What was the Silver Age?
The Silver Age is the name for the high point of Russian culture from about the 1890s to 1917. The name was first used for poetry and plays on the earlier Golden Age of Pushkin. It was a time of fast change in Russia: factories were growing, cities were growing, and people argued about the future. This made artists try new ideas. Writers, painters, musicians and scientists often knew each other and learned from each other.
Science
Russian science was strong in these years.
- Dmitri Mendeleev had made the periodic table in 1869; he died in 1907.
- Ivan Pavlov studied digestion and conditioned reflexes and won the Nobel Prize in 1904.
- Ilya Mechnikov studied immunity (how the body fights germs) and shared the Nobel Prize in 1908.
- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky worked out the theory of rockets and space travel (key paper 1903).
- Alexander Popov showed radio signals in 1895; Pyotr Lebedev measured the pressure of light (1900); Vladimir Vernadsky studied the biosphere; Igor Sikorsky built a large four-engine aircraft in 1913.
Literature
Poetry flowered in three main schools:
- Symbolists (Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely, Valery Bryusov, Konstantin Balmont) used images and the music of words to hint at deeper meanings.
- Acmeists (Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilyov, Osip Mandelstam) wanted clear words and real things instead of foggy symbols.
- Futurists (Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov) broke old rules and wrote loud, bold lines about the city and the new age.
In prose and plays, Anton Chekhov (died 1904), Maxim Gorky, Ivan Bunin and Alexander Kuprin wrote about ordinary and poor people. Leo Tolstoy, the great older writer, died in 1910.
Art and music
The World of Art (Mir iskusstva) group, started in 1898 by Alexandre Benois, Sergei Diaghilev and Leon Bakst, loved beauty, books and stage design. Valentin Serov made lively portraits; Mikhail Vrubel painted dreamy, strange scenes.
Then came bold avant-garde art: Wassily Kandinsky painted some of the first abstract pictures (about 1910–13), Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov tried new styles, Marc Chagall painted dream-like scenes, and in 1915 Kazimir Malevich showed his Black Square: a picture with no object at all, only shape and colour.
In music, Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky wrote new sounds.
Theatre
In 1898 Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko founded the Moscow Art Theatre. They taught actors to feel the part and act truthfully, not just shout and pose. Its stage of Chekhov's The Seagull (1898) was a great success. Stanislavski's ideas, the "Stanislavski system", are still taught to actors in many countries. Others, like Vsevolod Meyerhold, tried a very different, more stylised theatre.
The Russian Seasons
Sergei Diaghilev was an organiser who wished to show Russian art to Europe. He began in Paris with an art show (1906) and concerts (1907), then the opera Boris Godunov (1908). In 1909 came the first ballet season: the Russian Seasons (Ballets Russes). Dancers such as Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina, choreographer Mikhail Fokine, painters such as Bakst and Benois, and the music of Stravinsky (The Firebird 1910, Petrushka 1911, The Rite of Spring 1913) made Paris and the world look at Russian ballet. It changed dance everywhere.
Key formulas and definitions
- Silver Age = about the 1890s – 1917 (Golden Age = Pushkin's time)
- Science: Pavlov (Nobel 1904), Mechnikov (Nobel 1908), Tsiolkovsky (rockets), Popov (radio 1895)
- Poetry: Symbolists, Acmeists, Futurists
- Art: World of Art (1898) → avant-garde (Kandinsky, Malevich Black Square 1915)
- Theatre: Moscow Art Theatre (1898); Russian Seasons: Diaghilev, Paris from 1907 (ballet 1909)
Worked examples
1. Match each poet to a school: Blok, Akhmatova, Mayakovsky.
Blok = Symbolist; Akhmatova = Acmeist; Mayakovsky = Futurist.
2. Why is Malevich's Black Square important?
It is a famous step into abstract art. It shows no object, only a shape, and it said that a picture does not have to copy the real world.
3. What did Diaghilev do?
He organised the Russian Seasons in Paris. He brought Russian painters, singers, dancers and composers to Europe, and the Ballets Russes made Russian ballet world-famous.
4. Name two Russian scientists of the Silver Age who won a Nobel Prize and say for what.
Ivan Pavlov (1904), for his work on digestion and conditioned reflexes; Ilya Mechnikov (1908), for his work on immunity.
5. How did the Moscow Art Theatre change acting?
It taught actors to feel the part and act truthfully, so the audience believed the story. Stanislavski's ideas spread to many countries.
Common mistakes
- Mixing up the Golden Age and the Silver Age. The Golden Age is Pushkin's early 1800s; the Silver Age is about the 1890s to 1917.
- Thinking the Silver Age was only about poetry. Science, art, music, theatre and ballet all belong to it.
- Calling the Black Square a landscape. It is an abstract picture of a black square on white: it shows no real object.
- Believing the Russian Seasons were held in Russia. They were shown in Paris and other European cities by Diaghilev's company.