The great-niece of Matilda Kshesinskaya Eleonora Sevenard, who is called the great-great-granddaughter of the famous ballerina, is rapidly conquering the hearts of theater fans. The night before, the girl made her debut on the stage of the Bolshoi in the production of Don Quixote. In Eleanor's microblog, photos taken on a memorable day appeared.
Sevenard's subscribers congratulate her on the premiere and wish not to stop there. According to many, Eleanor is a very talented and capable artist. “With the first role in the Bolshoi!”, “Very good debut”, “Beauty”, “Let everything go well”, “Happy for you”, “Well done”, “Wonderful production, I liked everything. Keep up the good work,” commented the followers of the ballerina.
The fact that a graduate of the Vaganova Academy joined the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater became known last week, when one of the country's main cultural institutions opened its 242nd season. This year, his ballet troupe has replenished with 22 people - that is how many recent students of specialized educational institutions received the coveted invitations. Among them were not only Eleonora Sevenard, but also Yegor Gerashchenko, a graduate of the class of Nikolai Tsiskaridze, as well as Arsenty Lazarev from Novosibirsk and winner of many competitions Mark Chino.
“Here they are, handsome and beauties. We wish your life to be interesting and creative. We hope you will make us happy. If not, we’ll talk separately,” the head of the ballet troupe Mahar Vaziyev addressed the young artists.
Eleanor Sevenard, the daughter of an entrepreneur and historian, started ballet at the age of four. Thanks to daily training and perseverance, she managed to enter the Vaganova Academy. After graduating from an educational institution, the girl was invited to two theaters - the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi. Eleanor decided not to stay in the cultural capital and went to Moscow. Sevenard admitted that she was looking forward to starting work.
According to Eleanor, she admires Matilda Kshesinskaya. The girl believes that she has adopted diligence and perseverance from her. In one of the interviews, the artist commented on the yet unreleased new film by Alexei Uchitel "Matilda", dedicated to the relationship between the famous ballerina and Nicholas II.
“She was a great artist, a great ballerina, and such youthful love - everyone could have it in life. It just happened to her. I hope that everything will not be shown from a bad side, ”Sevenard noted in an interview with the St. Petersburg TV channel.
The girl's immediate plans include participation in the Tatler Magazine Debutante Ball, which will be held on October 23 in the capital's Column Hall of the House of Unions. Twelve representatives of well-known families will take to the floor along with artists from the Bolshoi Theatre. In addition to Eleonora Sevenard, the main characters of the gossip column will be Alexander Zhulina, Sofia Evstigneeva, Sonya Tarkhanova, Yvetta Nevinnaya, Ustinya Malinina, as well as the granddaughter of Joseph Brodsky Pelageya Basmanov, the daughter of Andrei Makarevich Anna Rozhdestvenskaya and many others.
The New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater hosted the All-Russian Competition for Young Performers "Russian Ballet" for the third time. Conceived and conducted for the first time by the wife of the current prime minister of the Russian government, Svetlana Medvedeva in 2013, it still represents the best students of Russian ballet schools and is supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Foundation for Social and Cultural Initiatives.
Out of 44 applications, the jury held the first round in absentia in a closed mode according to the records and selected 29 schoolchildren from 13 schools for participation. In addition to the Moscow and St. Petersburg academies, they included students from schools in Perm, Novosibirsk, Voronezh, Kazan, Krasnodar, as well as students from Krasnoyarsk, Buryat, Bashkir, Yakut colleges. Pupils of two Moscow schools also took part in the competition. In addition to the Leonid Lavrovsky School, the Moscow Choreographic School at the Gzhel Academic Dance Theater was also represented here, which, among other things, can boast of such a graduate as Denis Rodkin, who became the Bolshoi Theater Premier (together with the Bolshoi's prima ballerina Anna Nikulina) and host of the second ceremony of the competition.
The problems for the participants of the competition appear to be the same that haunt the contestants at this kind of competition from year to year: "schoolboy" performance, a chronic lack of a sense of style, and difficulties with technique often made themselves felt: who fell, who could not stably twist fouette ... And all this almost through one performer ...
Special claims must be made to the form of many participants. The jury didn't seem to pay enough attention to this circumstance. Otherwise, I would never have received the “gold” “knocked down” (even last year the girl did not have these problems) with an uncultivated foot, but a well-rotating and generally very technical undergraduate student of the Vaganova Academy Eleonora Sevenard (on the website of the Bolshoi Theater for some reason - then named as Sevenardze). The girl, who, as they say, is the great-great-granddaughter of the ballerina, besides, there are some problems with natural softness, she also lacks such “elongated lines” that are in demand today in ballet (which apparently was passed down “by inheritance”, since there were none and great-great-grandmother). So at the moment, “silver” is her limit.
With a little more reason, the silver winner of the contest, Italian Camilla Mazzi, who represented the Moscow Academy, could claim the “gold”, since she is in much better shape than her competitor who received the gold. But this participant can be reproached for excessive mannerism. But the bronze of the representative of the Perm school Anna Grigorieva is generally questionable. There are problems not only with the form, but also with the purity of execution. The long-legged and long-armed, and also expressive from the acting point of view, second-year student of the Gzhel school, Irina Zakharova, looked much more advantageous against her background, who nevertheless did not get into the number of nominees (just as another representative of this school, Anastasia Shelomentseva, who performed qualitatively, did not get there) Medora's variation from the ballet Le Corsaire).
To be honest, the members of the jury this year are not particularly enviable, because they had to make a truly “Solomon” decision for the boys: it was really difficult to choose the owner of the Grand Prix at this competition, absolutely all the young men who became laureates deserved it.
I am especially sorry for the graduate of the Moscow Academy (and now an artist of the Bolshoi Theater) Russian-Japanese dancer Marco (or Maruka, as indicated in the program, the guy recently received Japanese citizenship) Chino, who was awarded only third place by the jury. A multiple winner of many competitions, although he danced at the competition with a sore leg (which, of course, affected the quality of his performance), he nevertheless “hit the top ten” at the Russian Ballet, having perfectly performed the pas de deux from Tchaikovsky’s ballet Sleeping with Camilla Mazzi gorgeous". The dancer's excellent training, excellent external data, his plasticity, organic and stylish performance, partner qualities, made his dance in no way inferior in quality and finish to the dance of his competitors.
A little better than the rest of the winners, almost flawlessly, without making a single mistake (although he had to perform in extreme conditions, after his partner fell onto the stage during the performance of the pas de deux from the Don Quixote ballet), Arsenty Lazarev from Novosibirsk appeared at the competition, receiving nevertheless silver, but which became a real discovery of this competition. However, the performance of Denis Zakharov, who represented the Moscow Academy and received the Grand Prix as a result, can also be considered stylistically accurate and unmistakable. The sophomore of the Moscow State Academy of Arts has elongated lines, beautiful feet, and in terms of the manner of execution he is somewhat reminiscent of a young one.
Egor Gerashchenko, the owner of a noble appearance, luxurious in texture, also performed excellently at the competition (gold medal). A pupil of the Moscow school, who received excellent training from his current teacher Nikolai Tsiskaridze, already at the Vaganov Academy in St. jumps with a landing in an impeccable fifth position ... And most importantly, the “stage presence effect”, captivating the Moscow (actually “native” to him) audience with its manner. Gerashchenko looked like a “notebook” prime minister and showed the most confident and “adult” performance of all the participants in a duet, dancing beautifully with Eleanor Sevenard the black pas de deux from Swan Lake.
As for the jury itself, it made a defiant decision (the competition was filmed for television), it was by no means made in the "offices": the marks were given "online", that is, right during the performance, and with a frequency of every 5 issues, the ballots were given to the secretary, for to be processed by the computer. He then actually endured, depending on the number of points scored by the participants, the final verdict. It seems like everything is transparent, which, however, does not completely exclude the possibility of conspiring in advance.
What is noteworthy: unlike the previous two competitions, the current one, its organizer, Mrs. Svetlana Medvedeva, did not deign to be present, instead sending only a long message read at the awards ceremony. Another high-ranking ballet lover, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, did not arrive at the competition this time either. Of the top officials, only Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky arrived in time at the Bolshoi to the very end of the competition in order to present awards to the winners together with the legendary chairman of the jury.
Pavel Yaschenkov, mk.ru
: The great-great-granddaughter Matilda Kshesinskaya was accepted into the ballet troupe of the Bolshoi Theater. Lies! Ballet dancer Eleanor Sevenard is NOT her great-great granddaughter.
I explain about the offspring of our Matilda Kshesinskaya:
1) She has NO living descendants.
2) Matilda had one and only son, Vladimir Krasinsky. At first he had a patronymic “Sergeevich”, and then “Andreevich”, because Matilda first said that his father was Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich (her lover after Nicholas II), and then that his father was Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich (with whom she cheated on Sergei, and whom she eventually married in exile). This Vladimir died in exile, 71 years old, unmarried and childless. I especially emphasize that this man was not the son of Nicholas II, although he sometimes liked to hint at it. But no one believed in it
3) And who are the Sevenards, whom our press calls her descendants?
Matilda had a brother Iosif Feliksovich Kshesinsky, also a ballet dancer, dancer and choreographer of the Mariinsky Theater. The second time he was married to the ballerina Tselina Vladislavovna Spryshinskaya. They had a daughter named Tselina, who also danced at the Mariinsky stage, but did not become famous, and married the engineer Konstantin Sevenard. The descendants of this Tselina Sevenard, Matilda's niece, remained in the USSR and in the Russian Federation. Moreover, some of the members of this family believe that Tselina is actually the daughter of Nikolai and Matilda, taken by "uncle" Joseph to be raised.
Konstantin Sevenard: "I swear I'm telling the truth"
The other day, all the media wrote about the 19-year-old ballerina Eleanor Sevenard, accepted into the troupe of the Bolshoi Theater. The sensationalism of this news was given by the fact that the young dancer from St. Petersburg is the great-great-granddaughter of "the same Kshesinskaya."
Officially - according to the only surviving lateral branch of the Kshesinsky, from Matilda's brother Joseph. Since the ballerina had no direct descendants.
But representatives of the Kshesinsky-Sevenard family are convinced that not everything is so simple in this world and that their grandmother, nee Tselina Iosifovna Kshesinskaya, is actually not a niece, but a daughter of Matilda and ... Nicholas II.
Everyone said that Tselina surpassed her famous relative in beauty.
Conceived much later than the marriage of the king - in 1910. And not just like that, but for the sake of saving the country.
A girl with pure blood, not carrying the broken genes of deadly hemophilia, which ultimately ruined the empire.
This story is so incredible and more like a thick adventure novel than a boring historical chronicle that if someone else had told me it, and not the father of that very young ballerina Eleanor Sevenard, I would never have believed it.
But Konstantin Sevenard is a very real person who is responsible for his words.
Ex-deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation and the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, fought in Afghanistan, his father, communist Yuri Sevenard, ran for mayor of Leningrad in 1991 and lost to Sobchak, and his grandfather Konstantin Sevenard, the patriarch of the Soviet hydropower construction, as he was called, passed on a turnkey basis, more than one powerful hydroelectric power station, while the grandson Konstantin Yuryevich Sevenard is convinced that the scandal with Matilda is not at all accidental.
Konstantin Sevenard.
The series "Matilda" has entered a new round. Having driven three great princes crazy, Kshesinskaya has almost driven modern Russia crazy. Why are we doing this? And what, after all, was in this woman, in today's captious look of a not so brilliant beauty? Just a lover? Or something more?
We are sitting with Konstantin Sevenard in his office on the Black River, the view from the window is beautiful, the last warm days, the sun glare stitches lie on the Malaya Nevka. Peter is still a story, take any house built about a century ago, and it will surely turn out that it is also associated with the name of Matilda Feliksovna: she visited here, she drank tea there ... The past is so close, almost nearby.
100 years of the revolution - a fleeting sunbeam on the cold September water.
Konstantin Yuryevich, are you outraged that the name of your great-grandmother, your own or cousin, is being rinsed today, to be honest, by everyone who is not lazy? Do you also want to sue the authors of Matilda, as the widow of Nicholas II's nephew Olga Kulikovskaya-Romanova recently did?
How can I file a defamation claim if I haven't seen the film yet? Let him come out, and then it will become clear. But I think that all the really ambiguous and controversial episodes have probably already been cut from there. And if there is a spreading cranberry left, then it is unlikely that it can offend anyone.
- Is it not surprising that the name of Kshesinskaya suddenly emerged from oblivion on the very eve of the century of the revolution?
Of course, in Soviet times, Kshesinskaya was remembered only in the context of her mansion, which was donated by the emperor and where the headquarters of the Bolsheviks was located in 1917, and then the Museum of the Revolution. The fact that the great-grandmother was not a timid ten is evidenced by the fact that she sued the uninvited guests who evicted her, she was not afraid. Imagine, she won a lawsuit against Lenin. Matilda returned to her mansion and even arranged a large hiding place there, brought all her jewelry and documents there, but, alas, she did not stay there for long, she soon fled abroad ... The times were turbulent. In the 90th year, including my family, did everything to open an exhibition in this building dedicated to the life of Matilda Kshesinskaya, but we could not even imagine that crowds of people would rush there, that many would find it interesting - archival photographs, documents , our surviving family photographs... Instead of several months, the exhibition ran for about two years. A lot of publications at that time appeared in the media dedicated to the life of Matilda and her love.
Brother Joseph and sister Matilda. Does she hide her pregnancy under a wide skirt?
And yet, what you are telling today about the real fate of your great-grandmother is apocryphal at best. But the family legend that she had a daughter from Nicholas II - your own grandmother, that she was born much later than the emperor's marriage to Alexandra Feodorovna and even the birth of their common children - is worse than "Matilda", to be honest.
I swear I'm telling the truth. On October 6, 1910, at the invitation of Nikolai, Matilda met with him in the park of the Konstantinovsky Palace in a gazebo on the island. She was brought there by boat. On her part, the purpose of the visit was quite prosaic, she had a conflict with the director of the Mariinsky Theater, which she wanted to resolve in her favor, to win Nikolai over to her side, but he had other intentions ... There was an episode of intimacy. I don't think it was random. Nicholas really wanted a child from Matilda, a healthy child.
- First love forever?
The fact is that they never interrupted their relationship. Matilda's sister, Yulia, also a ballerina, the 1st Kshesinskaya, as everyone called her, married Colonel Alexander Zeddeler, the tsar's adjutant, so Matilda had direct access to Nicholas in any case. Yes, Nikolai was weak and led, and Matilda was one of the most interesting and charming women of her era, it was not without reason that she drove two other grand dukes crazy, Sergei Mikhailovich and Andrei Vladimirovich, whose wife she eventually became.
According to my information, Matilda was pregnant from the end of 1910 to the spring of 1911, officially at that time she allegedly shone on tour in England, but in fact since March she had been living non-stop in the house of her brother Joseph and his wife Serafima in Astashkovo. To kill time, she practiced handwriting, wrote with her left hand, rewrote “Woe from Wit”, many years later this notebook seemed to be found by the pioneers and handed over to the Bakhrushinsky Museum.
Felix Kshesinsky - the head of the dynasty.
Her daughter Tselina, my grandmother, was born in the middle of summer. Brother Joseph offered to sign the girl on himself. His one-year-old son Slavochka was already growing up, whom his first wife, the dancer Sima Astafieva, gave birth to, so the newborn did not require any additional investments, and clothes, and a stroller, and even a nurse were already ready. Matilda returned to St. Petersburg, where she magnificently celebrated her next birthday in front of everyone, compensating for a long absence. In the meantime, the nurse did not have enough milk for two children - and Joseph ordered her to be the first to feed Tselina ... Seraphim's wife was offended and left, taking with her a one-year-old boy. Later they went to London - and there the traces of Slavik, unfortunately, were lost. And Joseph married the beautiful Tselina Spryshinskaya, it was urgent to correct her niece's passport, and according to the official biography, it was Tselina Sr. who was considered the mother of little Tselina, named after her.
- But for such high-profile conclusions there are not enough words, evidence is needed.
Our family has photographs of that era. Here, for example, is a picture from Astashkov, you see how Matilda sits awkwardly sideways, covering her big belly, here she is just pregnant with her grandmother. And here - she has already given birth, stands next to the stroller, looks at the baby with tenderness ... To hide a family secret, Tselina Jr. was registered only in the fall and on her brother Joseph.
Do you think another illegitimate child could interfere with Matilda's reputation? Why did she recognize Volodya, her only son according to the documents, and abandoned her own daughter?
Because Volodya was not the son of the king, but Tselina was. By the way, here is the interweaving of fate - in the photograph where Matilda is standing with a stroller, in the right corner is a five-year-old boy, the son of the Kshesinsky neighbors on the estate, Konstantin Sevenard. Many years later he would become my grandfather and Tselina's husband.
Matilda Kshesinskaya conquered men not with beauty, but with natural charm.
- What is the original surname - Sevenard. Where is she from?
The ancestors of the Sevenards - immigrants from France, an old aristocratic family, were related to Napoleon, so the second half of my surname did not let us down.
But how could it happen that in the USSR the nobleman Konstantin Sevenard, married to a relative of Matilda Kshesinskaya herself, a niece or daughter, not only was not repressed, but was even allowed to work at objects of national importance?
Grandfather Sevenard was an honored hydro-builder, an order bearer; the second, more secret part of his biography: wherever he built hydroelectric stations, military factories also arose at the same time. For example, they built the Volga hydroelectric power station - and the Volga Motors plant was laid nearby, which provided the needs of the army with transport, the same thing happened in the Urals during the construction of the Uralvagonzavod. His solutions for those times were the most advanced. No, there were no doubts about Konstantin Sevenard, although he never received the Hero of Socialist Labor, just like me, who fought in Afghanistan, took part in the rescue of the 9th company and was twice nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, - I think all this is not accidental. By the way, the grandfather himself did not particularly spread about the past of the family, we knew only the very minimum about our ancestors. Relations were not supported in any way. In those days it could not be otherwise. When, in the early 60s, Matilda tried to come to the USSR, on a ship to Odessa, handing over a letter for my father Yuri, her grandson, by chance, Sevenard's grandfather did not let his son go anywhere. The letter was forced to burn and forget. However, this meeting would not have taken place anyway - since Kshesinskaya was not even allowed to descend to her native land.
Summer 1911. Matilda (center) looks at the stroller in which, according to family legend, her newborn daughter lies.
- And what about your grandmother Tselina?
Grandmother by that time was no longer alive. She died at 48. Which is not at all typical for the Kshesinsky family, who lived under a hundred years old: Matilda left at 99 (in 1971! - E.S.), her sister Yulia - at 104, but Tselina instantly burned out from cancer , affected by the fact that she and her husband worked near Semipalatinsk when the first nuclear tests took place there. In general, my grandmother started as a ballerina at the Kirov Theatre, the former Mariinsky Theater, where her father Joseph continued to work as a dance master in the 30s. I don’t know, to be honest, how it happened that the sisters Matilda and Yulia were able to emigrate, and he stayed in Russia with his adopted niece, then married a third time. But my great-grandfather did not live his life in vain. He brought up a whole galaxy of wonderful Soviet dancers, the famous ballerina Natalya Dudinskaya considered him his teacher, but Tselina’s grandmother herself did not have a career, although we keep her old posters at home ... Tselina married her grandfather, a hydro-builder, very early and, like a faithful wife, dangled with him throughout the country, gave birth to two children, survived the war, had to forget about the theater ... Great-grandfather Joseph Kshesinsky disappeared in the blockade in 1942. That's all we know about him. Then his apartment was searched, the furniture was opened, it seems that they found some strange glass plates, which were taken with them by those who conducted this search. A lot of time has passed since then, and there are too many events to count... The USSR collapsed, many archival documents became available... And now "Matilda" has resurrected again now in the form of a scandalous film. This means that her fate still worries our compatriots, and this is no accident.
Probably, if your relationship with the royal family is proved, then you can become the center of the opposing forces?
Yes, on the one hand, there are those who benefit from the appearance of the official heirs of the Russian emperor, on the other hand, I understand that the majority will not want to recognize us as descendants of Nicholas II. My father - he is old, but cheerful - voluntarily donated blood for DNA testing last year, but the results of the study have not yet been received. And I frankly do not understand where they have gone, what is happening, who does not want or who does not benefit from pulling this old story into the light. Although it is not a fact that the remains officially recognized as royal, with which our DNA could be compared, are actually such ... The history of their canonization is dark and mysterious. I know that the same Yeltsin in the 90s was categorically against any restoration of tsarism.
Sobchak, whose opponent in the elections was my father. after the events of August 1991, there was an idea to recreate a liberal monarchy in Russia. He tried to involve Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov, the then official head of the dynasty, in this issue, as far as I know, they even agreed to something. But personally, I didn’t want to and didn’t see myself in this project: for me, great-grandmother Matilda is not a way to achieve some political goals, but a kind of symbol of freedom, spiritual and physical, of that turn of history that would never have happened if she stayed with Nicholas.
Little Tselina with Joseph and brother Romuald.
Matilda lived an incredibly long and such a different life. If you look at it, then the affair with the heir - he was only the beginning of her journey, the first series of an endless series 99 years long. It is quite possible that even now, judging by the latest events around Matilda, we are not seeing the end of this story.
The only pity is that there are practically no unknown authentic archives left. The memoirs and diaries of the great-grandmother have already been published. After the unexpected death of Matilda's son Vladimir Krasinsky, who survived his mother by only two years, Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov took the remaining papers. In a conversation with me, he did not hide the fact that he was interested in ensuring that these records did not surface anywhere. Well, communicating with aristocrats is very easy, at least they never lie. And to a direct question they give the same direct answer.
Your press conference was recently held at Interfax in St. Petersburg. Reviews about her were also mixed. Are you not afraid that you will be accused either of being crazy, or of lying or pursuing some of your interests? Too incredible story...
You know, I once heard a very curious phrase, I don’t remember who said it: if a lie is thrown out of a story, this does not mean at all that the truth will remain in it ... But personally, I am ready to give my life to prove my case.
... A long life awaited her, in which the affair with the heir was only one of the episodes. Matilda Feliksovna at 95.
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Matilda Kshesinskaya had an older brother Joseph and a sister Julia, who was called the 1st Kshesinskaya, married Zeddeler, she had no children.
Iosif Kshesinsky (1868–1942) - character dancer and choreographer at the Mariinsky and later the Kirov Theatre. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1927).
Was married three times.
In 1896, Serafina Aleksandrovna Astafieva (1876-1934), a graduate of the Mariinsky Ballet School, had a son, Vyacheslav.
The second time - on the ballerina Tselina Vladislavovna Spryshinskaya (1882–1930).
Children: Romuald and Tselina (1911-1959), who graduated from ballet school, danced on the Mariinsky stage, married engineer Konstantin Sevenard. Some believe that in fact she was the illegitimate daughter of Matilda Kshesinskaya from Nicholas II.
The son of Tselina, Yuri Sevenard, is a hydraulic engineer and a former deputy of the State Duma.
In 1990, he was elected a deputy of the Leningrad City Council of People's Deputies, which he remained until the dissolution of the latter in December 1993.
In June 1991, he ran for mayor of Leningrad. He scored 10% (37,000 votes) in these elections and lost to A.A. Sobchak.
In December 1993, he was elected to the State Duma of the 1st convocation on the federal list of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. From January 1994 to December 1995, he was First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Industry, Construction, Transport and Energy.
Grandson Konstantin Yurievich (1967), also a former deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and the State Duma of the third convocation. In 2017, his daughter, a graduate of the Vaganov Academy Eleonora Sevenard (*1998), was officially accepted into the Bolshoi Ballet Company. Her younger sister, Ksenia, studies at the Vaganova Academy.
Eleanor Sevenard is the future star of the Bolshoi Theatre. Photo: social networks
From the editor: Note that it is worth making allowance for the fact that Mr. Sevenard has more than once surprised the public with his stories. So, he claimed that the diaries of Kshesinskaya, lost during the revolution, were supposedly bought by Gennady Timchenko - this information was categorically denied in the Timchenko fund.
Konstantin Sevenard also told the media that in a crypt in a cemetery in Warsaw he found a document on the recognition of Nicholas II's daughter from Kshesinskaya and his agreement ... with Rothschild and the US president. Documents, of course, Sevenard "did not survive."
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