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S.V.Rachmaninov and his circle on the Southern Coast of Crimea: new pages of the history of Russian musical culture of the late XIX – early XX century.

Karagodin Andrey Vasil'evich

Doctor of History

Senior Lecturer, the Department of Source Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University

119992, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Lomonosovskii Prospekt, 27 k.4, aud. E445

avkaragodin@yandex.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 
Petrova Mariya Mikhailovna

Tour Guide - Methodologist, Tourism Portal of the Republic of Crimea "Tavrika"

298677, Russia, respublika Krym, g. Alupka, ul. Levitana, 5

mcrimea@yandex.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 

DOI:

10.7256/2454-0609.2024.3.68989

EDN:

MIOCEP

Received:

15-11-2023


Published:

12-06-2024


Abstract: The subject of the study is the personal history of the outstanding Russian composer S.V. Rachmaninov and other representatives of the national musical culture of the late XIX – early XX century in the historical space of the Southern coast of Crimea. The literature has repeatedly suggested that composers and musicians played a significant role in the formation of the "cultural landscape" of the Crimea of the late XIX – early XX century. However, as the authors of the article have seen studying the history of country resorts formed on the Southern Coast at the beginning of the XX century, there are still a lot of "white spots" on this "historical and cultural map". The elimination of these gaps makes it possible to fill in both the history of the Southern Coast of Crimea and biographical information about cultural actors. With the help of complex work with historical sources – documents from the State Archive of the Republic of Crimea, reference and bio-bibliographic literature, ego documents (memoirs, correspondence), including ones that have been poorly introduced into historiographical circulation, the history of S.V. Rachmaninov's stay on the Southern Coast of Crimea is reconstructed, his visits are placed in the context of the historical space in flux. The circumstances of S.V. Rachmaninov's stay on the Southern Coast of Crimea in the late XIX – early XX century have been clarified or re-established, and related historical monuments and places in Simeiz, Mishor and Yalta have been identified. The reconstructed pages of life and creative activity on the Southern Coast of Crimea by S.V. Rachmaninov, M.A. Stankevich (Golostenova), F.I. Chaliapin and their circle of colleagues, relatives, friends and acquaintances from among the creative intelligentsia, South Coast summerfolk, patrons and patrons of cultural life undoubtedly complement the picture of a rich cultural life in the historical space of the Southern Coast Crimea in the late XIX – early XX century, contributing to understanding Crimea as a important place of "historical memory" of Russia.


Keywords:

Rachmaninoff, Chaliapin, Stankevich, The southern coast of Crimea, Simeiz, Yalta, cultural landscape, comprehensive source studies, musical culture, history of Russian culture

This article is automatically translated.

In 2023, Russia celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding composer Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov, and in 2024 it marks the tenth anniversary of the reunification of Crimea with Russia, with which figures of Russian musical culture traditionally have a special relationship.

The literature has repeatedly suggested that composers and musicians played a significant role in shaping the "cultural landscape" of Crimea in the late XIX – early XX century, especially the historical space of the Southern coast of Crimea [2, 3, 28, 30, 37]. Thus, according to I.A. Bobovnikova, the stay in Crimea of A.N. Serov, M.P. Mussorgsky, N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, S.V. Rachmaninov, V.S. Kalinnikov "created"toposes of the existence of the "musical life" of the peninsula [3]. However, there are still many "white spots" on this "historical and cultural map", as the authors of this article have seen for many years studying the history of country resorts formed on the Southern Coast at the beginning of the XX century [17]. The elimination of such gaps will allow us to complement both the picture of the socio-cultural history of the Southern coast of Crimea and biographical information about cultural figures.

One of the country resorts of the Southern Coast was New Simeiz, created at the turn of the XX century 20 km west of Yalta by the sons of industrialist S.I. Maltsov, who let the Simeiz estate inherited from their father for sale for summer cottages [18]. The history of S.V. Rachmaninov's visits to Crimea turned out to be closely intertwined with Simeiz and his history. It was the parks, rocks and coves of the romantic Simeiz that inspired 15-year-old Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1888 to create his first piece of music. And in 1917, he again settled in Simeiz, which by that time had become the largest country resort on the Southern coast of Crimea, moreover: the Southern coast of Crimea became the place of the composer's last Russian tours, from there he went to Moscow, and then through Petrograd to Sweden, and did not return to his homeland.

The biography of S.V. Rachmaninov has been studied in detail, primarily through the efforts of Z.A. Apetyan, who prepared for publication multi-volume editions of Rachmaninov's literary heritage and memoirs of the composer [5, 27], as well as participated in the republication in Russia of Rachmaninov's autobiography, recorded by O. von Rieseman and first published in London in 1939 [26]. Nevertheless, even such a detailed reconstructed biographical history, as it turned out, may need clarification in places.

It is known that Rachmaninov first appeared in Simeiz in the summer of 1888. By this time, it was decided to transfer Sergei from St. Petersburg to the junior department of the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Nikolai Sergeyevich Zverev. The main thing for Zverev was considered to be the staging of the pianists' liberated hands. His students often became gold medalists, including Rachmaninoff, who later received the great gold medal of the Conservatory in 1892. Zverev took the most talented students to his home for training and full board. Classes started at 6 a.m., free time only in the evening, day off on Sunday. Information about Zverev's trip with his students to the Crimea in the summer of 1888 is contained in the memoirs of another Zverev student of those years, Matvey Presman: "In the summer he went with all of us to a cottage near Moscow, went to Kislovodsk (once) and to the Crimea (once). A trip to the Crimea, where we lived at the estate of Zverev's friends, the Tokmakovs – Simeize, remained especially memorable for me. In addition to Zverev himself, the three of us and Matvey the cook, the conservatory teacher N.M. Ladukhin lived with us, who taught us theory" [5, p. 156]. The dating is confirmed by a document stored in the Russian National Museum of Music – a certificate issued by the Moscow Conservatory to a student of S.V. Rachmaninov, about a vacation to the Crimea and the Transcaucasian Territory from May 30 to August 27 [16].

However, Presman made a mistake in his memoirs, which later began to "wander" from book to book, from article to article. The owners of the Simeiz estate on the Southern coast of Crimea since the twenties of the XIX century were not the Tokmakovs, but the Maltsovs. The history of the estate has been studied in detail by the authors of this article on the basis of archival and other documents [18]. In particular, it is documented that in 1885, industrialist Sergei Ivanovich Maltsov, whose empire of factories actually went bankrupt, removed from business by his family, moved to the sea to the family estate of Simeiz, where he focused on the development of the resort: opened a hotel with 20 rooms, several dachas in the park. On the shore, Maltsov built a two-story "White House", which had more than 20 rooms (it has been preserved in a rebuilt form to the present day). In all likelihood, Zverev lived in it, and the students lived in the "Maltsov wagons" - converted wagons produced by the Maltsov partnership, to which many lines are devoted in the memoirs of Simeiz's guests at the end of the XIX century [34]. This is confirmed by the lines from the autobiography recorded by O. von Riesemann: "Zverev rented a small house next door, where he settled three boys, and not alone, but entrusted them to the care of Ladukhin" [26, p. 47]. As is known from other memoir sources, the "Maltsov wagons" were divided into two compartments, each of which could accommodate two people with relative comfort [34].

It would be wrong to imagine S.I. Maltsov as a man who was interested exclusively in farming and capital: he was a much more multifaceted personality, was a member of the St. Petersburg society, and his wife, A.N. Urusova, raised at court, was a maid of honor and the closest friend of the wife of Emperor Alexander II Maria Alexandrovna, and from the end of 1840 - the beginning In the 1850s, she lived mainly in St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo with Maltsov's children, who also became members of the court society. Perhaps it was this circumstance that attracted cultural and art figures to Simeiz: in addition to S.I. Zverev and his students, the historian E.I. Zabelin, L.N. Tolstoy, who wrote the story "Ilyas" in Simeiz, visited there.

"My stay in Simeiz remained in my memory mainly because of Rachmaninov,– Presman wrote. – There he first began composing, as I remember now, Rachmaninoff became thoughtful, even gloomy, sought solitude, walked around with his head down and his gaze purposefully somewhere in space, and whistled something almost soundlessly, waving his arms as if conducting. This condition was repeated for several days. Finally, he mysteriously waited for the moment when no one else was there, called me to the piano and began to play. After playing, he asked me: Do you know what it is? No, I say, I don't know. And how, he asks, do you like this organ point in the bass with chromaticism in the upper voices? Having received an answer that satisfied him, he complacently said: I composed this piece myself and dedicate it to you" [5, p.156].

Sergei Rachmaninoff was 15 years old, the age when a romantic nature is inspired by pristine places. And Simeiz at that time was a deserted place: the sea, coves, rocks, juniper groves, vineyards, only a few houses on the shore in the park and almost no people are visible.

The Tokmakov estate was located in Mishor and the Oleiz was called; Zverev and his students could hardly rest there in 1888.  Ivan Fedorovich Tokmakov, a merchant from the Siberian Kyakhta, who became one of the founders of the tea trade with China since the 1860s, only began at that time to buy land on the Southern Coast: in 1886 - in Outka, in 1887 – in Mishor, as evidenced by the confessional books of the Koreiz Church of the Ascension of Christ [9, l. 6]. The remaining lands in Alupka, Gaspra and Alushta were bought by him in the next three years [7, l. 3 vol. - 4 vol.] It is likely that Rachmaninov visited the Tokmakovs' dacha in the Mishor "Nyura", but later – in 1900, visiting A.M. Gorky there.

In the first decade of the XX century, S.V. Rachmaninov visited the Southern Coast of Crimea more than once, which was then experiencing the heyday of cultural life (as evidenced at least by literary works from the "south coast cycles" of short stories by A.P. Chekhov, I.A. Bunin, A.I. Kuprin). In 1897-1898, Rachmaninov was the conductor of Savva Mamontov's private opera, and in this capacity, in September 1898, he came to Crimea with concerts that took place at the Yalta City Theater and on the terrace of the Vorontsov Palace in Alupka. Rachmaninov's September note to A.P. Chekhov has been preserved, which reads: "As soon as you come home, dear Anton Pavlovich, and read this scribble, go to the city garden, we are having lunch there and waiting for you. Chaliapin, Rachmaninov, Mirov" [27, vol. 1, p. 280].

In the spring of 1900 (from the second half of April to the first days of June) Rachmaninov stayed in Yalta at the dacha of Princess Alexandra Andreevna Lieven, where he created the Second Suite for two pianos and two of three movements The second concerto for piano and orchestra. The memoirs of K.S. Stanislavsky, who recalled that spring, eloquently testify to the atmosphere in Yalta at that time: "From Sevastopol we moved to Yalta, where almost the entire Russian literary world was waiting for us, which, as if by agreement, came to the Crimea for our tour. There were at that time: Bunin, Kuprin, Mamin-Sibiryak, Chirikov, Stanyukovich, Elpatyevsky and, finally, Maxim Gorky, who had just become famous at that time, living in Crimea because of lung disease... In addition to writers, there were many artists and musicians in Crimea, and among them the young S.V. Rachmaninov stood out. Every day, at a certain hour, all the actors and writers converged at Chekhov's dacha, who treated the guests to breakfast" [31, p. 233].

I.A. Bunin also recalled his meeting with Rachmaninoff in Yalta that summer, who included a short essay "Rachmaninoff" in his memoirs published in 1950. Bunin writes: "At my first meeting with him in Yalta, something similar happened between us, which happened only in the romantic years of Herzen's youth, Turgenev, when people they could spend whole nights talking about the beautiful, the eternal, and high art. Subsequently, before his last departure to America, we met from time to time very amicably, but still not in the same way as in that meeting, when, after talking almost all night on the seashore, he hugged me and said: "Let's be friends forever!" (...) And that night we were still young, we were far from restrained, somehow we suddenly became close almost from the first words we exchanged in a large company gathered, I don't remember why, for a fun dinner at the best Yalta hotel "Russia". We sat next to each other at dinner, drank Abrau-Durso champagne, then went out on the terrace, continuing the conversation about the decline of prose and poetry that was taking place in Russian literature at that time, quietly went down to the courtyard of the hotel, then to the embankment, went to the pier — it was already late, there was not a soul anywhere, — we sat on some ropes, breathing their tar smell and that very special freshness that is inherent only in the Black Sea water, and talked, talked hotter and more joyfully about the wonderful things that we remembered from Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev, Fet, Maikov..." [4, p. 231]. Subsequently, in 1906, Rachmaninov would write music for two poems by Bunin – "The Night is sad" and "I am lonely again", the friendship of the writer and composer would last during the years of emigration.

In 1909, a branch of the Imperial Russian Musical Society was opened in Simferopol, the directorate of which was headed by Princess Elena Georgievna of Saxe-Altenburg, who invited the composer to the position of assistant in the musical department, which he held until 1912. And the last time Rachmaninov came to the Crimea in July and (or) August 1917, he was already a famous musicianand a composer. "Almost from the very beginning of the revolution, I realized that it had gone down the wrong path... Already in March 1917. I decided to leave Russia, but my plan could not be implemented because Europe was still at war and the borders were closed...", the composer recalled [26, p. 198]. Dejected, Rachmaninov decided to leave for the south – first in June to Yessentuki, and then to Simeiz on the Southern coast of Crimea.

By this time, numerous dachas of the Novy Simeiz resort had already risen here: the heirs of S.I. Maltsov, who received a seaside estate in 1894 by a court decision, divided the land into plots, paved roads, and conducted water. Dachas in the well–maintained New Simeiz were eagerly bought by representatives of the nascent "middle class" of imperial Russia – entrepreneurs, engineers, doctors - also not strangers to musical culture.

There is no precise indication in the memoir and other literature on which of the dachas of the New Simeiz Rachmaninov stayed – however, the information we have established about their owners allows us to make some assumptions.

For example, the composer could have stopped at the Simeiz dachas of relatives – Natalia Ivanovna Satina, a cousin of his wife's father, or at the neighboring Dukhovsky dacha (the daughter of the owners Tamara was married to Vladimir, the brother of Rachmaninov's wife).

State Councilor Yevgeny Mikhailovich Dukhovskoy came from the nobility of the St. Petersburg province. After graduating from the Institute of Railway Engineers in 1853, he was appointed to the rank of lieutenant engineer for the Warsaw-Petersburg Railway. He had to work on other lines of the railways of Russia, for conscientious work on which he was awarded the orders of St. Vladimir of the 4th Degree, St. Anna of the 2nd and 3rd degrees, St. Stanislav of the 3rd degree. He was actively engaged in social work, being an honorary member of the St. Petersburg orphanages of the department of Empress Maria Feodorovna. He was a wealthy man, having a total of 33786 des. lands, of which 11396 des. was in the Kharkov province, plots in Yalta. From 1892 to 1899, he was elected an Honorary Justice of the Peace of Yalta county, and his wife was elected to the vowels of the Yalta county Zemstvo. In 1903, he bought a plot of land in Simeiz, where he built a cottage [8, l. 154]. His daughter Tamara Evgenievna married Vladimir Alexandrovich Satin (1887-1945), a cousin of S. V. Rachmaninov and the brother of his wife Natalia Alexandrovna Satina.

Another version is pushed by the memoirs of biologist I.I. Puzanov, whose mother also had a plot in Novy Simeiz since 1901, on which the Red Poppy cottage was built by 1905. According to Puzanov, who spent his early years in Simeiz, Rachmaninov settled in the cottage of the Vivdenko family "White Swan". "When visiting Vivdenko's neighbors, the Belokopytovs, we sometimes heard Rachmaninov's divine playing coming from the White Swan, but he never spoke publicly. Several times I met him out of breath and resting after climbing the stairs, just diagonally from our cottage. I find it difficult to specify the exact date of departure of the Rachmaninoff family..." [25, p. 430]. However, the reliability of this version is devalued by the dating – according to Puzanov, these events took place in the summer of 1920. ("a famous man left Yalta with his whole family, although this is not mentioned in any of his biographies – I'm talking about Rachmaninov. He came to Simeiz after Denikin's evacuation" [25, p. 430]. At the same time, it is reliably known that Rachmaninov left for Sweden with his family on December 23, 1917, and never returned to Russia. Apparently, the described events still referred to 1917, and the author of the memoirs recorded in the late 1960s was mistaken.

There is also reason to assume that the Rachmaninovs rested in another corner of the New Simeiz – at the Miro-Mare dacha. Rachmaninov probably knew the hostess, pianist and composer Maria Alekseevna Stankevich, nee Golostenova (1867-1922). Together with her husband, nobleman and bibliophile Alexei Ivanovich Stankevich, they built the Miro-Mare cottage by 1912, which became a kind of cultural center of the New Simeiz.

Maria Golostenova came from the Golostenov family, which is related to the Lermontov family. She was born on December 15, 1867 in the settlement of Mezhenki, Evstratievskaya volost, Ostrogsky district, Voronezh province. She received her primary education at home, and at the age of 12 she entered the Moscow Elizabethan Institute of Noble Maidens. She knew several languages, which helped her while traveling across countries and continents. She graduated from the Institute in 1886 [1]. Subsequently, she went to concerts in Russia for ten years. She wrote 50 different compositions of pieces for piano, quartets, trios, pieces for piano and violin, romances, which were published by various publishers, including in 1905-1906. "Elegy for voice with piano" [32]. In 1909, she performed a charity concert in the village of Rossosh, Ostrog district, where her brother Alexander Alekseevich Golostenov, who served at that time as a vowel of the provincial assembly of the Voronezh Gubernia, owned the estate [24, p. 148].

In 1895, Golostenova married Alexei Ivanovich Stankevich, a representative of the Serbian family of Stankevichi (Stankovichi), who moved to Russia in the middle of the XVIII century and left an important mark in the history of Russian culture [29]. The most famous is Nikolai Vladimirovich Stankevich (1813-1840) - poet, writer, founder of the literary and philosophical circle, which included Granovsky, Belinsky, Bakunin, Aksakov. His great-nephew Alexey Ivanovich graduated from the Historical and Philological Faculty of Moscow University in 1882, then worked for five years in the Moscow Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1887, historian I.E. Zabelin invited A.I. Stankevich as a librarian to the Imperial Russian Historical Museum in Moscow, where the funds of the Chertkov and Golitsyn libraries were transferred from the Rumyantsev Museum in the Pashkov house (in 1871, Grigory Alexandrovich Chertkov, in connection with moving to St. Petersburg and selling the mansion on Myasnitskaya, decided to donate his library, which numbered more than 17,500 rare books, in Moscow with the condition that it become public).

Working in the Chertkov library became the life's work of A.I. Stankevich, who was fond of collecting books from his youth. In the process, he collected poems and letters from his uncle N.V. Stankevich and published them in 1890 [33]. Studying the collection of the Chertkov library, he made translations of books by travelers who visited Russia, became a member of the "Society of Lovers of Russian Literature", and since 1891 its secretary. For the first time in the address books of Moscow, his name appears in 1895 – when he married Maria Alekseevna Golostenova. In 1909, at the address B. Nikolo-Peskovsky, Grushka's house, the name of Maria Alekseevna, a hereditary noblewoman, trustee of the "Society for the Remembrance of Former Pupils of the Elizabethan Institute of Noble Maidens" appears in the book "All of Moscow". Since 1915, Nikitsky Boulevard, No. 19, sq. 1, has become the permanent address of the spouses.

In 1908, Alexey Ivanovich inherited the Kurlak estate in Bobrovsky District from his uncle Alexander Vladimirovich Stankevich. The area of the estate was more than 8000 des. In all likelihood, it was the income from this estate, where windmills, an oil mill, and brick factories were located, which gave a good profit, and allowed to buy on October 25, 1910, three plots No. 10, No. 11, No. 12 with a total area of 1028 sq. sazh. Major General I.S. Maltsov has a New Simeiz in the eastern part of the resort. On the same day, October 25, 1910, he bought plot No. 9 with an area of 315 sq. sazh nearby. Mikhail Dmitrievich Lisanevich, a nobleman from Ostrogsk. Having bought land in Simeiz, he did not build anything, and a year later, on June 25, 1911, he sold his plot to M.A. Stankevich. [6, l. 64 vol.] M.D. Lisanevich found himself back in Simeiz in 1919, which is confirmed by the documents of his participation in the vote in Simeiz. At that time, he was listed as vacationing at Stankevich's dacha [11, l.71].

Villa Miro Mare was built by the autumn of 1912. on sections No. 9, No. 10 and part No. 12, between Dumbadze Street, the road along the sea and the road going to Cape Ai-Panda. The author of the project was civil engineer P.P. Shchekotov, engineers V.P. and Y.P. Semenov built [21, p. 77]. In front of the villa there was a small park with a circular swimming pool. The Italian Neo-Gothic of the villa "Miro Mare" by P.P. Shchekotov, in all probability, was inspired by the architecture of the Venetian Fondaco dei Turki Palace of the XI-XII centuries, as well as the Doge's Palace in Venice of the XIV-XV centuries. At the request of the owner, a large music room was arranged on the ground floor, where there was a Bechstein grand piano. The living rooms were located mainly on the second floor. In 1914, A.I. Stankevich resigned from the post of head of the Chertkov Library, remaining an honorary employee of the Russian Historical Museum. The Stankevichi lived in Moscow in winter and in Simeiz in summer.

It is quite possible that it was at the Miro-Mare cottage in July-August 1917 that S.V. Rachmaninov rested with his wife and daughters. Rachmaninov often went to F.I. Chaliapin and his family, who also spent summers in the Crimea, to Novy Mishor, to P.V. Murzayeva's dacha, which has survived to the present day [20], and to A.A. Spendiarov's dacha in Yalta.

On September 5, 1917, Rachmaninoff and the symphony orchestra conducted by A.I. Orlov played Liszt's Es-dur concert in the shell of the City Garden in Yalta. "These days I'm playing in Yalta. I took this concert to earn something. Life is terribly expensive here, and we have spent a lot," he says in a letter to S.A. Satina dated August 26 from Novy Simeiz [27, vol. 2, p. 104]. After that, the composer returned to Moscow. On December 15, 1917, a message was published in the newspaper "Day": "S.V. Rachmaninov is going on a concert tour of Norway and Sweden the other day. The tour will last more than two months." "A lucky chance came to the rescue. Three or four days after the shooting started in Moscow, I received a telegram offering to tour Scandinavia with ten concerts," Rachmaninov wrote. – "The monetary side of this proposal was more than modest - in the old days I would not even have taken it into account. But now I answered without hesitation that the conditions suit me and I accept them" [26, p. 198]. On December 23, he went abroad with his family, and never returned to Russia, while feeling like a Russian composer all his life, they never tire of repeating that the composer's homeland, his love, faith, books, paintings that impressed him should be reflected in music.

F.I. Chaliapin, having given a concert for the sailors of Sevastopol in July 1917 and was one of the first to receive the title of Honored Artist of the republic from the new government in 1918, also three years later, in June 1922, went on tour abroad and never returned to Russia. "I left my dream shattered in Russia. Sometimes people tell me: there will still be some noble art lover who will create your theater for you. I jokingly ask them – where will he get the Pushkin Rock?", – said Chaliapin [36, p. 348]. We are talking about the unrealized project of the "Castle of Arts" on the Southern coast of Crimea – Chaliapin's villa on the seashore near Gurzuf, designed by the outstanding architect I.A. Fomin. "There is a rock by the sea in Crimea, in Suuk-Su, bearing the name of Pushkin. I decided to build an Art Castle on it. Exactly the castle. I said to myself: kings had castles, knights had castles, why shouldn't artists have castles? With embrasures, but not for deadly weapons," recalled Chaliapin [36, p. 348]. In 1916 and 1917, Chaliapin, who was vacationing at the Eagle's Nest villa of the Suuk-Su resort, began preparatory work on the "Castle of Arts", and in July 1917, finally issued a bill of sale for the rock and the adjacent plot from the owner of the resort O.M. Solovyova: on the map of the estate, the rock was henceforth to be called "Chaliapinsky a cliff." However, the project was never implemented; today the rock is located on the territory of the Lazurny camp, which is part of Artek, and a commemorative plaque with a sketch by Ivan Fomin is installed there.

M.A. Stankevich remained in Simeiz during the civil war, where power passed from the Reds to the whites. This is established by the reports stored in the archive on the election of vowels to the candidates of the Novo-Simeiz village council in January 1919 [11, l. 71].

Details of life in Simeiz during the Civil War are known thanks to several memoir sources [19], among the authors of which was the literary and art critic S.K. Makovsky (1877-1962). In his memoirs "On the Parnassus of the Silver Age", published in Munich in 1962, Makovsky recalls that in early 1917 he rented a cottage in Novy Simeiz (in fact, as it turns out from the memoirs of I.I. Puzanov, a room in the cottage of the Puzanov family) and moved from Petrograd (according to him, "being sure that I will never come back... Russia was plunging into blood and mud uncontrollably" [22, p. 542].

In Crimea, S.K. Makovsky continued to organize exhibitions and performances of numerous artists and writers who were in Crimea at that time: As shown by S.B. Filimonov, many of the largest scientists who fled from the university centers of Russia and Ukraine to the "white" Crimea took part in the activities of Crimean scientific and cultural institutions and organizations in 1917-1920 [35, p. 70].

Both the servants of the Muses and their patrons aspired to the Crimea. According to Makovsky, "in the autumn of 1917, a whole colony of Petersburgers and Muscovites gathered on the Crimean coast – from Gurzuf to Sevastopol – in their estates and dachas built on relatively recently acquired plots. Both the aristocracy and representatives of the merchant and industrial nobility lived here, not communicating too much with each other, but still forgetting a little because of the general "misfortune" about class partitions: the Kharitonenko family in the Rossiya hotel (Yalta), Khanenko, Brunov, Ushkov, French subjects from the Moscow rich Goujon, Princess Tenisheva with Princess Chetvertinskaya, the Shcherbatovs, the Mordvinovs, the Elizaveta Vladimirovna Shuvalova, the Gagarins, the Raevskys and the kn. Baryatinsky (at the Yalta "villa of roses" Serbilar), Khan of Nakhichevan in the palace of loud oriental taste on the way to Livadia (where the Dowager Empress lived), led by Prince Alexander Mikhailovich with Ksenia Alexandrovna and Alexandra Petrovna Oldenburgskaya (in Dulber), next to the prince. Yusupov and Dolgorukova (Koreiz), gr. Vorontsova (Alupka), Ivan and Nikolai Sergeevich Maltsov and Sergey Ivanovich, married to Princess Baryatinskaya, Princess Urusov (Simeiz), Grigory Ushkov (Foros estate)... It seems that I would never have finished this list if I had not named only those whom I knew personally, with whom I was somehow connected in St. Petersburg..." [22, pp. 544-545].

Makovsky describes life in the Maltsovs' Simeiz estate in late 1917 – early 1918, when, in his own words, "revolutionary outrages began on the outskirts of Yalta, primarily armed raids by sailors from Sevastopol, who robbed under the pretext of "nationalization" and carried out reprisals against white-collar officers... life in Yalta and the surrounding area became increasingly difficult, and for many it became more dangerous" [22, p. 546]:

"The owner of Simeiz himself, retired General Ivan Sergeevich Maltsov, was extremely musical. After the death of his wife, he lived alone, surveyed the sky with a telescope and played the viola with the accompaniment of the daughter of his business manager Semenov (also a retired general), Nastasia Yakovlevna, a singer ..., a very fine musician. Her brother was a pianist who graduated from the conservatory, a fair virtuoso... Surrounded by a spicy-smelling garden, Maltsov's villa was located by the sea and towered on the rocks above the countryside, like a castle from feudal times. All the air in this secluded abode seemed to be saturated with the salty smell of the waves and the calls of the incessant sea. Next to the two-light hall where the Steinway concert stood, there was a room with musical instruments from different times, sometimes very intricate... Here, under the barely perceptible sea rustle, the Jan-Ruban-Pol couple (A.M. Petrunkevich and V.Ya. Pol – auth.) performed their repertoire of romances in several languages..." [22, p. 547].

Makovsky's words are also confirmed by the documents of the nationalization of the property of the estate of I.S. Maltsov, stored in the State Archive of the Republic of Crimea – among them there are musical instruments [10].

After the final establishment of Soviet power in November 1920, the Southern coast of Crimea experienced difficult times of revolutionary terror, and then famine. During this difficult time, on June 23, 1922, Maria Alekseevna Stankevich died; according to family legends, she was buried on the territory of the cottage. Alexey Ivanovich Stankevich became an employee of the Historical Museum again in 1919-1922, died on January 23, 1922 and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow [23].

Villa Miro Mare by Maria Stankevich in 1922 was included in the lists of nationalized resorts according to Simeiz under No. 269 [15]. Soon an orphanage of the People's Commissariat of Education was opened in it [14, l. 31]. In Soviet documents, this cottage is called "Stankevich cottages". In 1925, Stankevich's cottage became part of the Dolphin sanatorium (formerly Rodevich's cottage), which was renamed the sanatorium named after him. Semashko [13]. In the funds of the State Archive of the Republic of Crimea, there are cases for the restoration of this cottage after the earthquake of 1927 [12]. In the post-war years, the winter cinema of the sanatorium was opened in the former concert hall on the ground floor of the cottage. Semashko. In the 1980s, the renovation of the cottage was started, which thirty years later was never completed; somewhere on the site there was also the grave of Maria Alekseevna Stankevich, nee Golostenova. Nearby, in a ruined state, there are also the remains of the Maltsov estate with the seaside park, in which the young Rachmaninov composed his first works in 1888. 

"Greatness is determined by the demands that a person makes on himself – by the consciousness of responsibility, and not by privileges," S.V. Rachmaninov believed [26, p. 220]. These words should also be applied to the historical memory of the outstanding composer. In 2023, commemorative events in honor of the 150th anniversary of S.V. Rachmaninov were held in cultural institutions of the Crimea – the Yalta Historical and Literary Museum, the Crimean Literary and Artistic Memorial Museum-Reserve, the Vorontsov Palace Museum in Alupka, expositions were organized in honor of the memorable date [2, 30]. We believe that the "Rachmaninoff places" on the map of Russia should undoubtedly be attributed to Simeiz on the Southern coast of Crimea, whose importance as an important "place of historical memory" should be re-evaluated.

The pages of S.V. Rachmaninov's stay on the Southern Coast of Crimea, as well as F.I. Chaliapin, M.A. Stankevich (Golostenova), their colleagues, friends and acquaintances, cultural figures, music lovers from among the South Coast summer residents, allow us to expand our understanding of the rich cultural life in the historical space of the South Coast at the end of the XIX - beginning XX century, when Yalta and its surroundings were flourishing. Russian Russian culture was enriched by the creative and friendly ties that were born and strengthened at that time on the "Russian Riviera", as this region began to be called, as we saw through the example of the collaboration of S.V. Rachmaninov, I.A. Bunin, A.P. Chekhov, inspired the creation of new works.

References
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5. Memories of Rachmaninoff. Vol. 1 (1988). State Center. museum of the muses. M. I. Glinka Culture: comp., ed., comment. and preface Z. Apetyan. Moscow: Music.
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First Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
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The history of the Crimean Peninsula is inscribed in golden letters in Russian history: what are only two heroic defenses of Sevastopol worth. But in addition to the military-strategic Crimea, since the end of the XIX century it has acquired the status of a health resort, and also became a place of rest for the Russian nobility, intelligentsia, and raznochinets. The "cultural landscape" of the Southern coast of Crimea, where there are still "white spots", is especially interesting in terms of studying. Meanwhile, the cultural figures who lived in this region created an indescribable flavor, including with their artistic programs. These circumstances determine the relevance of the article submitted for review, the subject of which is the role of the Southern Coast of Crimea in the biography of S.V. Rachmaninov. The author sets out to analyze the pages of the stay on the Southern coast of Crimea of S.V. Rachmaninov, M.A. Stankevich (Golostenova), F.I. Chaliapin and their circle of colleagues, friends and acquaintances from among the creative intelligentsia. The work is based on the principles of analysis and synthesis, reliability, objectivity, the methodological basis of the research is a systematic approach, which is based on the consideration of the object as an integral complex of interrelated elements. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the very formulation of the topic: the author seeks to characterize the social circle of S.V. Rachmaninov that has developed on the Southern coast of Crimea. Scientific novelty is also determined by the involvement of archival materials. Considering the bibliographic list of the article as a positive point, its scale and versatility should be noted: in total, the list of references includes over 30 different sources and studies. Of the sources used, we note first of all documents from the funds of the State Archive of the Republic of Crimea, as well as the memoirs of S.V. Rachmaninov, F.I. Chaliapin, etc. Among the studies used, we note the works of A.V. Karogodin, S.B. Filimonov, I.V. Shintyapina, which focus on various aspects of the cultural life of the Southern coast of Crimea. Note that the bibliography is important both from a scientific and educational point of view: after reading the text of the article, readers can turn to other materials on its topic. In general, in our opinion, the integrated use of various sources and research contributed to the solution of the tasks facing the author. The style of writing the article can be attributed to scientific, at the same time understandable not only to specialists, but also to a wide readership, to anyone interested in both the history of the Southern Coast of Crimea, in general, and its cultural life, in particular. The appeal to the opponents is presented at the level of the collected information received by the author during the work on the topic of the article. The structure of the work is characterized by a certain logic and consistency, it can be distinguished by an introduction, the main part, and conclusion. At the beginning, the author defines the relevance of the topic, shows the role of the Southern Coast of Crimea in Rachmaninov's fate: he first found himself there as a teenager, and then "The Southern coast of Crimea became the place of the composer's last Russian tours, from there he went to Moscow, and then through St. Petersburg to Sweden, and did not return to his homeland." The author tries to find out where Rachmaninov lived in Crimea, examines his social circle, etc. Moreover, in fact, the author shows the role of Simeiz in the cultural life of Crimea on the basis of various archival sources. The main conclusion of the article is that the facts considered by the author "complement the picture of a rich cultural life in the historical space of the South Coast in the late XIX - early XX century, contributing to its understanding as an important place of "historical memory" of Russia." The article submitted for review is devoted to an urgent topic, will arouse readers' interest, and its materials can be used both in lecture courses on the history of Russia and in various special courses. At the same time, there are comments to the article: 1) It is necessary to remove typos ("in 2023, Russia celebrated 150 years since the birth of the outstanding composer Sergei Vasilyevich Rakhmanov"). 2) The author should focus more on Rachmaninoff himself, as stated in the title of the article. In general, in our opinion, after correcting these comments, the article can be used for publication in the journal "Historical Journal: Scientific Research".

Second Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

Review of the article "S.V.Rachmaninov and his circle on the Southern coast of Crimea: little–known pages of the history of Russian musical culture of the late XIX - early XX century." The subject of the study is indicated by the author in the title and explained in the text of the article. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity, which allowed the Russian musical cultural life on the Southern coast of Crimea in the late XIX-early XX century to clarify some pages of the biography of composers, musicians, entrepreneurs, etc. When writing the work, the authors relied on general scientific methods: analysis, synthesis, generalization, etc. A descriptive method was used, which made it possible to reveal the subject of the study. Special historical methods are also used in the work: comparative historical, historical-chronological, etc. The relevance of the topic is determined by the formulation of the problem and the objectives of the study. Russian Russian composer Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov celebrated the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2023, and "in 2024 marks the tenth anniversary of the reunification of Crimea with Russia, with which figures of Russian musical culture traditionally have a special relationship." The relevance is determined by the fact that the authors of the reviewed article write that "in 2023, Russia celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of the brilliant Russian composer Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov, and "in 2024, it celebrates the decade of reunification with Russia of the Crimea, with which figures of Russian musical culture traditionally have a special relationship." Many "composers and musicians played a significant role in shaping the "cultural landscape" of Crimea in the late XIX – early XX century, especially the historical space of the Southern coast of Crimea." The article notes that the biography of S.V. Rachmaninov has been examined in great detail and comprehensively, and Z.A. Apetyan and O. von Rieseman have played a major role in this. "But even such a detailed reconstructed biographical history, as it turned out, may need clarification in places," the reviewed article notes. The authors of the article have been fruitfully and consistently engaged in the study of social and cultural life in this region for many years, scrupulously and thoroughly investigate when this or that cottage was founded, who lived there, to whom it belonged, and also study which of the writers, musicians, composers came, who communicated with whom and fill in the "gaps" that They are present in the socio-cultural life of that period and clarify the obscure pages of the biography of S.V.Rachmaninov and other figures who lived or vacationed in the Crimea. The authors of the article write that the purpose of the article is to clarify controversial and not fully clarified issues of social and cultural life in the South of Crimea and the biography of cultural figures. Scientific novelty is determined by the formulation of the problem and objectives of the study. The scientific novelty is determined by the fact that the article uses a wide range of sources (materials from the State Archive of the Republic of Crimea (GARF), memoirs of F.I. Chaliapin, I.A. Bunin, S.V. Rachmaninov, etc., works by specialists on the topic under study and related topics) to show the social and cultural life of the Southern Coast of Crimea, cultural figures and their biographies in the time period under study. Style, structure, content. The style of the article is scientific, with descriptive elements. The structure of the work is aimed at achieving the goals and objectives of the study. The text of the article is logically structured and presented. Regarding the biography of S.V. Rachmaninov, it is noted that he first came to the Crimea in 1888 in the town of Novy Simeiz. "The parks, rocks and coves of the romantic Simeiz inspired 15-year-old Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1888 to create his first piece of music. And in 1917, he again settled in Simeiz, which by that time had become the largest country resort on the Southern coast of Crimea, moreover: the Southern coast of Crimea became the site of the composer's last Russian tour, from there he went to Moscow, and then through Petrograd to Sweden, and did not return to his homeland." In the article, the authors showed the cultural life of Crimea, the time and circumstances of S.V. Rachmaninov's stay on the Southern coast of Crimea, as well as F.I. Chaliapin, M.A. Stankevich (Golostenova), their colleagues, friends and acquaintances, cultural figures, music lovers. "This allowed us to expand our understanding of the rich cultural life in the historical space of the Southern Coast in the late XIX - early XX century, when Yalta and its surroundings were flourishing. Russian Russian Riviera, as this region began to be called, as we have seen from the example of the collaboration of S.V. Rachmaninov, I.A. Bunin, A.P. Chekhov, inspired the creation of new works, enriched Russian culture," the authors of the article rightly note. The bibliography of the article is diverse and includes 37 sources on the research topic and related topics. The bibliography shows that the authors of the article understand the topic deeply and comprehensively. The appeal to the opponents is presented at the level of the collected information received by the author during the work on the topic of the article and in the bibliography. The authors are convincing in their arguments when they make adjustments to some well-established erroneous opinions in the literature, in particular that the owner of the Simeiz estate on the Southern coast of Crimea since the twenties of the XIX century was not the Tokmakovs, but the Maltsovs. Conclusions, the interest of the readership. The article is written on an interesting topic and will arouse the interest of specialists and all those who are interested in the life and work of S.V. Rachmaninov and other cultural figures of the late XIX-early XX centuries, whose life is more or less connected with the Southern coast of Crimea.