Interest in the work of Nina Berberova, who was called “Miss Silver Age”, was inspired by the 125th anniversary of her birth. Andrei Voznesensky, who dedicated not only beautiful lines to her but also the preface to the Russian edition of The Iron Woman, believed that she did not belong to the Silver Age generation at all; her generation had a different style of thinking, energy, and taste – it was the spirit of the mid-twentieth century. Yet, for some reason it was precisely young Nina Berberova whom such paladins of the Silver Age as Nikolai Gumilev and Vladislav Khodasevich chose as their Miss.
In the reader’s perception, Berberova is forever rhymed with the Silver Age – a time of a great rise in Russian culture in many of its manifestations. It is generally accepted that the concept of the “Silver Age” arose within the Russian émigré environment. There, where many of Nina Nikolaevna’s poems, which we happily publish, were written. Decades later, they are still like a breath of clean, fresh air. Her work is part of a great heritage that must be preserved.
The preservation of heritage is the theme of the current issue of the Russian Mind magazine, coming out at the end of the exceptionally hot summer in Europe.
In this issue, we remember those without whom the concept of the “Russian world” would be incomplete. These include Prince Alexander Alexandrovich Trubetskoy, for whom serving Russia was his life’s work; Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Shakhovskoy, a descendant of the Rurikid Dynasty and recipient of the Russian Order of Friendship, who passed away this year; and the hereditary aristocrat and collector of early twentieth-century theatre and decorative art, Prince Nikita Dmitrievich Lobanov-Rostovsky, who sees his goal as the preservation of Russia’s cultural heritage.
August marks the 155th anniversary of the birth of Leonid Andreyev, of whom Leo Tolstoy once said: «He tries to frighten me, but I am not scared.»
We could not fail to remember the artist Ivan Pryanishnikov as well – he belonged to that category of nineteenth-century Russian intellectuals for whom Europe was not a foreign land, but a natural cultural space.
And our great Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin! We are concluding the publication of excerpts from Elena Lebedeva’s book on the famous singer and the Russian diaspora in France, and beginning to introduce readers to Anna Lavrova’s recently published book about her great-grandfather Vukol Mikhailovich Lavrov, who founded the Russian Mind magazine in 1880.
Our invited guest is the People’s Artist of Russia, singer, poet, composer and guitarist Zhanna Bichevskaya. Her repertoire includes several hundred(!) spiritual songs, Russian folk songs, romances and songs set to the poems of Silver Age poets. A true guardian of our heritage!
Preserving cultural heritage is a long and necessary task. Let us try to match the greatness of the plan. Today, this is one of the key priorities.
By Leonid Kolpakov
