Saturday, November 20 at 2:15 PM at the Theatre of Photography and Images
From Gogol and Chekhov to Herzen, passing through Fricero, Marie Bashkirtseff, and Aivazovsky.
By Alex Benvenuto, author of “The French Riviera of the Russians,” Ed SERRE, in the presence of Marie Iellatchitch, great-granddaughter of composer Igor Stravinsky, with a presentation by Guillaume Aral on the Niçoise work of painter Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900) and an exhibition of the painting “Moonlight over Nice” dated 1846.
The interest that Russians have shown in the French Riviera dates back quite some time. When, in 1749, a Niçois, Jean-Michel Auda, became a trade advisor in Russia, a Russian consulate already existed in Nice.
With the arrival and continuous presence of the Imperial family from 1856 to 1917, the influx of wealthy Russian winter tourists accelerated. They attracted in their wake a whole Russian nobility and numerous artists.
After the end of the First World War and the raging Bolshevik Revolution, Nice saw the arrival of a ruined aristocracy and 2000 Russians were recorded as early as 1918. Some decided to settle there and rebuild their lives, while others awaited the day when old Russia would call them back to its soil.
A painting by Marie Bashkirtseff, the life of the Niçois painter Fricero who married a daughter of Nicholas I, the story of Gogol and Aivazovsky, the hotel where Romain Gary lived as a teenager, Stravinsky’s works, the Russian cemetery and the grave of Katia, Empress Alexandra mourning her son who died in Nice, the great warships in the bay of Villefranche, are all images that bring forth from the past the places and people.
These are the few moments stolen from the past that this conference offers you so that you can wander through a French Riviera that has experienced a love story of more than two centuries with the Slavic people, and to better understand the artists who have brushed with it.
The Charles Nègre Theatre of Photography and Image
27, boulevard Dubouchage 06000 NICE
