Margarita Kirillovna Morozova

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Margarita Morosowa (1907)

Margarita Morozova ( Russian Маргарита Кирилловна Морозова , born Mamontova ( Russian Мамонтова ); born October 22 . Jul / November 3, 1873 . Greg in Moscow ; † 3. October 1958 ibid) was a Russian art - patron , philanthropist , art collector , Author , art critic and editor .

Life

youth

Margarita Kirillowna, like her sister Jelena, was born in the house of her wealthy relative, the merchant and art collector Dmitri Petrovich Botkin (1829–1889). Her father Kirill Nikolajewitsch Mamontow belonged to the important merchant family Mamontow, which also included Sawwa Ivanovich Mamontow . However, the father lost his fortune through wild speculation fled as bankrupt after Monte Carlo , where he joined the game gave and 1877 in Marseille by suicide ended. His penniless 25-year-old widow Margarita Ottowna geb. Löwenstein (1852–1897, daughter of Otto Anton Löwenstein from the German Catholic community in Moscow) got by with her two daughters through needlework, sewing courses and later by running a sewing factory. The mother was Catholic , but because of the Orthodox father, the daughters were brought up Orthodox according to the law.

At the age of 13, Margarita Kirillovna, like her sister, entered Moscow's Petropavlovskaya High School . Only now did the sisters come into contact with the paternal relatives again. In particular, her uncle Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov , the founder of the Tretyakov Gallery , introduced her to the arts . Margarita attended concerts by Anton Rubinstein , Italian operas in the Bolshoi Theater and in the opera house of her uncle Savva Ivanovich Mamontov, as well as dramas in the Maly Theater , where the actress Marija Nikolajewna Yermolowa and others shone. As a frequent guest at Anatol Ivanovich Mamontov's house, she got to know various artists , in particular Valentin Alexandrowitsch Serow , Michail Alexandrowitsch Wrubel and the brothers Sergei Alexejewitsch Korowin and Konstantin Alexejewitsch Korowin . With her uncle Ivan Nikolaevich Mamontov (1846-1899), director of the inking of the family, Margarita became acquainted with the music - critic Nikolai Kashkin (1839-1920), the prominent music publisher Peter Jurgenson (1836-1904) and the composer Hermann Laroche (1845-1904).

Years of marriage

Margarita Kirillowna married the 21-year-old wealthy heir - and student of Moscow University - Mikhail Abramowitsch Morosow (1870-1903) from the important merchant family Morosow, to which Savva Timofejewitsch Morozov belonged, from the crowd of her admirers . She continued to pursue her theatrical passion and began collecting paintings . The painter Valentin Alexandrowitsch Serow was one of the closest friends of the family . She got to know Lev Tolstoy who asked her to support the Duchoborzen in Canada . With Tolstoy's wife Sofja Andrejewna Tolstaja , a cousin of the Mamontovs, she attended concerts and invited them to her private concerts. She got to know Tchaikovsky and was enthusiastic about Wagner's music , so that she and her husband attended the Bayreuth Festival . She had three children (1892, 1895, 1897) and attended lectures on history and Russian literature .

In her salon Margarita Kirillovna often received artists , particularly Abram Arkhipov , Konstantin Korovin , Valentin Serov , the brothers Apollinary Vasnetsov and Viktor Vasnetsov , Sergei Arsenjewitsch Vinogradov , Vasily Ivanovich Surikov and Paolo Troubetzkoy , the tenor Leonid Vitalievich Sobinov , their art-collecting brother-in-law Iwan Abramowitsch Morosow and the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrowitsch Romanow .

In winter 1895-1896 Margarita Kirillovna invited through the mediation of the Conservatory -Direktors Vasily Ilyich Safonov young pianist Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin one, then frequent guest in their music - soirees was. In 1901, after the first performance of Scriabin's 1st Symphony under Safonov, she was looking for a music teacher for herself, and Safonov recommended Scriabin to her. She was now taking piano lessons from Scriabin, which, however, soon stalled due to a cyst in her wrist, so that, to her great regret, she was unable to become a pianist. Nevertheless, Scriabin continued to give her lessons without paying.

Widow years

In 1903 Margarita Kirollowna's husband died, from whom she inherited not only three million rubles, but also his position as director of the Moscow Conservatory . In January 1904 Margarita Kirillovna gave birth to her fourth and last child, daughter Marusja. Afterwards, in her year of mourning, she traveled with her children and numerous servants for a year-long stay in Switzerland , where Scriabin had found a house for her in Nyon . Apart from the lessons with Scriabin, she made the acquaintance of the art collector Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin , and she came into closer contact with her art-collecting brother-in-law Ivan Abramowitsch Morozov .

After Margarita Kirillowna's return to Moscow in 1905, troubled by the state of Russian society, the 1905 revolution and the Russo-Japanese War , she turned her home into a political center where the constitutions of European countries and the USA , as well as socialism , were discussed . The guests and speakers included Pavel Nikolayevich Miljukov , Prince Georgi Evgenjewitsch Lwow , Dmitri Sergejewitsch Mereschkowski and even members of the Marxist RSDRP . These gatherings were soon banned by the authorities, as Andrei Bely wrote in his memoirs. In May 1905 the All-Russian Zemstvo Conference with 300 delegates took place in her house , followed by the October Manifesto and the founding of the Octobrists and the Constitutional Democratic Party .

Margarita Kirillowna was adored by the poet Andrei Bely , through whom she met the composer and pianist Nikolai Karlowitsch Medtner . She had remained in close contact with Scriabin and supported him from 1904-1908 with an annual pension of two million rubles, so that Scriabin and his family could move to Switzerland to be able to work freely. After Scriabin's death in 1915, she financed the Scriabin Museum in Moscow and for a while supported members of his family.

In her conversations with Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov , who accompanied her piano playing on the violin, Margarita Kirillowna represented Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy and was interested in elements of mysticism and esotericism , which she also saw in the music of Scriabin, as Milyukov reported in his memoirs. In November 1905 she founded the Moscow Philosophical-Religious Society Vladimir Solovyov together with Sergei Nikolajewitsch Bulgakow , Prince Evgeni Trubezkoi , Nikolai Alexandrowitsch Berdjajew , Pawel Alexandrowitsch Florensky and others . She developed a closer friendship with Prince Yevgeny Trubetskoi, and she founded the Moscow weekly newspaper for politics and social issues with him as editor-in-chief (1906–1910). In 1910 she began publishing the series Der Weg ( Russian Путь ) with Yevgeny Trubezkoi's Die Weltanschauung Vladimir Solovyov .

In 1910, Margarita Kirillovna donated a large part of her husband's painting collection to her uncle Tretyakov's gallery and sold her large, luxurious house to move into a smaller, more normal house. As early as 1909 she had bought a small estate in the Kaluga governorate not far from Yevgeny Trubetskoi's estate , where she spent most of the year.

After the revolution

Margarita Kirillovna accepted the October Revolution . Her house was nationalized , but she was granted two ground floor rooms in which she lived with her sister Jelena. When the house became the Danish embassy in 1926 , she kept the rooms and attended the ambassador's receptions. The ambassador offered her Danish citizenship, which she refused. In 1930 the sisters had to leave the house and now lived in their dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. Margarita's children had emigrated except for their son Mikhail Mikhailovich, called Mika (1897–1952), who became a Soviet man of letters and Shakespeare specialist. During the war , the sisters and Mikhail shared a room in a house near Margarita's birthplace.

After the war, Margarita Kirillovna continued to pursue her musical interests and attended the Moscow Conservatory once a month . In the 1950s she wrote articles about Scriabin , and she began to write her memoirs, particularly with regard to her relationships with Andrei Bely , Scriabin and the Medtner brothers, the composer Nikolai Karlowitsch Medtner and the music critic Emilius Medtner (1872 -1936). Her works were only partially published in the Soviet Union , particularly her Scriabin articles in 1972. The full publication took place only after the end of the Soviet Union.

Margarita Kirillovna spent the last years of her life in abject poverty only with financial help from friends. On October 1, 1958, she suffered a stroke, of which she died two days later.

swell

Individual evidence

  1. Andrej Belyj: Secret records: memories of life in Rudolf Steiner's circle (1911-1915) . Geering , Dornach 2002, ISBN 3-7235-1161-9 .
  2. The AN Scriabin Memorial Museum ( Memento of the original from July 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on August 15, 2015) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / scriabinefoundation.org

Web links

Commons : Margarita Morosowa  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files