Matilda Kshesinskaya

August 31, 1872 – December 6, 1971

If you examine a photograph of Matilda Feliksovna Kshesinskaya you will see a small-featured, short-legged, attractive woman. Yet you will be hard put to detect evidence of the vivaciousness, charismatic charm, and enchanting grace attributed to her by her contemporaries.

Kshesinskaya, the youngest of 13 children, was born to the stage. Her mother had danced at the Mariinsky Theater until her marriage to Felix Kshesinsky, a celebrated dancer himself. At the age of eight she became a day student at the Imperial Theater School, where her brother and sister already studied. Matilda had ballet in her blood, but the career she was to embark upon would require more than talent. She would need bottomless reserves of self-esteem, and the ability to navigate both intrigue and cruel competition.

Early on, Matilda attracted the notice of the Romanovs, who were devoted patrons of ballet. She would never forget March 23, 1890, the day of her graduation examinations at the Imperial Theater School. According to tradition, the Imperial family attended the ceremonies. After the performance, when her name was not read among those receiving the highest honors, Tsar Alexander III interrupted the proceedings. “Where is Kshesinskaya?” he loudly demanded. Later that evening, he told her, “Be the glory and adornment of our ballet.”

She resolved to do so.

At the post-performance supper, Tsar Alexander seated Kshesinskaya between himself and his son and heir, the 21-year-old future Nicholas II, with the admonition: “don’t flirt too much.” Nicholas and Matilda were immediately smitten with one another and soon became lovers. Matilda was given the house that had once belonged to Rimsky-Korsakov, and it was her home for the duration of the short, passionate romance that would warm her memories for the rest of her life.

In her memoirs, Kshesinskaya wrote, “One night, when the Tsarevich had stayed at my house till nearly dawn, he told me that he was going abroad to meet with the Princess Alix of Hesse, to whom he was to be betrothed. We spoke many times after that about the inevitability of his marriage and of our parting.” When the engagement was announced, she writes, “my grief was boundless.”

After the engagement, Nikolai informed his bride of his relations with Kshesinskaya, and she forgave him in a letter: “What is past is past… We are all surrounded by temptation… I love you even more now that you have told me this. Your trust touches me deeply… Can I be worthy of it?” They were married in the spring of 1894, and in the fall of that year, upon his father’s death, Nikolai ascended to the throne. From then on, every opportunity to dance for the tsar was a celebration to Matilda.

Kshesinskaya’s career began auspiciously. Her first major role was Marietta-Draginiatza in the ballet Kalkabrino, followed by Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. Critics applauded her bold and technically proficient performances, but she was aware that her skills were not virtuosic. She began to study with ballet master Enrico Cecchetti, combining the Italian technique with the lyricism and natural softness of the Russian school. To this she added a talent for gestural expression inherited from her father, and dramatic flair learned from Virginia Zucchi, making her the consummate performer of late nineteenth century classical ballet.

But the Imperial Ballet was in a time of crisis. Marius Petipa’s classics were becoming outdated, and foreign dancers were gaining prominence. The Russian ballet only truly took flight at the beginning of the twentieth century, with the appearance of rising stars such as Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Serge Lifar, as well as Diaghilev and Fokine, who revolutionized the art form.

While she had neither the beauty of Karsavina or Trefilova, nor the exquisite lightness of Pavlova, Kshesinskaya had a vitality and piquancy that eclipsed the others. She is said to have danced with radiance, style, unalloyed femininity, ineffable charm, and a blinding smile. Her indisputable triumphs were the result of practicality, strength of will, good fortune, and extraordinary diligence.

Kshesinskaya struggled hard to maintain her supremacy in a backstage war. Her method was straightforward, as evidenced in 1895, when she was not offered a role in the Imperial Theater’s gala performance to be held in Moscow as part of the coronation ceremonies. She wrote, “In utter despair I turned to the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich for help, as I saw no one else I could turn to, and he had always held me dear… The directors of the theater received orders from above that I was to take part…” Kshesinskaya also had a great admirer in the no longer young Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, with whom her relations were not entirely platonic. In 1900, she became romantically involved with the young Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich (whom she married in 1921), and the following season found her visibly pregnant. She danced nevertheless, though in her performance at the Winter Palace she strategically avoided revealing her six-month profile to the eyes of her Imperial audience.

Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich

Kshesinskaya gave birth to a son, Vladimir, on June 8, 1902, prompting a serious conversation with Sergei Mikhailovich. The latter, knowing he was not the child’s father, forgave Matilda’s unfaithfulness and promised to remain her true friend. The boy bore Sergei Mikhailovich’s name until Kshesinskaya’s marriage two decades later. She describes this time as the period of her greatest happiness. She was blessed with a child, a lover, the favor of the royal family and, from time to time, evidence that she was not forgotten by the tsar himself: she treasured a photograph he sent her, signed “Nicki.”

In 1893, Pierina Legnani brought her 32 fouetté turns to St. Petersburg.* Kshesinskaya was the first Russian dancer to master the feat, earning her the title of Prima Ballerina. She immediately stipulated that she would perform no more than three months a year, and won a raise in salary for the theater’s leading artists. Her repertoire grew quickly. She began to dance roles that had previously belonged only to the Italian ballerinas: Fairy Dragee in The Nutcracker, Lise in La Fille Mal Gardée, Teresa in La Halte de Cavalerie, and the leading roles in Paquita and Esmeralda. She glittered in these roles, adorning herself with the diamonds, pearls and sapphires given to her by her royal admirers, including the tsar himself.

Kshesinskaya was Vaslav Nijinsky’s first partner. She supported both him and Fokine, though she later had a falling out with the latter. She was not suited for Fokine’s ballets, as were Pavlova and Karsavina; however, Diaghilev organized a London tour for her, where she outshone even her partner Nijinsky.

But Kshesinskaya was now occupied with other matters: building a new house. From childhood she had enjoyed drawing attention, riding to her lessons in a little open carriage drawn by tiny ponies. Now she wanted her home to be the talk of the city. She took especial pride in her two wardrobe rooms. One barely managed to contain all of her clothing; the other held her costumes and stage accessories. For gentlemen visitors there was an excellent wine cellar (Grand Duke Andrei saw to its inventory) that provided for noisy feasts on special occasions. Her pig and goat roamed the lawn, though her cow, kept as a source of fresh milk for her son, was not allowed to graze there.

Kshesinskaya and her son Vladimir, 1910.

She continued to enjoy success on the stage, but she was aware of her age. Before each season she invited her sister and friends to a rehearsal and asked for their candid assessment. Unexpectedly, however, these years turned out to be one of the greatest periods in Kshesinskaya’s career. With the appearance of her new partner, Pierre Vladimirov, she seemed to enjoy a second youth. Vladimirov was perhaps one of the greatest loves of Kshesinskaya’s life. In order to dance with him, she chose to perform Giselle, an inapt role for a 42-year old ballerina, and one that demanded a romantic lyricism that did not come naturally to her. To save her reputation after failure in Giselle, she returned to her crowning achievement, Esmeralda, which she danced more brilliantly than ever. Hearing of Kshesinskaya’s passion for Vladimirov, Grand Duke Andrei summoned him to a duel in Paris and shot him in the nose.

On the eve of the revolution, Andrei bought Matilda a villa in the south of France. This turned out to be a fortuitous move. In February, 1917, she lost both her house in St. Petersburg and her country estate due to her relations with the tsar. At first she resisted: enlisting the support of Kerensky, she brought her case before the Bolsheviks’ Petrograd Committee, where she won her suit. However, upon returning to her home, she found the revolutionary leader Alexandra Kollontai walking in the garden wearing Kshesinskaya’s ermine coat. Returning again with an eviction order, she met only chaos. The October Revolution defeated her hopes.

Kshesinskaya had been slow to see the approaching storm. At the beginning of the war in 1914, she opened a 30-bed hospital, which she supported out-of-pocket for two years; she even travelled to the front. She saw the murder of Rasputin as a monstrous crime against the royal family. She could not even comprehend the tsar’s abdication – how could the loyal Russian people allow such a thing! She became aware of the revolutionary masses only when bullets shattered her windows.

With her mansion occupied by various committees, Kshesinskaya appealed directly to Lenin to halt the plundering of her home. With his permission she retrieved her belongings, but the most valuable she placed in a bank vault, and so lost. For half a year, she and her son took shelter in the homes of friends, until she finally decided to flee the turmoil. She travelled south to Kislovodsk, where the Grand Duke Andrei awaited her. With the stream of émigrés, they made their way to the Crimea in fall of 1918, and two years later they left Russia by water.

Matilda blamed herself all her life for the death of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, who had remained in St. Petersburg on her behalf, making efforts to regain her property. He was taken to Alapayevsk and shot by the Bolsheviks together with other members of the Imperial family. Two years later, Matilda was given a gold medallion bearing her photograph that had been found on the grand Duke’s remains. Without similar evidence, she simply refused for many years to believe in the death of her Nicki.

It is interesting to note that Matilda understood Nicholas II’s character better than anyone. Many years later she wrote, “It was clear to me that he didn’t have what it took to be tsar. It’s not that he lacked character. He had character – but he didn’t have that essential quality that makes others submit to one’s will. His first impulse was always the right one, but he was unable to stand his ground, he often yielded. I told him many times that he was not made to play the role that fate had assigned him. But I never urged him to refuse the throne.”

From the Crimea, Grand Duke Andrei arranged for Matilda to travel directly to her villa in France. Upon her arrival, Kshesinskaya’s first order of business was to confirm her social position. She and Andrei were married in January 1921, in the Russian Orthodox church in Cannes, after which they immediately presented themselves to the Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich and Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna, the surviving representatives of the Romanov family.

With nothing for her family to live on, Kshesinskaya decided to open a ballet school. She was still renowned in Europe, having toured in Budapest, Rome, Paris and Vienna, and within a few years, with the help of other exiles from the Russian stage, including Karsavina, Pavlova, Lifar, and Fokine, she had about a hundred students. In 1936, at age 64, she decided to give an official farewell performance at London’s Covent Garden, where she received 18 curtain calls.

Kshesinskaya wrote, “with Andrei’s death, the story of my life ended.” The Grand Duke died in 1956, but throughout the 15 years that remained to her, Matilda retained her zest for life. In 1960 her memoirs were published in English and French under the title Dancing in St. Petersburg: The Memoirs of Mathilde Kschessinska. Her name appeared on the cover as HSH The Princess Romanovsky Krasinsky, giving rise to a great many false rumors. She mailed the original Russian manuscript to the director of the Tchaikovsky Museum, who never received it, but a year after her death it mysteriously surfaced in the Lenin Library. It was not published in Russian until 1992.

Kshesinskaya died in 1971, a year shy of her hundredth birthday. She is buried with her husband and son in the Genevieve de Bois Cemetery in Paris. Her tomb reads: “Her Serene Highness Princess Maria Feliksovna Romanovskaya-Krasinskaya, honored artist of the Imperial Theater Kshesinskaya.” RL

* One fouetté is where the dancer stands momentarily on flat foot with the supporting knee bent as the other “working” leg is whipped around to the side, creating the impetus to spin one turn. The working leg is then pulled in to touch the supporting knee as the dancer rises up en pointe on the supporting foot. The ability to consecutively perform 32 of these turns is considered a bravura step by the ballerina, emphasizing her strength, stamina, and technique. It is a very difficult step to do and many ballerinas can only do 32 on one side, normally the right.