by Coryne Hall
From a nearby hill Mathilde could reach the bridge over which the Tsar and his entourage passed on his return from Krasnoe Selo. When Nicholas left camp Andrei alerted her by telephone. The road was guarded and all access to the bridge was strictly barred but the police always let Mathilde through. As the Tsar rode by he turned to look at Mathilde and raised his arm to his peaked cap in salute, ‘his wonderful eyes fixed on me’.18
Mathilde never explained why Andrei alerted her and why the police let her through so easily. Was it on orders from the Tsar? Several times Mathilde recorded that Nicholas rode past the dacha. Yet despite the incessant rumours, there is no evidence that he ever stopped and called in.
When the season opened in September 1903 it was without Marius Petipa, for whom Alexander Gorsky proved a lightweight replacement. Johannson died in December and the Legat brothers were now increasingly in demand as teachers and choreographers, especially for private performances at the Hermitage.
On 23 November Kschessinska and Pavlova danced in Pharaoh’s Daughter. Pavlova managed to advance her secondary role of the slave Ramzé to the forefront and eclipse Kschessinska. Mathilde was shaken.
Intrigues and hostile demonstrations in the theatre began to cast a shadow over Mathilde’s performances. Her stage appearances were now often punctuated by hisses and boos from certain sections of the audience and Mathilde increasingly began to think about retirement. ‘My ballerina girlfriend tried to have her hissed off the stage’, recalled one dancer. ‘This was duly noted … And at her own [benefit] performance my girlfriend received a huge bouquet of flowers and a note: “Mathilde Kschessinska thanks you very much.” She could be splendid.’19
Having petitioned for an increase in salary for the ballerinas from 5,000 roubles to 8,000 roubles a year, Mathilde was particularly upset not to receive from them even a word of thanks. Weary of all this malice she decided to retire, a decision made all the more difficult because her father was still performing and could not understand her decision. Officially she left employment without a pension ‘in accordance with the petition… of 1 June 1904’.20 With an annual income of 50,000 roubles (worth over £811,000 today),21 she could well afford to do so. Mathilde requested a benefit performance at the end of the Maryinsky season.
On 21 January 1904 Mathilde danced The Sleeping Beauty at the Maryinsky. ‘Excellent,’ the Tsar wrote in his diary. ‘I had not seen it for a long time.’22
Six days later the Russian empire was at war.
On 27 January, angered by Russia’s penetration into Korea, Japan attacked the Russian naval base at Port Arthur in the Pacific without a declaration of war. The following day churches all over Russia said Masses for victory. All court functions were immediately cancelled as the Season was abandoned.
Nevertheless, Mathilde’s farewell benefit performance took place on 4 February as arranged. ‘I will never forget that night,’ recalled Bronislava Nijinska. ‘The atmosphere was electric in the Theatre, and backstage emotions were high among the artists, the students, even the stagehands. Kschessinska’s decision to leave … had been a complete surprise.’ One of the items on the programme was the pas-de-deux from La Fille mal Gardée which Mathilde had danced for her graduation in 1890. Later the audience was electrified by the thirty-two fouettés, which she promptly encored. This time the Tsar was not in the audience.23
At the end of the performance the stage was covered with flowers. Among the tributes was a gold laurel wreath with the name of a ballet Mathilde had performed engraved on every leaf. Outside the theatre the young balletomanes unhitched the horses and pulled her carriage home.
In fact Mathilde had one more performance, a benefit in Moscow for Ekaterina Geltzer, in which Kschessinska danced with Nicolai Legat and was warmly acclaimed. Katia Geltzer reigned supreme in Moscow, but was only allowed to perform in St Petersburg as a guest artist ‘because her virtuosity threatened the prima ballerina status of the omnipotent Kschessinska’.24 A sleeping car was provided for the eight-hour journey back to St Petersburg. The balletomanes joined Mathilde for supper and they had an all-night party.
The next evening she had dinner with the balletomanes in Cubat’s. Although Mathilde had prepared a speech she was very agitated after a sleepless night in the railway carriage. At the end of the evening she was crowned with the gold laurel wreath.
Meanwhile, Grand Duke Cyril had volunteered as a junior naval officer serving in the flagship Petropavlovsk. Boris left for Port Arthur on 26 February but, much to Mathilde’s relief, Andrei remained at the Military Law Academy. Sergei had taken over his father’s role as Inspector General of Artillery.
The war went badly. The Russians, who believed they only had to throw their caps at the Japanese ‘monkeys’ for them to surrender, received a shock. On paper the Russian army was stronger but the Japanese had their army close by; the Russian men and supplies had to cross over 4,000 miles of territory, served only by the incomplete Trans-Siberian railway. Steamers had to ferry them across Lake Baikal in Siberia. In the icy winter a light railway was built across the frozen surface. Added to this, the two Russian commanders (Admiral Alexeyev in Port Arthur and General Kuropatkin, commander of the land forces) were at odds with each other. The casualty lists grew longer and corruption was rife. The investigation into the disappearance of a ‘large amount of Red Cross money’ was stopped when it turned out to have been spent by ‘several Grand Dukes’ on some French courtesans in St Petersburg.25
Then, on 31 March, the Petropavlovsk was sunk with the loss of 631 men. Cyril was among the few survivors. When Boris telegraphed the news to the Vladimir Palace Andrei and his family could neither laugh nor cry. Relief at Cyril’s escape was tempered by the news of so many lives lost. Cyril was put aboard Boris’ train, where he was tended by doctors and despatched on the long journey home.
After the performance in Moscow, Mathilde moved to Strelna where she spent the next few months. Vova’s second birthday was celebrated on 18 June and on 30 July Mathilde learnt of the birth of Nicholas’s fifth child, the long-awaited Tsarevich, Alexei.
Mathilde said she joined enthusiastically in the country’s jubilation. The Empress had so far remained in the background, embarrassed and upset at being unable to give the country an heir. Alexandra now began to have more influence over her weak-willed husband.
On 24 August Nicholas rode along the Strelna road with his brother Michael. This time Mathilde had not been warned. ‘Undoubtedly he rode past my dacha, and I am sure that Nicky once again wanted to look at it, and maybe hoped to see me in the garden,’ Mathilde wrote. ‘And I learnt this only later.’26 The thought that Nicholas had been so close and she might have seen him, even spoken to him, tormented Mathilde for a long time. Surely if they had still been intimate at this stage she would not have suffered so much anguish.
Whether Mathilde had any serious intention of leaving the stage or whether, as has been suggested, the ‘farewell’ benefit was an excuse to bolster her finances,27 Kschessinska’s retirement lasted only a few months. In the autumn of 1904 Teliakovsky asked Mathilde to reconsider. From 5 November the management invited her to dance in individual ballets at a salary of 500 roubles per performance. Mathilde refused to sign a contract, saying she would dance what she wanted, when she wanted, as a guest artist. Many of the roles thought to be Kschessinska’s prerogative had already been assigned to other dancers but Mathilde allowed no other ballerina to perform her chief roles. When she was not dancing, the ballets were simply removed from the repertoire. On these terms she returned to the Maryinsky Theatre and on 23 November was awarded the title Dancer of Merit to the Emperor of Russia, regular guest prima ballerina.
On 12 December 1904 she danced Brahma for the farewell benefit of the choreographer Alexander Shirayev, her first performance since March. In Virginia Zucchi’s old ballet about an Indian god expelled from paradise Kschessinska received rave reviews, expressing ‘the best elements of technique allied to good mime’.28 She also made several appearances in
Moscow including one, against doctor’s advice, with an infected throat and a fever.
On 13 December Isadora Duncan performed in St Petersburg’s Salle des Nobles. The following day Isadora received a visit from Mathilde, ‘a charming little lady, wrapped in sables, with diamonds hanging from her ears, and her neck encircled with pearls’, who invited her to a gala performance at the Maryinsky Theatre. That evening Isadora, still dressed in her white tunic and sandals, stepped into Mathilde’s carriage ‘warmed and filled with expensive furs’. She was conducted to the ballerina’s first-tier box ‘containing flowers, bon-bons, and three beautiful specimens of the jeunesse dorée of St Petersburg’. Isadora admitted to being an ‘enemy’ of the ‘false and preposterous’ art of ballet, but she found it impossible not to applaud Mathilde, ‘as she flitted across the stage, more like a lovely bird or butterfly than a human being’. Afterwards Mathilde invited her guest to a supper party, where one of the Grand Dukes ‘listened with some astonishment as I discoursed on the plan of a school of dancing for the children of the people’.29
Around this time Mathilde formed the idea of taking the Imperial ballet to Europe with herself at the head, to give a series of performances in Paris and other major cities in aid of the Russian fleet. The idea was supported by Sergei, who asked Baron Frederiks to persuade the Tsar to give the plan his consent. For some two months the matter was discussed and Sergei reached agreement with one of the Paris theatres. Then the proposal came to the ears of the Empress. The journey did not take place.
At the turn of the year a concert was planned in the Army and Navy Assembly Hall followed by a ball. Mathilde was to join the ballerinas selling programmes, champagne and flowers. This was an attempt to stir patriotism and support for the army, and also the Russian fleet blockaded at Port Arthur by the Japanese. The attempt failed. Soon afterwards the Russian naval base at Port Arthur surrendered.
The surrender of Port Arthur, with the loss of 28,000 men, sparked protests over the government’s management of the war. The army’s morale was shattered by a series of defeats, while the people, who did not understand why they were fighting anyway, began to agitate for a say in the running of the country. Unrest spread.
On 6 January the Imperial family attended the ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters, during which the Metropolitan blessed the River Neva with a cross dipped through a hole in the frozen surface. As a salute was fired from the SS Peter and Paul Fortress some of the windows of the Winter Palace shattered and it was believed that terrorists had planted a live shell among the blank rounds. In the confusion it took some minutes to ascertain that the Tsar was unhurt. The Court was thrown into panic.
A strike at the Putilov metalworks then spread. ‘The workers’ strike deprived me of electricity. A loud crowd passed through Gallernaya Street,’ Andrei noted in his diary30 as nearly 150,000 dissatisfied workers roamed the capital’s streets.
On Sunday 9 January, soldiers stood on guard outside Andrei’s palace as Father George Gapon, a 32-year-old priest, led a peaceful march to the Winter Palace. He proposed to present a petition to the Tsar stating their demands for a minimum wage and a ten-hour day. As wave after wave of people swept along, carrying icons and portraits of the Tsar, the authorities panicked. As the crowd neared the palace, troops barred their way. Still they pressed on, unaware that the Emperor was not even in the capital. Suddenly the soldiers opened fire straight into the crowd. Men, women and children fell to the ground, their blood staining the snow. Thousands were killed or wounded on a day that went down in history as ‘Bloody Sunday’. To his people the Tsar was no longer their ‘Little Father’. He now became ‘Nicholas the Bloody’.31
That evening, Mathilde and her parents attended Olga Preobrajenska’s benefit performance at the Maryinsky. Although all the tickets had been sold in advance few ventured out and the theatre was only half full. A mood of unease reigned. Rumours spread that the mob had already disrupted the performance at the Alexandrinsky Theatre and was now heading for the Maryinsky. Most of the audience left before the performance ended.
Mathilde was anxious to take her elderly parents home quickly. She was even more concerned because Felix, now in his eighties, had met with an accident the previous year when a trapdoor opened under him during a rehearsal. His normally robust health had suffered as a result. As they left the Maryinsky the atmosphere was unsettling. Military patrols roamed the streets. Mathilde had accepted an invitation to a large supper party at Vera Trefilova’s apartment and, although she described driving through the capital that evening as terrifying, was determined to attend. She was nevertheless relieved to return home safely later that night.
For several days afterwards many of the theatres remained closed. Mathilde continued to perform at the Maryinsky and was designated an Honoured Artist of the Imperial Theatres on 26 January.
By the end of January nearly half a million workers were on strike and the city was placed under martial law. At dinner in the Imperial Yacht Club Grand Dukes Sergei and Nicholas Michaelovich, together with Grand Dukes Nicholas and Peter Nicolaievich, ‘dreadfully frightened at the approaching revolution’, were ‘throwing off all pride and reconciling themselves to the end’, wrote Count Alexei Bobrinsky.32
In February the Russian army was routed at Mukden with the loss of 90,000 men and in Moscow Andrei’s uncle Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was assassinated by a terrorist’s bomb as he left the Kremlin. Few of the Imperial family attended his funeral, as the police could not guarantee their safety. Mathilde said nothing about all this in her memoirs – the triumphal performances go on as usual – but in the atmosphere of confusion and uncertainty she must have feared for the lives of the Tsar, Andrei and the other Grand Dukes.
In May the Russian Baltic fleet was almost annihilated in the Straits of Tsushima in less than forty-five minutes. This defeat sparked off mutinies in the remaining ships of the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets. All over the country strikes and riots erupted, as bands of peasants looted and burned the manor houses.
By this time the Social Democrats (or Russian Marxists) had split into two groups – the Mensheviks (minorityites), and the Bolsheviks (majorityites). The leader of the Bolsheviks was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, more commonly known as Lenin. From their places of exile abroad the Bolsheviks began to stoke the fires of revolution.
On 3 July 1905, while the country was still in a state of unrest, Mathilde’s 83-year-old father died at Krasnitzy. Felix had refused to follow the doctor’s advice and although he recovered quickly after the accident, his health had been affected. His death broke the first link with Mathilde’s childhood and it was all the harder because she was unable to fulfil her father’s last wish.
Felix had asked to be buried in the Kschessinsky family vault in Warsaw, and he requested that his mother’s body be moved from the Catholic cemetery in the Vyborg quarter of St Petersburg and buried with him. Although Mathilde obtained permission to move her grandmother’s remains, the situation in Russia was still too volatile to take the bodies to Warsaw. Her father’s coffin was therefore temporarily moved to the Catholic Church of St Stanislas.
The Krasnitzy estate was now sold to Prince Henry of Wittgenstein. Among Felix’s possessions was a long list of his partners from the nineteenth century until 1900, written in his own hand. The list ended with one name, proudly underlined: Mathilde Kschessinska.33
After the disaster of Tsushima the Tsar was forced to sue for peace. Although there was no disarmament, no indemnity and Russia ceded only a small amount of territory the strikes and disturbances continued as Russians blamed the Tsar for the humiliating defeats.
Finally the situation became calm enough for Mathilde to carry out her father’s last wish. ‘Warsaw had not forgotten my father and gave him a magnificent funeral,’ Mathilde recalled.34 The road from the station to the Powonsky Cemetery ran through the outskirts of the town but nothing disturbed the order of the procession. Mathilde had built a glazed chapel with a bronze door by Ivan Khlebnikov ove
r the family crypt where her grandfather Jan Kschessinsky was already buried. In this crypt they now buried Felix and his mother.
During the autumn Mathilde took Vova to meet Andrei in Cannes. His family had also recently suffered a heavy blow.
For some years Cyril had been in love with their cousin Victoria Melita, who had married the Empress’s brother in 1894. The marriage foundered and in 1901 she left her husband and daughter for Cyril. A divorce followed. Marriage between first cousins was forbidden by the Orthodox Church and the Tsar refused to give permission. The couple bided their time, but the birth of Tsarevich Alexei pushed Cyril one place further from the throne and they decided to defy the Tsar.
On 25 September/8 October Cyril and Victoria Melita were married in Germany. When Cyril returned to Russia and announced the marriage Nicholas deprived him of his army rank, title, privileges and income and ordered him to leave the country within forty-eight hours. Grand Duke Vladimir was so furious at this that he promptly resigned all his posts. Although Nicholas relented and restored Cyril’s title, only in 1907 did he recognise the marriage and grant Cyril’s wife the title of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna. The couple remained in exile until 1909, when Cyril’s income and privileges were restored.
Andrei was still reeling from the shock when he arrived in Cannes, where Mathilde had booked into the Hotel du Parc with her maid, Vova, and his nurse. The season was over, the hotel completely empty and once Vova had been put to bed the silence became unbearable. On the first evening as she sat in her panelled dining-room, Mathilde thought she could see her father’s face in the wood panelling. She felt it was a bad omen and asked for another suite.
Later they were joined by the dancer Misha Alexandrov, the illegitimate son of Prince Vladimir Dolgorukov (brother of Alexander II’s morganatic wife Princess Yourievsky). Mathilde thought Misha a delightful companion. He was said to introduce rich members of St Petersburg society to female members of the ballet company. The girls were later seen wearing expensive jewels. According to Mathilde, Misha Alexandrov was acting as a pimp.35