Russian Imperial Culture and Arts
In 1913, the Ballets Russes premiered Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in Paris, and a near-riot in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées announced to Europe that Russian music had arrived. Twelve years later, in 1925, Mikhail Bulgakov was completing The Master and Margarita in Moscow, and the painter Kazimir Malevich was already three years past his famous Black Square. By that point, the imperial institutions that had produced Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Repin, Diaghilev, and the rest of the Russian cultural pantheon were gone, but the work itself — much of it created within a few decades — was on its way to becoming a permanent part of the global cultural heritage.
The Russian Imperial period, from the early eighteenth century to 1917, was one of the great ages of European culture, a period in which Russian literature, music, art, architecture, theater, and dance developed distinctive forms and achieved international renown. The development of Russian imperial culture was a complex process shaped by many factors. The reforms of Peter the Great brought Russia into closer contact with European culture, and from that point onward, Russian intellectuals and artists wrestled with the question of how to relate to Western models while preserving something distinctively Russian. The result was a culture that combined European elements with traditional Russian themes, often producing works of remarkable originality and power.
Russian imperial culture was not a single, unified thing. It varied enormously by region, by social class, by language, and by confession. The official culture of the court and the imperial institutions was different from the folk culture of the peasantry, and the culture of the nobility was different from that of the merchants, the clergy, and the many ethnic minorities of the empire. Yet these different cultures interacted in complex ways, and the great works of the period often drew on multiple traditions.
Literature: From Lomonosov to Dostoevsky
Russian literature of the imperial period is generally considered one of the great literatures of the modern world. Its development can be traced through several distinct phases.
The first phase began in the early eighteenth century with the reforms of Peter the Great and the introduction of modern literary forms. The first major Russian writer of the period was Antiokh Kantemir, a satirist who adapted French classical forms to Russian use. The first truly important Russian poet, Mikhail Lomonosov, was a polymath who developed a theory of Russian versification and wrote odes and other formal poems. This first phase culminated in the late eighteenth century, in the era of Catherine the Great, with Gavrila Derzhavin, whose odes combined classical form with strikingly original content.
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw the development of Russian sentimentalism and Romanticism. The sentimentalist novel was developed by Nikolai Karamzin, whose works combined European models with attention to Russian themes. The first major Russian poet of the romantic period was Vasily Zhukovsky, whose translations and original poems established a new model of lyric poetry. The first true master of Russian literary language was Alexander Pushkin, whose work in poetry, prose, and drama set the standard for the entire nineteenth century.
The mid-nineteenth century saw the great age of Russian realist literature. Pushkin’s successor, Mikhail Lermontov, wrote novels and poems that explored the psychology of the so-called “superfluous man,” a character type that became central to Russian literature. The great novelist Nikolai Gogol combined Russian and Ukrainian themes with sharp satire and grotesque fantasy. The most important Russian writer of the mid-nineteenth century was Ivan Turgenev, whose novels of Russian life were widely read and helped introduce Russian culture to Europe.
The second half of the nineteenth century saw the flowering of the great Russian realist novel. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote novels of psychological and philosophical depth, including Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, that explored themes of morality, faith, and human freedom. Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, two of the greatest novels ever written, that combined epic scope with penetrating psychological observation. Other major writers of the period included Ivan Goncharov, author of the novel Oblomov, and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, a master of satire.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a new generation of Russian writers. Anton Chekhov revolutionized both the short story and the drama, writing plays that explored the subtle ironies and disappointments of Russian life. Maxim Gorky wrote novels and plays that celebrated the working class, and his work later became a model for Soviet socialist realism. The Symbolist poets, including Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely, developed a new poetic language that combined mystical and erotic themes. The Acmeist poets, including Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilev, reacted against the symbolists and emphasized precision and clarity.
Music: From Glinka to Stravinsky
Russian classical music developed rapidly in the nineteenth century and produced a body of work that has become part of the standard international repertoire. The founder of Russian classical music was Mikhail Glinka, whose operas A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Ludmila established a distinctly Russian style based on folk melodies and Orthodox liturgical traditions.
The second generation of Russian composers, including the members of The Five (also called the Mighty Handful), built on Glinka’s foundations. The group included Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin, and they sought to develop a specifically Russian style that drew on folk music, Orthodox chant, and the music of the Asian and Caucasian regions of the empire. The most important works of The Five include Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition, Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas and orchestral works, and Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances and the opera Prince Igor.
The greatest Russian composer of the nineteenth century was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who combined the Russian tradition with the European symphonic tradition. Tchaikovsky wrote in nearly every musical form, including operas (Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades), ballets (Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty), symphonies, concertos, and chamber music. His works combine deep personal emotion with brilliant orchestration, and they are among the most performed and recorded works in the classical repertoire.
The early twentieth century saw the rise of a new generation of Russian composers. Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote deeply romantic piano concertos and symphonies that became enormously popular. Igor Stravinsky revolutionized music with his ballets for the Ballets Russes, including The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring, the last of which caused a famous scandal at its 1913 premiere in Paris. Alexander Scriabin developed a mystical, harmonically innovative style that anticipated later twentieth-century music.
Visual arts: From the Academy to the Avant-Garde
Russian visual art went through several distinct phases. The eighteenth century was dominated by the Imperial Academy of Arts, founded in 1757, which trained Russian artists in the European classical tradition. The most important Russian artist of the eighteenth century was probably Dmitry Levitzky, a portrait painter whose works combined technical brilliance with psychological insight. The great Russian neoclassical sculptor Fyodor Shubin and the painter Vladimir Borovikovsky also achieved international recognition.
The mid-nineteenth century saw the rise of a distinctly Russian school of painting, the Peredvizhniki or Wanderers, who broke with the academic tradition in favor of a more realistic and politically engaged style. The leader of the Wanderers was Ivan Kramskoi, a portrait painter and theorist who argued for art with social purpose. Other major figures included Ilya Repin, whose paintings of Russian history and peasant life became iconic; Vasily Surikov, whose historical paintings brought Russian history to vivid life; and Vasily Perov, who painted scenes of rural and urban life.
The late nineteenth century saw the development of the World of Art movement, which sought to revive the importance of aesthetics in art and opposed the social realism of the Wanderers. The most important figure was Alexandre Benois, a critic, artist, and designer who was also a key organizer of the Ballets Russes. Other members included the painter Mikhail Vrubel, who developed a distinctive symbolist style, and the stage designer Léon Bakst, whose exotic designs helped define the visual style of the Ballets Russes.
The early twentieth century saw the rise of the Russian avant-garde, a remarkable flowering of artistic experimentation that produced some of the most innovative art of the twentieth century. Kazimir Malevich developed Suprematism, a style of pure geometric abstraction, and his painting Black Square is one of the most famous works of modern art. Wassily Kandinsky, who worked in both Russia and Germany, was a pioneer of abstract art. Marc Chagall developed a highly personal style that combined elements of Russian Jewish folk art, French modernism, and personal symbolism. Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov were leading figures of the Russian avant-garde and helped develop several distinct avant-garde movements, including Rayonism and Neo-Primitivism.
Architecture: From Petrine Baroque to Art Nouveau
Russian architecture of the imperial period was rich and varied. The Petrine Baroque style developed in the early eighteenth century as part of Peter the Great’s program to make St. Petersburg a European capital. The style combined Dutch, Swedish, and Italian baroque elements with Russian traditions, and its most famous monument is the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.
The mid-eighteenth century saw the development of Elizabethan Baroque, named after Empress Elizabeth, which was more elaborate and ornamental than the Petrine style. The greatest architect of the period was Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the Italian-born architect who designed the Winter Palace and the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, both icons of Russian imperial architecture.
The late eighteenth century saw the rise of Russian Neoclassicism, which was associated with the reign of Catherine the Great and her embrace of Enlightenment ideas. The leading architects of the period included Charles Cameron, a Scottish architect who designed the Agate Rooms and the Cameron Gallery at Tsarskoye Selo; Vincenzo Brenna, an Italian architect who worked at Tsarskoye Selo and the Pavlovsk Palace; and Matvei Kazakov, a Russian architect who designed the Senate building in Moscow and the Golovin Palace in Moscow.
The nineteenth century saw a succession of styles, including the Russian Revival and the eclectic styles favored by Alexander II and Alexander III. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the development of the Art Nouveau style in Russia, which was known as Style Moderne in the Russian context. The most important architect of the period was Fyodor Shekhtel, who designed the Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal in Moscow and many private mansions.
Theater and dance: The Moscow Art Theater and the Ballets Russes
Russian theater and dance developed rapidly in the imperial period. The first state theater in Russia, the Imperial Theatres system, was established in the eighteenth century, and Russian drama developed a distinctive tradition of psychological realism. The early Russian theater was shaped by eighteenth-century playwrights such as Alexander Sumarokov and Denis Fonvizin, while the dominant playwright of the mid-nineteenth century was Alexander Ostrovsky, whose plays explored the lives of merchants, officials, and ordinary people in Russian society.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the development of the Moscow Art Theater under the leadership of Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Stanislavski’s system of actor training, which emphasized the inner life of the character and the actor’s emotional truth, had a profound influence on theater worldwide. The Moscow Art Theater staged the premieres of Chekhov’s major plays, and its international tours helped establish Russian drama as a major world tradition.
Russian dance reached new heights in the late imperial period in the Imperial Ballet, whose establishment dated back to the eighteenth century and whose schools trained dancers for the Mariinsky and Bolshoi theaters. The most important figure of the period was the choreographer Marius Petipa, whose ballets, including Don Quixote, La Bayadère, and Sleeping Beauty, together with The Nutcracker, choreographed largely by his assistant Lev Ivanov, and the 1895 revival of Swan Lake, established the classical ballet repertoire that is still performed today. The dancer Anna Pavlova and the choreographer Michel Fokine helped bring Russian ballet to international attention, and the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev revolutionized ballet in the early twentieth century with collaborations involving Stravinsky, Ravel, and other major composers.
The cultural politics of the empire
The development of Russian imperial culture was deeply affected by the relationship between the state and the artists. The imperial government was both a major patron of the arts and a censor of them. The Imperial Academy of Arts provided training and stipends, the imperial theaters employed large numbers of actors, dancers, and musicians, and the imperial palaces and churches were decorated at enormous expense. At the same time, however, the imperial censorship restricted the content of artistic works, and the state often punished writers and artists who went too far in criticizing the established order. Pushkin was subjected to internal exile and censorship, Gogol was forced to revise Dead Souls, and many other writers experienced official displeasure.
The tension between artistic freedom and state control was a recurring theme in Russian imperial culture. On the one hand, the great writers and artists of the period produced works of astonishing depth and power, often despite the constraints of censorship. On the other hand, the absence of consistent support for artistic freedom meant that much of the most innovative work of the period was produced by figures who were often in conflict with the official culture. The fact that many of the greatest works of Russian imperial culture were written by figures who were themselves in complex dialogue with the state, including Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy, is one of the distinctive features of the period.