Salon Album of Vera Sudeikin-Stravinsky

Before meeting Igor Stravinsky in 1921 in Paris, Vera Arturovna Sudeikin-Stravinsky (1888-1982) was already known as the "Muse of the Muses" in what had been the bohemian, intellectual life of St. Petersburg-Petrograd. Hers was the "Silver Age" of Russian culture, when symbolism reigned in the cabarets and the artistic process itself was a form of celebration. As the habitues of this world fled the Bolsheviks, Vera, an artist and writer in her own right, managed to preserve their heritage in an extraordinary literary production: an album containing poems, sketches, fragments of music, and other dedications by some of the most influential Russian cultural figures of the day. The "Album, reproduced here for the first time, is both a record of a cultural diaspora and a monument to the Russian "fin de siecle.In 1917 Vera fled to the south of Russia with her then-husband Sergei Sudeikin, a renowned painter and stage designer for the Ballets Russes. They traveled three years throughout the Crimea, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, organizing artistic gatherings at many of their stops. Vera recorded her impressions of the journey and along the wayBowlt, John E. is the author of 'Salon Album of Vera Sudeikin-Stravinsky' with ISBN 9780691044248 and ISBN 0691044244.