When the inspiration was upon him, he could apply himself with superhuman intensity, as he did when composing the initial version of Boris Godunov. Sadly, Musorgsky deteriorated in his final years, suffering periods of inner turmoil, when his alcoholism would be out of control. Finally, unemployed and all but destitute, he died at age forty-two. His failure to complete his two remaining operas, Khovanshchina and Sorochintsy Fair, Brown concludes, is one of music's greatest tragedies."--BOOK JACKET.

The traditional textiles of Central Asia are unknown treasures. Straddling the legendary Silk Road, this vast region stretches from Russia in the west to China in the east. Whether nomadic or sedentary, its peoples created textiles for every aspect of their way of life, from ceremonial objects marking rites of passage, to everyday garments, to practical items for the home. There were suzanis for the marriage bed; prayer mats; patchwork quilts; bridal ensembles; bags for tea, scissors, and mirrors; lovingly embroidered hats and bibs; and robes of every color and pattern. Author Susan Meller has spent years assembling the 590 textiles illustrated in this book. She documents their history, use, and meaning through archival photographs and fascinating travelers’ narratives spanning many centuries. Her book will be a revelation to designers, collectors, students of Central Asia, and travelers to the region. Silk and Cotton is destined to become a classic.

The central argument of this book is that the half-century of Russian rule in Central Asia was shaped by traditions of authoritarian rule, by Russian national interests, and by a civic reform agenda that brought to Turkestan the principles that informed Alexander II's reform policies. This civilizing mission sought to lay the foundations for a rejuvenated, 'modern' empire, unified by imperial citizenship, patriotism, and a shared secular culture. Evidence for Brower's thesis is drawn from major archives in Uzbekistan and Russia. Use of these records permitted him to develop the first interpretation, either in Russian or Western literature, of Russian colonialism in Turkestan that draws on the extensive archival evidence of policy-making, imperial objectives, and relations with subject peoples.

Tchaikovskyʼs Sixth Symphony (1893), widely recognized as one of the worldʼs most deeply tragic compositions, is also known for the mystery surrounding its hidden programme and for Tchaikovskyʼs unexpected death nine days after its premiere. While the sensational speculations about the composerʼs possible planned suicide and the suggestion that the symphony was intended as his own requiem have long been discarded, the question of its programme remains.

Studies the influence of the plastic arts on the major writers of Latin American modernism. Painting Modernism demonstrates the influence of painting and sculpture on the work of the major writers of Latin American modernism. Through his analysis, Ivan A. Schulman, a foundational figure in the field, offers a concise and new interpretation of works by José Asunción Silva, Julián del Casal, Rubén Darío, José Juan Tablada, and José Martí. Traditional critical discourse on modernism has emphasized the nature of this movement in terms of its self-referentiality, fragmentation, elitist/escapist concepts, and subjective notions of cultural and aesthetic authenticity. Schulman breaks from this approach and examines these works as products of subjectively generated social/artistic practices that are inseparable from socioeconomic transformations and the chaotic cultural crises of the modern world.

The following pages are not offered to the reader as a history of the invasion of Russia by Napoleon. They are but the statement of the basis of observation on which M. Verestchagin has founded his great series of pictures illustrative of the campaign. These pictures are now to be exhibited in this country, and the painter has naturally desired to show us from what point of view he has approached the study of his subject—one of the greatest subjects in the whole range of history—especially for a Russian artist. The point of view is—inevitably in his case—that of the Realist; and this consideration gives unity to the conception of his whole career and endeavour. He has ever painted war as it is, and therefore in its horrors, as one of its effects, though not necessarily as an effect sought in and for itself. He has tried to be “true” in all his representations of the battle-field. His work may thus be said to constitute a powerful plea in support of the Tsar’s Rescript to the Nations in favour of peace. My meaning will be best illustrated by a short sketch of M. Verestchagin and his work, as painter, as soldier, and as traveller. He was born in the province of Novgorod, in 1842, of a well-to-do family of landowners. The son wished to be an artist; the father wished to make him an officer of marines. As the shortest way out of the difficulty, he became both. He passed his work-hours at the naval school, and his play-hours at a school of design, working at each so well that he left the naval school as first scholar, and eventually won a silver medal at the Academy of Fine Arts. He entered the service, but only for a short time, and he was still three years under twenty when he quitted it to devote himself wholly to art. He was a hard-working student, though he always showed a strong disposition to insist on working in his own way. WhenGérôme sent him to the antique, he was half the time slipping away to nature. He played truant from the Athenian marbles to flesh and blood. In the meantime he was true to the instinct—as yet you could hardly call it a principle—of wandering from the beaten track in search of subjects. Every vacation was passed, not at Asnières or Barbizon, but in the far east of Europe, or even in Persia, among those ragged races not yet set down in artistic black and white. He had been on the borders of a quite fresh field of observation in these journeys; and he was soon to enter it for a full harvest of new impressions. It was in 1867; Russia was sending an army into Central Asia, to punish the marauding Turkomans for the fiftieth time, and General Kauffman, who commanded it, invited the painter to accompany him as an art volunteer. He was not to fight, but simply to look on. It was the very thing; Verestchagin at once took service on these terms with the expedition, and in faithfully following its fortunes, with many an artistic reconnaissance on his own account, he saw Asia to its core. He returned from a second Asiatic journey to settle at Munich for three years; and here he built his first “open-air studio.” “If you are to paint out-door scenes,” he says, “your models must sit in the open;” and so he fashioned a movable room on wheels, running on a circular tramway, and open to sun and air on the side nearest the centre of the circle, where the model stood. The artist, in fact, worked in a huge box with one side out, while the thing he saw was in the full glare of day; and by means of a simple mechanical contrivance he made his room follow the shifting light.

This book illuminates the crucial role photography played from the very beginning of the Russian colonial presence in Central Asia and its entanglement with the orientalist legacy that followed. Inessa Kouteinikova examines these under-studied materials while also addressing the photographic market and reception of photography in the Russian Empire, the position of the popular press, the place of public exhibitions and emergence of the first ethnographic museums that took pace from Moscow to Tashkent during the time of the Russian conquest. This book embraces the dominant mode for representing the new colonial territories in the mid-late-19th-century Russia, by outlining the technical, commercial and artistic milieus during the Golden Age of Russian orientalism. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, history of photography and Russian studies.