather, He is there wherever we look for Him... I like Shakespeare's clowns, who have so much humor, but they have evil traits, which is why they move away from God. I appreciate jokes as much as I do God's clown. But I believe that a clown is ideal only if he expresses love, otherwise he is not God’s clown for me...”

God Nijinsky

I want to dance, draw, play the piano, write poetry.
I want to love everyone - that is the goal of my life. I love everybody.
I don't want wars or borders. My home is wherever the world exists.
I want to love, love. I am a man, God is in me,
and I am in Him. I call Him, I seek Him. I am a seeker because I feel God.
God is looking for me, and so we will find each other.

Vaslav Nijinsky

Vaslav Nijinsky is an outstanding dancer and choreographer of Polish origin, who glorified Russian ballet in the early 20th century. and who with his skill attracted the attention of the cultural environment to male dance. He was the first who dared to individualize male ballet roles, because before this, ballet dancers were called nothing more than “crutches” to support approx. The innovative choreography of his modest ballet heritage caused militant debate among theater critics, and his control of the body, plasticity and, most importantly, inimitable jumps in height and length, thanks to which Nijinsky was called the bird-man, brought him fame as a dancer with phenomenal physical abilities and talent, which had no equal. Vaslav Nijinsky was an idol throughout Europe - he was admired by Auguste Rodin, Fyodor Chaliapin, Isadora Duncan, Charlie Chaplin and his other contemporaries. Creative biography Vaclav's ballet is small - he managed to create only four productions, and danced his last dance at less than thirty years old, being already a seriously ill man.

Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky (1889-1950) was born in Kyiv, into the family of touring Polish dancers Tomasz Nijinsky and Eleonora Bereda. Two of the three children in the creative family followed in the footsteps of their parents - Vaclav and his sister Bronislava, and the eldest, Stanislav, was prevented from taking up dancing since childhood due to problems with mental health. According to the family legend created by Eleanor, Stanislav fell out of a window at the age of six, after which his mental development was disrupted. Almost nothing is known about the life of Nijinsky’s brother, except that until 1918 he was kept in one of the St. Petersburg psychiatric hospitals, probably diagnosed with schizophrenia. When the revolution occurred in Russia, he, along with other patients, ended up on the street, after which his trace was lost (according to some sources, he committed suicide). Besides the fact that brother Nijinsky suffered from schizophrenia since childhood; it is known that his maternal grandmother suffered from chronic depression, which led to a refusal to eat, as a result of which she died.

When Vaclav was 9 years old, the father of the family left for a young mistress, and Eleanor and her children moved to St. Petersburg in search of opportunities to earn money for the treatment of her eldest son and the education of her younger children at the Imperial ballet school.
Vaclav showed schizoid traits even in childhood. He was withdrawn and silent. Children at school teased him as a “Japanese” for his slightly slanted eyes; he was offended and avoided communicating with them, believing that they were simply jealous of him. He was a poor student, showing selective interest only in dancing. He sat in class with a blank expression on his face and his mouth half-open, and his sister did his homework for him. Low learning ability, however, did not prevent the successful start of his career - in 1907, immediately after graduating from college, Nijinsky was accepted into the troupe Mariinsky Theater, where he almost immediately becomes prime minister. Vaclav danced with such primas of Russian ballet as Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Tamara Krasavina. However, already in 1911, Nijinsky was fired from the theater due to an unpleasant incident that occurred during the performance of the ballet “Giselle” - he came out on stage not in the trousers familiar to the eyes of the then public, but in tight tights based on Benois’s sketch. To one of the representatives royal family, who was present in the hall, the outfit seemed too revealing, and the dancer was accused of depraved behavior. Later, when Nijinsky played the role of Faun in a play he staged, similar accusations would fall on him again - eroticized, similar to the process of masturbation, his movements in the scene in the scene when he rapturously fell to the cape left by the Nymph on the river bank would seem eroticized, similar to the process of masturbation. Perhaps ahead of the time in which echoes reigned Victorian era, seemed to be staged by Vaslav Nijinsky. However, it must be admitted that the theme of sexuality played big role in development and clinical picture mental disorder artist.

It is no secret that Vaslav Nijinsky had intimate relationships with men. The first homosexual relationship with Prince Pavel Lvov, a well-known art lover in secular circles, took place with the full approval and encouragement of the young dancer’s mother, who believed that such connections would help him strengthen his position in the bohemian environment. Prince Lvov was a rich man and not only introduced Nijinsky into theatrical circles, but also practically supported Vaclav, giving him expensive gifts and indulging his whims. In parallel with homosexual relationships, Nijinsky maintained connections with women, periodically visiting brothels. It is likely that it was precisely because of his bisexuality, partly imposed on him by his mother and creative environment, that Nijinsky “fled into illness,” and the dancer’s dual gender-role identity itself can be considered as a split, “schisis.”
Soon after leaving the theater, Vaclav joined the troupe of Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev, a famous impresario who blew up the audience with the performances of his group, which toured Europe with “Russian Seasons”. The short period of interaction with “Russian Seasons” is the most fruitful in creative development dancer Diaghilev himself had a huge influence on the development of Nijinsky as a dancer, but the relationship with him was ambivalent - Vaclav had creative freedom and financial support, but was almost completely dependent on him, including sexually. Diaghilev defended his protégé from the attacks of critics, paid for his purchases, practically clothed and fed Nijinsky, who was absolutely unadapted to independent life in society, just as in childhood, giving the impression of an alien creature to others with his unsociability, isolation, and not always adequate emotionality (for example, he could look back with an unexpectedly fierce look at the usual call of his partner or smile when he was told some sad news). Diaghilev took him to museums and art exhibitions, introduced him to famous representatives of the modern intelligentsia and the art world, and shaped his artistic taste. However, he forbade Nijinsky to meet women, was domineering and jealous, and tried to control all his actions.

Vaslav Nijinsky with Sergei Diaghilev

With Sergei Diaghilev

With Sergei Diaghilev

Vaslav Nijinsky was a much less confident choreographer than a dancer - he spent a long time and painfully coming up with movements, constantly demanded support from Diaghilev, hesitantly asking his approval for almost every step, and rehearsed for a very long time.
The peculiarities of personality and the emerging disease could not but affect the nature of Nijinsky’s work. His most famous independent production is " Afternoon rest Faun" to music by Debussy, which Vaclav staged in 1912.
In the unusually angular, “cubic” movements of the Faun, freezing profile poses, borrowed from the subjects of ancient Greek vases, the symbolism of catatonic freezing is visible. Only one jump was present in the ballet - Nijinsky's famous take-off, personifying the awakening of erotic feelings in a young creature, half-animal, half-human.
Nijinsky's second modern production - the pagan "The Rite of Spring", to the music of Stravinsky, with sketches of costumes and scenery drawn by Roerich, was received ambiguously by the public. The deliberately rough, grounded choreography, with wild dancing, careless jumps and heavy landings itself was reminiscent of stage psychosis, a storm of instincts unleashed.

Ballet "Petrushka"

Ballet "Afternoon of a Faun" 1912

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Ballet "Siamese Dance" 1910
Nijinsky was aware of his dependence on Diaghilev; it weighed heavily on him. It is not surprising that sooner or later a riot followed. Going on tour to South America Together with his troupe, but without a mentor, who refused the trip because he was afraid to travel by water, Vaclav makes an unexpected decision for everyone to get married. His chosen one was the non-professional Hungarian dancer Romola Pulski. Romola tried in every possible way to attract the attention of the actor and it was for this purpose that she made every effort to get a job in Diaghilev’s troupe. In the end, Vaclav gave in. Having learned about the marriage of his protégé, the offended mentor immediately responded with a letter in which he briefly wrote that the troupe no longer needed Nijinsky’s services.
So, completely unaware of independent life, Vaclav, at the age of 24, found himself faced with the ordinary need to look for work and support his family. Nijinsky rejected all offers of cooperation and decided to create his own group and repertoire. But the talented dancer, lacking the commercial spirit of the pragmatic Sergei Diaghilev, turned out to be an incompetent manager, and his troupe suffered financial failure.
Soon the First began World War, which prevented Nijinsky and his family from returning to Russia - by that time they were in Hungary, where Vaclav, as a subject of a hostile state, was interned, essentially as a prisoner of war. Also in 1914, Romola gave birth to Vaclav’s first daughter, Kira (the second daughter, Tamara, was born in 1920). Such significant changes, including the lack of opportunity to dance, the need to live with his wife’s parents, who lived in Budapest and were not too favorable towards their daughter’s choice, turned out to be too much stress for the dancer. Only in 1916, thanks to the petition of friends, Nijinsky and his family were allowed to leave the country. They moved to France, where Diaghilev, who had recovered from the grievances, invited the artist to go on tour to America.
In general, moving is not in the best possible way affected Vaclav's psychological well-being - even on tour in Germany in 1911, it seemed to him that all the Germans were secret agents in disguise who were watching him. And during the year spent on the American continent, changes in Nijinsky’s mental state became clearly visible to those around him. Under the influence of some of the troupe’s artists, he became interested in the ideas of Tolstoyism, became a vegetarian, demanded that his wife give up meat, dreamed of moving to a remote Siberian village and leading a “righteous” lifestyle, speaking about the sinfulness of the acting profession.

Ballet "Giselle" with Tamara Karsavina

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Ballet "The Vision of a Rose" 1911 with Tamara Karsavina

In 1917 he last time entered the theater stage. After the end of the tour, he and Romola moved to the small mountain resort of Saint-Moritz in Switzerland. Nijinsky stopped dancing, was constantly working on projects for his future ballets, and secretly from his wife began to keep a diary, in which he wrote incoherent thoughts, poems without rhyme filled with stereotypes, described hallucinatory experiences, made sketches, among which, in addition to ballet scenery, there were spherical mandalas and human faces distorted with horror. He spent a lot of time alone, periodically going to the mountains and walking among rocks and cliffs, risking getting lost or falling into the abyss. Worn over clothes wooden cross the size of a palm, and in this form he walked around Saint-Moritz, telling passers-by that he was Christ.
In 1919, Nijinsky decides to perform for the guests of a local hotel, telling his wife that his dance will be a “wedding with God.” When the guests gathered, Vaclav stood motionless for a long time, then finally unfolded white and black material on the floor, placing them across each other, creating a symbolic cross. His wild, frenzied dance rather frightened the audience. After the speech, Nijinsky explained in a short speech that he was depicting war. The writer Maurice Sandoz, who was present in the hall, described the performance as follows: “And we saw Nijinsky, to the sounds of a funeral march, with a face twisted in horror, walking across the battlefield, stepping over a decaying corpse, dodging a shell, defending every inch of the ground, drenched in blood, sticking to the feet; attacking the enemy; running away from a speeding cart; going back. And so he is wounded and dies, tearing his clothes on his chest with his hands, which have turned into rags. Nijinsky, barely covered by the rags of his tunic, wheezed and gasped; an oppressive feeling took possession of the hall, it grew, filled it, a little more - and the guests would have shouted: “Enough!” The body, which seemed riddled with bullets, twitched for the last time, and the count Great War one more dead person has been added.” This was his last dance. Nijinsky ended the evening with the words: “The horse is tired.”

Vaslav Nijinsky was partially aware of his illness - among the paralogical lines of his diary, in an entry dated February 27, 1919, one can read: “I don’t want people to think that I am a great writer or that I am a great artist, or even that I great person. I am a simple person who has suffered a lot. I believe I suffered more than Christ. I love life and want to live, cry, but I can’t - I feel such pain in my soul - a pain that scares me. My soul is sick. My soul, not my brain. Doctors don't understand my illness. I know what I need to get better. My illness is too great to be quickly cured. I'm incurable. Everyone who reads these lines will suffer - they will understand my feelings. I know what I need. I am strong, not weak. My body is healthy, but my soul is sick. I'm suffering, I'm suffering. Everyone will feel and understand. I am a man, not a beast. I love everyone, I have flaws, I am a man - not God. I want to be God and therefore I try to improve myself. I want to dance, draw, play the piano, write poetry, I want to love everyone. This is the purpose of my life."
Nijinsky suffers from insomnia, shares ideas of persecution with his wife, after which, finally, in March 1919, Romola travels with Vaclav to Zurich, where he consults with psychiatrists, including Bleuler, who confirmed the diagnosis of schizophrenia, and decides to send her husband for treatment to the Bellevue Clinic. After a six-month stay in a sanatorium, Nijinsky’s hallucinations suddenly worsened, he became aggressive, refused food, and later deficiency symptoms began to increase - Nijinsky stopped being interested in anything at all and sat most of the time with a blank expression on his face. Vaclav spent the remaining years of his life in various clinics in Europe. In 1938, he underwent insulin shock therapy, then a new treatment method. On short time his behavior became more orderly, he was able to carry on a conversation, but soon the apathy returned.

Vaslav Nijinsky with Charlie Chaplin
IN theatrical circles Nijinsky was remembered and honored. Diaghilev himself brought Vaclav to Paris Opera to the ballet “Petrushka”, in which the artist at one time danced one of his best roles. Nijinsky on offer former mentor to rejoin the troupe, he sensibly replied: “I can’t dance, I’m crazy.” Count Kessler, in his memoirs, shares the impression that Nijinsky made on him that evening: “His face, which remained in the memory of thousands of spectators shining like that of a young god, was now gray, saggy,... only occasionally the reflection of a meaningless smile wandered over it ... Diaghilev supported him by the arm, helping him overcome the three flights of stairs leading down... The one who once seemed to be able to fly carefree over the roofs of houses, now barely stepped from step to step of an ordinary staircase. The look with which he answered me was meaningless, but infinitely touching, like that of a sick animal.”
After Diaghilev’s death, Romola repeated the attempt to return Nijinsky to dance (which in the case of a dancer was tantamount to the concept of “returning to life”). In 1939, she invited Serge Lifar, Nijinsky's famous fellow countryman, also born in Kyiv, to dance in front of her husband. Vaclav did not react to the dance in any way, but at the end of the performance he suddenly, unexpectedly for everyone present, flew up in a jump, and then again became indifferent to everything. The last jump of the great dancer was captured by photographer Jean Manzon. Monument to Vaslav Nijinsky at the Montmartre cemetery in Paris

In 1952, S. Lifar, a famous artist and choreographer of the Grand Opera, bought a place in the 22nd section of the Montmartre cemetery in Paris, where the rest of prominent figures French culture. Half a century after the death of the great dancer, a magnificent monument has now been erected at his grave, where previously there was only a modest tombstone with the inscription on the slab “To Vaslav Nijinsky - Serge Lifar”. The genius of dance is captured in the image of Petrushka from the ballet of the same name by I. Stravinsky.

I’ll add on my own that there is wonderful movie"Nijinsky" 1980, directed by Herbert Ross, I advise you to watch it, I really liked the film.

Vaslav Nijinsky

In 1907, eighteen-year-old Vaslav Nijinsky was accepted into the Mariinsky Theater troupe. Short, only 160 cm, with overly muscular legs and the face of a faun, he stepped onto the stage, and very quickly it became clear that in the theater new prime minister. Nijinsky had a perfect sense of style and masterfully transformed himself. He was exquisitely graceful.

He was a man half a century ahead of his time; his life was an erotic spectacle - deeply narcissistic, intuitive, spontaneous; his work captured the rhythm of life of a generation gradually drawn into the ominous carnival of the First World War.

Andrew O'Hagan, Sr. "Nijinsky's Diary"

His partners were Kshesinskaya, Preobrazhenskaya, Karsavina. Nijinsky danced the main roles in M. Fokine’s ballets “Armida’s Pavilion” (White Slave), “Egyptian Nights” (Slave), “Chopiniana” (Youth).

Once, when Giselle was being staged, Vaclav voluntarily put on a costume created according to a sketch by A. Benois. It was a reconstruction of a German costume from the 14th century. Before that, wide trousers were worn in men's ballet. Seeing an indecently fitted leotard male body, the empress laughed (later they would write: “... this caused confusion in the royal box.” Presumably, this was the case: her husband was sitting next to the empress), and Wenceslas was expelled. A Tsar's ballet dancer should not cause laughter. The word “lust” was not spoken.

“Carnival”, “Scheherazade”, “Parsley”, “Narcissus”, “Daphnis and Chloe”, “Firebird”... and after “The Rite of Spring” Russia “became in great fashion”. In big. Costumes, trinkets “a la russe” and all that. English dancers Patrick Healy-Kay, Alice Marks and Hilda Munnings took Russian pseudonyms - Anton Dolin, Alicia Markova and Lydia Sokolova, under which they performed in Diaghilev's troupe. And even the wife of King George VI of Great Britain got married in a Russian dress. Bakst, Roerich and Benois worked on the sets and costumes for the productions.

“The Russian season, like a gust of fresh wind, swept over the French stage with its outdated conventions,” Karsavina would later write. – I sometimes ask myself whether Diaghilev was proud of himself in his happy hours- after all, he managed to unite a whole constellation of talents - Chaliapin himself, Benois (the master), Bakst (Ie bateau de la saison russe, the ship of the Russian season), whose name was on everyone’s lips, his dandy stiffness, punctuality and constant good nature contrasted sharply with the furious chaos of our rehearsals. Fokin screamed until he was hoarse, tore out his hair and performed miracles. Pavlova flashed among us with a fleeting vision and left, performing in a couple of performances; Muse of Parnassus - that’s what Jean Louis Vaudoyer called her. The most virtuoso of all modern ballerinas, Geltser, was also among us, admirers admired her academic art. The spirit of the exotic found its highest embodiment in Ida Rubinstein and her unforgettable Cleopatra. The enumeration may seem boring; and yet I must add the name Nijinsky - whole volumes of books cannot say more than this one name.”

“I have never seen such beauty,” Proust wrote to his friend Reynoldo Hahn. When the Russian ballet brought “Giselle” to the next tour, it became a real sensation. This has never happened in Paris before: the splendor of the scenery beyond all measure, the brightest, exotic costumes, exciting music, the almost superhuman skill of the artists, and at the center of it all is Nijinsky, who jumped so high that it seemed he would never come back. He electrified the air with his searing, absolutely modern expression, completely erasing traditional stage manners and learning to squeeze everything out of nothing. Even Fokine (choreographer in Diaghilev’s troupe and a brilliant dancer himself) thought that Nijinsky was too much in his minimalism: “You just stand there and do nothing!” – he exclaimed once. “I play with my eyes alone,” replied Nijinsky” ( Andrew O'Hagan, Nijinsky's Diary).

At one time, another great dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky (whose follower Nureyev was often called), came to the Mariinsky Theater at the invitation of Matilda Kshesinskaya, who invited him to become her partner. Nuriev received a similar offer from Natalia Dudinskaya.

“Like Isadora Duncan ten years earlier and Martha Graham a quarter century later, Nijinsky was forced to throw away everything he knew and find his own way of expressing artistic truth. He moved along the same path that Picasso followed three years before him, creating his first cubist paintings” (Fokine).

Paris applauded. A few more performances - and the whole world went crazy for Nijinsky. Moreover, the world lusted after Nijinsky - and also began to behave defiantly. Indecent, there are no words. But the world was not interested in decency then. Nijinsky was interested in the world. And Nijinsky was a Faun. He was interested in himself and what he did on stage.

Do you understand? Passion has no gender. Beauty doesn't have it either. Beauty, as we know, is in the eyes of the beholder, but passion is in the soul of the one who desires. Everyone who looked at Nijinsky saw the embodiment of their own passion. Is it strange, then, that the public came out in droves? The artist danced his dream - the main thing that burned his soul. People looked and saw their own souls. We have a hell of a lot in common. When someone manages to show this generality, he is declared a genius. But a genius creates for himself. Actually, the last genius who was not an egoist was called Jesus Christ.

Nijinsky's partners spoke with bitter resentment about the brilliant egocentrist: they created, lost their heads and died, without feeling any return or interaction on his part. He danced his roles for himself.

Paradox? An artist shouldn’t do this, and even more than that: such egocentrism acts in the most harmful way. Yes, that’s certainly true.”

But before we get to the tragedy, let's dwell on the tangible. Here are photographs of Nijinsky from 1911-1916.

Nijinsky was looking for something simple in dance. Contrary to popular belief about the aesthetics of sophistication, the dancer strived for the opposite. Once, having admired the figures on ancient Greek vases, he used the vase painting as the basis for a new dance. Dance of your own school. Yes, schools, no matter what anyone says.

Here, for example, is what Nijinsky’s first choreographic production, “The Afternoon of a Faun,” looked like. Its plot is simple: a faun, serenely basking in the spring sun, tries to catch one of the nymphs frolicking by the stream, and, having failed to do this, returns with the veil of one of them.

“...we still clearly sense,” O’Hagan notes in his article, describing attempts to reconstruct Nijinsky’s ballets, “a taste of sexual obscenity.<...>The audience at the present morning performances at the Royal Opera House continues to divert children's attention from the scene when the faun crawls in pursuit of the shadow of his own desire, lasciviously entwined with an antique bedspread.

"Games"

Now famous throughout the world, Diaghilev had great faith in his prime minister, willingly inspired and supported his daring undertakings, but his own enterprise? No impossible. Nijinsky belongs to Diaghilev. It was Diaghilev who suggested the idea for his second production, the ballet “Games”. It was Diaghilev who came up with the idea that the dance could be based on a tennis match! At least that's what he insisted on. The match in Bedford Square was watched together, and indeed, a new ballet soon premiered in which two women drag a man trying to pick up a dropped tennis ball into a dance on the edge of decency.

Here's what O'Hagan writes about it:

“This was the first time in the history of ballet that dancers danced in modern costumes.<...>Three actors - frozen examples of English park sculpture in the Art Nouveau style - come to life before the eyes of the audience, but their movements, reminiscent of playing tennis ("candles" and volleys), are quite unusual. It is worth recalling that Nijinsky, while working on this ballet, kept an open album with Gauguin’s reproductions on the floor of his studio.”

We say "Gauguin", we mean...

Yes, it is impossible to deny Nijinsky’s defiant eroticism. More than one scandal was associated with his frank steps, and each time Diaghilev used all his influence to hush it up. But Diaghilev was an impresario. Moreover, he was an excellent impresario. He understood what he was betting on. But Fokin, who ultimately felt wounded in his creative ambitions, threw tantrums more than once or twice with threats to leave the troupe, and, in the end, insisted on his own. Like everyone else in such cases, he probably expected that he would be persuaded, but... Diaghilev let him go. Moreover, Nijinsky was not at the farewell banquet. Many years later, Nijinsky would write in his diary that Diaghilev asked him to do this, supposedly in order not to irritate the offended maestro. Before recent years Fokin will not know that Nijinsky really wanted to go to this send-off, and Nijinsky will not know that Fokin was up to last minute waited for him to come out of the dressing room.

They became enemies.

Without fish

So, Nijinsky turned out to be the founder new school, this could not be denied. But even more so, it was impossible not to recognize the fact that yesterday’s like-minded people would have become competitors in this case, and the triumph of the Russian Ballets was one of a kind. The struggle would be fierce, the victory would be controversial, and it was impossible to allow a confrontation between two schools, which, moreover, were born in the same cradle. Open war was provoked by Nijinsky's marriage. He was left without a patron.

It cannot be said that the world has turned its back on him. No. Soon after leaving Diaghilev, many proposals followed. The most famous variety shows in the world wanted Nijinsky to direct their troupe. But Nijinsky did not want a variety show. He needed ballet. Your own, new ballet. He managed to assemble a small troupe (which included Nijinsky’s sister Bronislava and her husband and several other like-minded people who left Diaghilev’s troupe), implement several new ideas, and finally remake the old ones in his own way. But neither Bakst, nor Roerich, nor Benois agreed to work on Nijinsky’s performances: they knew how dangerous it was to quarrel with Diaghilev. So the young choreographer had almost nothing left.

Nijinsky got out as best he could. He was forced to invite an unknown artist. This man's last name was Picasso. Music (and music was very difficult: because of the war, both artists and the public boycotted German composers) was also written by a little-known composer. A certain Ravel.

But Diaghilev again used all his power, all his influence - this time to destroy Nijinsky. He launched lawsuits, challenged copyrights, and while they lasted, performance after performance was removed from the stage. Diaghilev cleverly chose the time for his next complaint - an hour before the performance. Thus, he deprived Nijinsky of the opportunity to maneuver, and he remained defenseless. Scandal followed scandal. The artists invited from Russia were forced to return home, and the salaries paid to them left the Nijinsky family without money.

The situation has become deplorable. The Nijinskys decided to return to St. Petersburg.

The same mother-in-law

However, before they had even reached Russia, the Nijinsky family with their newborn daughter found themselves in the position of prisoners of war. The First World War began, and I had to spend two long years in Budapest, in the house of my wife’s parents. Without a troupe, without a theater, without a stage, clenching his teeth: Nijinsky was Russian, they hated him. Well, as for European fame, it only fueled this hatred. Especially from the mother-in-law, Eleanor, who, although she was a famous artist, her fame did not extend beyond the borders of her homeland. She controlled the lives of the spouses. She interfered in the upbringing of little Kira. And the son-in-law was guilty of everything he did. And in everything that I didn’t do. It got to the point that Nijinsky was forbidden to take a bath and use hot water. Did it ever occur to Eleanor that she was making her daughter's life a nightmare? We don't know this. But we know that Romola was repeatedly offered to divorce Nijinsky, they even insisted - and she furiously refused.

In 1916, through the efforts of friends, the family was finally released. A tour in New York followed. Nijinsky was then staging the ballet Till Eulenspiegel. Only three weeks were allotted for preparation; the tense situation deprived Nijinsky peace of mind. During one of the rehearsals, he twisted his ankle and was forced to spend six weeks in bed. The contract with London Palace was terminated.

Diaghilev took advantage of this moment. The audience still wanted Nijinsky. He invited Nijinsky.

Now Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel, Henri Matisse, Richard Strauss, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky worked on the performances of the Russian Ballets. Nijinsky was accompanied by Rubinstein. If we brought here full list, it would take up half a page. But neither big names, neither success nor the public's adoration could hide Diaghilev's hatred. Nijinsky's wife, Romola, notes in her memoirs an endless series of "coincidences" and "accidents", each of which could have cost her husband his life. There were many such cases. But the most unfortunate thing was the friendship of her Wenceslas with two gentlemen who had long called themselves his friends and, unfortunately, aroused reciprocal affection.

Mr. Kostrov and another, who is designated “N.” in her notes, were Tolstoyans. Whether this was another intrigue of Diaghilev, seeking to cause discord between the spouses, or whether the seeds simply fell on fertile soil, we do not know. But Nijinsky, whom his wife describes in her memoirs as a cheerful person, changes before our eyes.

This place is worth stopping by. The fact is that they like to write about Nijinsky, that he was a lazy, dull student, that even at the Imperial Ballet School he only succeeded in basic subjects, but in his diary we read the opposite. Vaclav did not have time exactly until the moment when he was almost expelled one day. The students were on their way to the theater, Vaclav, who was known as a hooligan, fired a slingshot and hit the priest in the eye. Sent home, he saw that the family was begging, witnessed a humiliating scene of borrowing money - and, upon returning, suddenly turned into the pride of the teachers. Only French and the law of God were not given to him.

What's interesting is this. In Romola's memoirs, this slingshot will later turn into “toy bows and arrows” that “the boys took with them to the theater.” Read it again and try to imagine: a dozen and a half boys, accompanied by a teacher, going to the theater and armed in this way... But Romola was a smart woman. It never occurred to her to embellish her own actions in her memoirs. In addition, no editor would find fault with such a touch as the slingshot. So, the anecdotal “censorship” appeared in the text, obeying someone else’s will? Who is this? Probably still the same mother who wants only the best.

In his diary, Nijinsky recalls, in particular, how, as a boy, he became interested in reading Dostoevsky. Agree, an unusual choice for a lazy and dull child. And Nijinsky’s favorite work was “The Idiot”. Now, we believe that the change in his behavior will not seem paradoxical to you. Most likely, it was from the image of Prince Myshkin that the words and thoughts about love and God endlessly repeated in his diary grew: “God is love. I want to love everyone. I am God." Moreover, there, in his memoirs, we find the beginning of the story.

Here is young Nijinsky - the only hope of a mother abandoned by her husband, who has a mentally ill eldest son in her arms. The family desperately needs money. Nijinsky gives in to wealthy patrons. This is his only way out. And if he writes about Prince Lvov with love, then the connection with Diaghilev was a forced connection, because of money. Very soon, Vaclav, barely out of adolescence, already seeks to break off this relationship, but it is too late. Diaghilev considered him his toy, and if Nijinsky ever thought that he had cut the strings of his puppeteer, then every time it turned out that this was an illusion.

First notebook. "Feeling"

By the age of thirty, Nijinsky considered himself a sinner. He was merciless to himself. Memories of Parisian cocottes, Diaghilev, thoughts about own desires disgust him. He tries to abstain. He gives up meat and wants his family to do the same. He writes with annoyance about Romola, who does not want to obey him.

“Crazy,” says the mother-in-law, and the father-in-law agrees with her. Everyone agrees with her. She belongs to that kind of mother-in-law, arguing with whom is a waste of time.

Meanwhile, imagine Vaclav. He strives to maintain ballet form. Sexual excesses have a bad effect on dancing. Finally, mommy’s ideas about healthy eating... easy to imagine, right? But Romola is a former ballerina. But she is in such tension that no matter how wholeheartedly she believes her husband, she no longer has the strength. And if the described manifestations of Tolstoyanism are deeply healthy, then everything else quickly turned into oddities.

However, they are not yet very noticeable. So far, the Nijinsky family has just finished a tour in North and South America and intends to leave Diaghilev’s troupe to settle in Switzerland.

Romola is worried mental condition husband He became secretive. Keeps a secret diary. He is prone to aggression and often goes for walks alone. One day she finds out that her husband is wandering through the villages with a huge cross on his chest and preaching the search for truth.

Meanwhile, in his secret diary, Vaclav describes thoughts, hallucinations, and fears. He saw blood on the road, and cannot understand what really happened: murder or is it God testing the strength of his faith? He is worried that his daughters “said something.” He remembers his mother-in-law. Eleanor and her husband have long decided to take their daughter’s fate into their own hands and that is why they are accompanied. He understands, of course. He endures. He tries to love everyone.

How many souls has this damned love for all things destroyed! A love that cannot exist. Love is false, fictitious, artificial. But Nijinsky would not have been Nijinsky if he had not strived for such love. He wanted to love everyone, and to be loved too. He wants to write poetry, play the piano and dance. He wants to forget about the war - and he cannot.

Several times Nijinsky rebels. He is even looking for a rented room somewhere in the village. But very soon he realizes that this is a dead end, and returns. He writes his diary in short, chopped phrases. He wants to be clear. Wants to see the truth. He is merciless to himself and people. He writes everything.

Romola has just returned home. Yesterday afternoon Vaclav disappeared again, and the doctor had just told her that he had seen him in the city.

What's happened? - she asks the servants. - Why do you have such strange faces?

Madam! - the stoker answers her. - Sorry, maybe I'm wrong. We love you both. Do you remember when I told you that at home in the village, as a child, I carried out orders for Mr. Nietzsche? I carried his backpack when he went to the Alps to work. Madam, before he got sick, he looked and behaved exactly like Monsieur Nijinsky now. Please forgive me.

What do you want to say?

The last notebook. "Death"

In 1919, when Nijinsky’s last performance took place in a Swiss hotel, he was not yet thirty. He was still a brilliant dancer. His famous jump-flight was still beautiful. But strange drawings began to appear in his diary: human eyes. Red or black, with an indescribable expression of madness, they were drawn with such pressure that the pencil tore the paper. Besides the eyes, there were also spiders. They had Diaghilev's face. Nijinsky tries to write poetry, but they are crazy. If at the beginning of the text they, even if quite primitive, are still meaningful, then the further you go, the more often words replace syllables. They don't make sense, but they have rhythm. The words “Feeling”, “love”, “God” gradually crowd out any thought and are written down on their own, in random order. In the midst of this chaos, memories suddenly break through: clear and distinct. Then darkness again.

At that last performance, Nijinsky sat on a chair in front of the audience for half an hour and looked at it. Then he folded two rolls of fabric into a cross. “Now I will dance a war for you,” he said, “a war that you failed to prevent.”

Soon Vaclav met with Eric Bleuler, the man who first uttered the word “schizophrenia” out loud. In Nijinsky's diary, the entry about his intention to go to this meeting is the last. Very soon Vaclav was sent to Kreuzlingen, then to the Bellevue sanatorium. There he spent 30 years, completely withdrawing into himself.

"Nijinsky's Diary" was published in Paris in 1958.

The following were used in preparing the publication:

V. Nijinsky, “Feeling”.

R. Nijinska, "Vaclav Nijinsky".

T. Karsavina, “Theater Street”

Andrew O'Hagan, “Nijinsky's Diary.” (Article in London Review of Books, 2000. Translated by G. Markov.)

Illustrations from the archives of the New York Public Library.

“God of dance”, “eighth wonder of the world”, “king of the air” - this is what his contemporaries called him. And here’s what he said about himself: “I want to dance, draw, play the piano, write poetry. I want to love everyone - that is the goal of my life. I love everybody. I don't want wars or borders. My home is wherever the world exists. I want to love, love. I am a man, God is in me, and I am in Him. I call Him, I seek Him. I am a seeker because I feel God. God is looking for me, and so we will find each other. God Nijinsky."

Vaslav Nijinsky was born in Kyiv on March 12, 1889. His father Tomasz was an excellent dancer, a talented choreographer and had his own troupe, his mother Eleonora was the daughter of a cabinetmaker, studied at a ballet school and was accepted into the troupe of the Warsaw Theater. After getting married, Tomas and Eleonora, together with their troupe, traveled around Russia, traveling the length and breadth of it, and during six years of travel they had three children - Stanislav, Vaclav and Bronislava.

When the handsome Tomas started a new family with one of his mistresses, Eleanor was forced to leave the troupe. Together with her children, she settled in St. Petersburg, deciding that in the capital it would be easiest to find the doctors needed by her eldest son Stanislav - at the age of six the boy fell out of a window, hit his head on the pavement, and his mental development stopped.

Left with virtually no means of support, alone in a strange city, Eleanor tried to find ways to survive, and first of all, she needed to somehow find a home for her children. Nine-year-old Vaclav's mother decided to take him to the Imperial Ballet School. Eleanor dreamed that after graduation, Vaclav would be able to enter the famous Mariinsky Theater. On top of everything else, the state took full responsibility for the maintenance of the students, and this was also important.

“Thanks to Tomas’s fame, the name of Nijinsky was known to the examiners,” writes Nijinsky biographer Richard Buckle, “but there could be no question of accepting students, taking into account any circumstances other than their merits. Vaclav gave the impression of a not very developed mama's boy. Fortunately, Nikolai Legat, a junior school teacher for boys, drew attention to him. He asked Vaclav to take a few steps back and jump. The jump was phenomenal. The child was accepted into the school.”

His schoolmates did not like Vaclav. The boys despised him for being a Pole and laughed at his strange, either Mongolian or Tatar features faces, giving him the nickname “Japanese”. In addition, Vaclav was silent, withdrawn and thought too slowly. However, he did not put up with humiliation and always fought back against offenders, which is why he was often punished, but he never complained to anyone about injustice.

In his studies, Nijinsky showed great promise. He was the first in the dance class, the teachers were proud of him and could have graduated from school two years earlier if, in addition to dancing, Vaclav could pass exams in general subjects. But he barely coped with them and even failed the history exam. The teachers turned a blind eye to this - the Mariinsky Theater was already waiting for Nijinsky.

The career of the young artist began very successfully. He quickly became popular. In his first season at the Mariinsky Theater, he danced in almost all classical ballets and in new productions by Fokine. He was a partner of Matilda Kshesinskaya, Anna Pavlova, Olga Preobrazhenskaya. He was a romantic youth in Chopinian, a slave of Cleopatra in Egyptian Nights, a page in the Pavilion of Armida. In life he could not be called handsome, but on stage Nijinsky was transformed, grace appeared in his movements, his plasticity was bewitching. To the spectators in the hall he seemed seductively handsome.

However, for all his talent, Nijinsky was completely unsuited to life outside the stage, he did not know how and did not like to take care of his daily bread, and he certainly needed a patron - someone strong and enterprising who would take care of him. His first such patron was Prince Pavel Dmitrievich Lvov, a great lover of ballet and handsome young men. Soon Nijinsky was noticed by Sergei Diaghilev, who was planning to conquer Paris with Russian ballet, and invited the artist to his troupe.

The program for the 1909 season included ballets by Mikhail Fokine, and Nijinsky captivated the Parisian public. Then, returning home, he successfully danced on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater, performing all kinds of inserted pas de deux and dances, in which the directors played up his amazing jump in every possible way. In addition, Fokin prepared performances for the second Paris season. Nijinsky was assigned the roles of Harlequin in Carnival, the Slave in Scheherazade and Albert in Giselle, as well as two numbers in the divertissement, in which there were many technical difficulties. Success was guaranteed. And again Nijinsky returned to St. Petersburg as a winner. He was to perform the part of Albert in a production at the Mariinsky Theater. But then the scandal happened.

On January 25, 1911, Nijinsky appeared on stage in the same costume created according to the sketch Alexandra Benois, in which he danced in Paris. It was a copy of a historical fourteenth-century German costume with a tight-fitting leotard. This seemed indecent to Empress Maria Feodorovna. The theater management, frightened by the royal wrath, hastened to fire Nijinsky.

What was left for him but Diaghilev's enterprise? Russian viewers never saw him again. The scenes of cities all over the world changed - Paris, Dresden, Vienna, Monte Carlo, London, New York - everywhere Nijinsky was accompanied by stunning success. The costume story served as excellent advertising. And Diaghilev, not content with the brilliant performance of the ballet parts, decided to train his friend as a choreographer. Nijinsky's first production was the miniature "The Afternoon of a Faun" to music by Debussy.

This is how, according to the memoirs of dancer Serge Lifar, it began: “Sergei Pavlovich was sitting with Nijinsky in St. Mark’s Square in Venice, and then suddenly, instantly, the plastic-choreographic idea of ​​doing “Faun” came to his mind. Sergei Pavlovich immediately jumped up and began to show, near two large columns of the Venetian square, the angular, heavy sculpture of a Faun... Nijinsky’s first creative experience was painful and required an enormous expenditure of time and effort not only for Nijinsky, who was confused and helpless, but also for Bakst, and Diaghilev himself... Diaghilev was present during all the rehearsals - and there were more than a hundred of them! Nijinsky set each bar separately and after each bar he turned to Diaghilev and asked, “So, Sergei Pavlovich? Well, now what?”

The premiere resulted in a scandal. On May 22, 1912, the audience in the Chatelet theater almost came to blows. At the end of the miniature, the Faun, lying on the blanket of the runaway nymph, either really made an ambiguous gesture, or showed the audience that he was going to... This was no less daring for the Parisians than tight tights for the St. Petersburg court ladies. The press called Nijinsky’s “find” obscene, the great sculptor Auguste Rodin stood up for the aspiring choreographer. Rodin got it too...

However, the unusual plasticity proposed by Nijinsky seemed promising to Diaghilev, and he decided that the choreographer should stage Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Rite of Spring” - already a full-fledged performance. The rhythmic complexity of the music was exciting creative imagination, Nijinsky created an outlandishly new choreography, in which there were clumsy movements, closed figures, legs turned toes inward, elbows pressed to the body, heavy trampling into the ground. Music and plasticity merged together to reproduce the powerful desire of nature and primitive man to spontaneous renewal. And this premiere also turned out to be scandalous. Some viewers and critics have a furious rejection, while others have an equally furious delight.

Although The Rite of Spring was performed only six times, this performance became one of the pinnacles of modern ballet theater, as well as the greatest stimulus for its further development. Immediately after the premiere of the ballet, Stravinsky wrote: “The commonality of our plans was not broken for a second.” And four years before his death, in 1966, the 84-year-old composer confirmed: “ The best incarnation“The Rite of Spring”, of all the ones I have seen, I consider Nijinsky’s production.”

During the 1913 season, Nijinsky also staged the ballet “Games” to music by Debussy. He himself called this work “a poem in dance,” and the programs included “ballet of 1930.” There was no scandal, but Debussy absolutely did not understand the choreography.

But the imperious Diaghilev overestimated his influence on Nijinsky. He was already burdened by his dependence on the entrepreneur. And at performances with Nijinsky’s participation, you could see an elegant blue-eyed blonde almost every evening. This was Romola Pulski, the daughter of a famous Hungarian actress and the first director of the Hungarian National Gallery. The girl fell in love with the dancer and firmly decided to become his wife.

Romola began taking dance lessons from Cecchetti and managed to join Diaghilev’s troupe. She waited for her time - and it came. On August 15, 1913, Diaghilev's troupe went on a tour to South America. Diaghilev was forced to let Nijinsky go alone because he was afraid to travel by sea. For the first time, Vaclav was left to his own devices.

Romola constantly tried to catch his eye and entertained him with conversations. Nijinsky was taciturn and reserved, and the girl had to try for two.

When the voyage was almost over, one of their mutual friends approached Romola and told her that Nijinsky had asked him to find out if she would agree to marry him. Then he himself declared his love in broken French. Of course, Romola immediately agreed. She understood that for Nijinsky this was an escape to freedom, but she hoped that she would cope with all the difficulties. On September 10, 1913, Vaslav Nijinsky and Romola Pulski were married in Buenos Aires. catholic church Archangel Michael.

When Diaghilev learned of his protégé's engagement, he flew into a rage and angrily ordered a telegram to be sent to Nijinsky, saying that the Russian Ballet no longer needed his services. Nijinsky accepted the resignation with pleasure. Now he was left to his own devices, and it seemed to him that he would be happy if he lived the way he wanted. Nijinsky believed that he would feel calmer having gotten rid of the suffocating tutelage of Diaghilev, who now seemed to him to be the devil who had taken his soul in exchange for fame and success.

But, having separated Nijinsky from Diaghilev, Romola separated her husband from genuine art. She did everything she could, but independence was contraindicated for Nijinsky. He organized his own troupe and even signed a contract with the Palace Theater for eight weeks. But after three weeks of performances, the theater management terminated the contract. This unsuccessful enterprise left the Nijinsky family without money. And in June 1914, daughter Kira was born.

The Nijinskys decided to go to St. Petersburg. But on the way, in Budapest, they were caught by the First World War. Nijinsky was interned and lived as a prisoner of war in Budapest with his wife and daughter. By invitation Vienna theater in 1916 he returned to creative activity. Among his plans was the production of the ballet Till Eulenspiegel to the music of Richard Strauss. However, he managed to carry out this work only on tour in America, again in Diaghilev’s troupe, where he returned in the same 1916.

Gradually, Nijinsky began to feel more and more signs of severe mental illness. His last performance, the ballet “The Phantom of the Rose,” took place on September 26, 1917, and he danced his last dance in 1919 in Switzerland. In the same year, at the age of thirty, the creative life of the great dancer and choreographer ended. The next thirty years of my life were no longer associated with the ballet theater.

Diaghilev tried several times to revive Nijinsky's brain by influencing him with dance. So, on December 27, 1928, in Paris, he brought Nijinsky to the Opera for the ballet “Petrushka”, in which the dancer created one of his best parts. But Nijinsky remained indifferent. After Diaghilev's death, Romola repeated the experiment to revive Nijinsky's mind. In June 1939, she invited Serge Lifar to dance in front of her husband. Lifar danced until he was exhausted, but Nijinsky remained indifferent. Suddenly, some mysterious force lifted him up, and he took off in a jump, and then fell into unconsciousness again. Photographer Jean Manzon, present at this miracle, managed to capture the last leap of the mad god of dance Nijinsky.

Nijinsky died in early spring, on April 8, 1950, in London. He was buried in the Sainte-Marilebain cemetery, and three years later the dancer’s ashes were transported to Paris and buried in the Montmartre cemetery.

D. Truskinovskaya