Inspirational Kyiv stories: Serge Lifar

Today, when all of us have more time for our beloved affairs and interesting discoveries, Premier Hotels and Resorts offers you to feel the spirit of Kyiv and inspired with the stories of the legendary Kyiv native persons.

Yulia Bevzenko, manager of Kyiv, tour guide and author of the Shukay project has prepared 5 inspirational Kyiv stories especially for Premier.

The story of my last inspiration began in Uzhgorod in 2017. In all the cities and countries that I visit, I take individual tours with guides. In Uzhgorod, we had an excursion with Victor Opalenik and at one point he showed us a tiny sculpture of the Statue of Liberty. Just a small sculpture was attached on the railing of the embankment and Victor told us that there are already more than 20 such sculptures in the city and all of them are somehow connected with Uzhgorod, Ukraine and Hungary. I did not need anything else, neither a tour, nor a house, nor facts; I wanted to find all the sculptures. Finding each, I was happy and jumped like a child. Having returned to Kyiv, I realized that it would be great if there was such a project in Kyiv. Only so that these sculptures tell the story of Kyiv. Thought and forgot.

So the project “Shukay!” was born, because I simply could not take and forget about such an idea. In two years, we installed 24 mini-sculptures and on April 10 the twenty-fifth (it was an online opening).

Creating the project “Shukay!”, I realized that I needed new skills and new strengths. I needed to be uncompromising, faith in my idea, a little crazy, industriousness and many stories about Kyiv. Every time it was difficult for me, I remembered the stories of those people about whom I will tell today. So, get acquainted, Serge Lifar.

III Story

SERGE LIFAR

Just imagine ballet dancers. They start to train very early, at the age of three. Now picture two friends walking around the night Kyiv and suddenly hear music and see the light in the window. They glance into window and see there ballerinas dancing. One of the friends, whose name is Sergey, says to his friend “I fell in love”. But what do you think he fell in love with? Not a girl. With a dance. He falls in love with ballet. And how do you think, how old is he at that time? He was already 15 years old at that time. That was our Serge Lifar. And the dance studio was the studio of Broneslava Nizhinsky.

Classes in the studio of Broneslava Nizhinsky were public. That is, anyone could come to the rehearsal and enjoy the pupils. Students enjoyed the chance to gawk at beautiful dancers. For Lifar, ballet was a revelation. He had never seen anything like this in his life.

A few days later Serge bought ballet shoes for the saved money and asked Broneslava to become her student.

She flatly refused. “You are too old for dancing,” she said dismissively to a boy. And, let me be honest, you move with the grace of the log.”

“But I'm ready to learn, I will train ten, - no!” - twenty hours a day! - Serge answered her eagerly. - I beg you, please, give me a chance.”

“No way,” Nizhinskaya was uncompromising. She did not like this young man. And she categorically did not want to bother with the hopeless, in her opinion, material.

However, Sergei did not give up. He came again and again, begging to have mercy on him. At the end, Bronislava gave up and allowed to become a free listener in the studio. But officially she didn’t recognize him as a student.

Months of exhausting training have started for Sergey. He spent all his free time in the studio. Nizhinskaya had never praised him, instead, ridiculed the slightest mistake. And less than six months later, she has announced that she closing the school and leaving to Paris. A year later, she has recruited five best students of her studio to come to Paris. By some magic, Serge Lifar was one of them, at that time he was already 17 years old.

Sergei's parents raked out all the money to pay for the help of a smuggler to transport their son to Europe. They still did not approve the passion for ballet, but the Soviet government scared them more.

Unfortunately, he didn`t reach Poland. Near the border everybody were captured. All attempts to convince or bribe the soldiers failed. He was from an intelligentsia class, which means that by default he was considered as an enemy of the people. To fright Lifar, soldiers put him in a freight car with typhoid patients. He didn`t know the direction of train they drove. On the fourth day of torment, by some miracle, he reached to open the car door and jump on the go.

Frightened and exhausted, Sergey returned home. Where the Cheka call was already waiting for him. He had a choice to be send again to Paris, in exchange for cooperating with the Cheka. But he refused to become a rat and, it was a miracle, that he stayed alive.

From now he would never have a chance left a country legally. The family had to sell everything valuable from that less that remained. The second attempt brought Sergey to Warsaw. A month later, he reached Paris.

Dear friends, his biography is amazing. But to cut long story short:

1. From an unpromising dancer he turned into a legend of a world ballet.
2. He was awarded with the highest prize - an Oscar in the world of dance - the Golden Shoe and the Legion of Honor for the renaissance of ballet in France.
3. After the role of Icarus, Lifar received the title of “Etual” - the first dancer of the Grand Opera
4. He staged about 200 ballets, most of them in his own choreography.

As Serge Lifar said about himself, "I became a dancer, still not knowing how to dance and the technique, but I knew that I would master it and no obstacles would stop me on this road."

At the Paris Opera Garnier, Serge Lifar begins his first steps into the world of true ballet. After the first viewing, the head of the “Russian Seasons” Sergey Diaghilev said that all newcomers are complete ignoramuses. “But a great dancer can come out of Lifar,” thought Sergey Pavlovich. Under the tutelage of the benefactor Serge begins a new life, gets acquainted with painting, visits theater salons. He goes from a corps de ballet artist to a soloist. Then he plays role as the Prodigal son, the audience is delighted, everyone cries. Serge Lifar shines. After Sergei Diaghilev passed away, Serge Lifar combines the duties of the chief choreographer, choreographer, lead dancer and director of the Paris opera. Lifar revived the French ballet.

Please look at this picture. This is the Golden Shoe - the highest award in the ballet, which Serge Lifar received, and next to it we see his pointe, that he danced in the Kyiv studio. Lillan Alefeldt handed them over to the Kyiv museum and said: “You should never separate them,” she asked, “because there is glory in one and pain and sweat in the other ...”

When French President Charles de Gaulle at one of the receptions addressed Serge Lifar with the words “Dear Mr. Lifar, you did as much for France as there were few made from famous Frenchmen. Isn’t it time for you to become a Frenchman with your passport? ” Serge Lifar replied: “I am sincerely grateful, Mr. President, for your proposal, but I have never been and never will be French, since I am Ukrainian and my homeland is Ukraine and my beloved Kyiv.” In a suicide note that he addressed to his beloved wife Lillan d'Alefeldt, Sergey Lifar wrote: “Serge from Kiev. Ukrainian to the end. "

On the grave stone of Serge Lifar, it is engraved that he is Serge Lifar from Kiev.

In the project "Shukay!" we installed Serge Lifar's Golden Shoe. It can be viewed on the building of the Premier Palace Hotel Kyiv. The sign is this: rub me and you will reach incredible heights.

The conclusion of this story is: you can begin to reach your dream at any age.