“A Beautiful,Tremendous Russian Book, and Otherthingstoo”

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397

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“A Beautiful, Tremendous Russian Book, and Other Things Too” An Overview of Rare Russian Books from the Diaghilev-Lifar Collection in the British Library

Ekaterina Rogatchevskaia Lead East European Curator at the British Library [email protected]

Abstract

The British Library holds one of 65 existing copies of the first dated book printed in Muscovy by Ivan Fedorov and Petr Mstislavets, the Apostol (Acts and Epistles) (1564) and one of two known copies of Ivan Fedorov’s Primer (L’viv, 1574), which is considered by many to be the first Cyrillic book printed in Ukraine. The recent history of these books is linked to the name of the legendary Russian art critic and impresario Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929). Both titles belonged to his private book collection. A story of Diaghilev’s collection became part of the history of the British Library when in 1975 it acquired, among other books and manuscripts, his copy of the famous 1564 Apostol. Diaghilev’s copy of the 1574 Primer resurfaced at Harvard University Library, but its detailed descriptions and facsimile editions helped the British Library curator Christine Thomas, then in charge of the Russian collections, to identify a second copy, which is now held at the British Library. This article tells the story of how over 70 titles from Diaghilev’s collection of rare Russian books and manuscripts were acquired by the British Library, examines possible reasons for Diaghilev’s passion for books, and highlights other themes relevant for the history of private and public book collecting.

Keywords

Ivan Fedorov – Apostol – Primer – Serge Diaghilev – Serge Lifar – Ballets Russes – book collecting – The British Library – antiquarian auctions – book culture – history of the book

In his encyclopedia on Ivan Fedorov and his time, the leading Russian specialist on the history of the book E.L. Nemirovskii described in detail all the known copies of the editions printed by Ivan Fedorov and his successors.1 The British Library holds one of 65 existing copies of the first dated book printed in Muscovy by Ivan Fedorov and Petr Mstislavets, the Apostol (Acts and Epistles) (1564), and one of the two known copies of Ivan Fedorov’s Primer (L’viv, 1574), which is considered by many experts to be the first Cyrillic book printed in Ukraine.2 The recent history of these books is linked to the name of the legendary Russian art critic and impresario Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929). Both titles belonged to his private book collection.The story of Diaghilev’s collection became part of the history of the British Library when in 1975 it acquired, among other books and manuscripts, his copy of the famous Apostol (1564) (fig. 1). Diaghilev’s copy of the Primer (1574) resurfaced at Harvard University Library, and its detailed description and facsimile editions helped the British Library curator, Christine Thomas, then in charge of the Russian collections, to identify a second copy, which is now held at the British Library (fig. 2). This article tells the story of how over 70 titles from Diaghilev’s collection of rare Russian books and manuscripts were acquired by the British Library, examines possible reasons for Diaghilev’s passion for books, and highlights other themes relevant for the history of private and public book collecting. Provenance research is a routine and essential part of the work collection development librarians and other information professionals do on a daily basis. This kind of work also often forms the core of the research interests of library historians: “In recent years there has been a steady growth of interest in book ownership and reception history, and researchers working in the British Library are now less likely to take collections for granted, and more likely to ask copy- specific questions about the history of the books they hold in their hands.”3 However, in one of the recent surveys of art libraries in the United States, special provenance did not score highly on the list of criteria used in libraries to assign “rare” or “special” status to books in their collections.4 That fact suggests

1 E.L. Nemirovskii, Ivan Fedorov i ego epokha: Entsiklopediia (Moscow: Entsiklopediia, 2007), 5. 2 For the most detailed description and comprehensive literature review, see E.L. Nemirovskii, Slavianskie izdaniia kirillovskogo (tserkovnoslavianskogo) shrifta 1491–2000: Inventar’ sokhra- nivshikhsia ekzempliarov i ukazatel’ literatury, t. 2, kn. 1: 1551–1592 (Moscow: Znak, 2011), 184– 198, 292–298; and Nemirovskii, Ivan Fedorov i ego epokha, 56–66, 89–146. 3 Arnold Hunt, “Researching Provenance in the British Library Invoices,” in Giles Mandelbrote and Barry Taylor, eds., Libraries within the Library: The Origins of the British Library’s Printed Collections (London: The British Library, 2009), 363. 4 Karan Rinaldo, “Evaluating the Future: Special Collections in Art Libraries,” Art Documenta- tion: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America 26, no. 2 (Fall 2007): 38–47.

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figure 1 Apostol (Moscow: Ivan Fedorov and Petr Mstislavets, 1564), fols. 2v (Apostle Luke), 3 british library, c.104.k.11 that the practical and academic aims of provenance research are very different from each other. The cultural status of the former owner of a book, which subsequently came to be part of the collection of a public institution, could be ignored or emphasised depending on other factors. Such aspects of collection development as collection integrity versus random acquisition, usability of the collection versus its uniqueness,5 strengths and weaknesses of the entire library holdings as the main drivers for its growth versus unintentional expansion in

5 The observation made in relation to the current antiquarian music market is relevant to the situation in the antiquarian book market in general: “A great deal of what was offered on the antiquarian market until, say, ten or fifteen years ago was sold to institutional collections. There was a good demand and a reasonably good supply, and prices were, in retrospect, relatively modest …. All of this [technological advances and budgetary constraints] has resulted, in some cases, in a significant reduction of the number of institutions acquiring antiquarian materials; however, the market continues to thrive.” John Lubrano and Jude Lubrano, “The Antiquarian Music Market,” Notes 56, no. 3 (March 2000): 641–647, quote at 642.

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figure 2 The colophon of Ivan Fedorov’s Primer of 1574 with the coat of arms of the city of L’viv and Ivan Fedorov’s printer’s mark, fol. 40 british library, c.104.dd.11 (1)

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 05:14:06AM via free access 380 rogatchevskaia the area where development was not expected, as well as special circumstances that may accompany acquisitions – all this plays an important role in convert- ing practical information into “added value.” On the book market, the price tag of a personal collection on sale would be defined by a combination of factors, such as the scarcity of individual items, the uniqueness of the collection on the whole, evolving fashions in the market, the reputation of the seller or dealer, information disclosure, and the interval between the lifetime of the owner and the point in time when his or her collection is disposed of. As David Pearson puts it, “the importance of ‘association’ in adding value to a book has been recognised and exploited by booksellers, and has featured increasingly in their catalogues since the beginning of the nineteenth century. But there is a dif- ference between venerating a book as a precious relic, and approaching the evidence of previous ownership with a view to asking serious questions about what it can teach us.”6 It is always interesting to observe the dynamics between the market price and the relative value added by scholarship. For example, in 1873 the British Museum Library purchased the collection that had been assembled by S.A. Sobolevskii, who was well known in Russia as a bibliophile, collector, bib- liographer, author and friend of Aleksandr Pushkin and Prosper Mérimée. The average price per book offered by the British Museum was seven shillings, as “Sobolevskii’s library was not notable for sumptuous bindings, fine printing or rare curiosities.”7 However, the contemporary survey of this collection and its reconstruction within the British Library holdings “throws light on how the Museum went about selecting and acquiring foreign books in the late nineteenth century” and “gives insight into the interconnections of book collectors and intellectuals in Russia and Western Europe.”8 In the British Museum Library the Sobolevskii collection has been shelved according to subject areas and rarity. Thus, its integrity has been lost. Appreciation of the Sobolevskii library as a unit and a research object in its own right, as well as interest in its reconstruction, developed more than a century after it had been technically acquired. The focus of this article is the 1975 auction in Monaco, where the British Library acquired over 70 titles from the collection of rare Russian books and manuscripts owned by Serge Diaghilev. Although this private library com-

6 David Pearson, ProvenanceResearchinBookHistory:AHandbook (London:The British Library & Oak Knoll Press, 1998), 2. 7 Chris Thomas, “The Collection of Sergei Aleksandrovich Sobolevskii,” in Mandelbrote and Taylor, Libraries within the Library, 356. 8 Thomas, “The Collection of Sergei Aleksandrovich Sobolevskii,” 355.

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 05:14:06AM via free access “a beautiful, tremendous russian book, and other things too” 381 prised over two thousand items, its absolute gems are Ivan Fedorov’s Apos- tol (1564) and Primer (L’viv, 1574), along with Pushkin’s manuscript letters to his then fiancé Natalia Goncharova. In his book on Diaghilev, Sjeng Scheijen argues that the acquisition of one Pushkin letter, which Diaghilev inherited from Countess Torby, a direct descendant of the poet, was a turning point in Diaghilev’s life, when the passion for book collecting overtook him entirely: “The acquisition of the Pushkin letters was hugely significant to Diaghilev, who devotes several pages to the topic in his very brief ‘memoirs.’” Scheijen continues,

In those few years of bibliomania, Diaghilev would assemble a collection of antique Russian books that was, according to Zilbershteyn, unrivalled outside Russia. Besides the above-mentioned letters, he also acquired a handwritten poem by Pushkin, two manuscripts and four letters by Ler- montov, and manuscripts by such writers as Gogol, Glinka and Turgenev. He kept a catalogue and compiled extensive notecards, full of biblio- graphic and historical information for the most important books. For the first time in his life he rented an apartment in Paris, mainly to have a place to keep his ever-expanding collection. His insatiable desire for costly books and manuscripts has the unexpected effect of making him more disciplined in his personal spending habits. He decided to publish the Pushkin letters in October 1929, but his was to be a vain hope, as Diaghilev’s days were already numbered.9

All these star items found new homes and are now held at different repositories and private collections. Therefore, it is even more important to study parts of Diaghilev’s collection and follow the fate of individual items, once again scattered around the world. Edward Kasinec has recently published a study of Diaghilev’s book collection and surveyed the period of Diaghilev’s life when he was “possessed” by bibliomania. The researcher examined archival materials held in the United States, such as Diaghilev’s notebook (at the Library of Congress) and part of his archive of 190 letters and wires (at the Harvard Theatre Collection). These materials allowed the scholar to identify Diaghilev’s dealers, to point to other sources of Diaghilev’s acquisitions, and discuss the nature of his collection and its whereabouts after Diaghilev’s untimely passing in August 1929.10 Various aspects of book culture and book collecting related to

9 Sjeng Scheijen, Diaghilev: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 424. 10 Edward Kasinec, “Sergey Diaghilev’s Last Passion – The Book,” in Lynn Garafola and John

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Diaghilev’s activities were also discussed in the papers presented at a special meeting to mark the 140th anniversary of Diaghilev’s birth held at the Moscow club Bibliofil’skii ulei (The Bibliophiles’ Beehive).11 Diaghilev’s book collection was assembled in a very short period of time, between 1926 and 1929. Interestingly, this is often considered one of its dis- tinctive features. Diaghilev’s young friend and protégé, the ballet dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar (1905–1986), inherited the major part of Diaghilev’s library. He called book collecting a passion caused by a special “microbe.” In 1938, less than ten years after the great impresario passed away, Lifar published an article about Diaghilev’s passion for book collecting.12 In this piece he stated that the creator of Ballets Russes had had an ambition of founding a “Serge Diaghileff museum” as early as the beginning of his career in St. Petersburg. Lifar’s account of Diaghilev’s bibliophilic activities, which he included in his book of memoirs a year later,13 is written with admiration, although the author could not conceal his annoyance with this passion. In Lifar’s view, book collecting had possessed Diaghilev and significantly weakened his dedication to and interest in his ballet enterprise.14 As Eugene Field noted in what is now considered one of the best American essays on book collecting, “there are very many kinds of book collectors, but I think all may be grouped in three classes, viz.: Those who collect from vanity; those who collect for the benefits of learning; those who collect through a veneration and love for books …. I am inclined to think that the element of vanity enters, to a degree, into every phase of book collecting; vanity is, I take it, one of the essentials to a well-balanced charac- ter – not a prodigious vanity, but a prudent, well-governed one. But for vanity there would be no competition in the world; without competition there would be no progress.”15 Vanity was, of course, one of the driving forces for Diaghilev’s

Bowlt, eds., Proceedings of the Spirit of Diaghilev Conference, special issue of Experiment 17, no. 1 (2011): 375–386. 11 k 140-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia S.P. Diagileva (1872–1929): Zasedanie kluba “Bibliofil’skii ulei” 17 marta 2012 (Moscow: Natsional’nyi soiuz bibliofilov, 2012). 12 S. Lifar, “Diagilev – bibliofil,” Vremennik Obshchestva druzei russkoi knigi 4 (1938): 183–194. 13 Serge Lifar, Diagilev i s Diagilevym (Paris: Dom knigi, 1939), and its English language version: Serge Lifar. Serge Diaghilev: His Life, His Work, His Legend. An Intimate Biography (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1940). 14 “Meanwhile, with jealousy and dismay, I observed this passion gradually dominating all else in Diaghilev’s mind and soul, and gnawing at the very heart of the Russian Ballets” Lifar, Serge Diaghilev, 324. 15 Eugene Field, Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), chapter 4.

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 05:14:06AM via free access “a beautiful, tremendous russian book, and other things too” 383 passion, and in Lifar’s memoirs, whether intentionally or not, it is very much presented as an expensive whim of an amateur who was consistently lucky to come across rare and unique material. The reasons for putting such a collection together in a short space of time in the second half of the 1920s, as well as the unique inner logic of the assembling of this collection, reveal and reflect both personal interests of its owner and the broader cultural discourse of the time when it was acquired. Therefore, the features of Diaghilev’s collections and the rationale behind it deserve further examination. It is likely that books always attracted Diaghilev as a vehicle for the pro- motion of fine arts and book design. Diaghilev’s evolution as an art critic was happening at a time when the book was going through a historical transfor- mation that resulted in “an entirely new creative medium in which books are produced as original works of art.”16 Book production became an integral part of the art scene at the turn of the century. Alexander Benois’s illustrations for a new edition of Pushkin’s Bronze Horseman is a good example of it. Illustra- tions for the book were commissioned by the Circle of Russian Fine Art Lovers (Kruzhok liubitelei russkikh iziashchnykh iskusstv), but members of this society failed to appreciate the artist’s innovative work. The illustrations were called too “decadent.” The almost cinematographic dynamics of the scenes made them uncomfortably disturbing for the viewer. For his part, Benois refused to reach a compromise by making changes to please the tastes of the society members. Diaghilev then immediately seized the opportunity and published Pushkin’s poem with Benois’s 33 illustrations in his magazine World of Art (Mir iskusstva) in 1904,17 showing his appreciation of Benois’s revolution- ary creation that formed a unique bond between visual images and Pushkin’s text. Diaghilev also recognised the value of what we would now call “record management.” One of his projects – an ambitious exhibition of Historic Rus- sian Portraits in 190518 – was accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue.19

16 Ellen Firsching Brown, “Beyond Words. Artists’ Books,” Modernism Magazine 11, no. 3 (Fall 2008): 52 (available online at http://publishing.yudu.com/Apt5o/MV11N3/resources/ 56.htm). 17 G.D. Zlochevskii, Minuvshee prokhodit predo mnoiu: liudi, knigi, sud’by (Moscow: Inskript, 2012), 692–693. 18 John E. Bowlt, “Sergei Diaghilev’s Exhibition of Historic Russian Portraits,” in Garafola and Bowlt, Proceedings, 76–93. 19 Katalog sostoiashchei pod Vysochaishim Ego Imperatorskago Velichestva Gosudaria Imper- atora pokrovitel’stvom istoriko-khudozhestvennoi vystavki russkikh portretov, ustraivaemoi v Tavricheskom dvortse, v pol’zu vdov i sirot pavshikh v boiu voinov, with preface by S. Diagilev (St. Petersburg: Ekspeditsiia zagotovleniia gosudarstvennykh bumag, 1905).

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Later, Diaghilev the bibliophile would pay a special attention to the reference section of his book collection. Although by the very nature of his work as an impresario Diaghilev had a great number of contemporary fine art and design objects in his possession, he did not treat this collection in the same way as he later treated his book collection. He probably treated set, costume and advertising designs and other art works as a natural by-product of his Ballets Russes project. More- over, “Diaghilev had always busied himself collecting, but for the benefit of others.”20 By contrast, his books and manuscript collection turned into a new project in its own right. Although I would not entirely agree with the view that book collecting emerges and develops “within national boundaries,” the view that the main interests of bibliophiles often lie in the sphere of their national heritage21 seems to be well grounded. Indeed, Diaghilev’s library was primarily a library of Russian material from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. A notable exception would be a fairly large music section that contained scores, manuscript sheets and libretti, and was not limited to Russian composers or related to Russian theatre productions. The time when Diaghilev turned into a collector in the mid-1920s was also significant. Diaghilev did not feel himself an émigré in the same way as those Russians who had to flee the Bolsheviks. Only by the mid-1920s, when his plans to visit Soviet Russia failed to materi- alise, did he fully realise that there was no return.22 It might be interesting to note that the first issues of a periodical publication (Vremennik Obshchestva druzei russkoi knigi), initiated by the Paris-based émigré organisation Society of Friends of the Russian Book, also came out in 1925. The Society aimed to facilitate work on Russian bibliography, librarianship and book collecting.23 Pushkin’s materials and early printed Cyrillic books frequently featured in the journal articles and papers discussed at their meetings.24 The support for, and the development of, Russian national book culture abroad was thus recognised

20 Lifar, Serge Diaghilev, 324. 21 V.A. Petritskii, “Bibliofil’stvo v dialoge kul’tur,” in Aktual’nye problemy teorii i istorii bibliofil’stva: Tezisy soobshchenii 5-i Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (St. Petersburg: Rossiiskaia Natsional’naia biblioteka, 1995), 6–8. 22 Scheijen, Diaghilev, 395–417. 23 Vremennik Obshchestva druzei russkoi knigi, reprint of the four issues with new introduc- tion by A.P. Tolstiakov (Moscow: Sobranie, 2007), 7. 24 In the same issue as Lifar’s article on Diaghilev, Pavel Miliukov, a Russian historian, politician, and in the period 1921–1940 a chief editor of the most popular and influential Russian Paris-based émigré daily Poslednie novosti (The Latest News), published his piece “Pervopechatnik Ivan Fedorov.”

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 05:14:06AM via free access “a beautiful, tremendous russian book, and other things too” 385 a historical mission of the Russian émigré community, with which Diaghilev probably started to identify himself around the same time. The situation on the Russian second-hand book market must have been another stimulus for Diaghilev to turn to collecting. By the early 1920s, “a significant number of Russian books became available in the Soviet Union, Baltic countries, and in the West,” as “the Soviet Union exported books for hard currency through licensed book dealers in Berlin, New York, and elsewhere”; “moreover, private collections were offered for sale by Russian émigrés.”25 A sudden influx of Russian books into Western second-hand and antiquarian book markets together with very little demand or interest in them meant low prices and high chances of finding valuable curiosities. As always, Diaghilev was at the forefront of innovative cultural projects, creating not only a library, but also bringing Russian books, as he had previously done with Russian ballet, into fashion. During his short career as a book collector Diaghilev managed to make at least one important scholarly discovery: he found a copy of Ivan Fedorov’s Primer, which would become the seventh known work to come out from Ivan Fedorov’s press. In Lifar’s words, “this book alone was a complete and final vin- dication of Diaghilev’s hobby.”26 This copy “found its way to Italy in the seventeenth century, where it may have been acquired many years later by the great collector of art, manuscripts, and books, Count Grigory Sergeevich Stroganov (1829–1910)”27 and was rediscovered by Diaghilev in a bookshop in Rome. Reporting this fact in 1938, Lifar referred Diaghilev’s enthusiastic description of a “beautiful, tremendous Russian book” to Ivan Fedorov’s Apostol. He cor- rected this mistake in his memoirs published the following year, but “Lifar’s statements, which appeared on the eve of the Second World War, and in a vol- ume quite remote from the reading scope of Slavic philologists, remained the only explicit reference to Ivan Fedorov’s Primer until the announcement in 1953 of its accession to the Harvard College Library though the gift of Bayard L. Kil- gour Jr, ’27 (i.e. an alumnus of Harvard University, class of 1927), who acquired the work from the collection of Boris Kochno, to whom it was bequeathed by Diaghilev.”28 According to L.A. Glezer, in his search for a buyer Kochno showed the Primer to Mikhail Kaplan (1894–1979), the owner of the publishing house

25 Wojciech Zalewski, “Reference Materials in Russian-Soviet Area Studies 1982/1983,” The Russian Review 43, no. 2 (1984): 167. 26 Lifar, Serge Diaghilev, 326. 27 Christine Thomas, “The East Slavonic Primers: Lvov, 1574, and Moscow, 1637,” The British Library Journal 10, no. 1 (1984): 34. 28 Roman Jakobson, “Ivan Ferodov’s Primer,” 5–6.

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 05:14:06AM via free access 386 rogatchevskaia and bookshop Dom knigi (The House of the Book). After the Second World War Kaplan established business relations with the Soviet expert agency Mezhkniga (The International Book) and started supplying Slavonic libraries and universi- ties in the West with Soviet and Russian books. For reasons that Kaplan was pretty vague about, he did not acquire this rarity himself, but reported this to the Soviet embassy in Paris. Glezer laments that the Soviet diplomats did not understand the importance of this book and the negotiations between Kochno and the Soviet cultural attaché took so long that in the meantime an American dealer offered Kochno $2,000 and got the Primer.29 In due course, an alumnus of Harvard University, Kilgour, donated his collection of Russian publications and related materials, Primer included, to the Harvard College Library.30 Thus, for nearly thirty years Ivan Fedorov’s Primer was known in one copy until in 1982 the second copy was acquired by the British Library31 from Marl- borough Rare Books for £11,000 (figs. 3, 4).32 The bookseller brought the book for identification, as it “was found in some English stately home where it had probably been lying since the nineteenth-eighteenth century, because it had an eighteenth-century English binding,” and he did know how rare it was. Although the bookseller had been told that there was a copy at Harvard and they then looked it up, the real value of the book was still difficult to imagine: “the price was going to be so vast,” they imagined, that the Library “wouldn’t be able to afford it.”33 In his letter of 28 September 1982 to Patrick Fairs (1923–2016), the Head of the Slavonic Branch, John Simmons (1915–2005), an Oxford librarian and prominent Slavonic scholar, warmly congratulated the British Library on this occasion and wrote that he felt sympathy for the Russians, trying to imagine what he would have felt if Caxton had only produced half-a-dozen books and there was no copy of the most interesting of them in the uk.34 In the same letter Simmons also asked to bring the book to Oxford, so that he could have a look at it, but, of course, this permission was not granted.

29 L.A. Glezer, Zapiski bukinista (Moscow: Kniga, 1989), 119–121. 30 Bradley L. Schaffner, “The Kilgour Collection of Russian Literature at Harvard College Library,” Slavic & East European Information Resources 12, nos. 2–3 (2011): 113–119. 31 Thomas, “The East Slavonic Primers,” 32–47. 32 “Given the excellent condition of the copy offered, its historical importance, the fine quality of printing and the extreme rarity of the work, we consider the asking price to be fair” (Bid application form, The British Library corporate archives, not catalogued). 33 Christine Thomas, e-mail message to the author, 10 December 2013. 34 The British Library corporate archives, not catalogued.

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figure 3 Ivan Fedorov’s Primer of 1574, fol. 1 british library, c.104.dd.11 (1)

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figure 4 Ivan Fedorov’s Primer of 1574, fol. 1v british library, c.104.dd.11 (1)

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The British Library copy was bound together with another primer printed by Vasilii Burtsov in Moscow in 1637. This book was once owned by one George Hooke, who had received it from Sir John Hebdon, an agent and later a diplomat for Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich.35 From Lifar’s memoirs we know that Diaghilev also had a copy of Burtsov’s 1637 Primer in his possession,36 but Lifar did not mention it among the most valuable books he had inherited, and the present location of this book remains unknown. The Harvard copy of Burtsov’s Primer might have come from the Kochno part of the Diaghilev collection, but this is not recorded in the catalogue. Apart from the apparently 135 items that were bequeathed to Boris Kochno,37 the rest of the collection and the archive ended up in Lifar’s possession. According to the Harvard University Library catalogue, several other items from Kochno’s part of Diaghilev’s library were also acquired by Harvard from Kilgour, together with the famous Primer.38 Among them was another legendary book – one of the very few surviving copies of the 1790 edition of Alexander Radishchev’s Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu ( Journey from Petersburg to Moscow).39 Lifar’s part of the Diaghilev collection was presented to the world in the form of a lavishly decorated sales catalogue, prepared by Sotheby’s for the four-day auction that took place on 28 November to 1 Decem- ber 1975 (fig. 5).40 It was clear to Lifar that he would not be able to find a single buyer who could keep the collection as a single entity. He knew that it would eventually be dispersed, but the sales catalogue with a special fern-coloured cover decorated with a golden leaf of angelica fern (called diagil’ in Russian) was probably intended to remain a research tool and a sign of commemora- tion. The sale included 826 lots that amounted to nearly 2,000 individual items. According to Il’ia Zil’bershtein, a Russian art and literary critic and the founder of the Museum of Private Collections (Muzei lichnykh kolletskii) in Moscow, the Ministry of Culture of the ussr was interested in the sale and planned to

35 Thomas, “The East Slavonic Primers,” 40–45. 36 Lifar, Serge Diaghilev, 325. 37 Lifar, “Diagilev – bibliofil,” 194. 38 Harvard College Library, The Kilgour Collection of Russian literature, 1750–1920: with notes on early books and manuscripts of the 16th and 17th centuries (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Library: Distributed by the Harvard University Press, 1959). 39 See the Harvard University Library online catalogue, permalink, http://id.lib.harvard.edu/ aleph/003725826/catalog. 40 Sotheby Parke Bernet Monaco s.a., The Diaghilev-Lifar Library (Monte Carlo: Sotheby Parke Bernet Monaco s.a., 1975).

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figure 5 Sotheby’s catalogue of the Diaghilev-Lifar collection british library, s.c. sotheby (2)

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 05:14:06AM via free access “a beautiful, tremendous russian book, and other things too” 391 acquire some items for Soviet libraries.41 Zil’betshtein had a list of 16 printed books that were lacking in the State Library of the ussr (the Lenin Library, now the Russian State Library) and planned to find ways to obtain them. How- ever, for some reason he arrived late and missed the first day of the auction. His emotional account of the auction contains a vivid picture of bidding for lot 587, the first edition of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov (1831) (fig. 6). It is worth noting that the highest bidder was the London bookseller Quaritch that acted at this auction as the British Library’s agent. Thus the Diaghilev copy was acquired by the British Library for 12,000 francs (= £1,333.19).42 The sales list that contains short forms of names of buyers and the final selling prices for items43 helps to some extent to track the fate of the books and manuscripts sold at the auction. Although some institutions, such as “The Russian Church in London” (most likely, the London Russian Orthodox Church Abroad),44 Bibliotheque Genève, Victoria and Albert Museum, Huntington Library, The Helsinki (University?) Library, or one “University Library” (?) represented themselves, most of the institutional bidders, according to common practice, acted through agents. For example, Harvard University Library was acting via the bookseller George Heil- brun,45 and the items sold to him can now be found in the Harvard Library online catalogue. Having compared the titles that were bought by the Ministry of Culture of the ussr, as cited by Zil’bertshtein, with the sales list, it becomes apparent that their agent was Lev Adol’fovich Grinberg (1900–1981), an émigré Paris-based antiquarian bookseller and – for some time – treasurer of the Soci- ety of Friends of the Russian Book. According to Zil’bershtein, Lifar excluded some lots from the sale and presented them to Zil’bershtein as a gift to Russia. Kurganov’s Nauka morskaia (1774) (lot 340) was apparently acquired for Soviet

41 N. Mar, “Knizhnyi auktsion v Monte Karlo: rasskazyvaet doktor iskusstvovedeniia I.S. Zil’bershtein,”Literaturnaia gazeta, February 11, 1976. 42 See the historical exchange rates at “Historical rates,” http://fxtop.com/en/historical -exchange-rates.php. 43 This list is missing from the British Library copy of the sales catalogue and I would like to thank Simon Beattie for kindly sending me a copy of it. 44 As Christopher Birchall suggests, although the church library was not in the best shape, from 1960 it became one of the factors that helped to unite the community and maybe some efforts were put into acquiring more valuable books. See Christopher Birchall, Embassy, Emigrants, and Englishmen: The Three-Hundred-Year History of a Russian Ortho- dox Church in London (Jordanville, ny: Holy Trinity Publications, The Printshop of St. Job of Pochaev, Holy Trinity Monastery, 2014), 451–452. 45 Roger E. Stoddard, “‘More Valuable to Us Than All the Books in the World:’ George Heilbrun and His Harvard Library Friends,” Gazette of the Grolier Club 47 (1995/96): 5–31.

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figure 6 Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, first edition (1831), title-page verso with Vladimir Nikitich Vitov’s book-plate designed by Vladimir Alekseevich Belkin (1895–1966) and Serge Lifar’s ownership stamp british library, c.114.n.8

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 05:14:06AM via free access “a beautiful, tremendous russian book, and other things too” 393 libraries by the Russia-born businessman, journalist, public figure and sports- man from Liechtenstein Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein (born 1912), although, according to the list of sales, the book was purchased by Grinberg. Another Russian émigré Iosif Mironovich Lempert (1919–2009) also took part in the bidding. He left the Soviet Union in 1957 and in 1975 was just about to establish his own bookshop in Paris. Lempert called his enterprise “Sankt-Petersburg.” The buyer of Skaryna’s Bible of 1518, whom Zil’bershtein called a “gentleman from London,” turned out to be Farther Alexander Nadson (1926–2015), a well- known Belarusian émigré, social and religious leader, and, since 1971, director of the Francis Skaryna Belarusian Library and Museum in London, the largest Belarusian book and archive collection abroad. Apart from Fedorov’s Apostol and Skaryna’s Bible, the Diaghilev collection on sale in Monaco contained two other Cyrillic books printed in the sixteenth century: a Triodion printed by Víncenco Vuković in Venice in 1561 (bought by Grinberg for 2,400 francs for the Soviet Union) and Kniga o postnichestve by St Basil of Caesarea printed in Ostroh, possibly by Petr Mstislavets in 1594 (bought by Heilbrun for Harvard for 12,000 francs). Out of the other 20 Cyrillic books printed in the seventeenth century, the British Library acquired Posle- dovanie postrigu (Supraśl, 1697) for 6,500 francs (figs. 7, 8). The book belonged to the Derman Monastery (Dubens’kyi district in Volyn’), and subsequently was held in the library of Vitalii Grechulevych (1822–1885), Bishop of Mahil- iou (Mogilev) and Mstsislau (Mstislavl’). Afterwards it was acquired by State Councillor Evgenii Stepanovich Shtakovskii and later passed to Albert Ludowik Zasztowt of Vilnius (Vilna) (ca. 1840–1918).46 Berynda’s Lexicon (Kutein, 1653), Synopsis (Kyiv: Lavra, 1674), Apostol (Moscow, 1648), Smotritskii’s Grammar (Moscow, 1648), and the Sviattsy (Book of Saints) (Moscow, 1646) were acquired by Heilbrun for Harvard University Library. Four more books were bought by Father Nadson for the Belarusian Library; two books by the Russian Church; another four books by Falz-Fein (some of them might have been given to Zil’bershtein for Soviet libraries); and two were not sold (including Ludolf’s Grammar published in Oxford in 1696). This might be an indication that the unsold books were among those items that Lifar, according to Zil’bershtein, presented to him. Karion Istomin’s Primer (Moscow, 1694) was acquired by Justin G. Schiller, Ltd., an American antiquarian book dealer, who specialised in children’s literature. A copy of the Moscow 1660 Mineon was sold to one Gaskin, whom I have not managed to identify. Twenty four Cyrillic titles (some

46 Hanna Świderska, “Department of Printed Books, Acquisitions, Slavonic Division,”British Library Journal 7, no. 1 (Spring 1981): 105–107.

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figure 7 Posledovanie postrigu (Supraśl, 1697), title page british library, c.133.g.11

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figure 8 Posledovanie postrigu (Supraśl, 1697), back cover with the inscription in Serge Lifar’s hand: From Sergei Lifar’s collection british library, c.133.g.11

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 05:14:06AM via free access 396 rogatchevskaia multi-volumes) of the eighteenth century (including one book printed in 1800) were also distributed between Heilbrun (3), Gaskin (2), Grinberg (12, two or maybe more of them for Soviet libraries), Falz-Fein (3), the Russian Church in London (1), Sanine (2) and a certain “Miss Matthews” (1). I have failed to identify Miss Matthews. The buyer named on the list as Sanine could be Kira Aleksandrovna Sanina (1919–?), a French Slavist, translator and librarian in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. If this suggestion is correct, the books acquired by Sanine might now be held at the National Library in Paris. This quick analysis shows that quite a large number of early printed Cyrillic books were bought at this sale for institutions and libraries. Quaritch bid for 85 lots, some of which contained more than one book. Most of the books listed in these bids can now be identified among the British Library holdings, which shows that the Library spent over 140,000 francs (c. £15,500 in 1975,47 which is worth c. £108,000–118,000 today48). The most noteworthy and consequently expensive item that was secured for the British Library as a result of this auction was a copy of Ivan Fedorov’s Apostol (1564). It was sold for 62,000 francs (£6,888 in 1975 = around £50,000 today). The Apostol was the second most expensive lot sold at this auction, second only to Stravinsky’s twelve- sheet manuscript score of The Fire-Bird suite49 (lot 459, sold for 97,000 francs). Compared with the price paid by the Research Library of the Leningrad State University only six years earlier (250 roubles50), the bill for Diaghilev’s copy of the Apostol shows that the provenance added quite a lot of monetary value to the item. Since this sale, no other copy of the first edition of the Apostol had emerged, until, that is, 2014, the year of its 450th anniversary, when a previously unknown copy sold at Christie’s for £122,500.51 Diaghilev’s books that are now held at the British Library do not bear his bookplates, these “certificates” of their “master’s love.”52This is a fact that might be noteworthy and may support Lifar’s suggestion that Diaghilev was not collecting for the sake of making a personal statement. He did not think of assembling an exclusive collection that reflected his taste, but rather assembled his

47 “Historical rates,” http://fxtop.com/en/historical-exchange-rates.php. 48 See “Measuring Worth,” at https://www.measuringworth.com/. 49 The British Library manuscript of Stravinsky’s The Fire-Bird came to the Library at part of the Stephen Zweig collection. 50 Nemirovskii, Ivan Fedorov i ego epokha, 104. 51 See “Christies: Art of the People,” at http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/books -manuscripts/apostol-acts-and-epistles-moscow-ivan-fedorov-5791613-details.aspx. 52 Field, Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac, chapter 12.

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 376–397 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 05:14:06AM via free access “a beautiful, tremendous russian book, and other things too” 397 collection with a view to putting together a corpus of material that would give a comprehensive idea of Russian literature and culture from a historical perspec- tive. Moreover, this corpus of texts and artefacts was meant to be accessible and used by the wider public. Thus, one can argue that the absence of bookplates can also be a statement in its own right. However, bookplates left by the own- ers prior to Diaghilev can tell other stories and help trace the movements of books. Some of Diaghilev’s books were bought in a Russian bookshop in rue Longchamp in Nice run by I. Rozanov (Librairie Rosanoff) between 1920 and 1927. Quite a few books bear plates of well-known Russian nineteenth-century booksellers: Aleksandr Filippovich Smirdin (1795–1857), his successor in the trade Pavel Ivanovich Krasheninnikov (d. 1864), and Vasilii Ivanovich Klochkov (1861–1915), as well as Russian antiquarian dealers in Germany and the Libreria Johannowskj in Napoli, and so on.53 Some books from Diaghilev’s collection have been already digitised as part of the British Library and Google project – a partnership aimed at digitizing 250,000 out-of-copyright books from the Library’s collections.54 Digitisation makes it possible to set up a task of virtually re-joining previously dispersed private libraries.55 In 2014, for the 440th anniversary of Ivan Fedorov’s Primer, the British Library digitised its copy, which is now available via the Library’s public online catalogue.56 In 1982, descriptions and facsimile editions helped one of the British Library curators to identify yet another copy of this “beautiful, tremendous Russian book” and acquire it for the Library’s collection. Nowa- days, digitisation might help to reunite the unique collection virtually and shed light on Diaghilev’s personality, book trade in Russia and Europe, and the history of big library collections and various institutional practices.

53 Biblioteca Statale di Montevergine, http://bibliotecastataledimontevergine.beniculturali .it/index.php?it/190/libreria-johannowskj-1968. 54 Press Release, “The British Library and Google to make 250,000 books available to all,” 20 June 2011, https://www.bl.uk/press-releases/2011/june/the-british-library-and-google -to-make-250000-books-available-to-all#sthash.OFgeRnxe.dpuf. 55 For a case study and analysis of practical issues see, e.g., Elizabeth Eide, “Dispersed collections virtually rejoined? Why, how and possible wherewithal,” World Library and Infor- mation Congress: 76th General Conference and Assembly, 10–15 August 2010, Gothenburg, Sweden, http://conference.ifla.org/past-wlic/2010/99-eide-en.pdf. 56 See http://explore.bl.uk, search for Primer 1574, choose “I want this” and “Digital item.”

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