Vladimir Ivanovich Belsky
Владимир Иванович Бельский
Belsky, c. 1900
Born14 April [O.S. 2 April] 1866
Trakai, Russian Empire
Died28 February 1946(1946-02-28) (aged 79)
Heidelberg, Germany
NationalityRussian
Alma materSaint Petersburg Imperial University
Occupation(s)Poet, librettist
Years active1898-1909
Notable work

Vladimir Ivanovich Belsky (Russian: Владимир Иванович Бельский; 14 April [O.S. 2 April] 1866 – 28 February 1946) was a Russian poet and opera librettist, known for his collaborations with the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908).

Biography

Belsky was born in Trakai, Russian Empire (modern Lithuania) in 1866. Nothing seems to be known of his family or early life. He studied at Saint Petersburg Imperial University, where he was awarded degrees in law (1889), physics and mathematics (1893), and political economy and statistics (1897).[1] In 1894, he and Rimsky-Korsakov became acquainted.[2][3] They collaborated on four operas, all on fantastic or fairytale subjects: Sadko (1898; in part), The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1900), The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (1907) and The Golden Cockerel (1909),[1][3] and on several unrealised projects.[2] Subsequently, he disappeared from public view. According to one account, he emigrated to Germany in the early 1920s, and lived there for the rest of his life.[2] According to another, he emigrated in 1921 to Belgrade (then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), where he wrote, among other things, several memoirs and articles on Rimsky-Korsakov.[1][2][3] All his papers were destroyed during the bombing of Belgrade in World War II.[1][lower-alpha 1] In 1946, he died in Heidelberg, Germany, in what was then the American Zone of Occupation following World War II.[4]

He admired and was influenced by Pushkin, one of Russia's national poets.[5] Rimsky-Korsakov described him as intelligent, educated and learned, a great connoisseur and lover of Russian antiquity and ancient Russian literature, epics and songs, and a humble, shy and honest man.[1] He is said to have known fourteen languages.[4]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Belgrade was bombed twice during World War II: by the Germans in 1941 and by the Allies is 1944. It is unclear which of these events resulted in the destruction of Belsky's papers.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Saint Petersburg University (2017). "БЕЛЬСКИЙ Владимир Иванович (1866-1946)". Знаменитые деятели искусства [Famous Artists] (in Russian). Litres. pp. 70–71. ISBN 978-5-288-05763-2.
  2. 1 2 3 4 M. I.; N. Kaz. "БЕЛЬСКИЙ Владимир Иванович". Theatrical Encyclopaedia (in Russian). Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 Keldysh, Yu. V., ed. (1973–1982). "Бельский В. И.". Great Soviet Encyclopedia (in Russian). Retrieved 10 November 2021 – via academic.ru. Edited by Yuri Keldysh
  4. 1 2 Morrison, Simon A. (2019). Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement (2nd ed.). University of California Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-0520973558.
  5. ↑ Pashchenko, Mikhail Viktorovich (2009). "Сияющий петух: сказка Пушкина в Серебряном веке [The Golden Cockerel: Pushkin's Tale in the Silver Age]". Voprosi Literaturi (in Russian) (6). Retrieved 24 October 2021.

Further reading

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