A photograph of Borodin in 1873
Aleksandr Borodin (1833-87)

In Turgenev's novel Fathers and Children (1862) the nihilist hero Bazarov famously retorts to his antagonist, Pavel Kirsanov:

"A decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any poet!" (Ch. VI)

Could one apply such a utilitarian yardstick to Aleksandr Borodin (1833-87), who was a respected organic chemist, but at the same time the author of both the music and libretto to such a wonderful opera as Prince Igor (posthumously premièred in 1890), the composer of two fine string quartets and the mighty Bogatyrskaya Symphony (1876)? Evidently not! Vladimir Stasov for his part, despite being an ardent follower of the radical publicist Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-89)—whose attacks on art and aesthetics had influenced Turgenev's complex portrait of Bazarov—regretted that so much of Borodin's time was taken up by laboratory work and lectures at the Medico-Surgical Academy in Saint Petersburg. Recalling the slow pace at which Borodin had worked on his "unfinishable" opera Prince Igor (as the composer himself jestingly called it in 1882), Stasov would later observe:

"One had to prod him with all one's might. I don't deny that as a scientist Borodin worked meticulously and, so I've been told, achieved significant results, but to all of us, his friends, his Igor was far dearer, indeed. In Russia there have been, and will be, many chemists, but there was only one composer like Borodin!" [1]
An example of the Borodin-Hunsdiecker reaction
An example of the Borodin-Hunsdiecker reaction, which is used
in organic synthesis. Borodin was the first to describe it in 1860.

Significantly, Borodin himself saw no contradiction between his professional work as a chemist and his musical activities. Even when he was snowed under with teaching work at the Academy and the "Higher Medicine Courses for Women" (which he had helped to set up in 1872), as well as with domestic cares (since his wife, Ekaterina, a fine pianist, suffered from mental illness), he would try to devote some hours every week to playing the cello in chamber music soirées and to composing.

Franz Liszt in a photograph from 1877
Franz Liszt (1811-86), one of the idols of
the "Mighty Handful"

It is indeed remarkable how in spite of his heavy workload and the extra commitments he took upon himself by organising financial aid for hard-up students, and despite never having studied at a conservatory, Borodin managed to compose such inspired and technically accomplished works as the Second String Quartet (1881), with its beautiful Notturno (Andante) Listen to the Notturno from Borodin's 2nd String Quartet!, or the Bogatyrskaya Symphony, not to mention his masterpiece, the opera Prince Igor! It should be said, though, that only a few sections of this opera were actually orchestrated by Borodin himself: after his sudden death in 1887 Rimsky-Korsakov and the young Aleksandr Glazunov had to devote several months of intensive work to completing the score, since Borodin had proceeded very slowly in his work on the sketches for his opera, often playing various excerpts to his friends before settling on the definitive version. Given his great modesty, it is not surprising that he confessed to Liszt, when they met in Weimar in the summer of 1877, that he was no more than a "Sunday composer" (Sonntagmusiker), that is one who dedicated himself to music only in his spare time. The great Hungarian pianist and composer, however, who was delighted by the Bogatyrskaya Symphony, having acquainted himself with its recently published piano arrangement, told Borodin that he had no reason to be ashamed, since "Sunday is always a feast day"! [2]

A photograph of Mariya Vilinska (Marko Vovchok) taken in Paris in the winter of 1860/61
The Ukrainian writer Marko Vovchok
(real name: Mariya Vilinska; 1833-1907)

Turgenev first met Borodin in Paris at the end of 1860. The Medico-Surgical Academy had sent the twenty-six-year-old Borodin abroad the previous year so that he could pursue postgraduate studies in various European laboratories, principally in Heidelberg but also in Pisa. The University of Heidelberg was then the main destination for young scientists and doctors from Russia who sought to deepen their knowledge—a generation of which Bazarov in Fathers and Children is in some ways representative—and it was there that Borodin became friends with Dmitri Mendeleyev (1834-1907), who would go on to draw up the periodic table of elements, as well as the notable physiologist Ivan Sechenov (1829-1905). In November 1860, however, Borodin went to Paris where he would stay until the following spring, attending lectures by such luminaries as Pasteur and Claude Bernard. It was probably through another acquaintance from the Russian colony at Heidelberg, Mariya Markovich (née Vilinska; 1833-1907), who under her pen-name Marko Vovchok had published a collection of Ukrainian Folk Tales in 1858 which were translated into Russian by Turgenev, that Borodin was introduced to the latter in Paris that winter. In January 1861 Borodin wrote to Mendeleyev that he had been invited to celebrate the New Year at Turgenev's house, but had preferred not to go because he knew from experience that the parties there tended to drag on too long [3]. Two months later, in a letter from Rome, where she was then staying, Marko Vovchok asked Turgenev if he had been able to return to Borodin a watch which he had left with her, and which she had asked someone to hand over to Turgenev for safekeeping [4]. Turgenev was probably able to carry out this errand before Borodin's departure from Paris in the spring, even though it is not mentioned in his surviving letters to Marko Vovchok from that period. After three years of research work abroad Borodin returned to Saint Petersburg in the autumn of 1862 to take up a professorship in chemistry at the Medico-Surgical Academy.

The first reference to Borodin in Turgenev's extant correspondence appears in a letter from London to his trusted friend Pavel Annenkov at the end of 1870. After citing Pauline Viardot's praise for some songs by Rimsky-Korsakov, Turgenev said of Borodin's ballad The Sea, a copy of which had also been sent to Mme Viardot from Russia, that it was "pleasant, but rather weak and too long" [5]. Turgenev would meet Borodin again on 4 June 1874, at that ill-fated musical soirée in Stasov's apartment in Saint Petersburg (see the section on the "Mighty Handful"). When the writer, in whose honour the soirée had been arranged, was seized by an acute attack of gout, Borodin, who had originally trained as a doctor, administered first aid to him [6].

Borodin alludes to this episode, as well as to their first meeting in Paris many years earlier, at the start of a letter which he wrote to Turgenev from Saint Petersburg in October 1877:

"Dear Sir
       Ivan Sergeyevich,
A very long time ago, back in 1860, I had the honour of being received at your house, and to this day I have the most agreeable memories of that occasion. Then, a few years ago [in 1874], I saw you at the Stasovs', at a party which began so well—with A. G. Rubinstein's playing—and which ended so badly—with your sudden illness. I realize that this gives me all too little justification to take advantage of your universally known goodness and kindness, but all the same I am taking the liberty of troubling you with a request regarding one of my former students" [7]
A photograph of Adelaida Lukanina in 1887
Adelaida Lukanina (1843-1908)

The former student in question was Adelaida Lukanina (née Rykacheva; 1843-1908), who had studied chemistry under Borodin's supervision in Saint Petersburg from 1869 to 1872, whilst also clandestinely attending lectures at the Medico-Surgical Academy—something that was illegal for women in Russia at the time. Since she could not take any exams there, however, Lukanina had subsequently gone abroad and enrolled at the University of Zurich to study medicine, as well as working as a medical assistant at a children's clinic. Shortly before she was due to graduate, in 1874, the Russian government issued a decree ordering all Russian women studying in Switzerland to return home immediately. Lukanina ignored this order, but she could no longer stay in Zurich and so she left Europe for America, enrolling at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, from which she qualified as a doctor in 1876. She had returned to Europe the following year, settling in Paris, which was a haven for many émigrés from Russia—political or otherwise—but, as Borodin explained in his letter to Turgenev, she was suffering great hardship because the only work she could get in Paris was writing medical articles for journals in Russia, and such commissions were rare and badly paid. Borodin went on:

"Knowing with what readiness you render assistance—in word and in deed—to everyone who turns to you, I venture to ask you: would you not be able to find work of some kind for Adelaida Nikolaevna in Paris? I would not take the liberty of asking on her behalf, were I not convinced that she is capable of justifying your trust. Apart from her specialist knowledge, she has a very good general education, she has a good command of French, German, and English; she knows Italian and Spanish quite well, and even Serbian. She has done a lot of work for journals: translations, abstracts etc. She is an extremely good, honest, truthful, modest, and gifted person. She always shows an earnest and conscientious attitude towards everything that she undertakes" [8]
A photograph of Turgenev in 1879
Turgenev in 1879

Borodin's faith in the great writer's willingness to help a compatriot in need was not misplaced: after meeting Lukanina, who handed him the above letter of recommendation from Borodin, Turgenev immediately urged the Saint Petersburg-based magazine Herald of Europe to publish a story she had written. Over the following six years, thanks to Turgenev's support, she was a regular contributor to that magazine, and during the last year of his life, in 1883, she also acted sometimes as his secretary to whom he would dictate letters to Russian friends. Lukanina kept a diary of her conversations with Turgenev over those years, and after his death she would publish some extremely valuable memoirs about him which include many interesting observations by Turgenev on Pushkin, Lermontov, and Gogol, and a wide range of other topics [9].

Returning to 1877, however, Turgenev promptly replied to Borodin, informing him of the steps he had taken to ensure that Lukanina could receive a regular income from her literary work, as well as of the favourable impression which the Bogatyrskaya Symphony had made on everyone in the Viardot household:

"I am personally very grateful to you for causing me to make the acquaintance of A. N. Lukanina. As far as I can judge, she is a very intelligent, nice, and good woman [...]
Our meeting at Mr Stasov's place is still very fresh in my mind. I must also tell you that Mme Viardot, who takes a great interest in Russian music, has this autumn, together with her daughter [Marianne], played through the piano duet arrangement of your 2nd Symphony, which I had brought with me from Russia, and that she praised this work of yours highly and intends to acquaint the musicians here with it" [10]
A photograph of Borodin taken in 1875 or 1876
Borodin around 1875-76

At the end of his letter Turgenev expressed the hope that they might renew their acquaintance when he next came to Saint Petersburg. Unfortunately, it is not known whether they did actually meet again. In any case, Borodin was delighted by Turgenev's reply, whose contents he summarized shortly afterwards in a letter to his young research assistant and friend Aleksandr Dianin:

"...Further on Turgenev—a sworn enemy of our musical circle—writes that [Mme] Viardot in Paris is delighted with my 2nd Symphony and is propagandizing it among the musicians over there. That is also amazing! On the whole, this symphony, contrary to expectation, has had great luck in the West, but not here in Russia. This is odd, very odd!" [11]

As is clear from the above, Borodin unfortunately shared Stasov's view that Turgenev never overcame his hostility against the "Mighty Handful". It seems that Musorgsky had not told him about his meeting with Turgenev three years earlier and how the latter had expressed genuine admiration for his music (for more details, see the section on Musorgsky). When Borodin says that his symphony had had more luck in the West than in Russia, he is referring to the fact that Liszt earlier that summer and now Pauline Viardot had spoken enthusiastically about that work after acquainting themselves with its piano arrangement (made by Borodin himself), whereas at the symphony's first performance in Saint Petersburg on 26 February/10 March 1877 it had been received with hissing and catcalls from the audience. This hostile response had deeply upset Borodin, and so the praise of such musical authorities as Liszt and Mme Viardot was a great boost to his morale [12].

The Second Symphony came to be known as the Bogatyrskaya thanks to Stasov, who, in his 1889 biography of Borodin recalled how the late composer had intended the work's first movement Listen to the first movement of the «Bogatyrskaya»! to evoke a group of bogatyri (the knight-heroes of Russian folklore) assembling to defend the Russian lands. Indeed, the symphony's title matches its music perfectly, especially in the opening movement, with its unforgettable main theme that Evgeniya Gordeeva has aptly described as follows:

"The symphony begins with a theme Listen to the first movement of the «Bogatyrskaya»! which is full of mighty, austere strength, both menacing and majestic at the same time [...] It is with almost visible contours that there arises before us the image of the bogatyrs' daring and fearlessness which evokes the heroes of the Russian folk epics. This theme becomes even stronger and grows broader in its development, which then leads to the second theme—one which so resembles the lyric Russian folk songs" [13]
Three Bogatyrs. A painting by Viktor Vasnetsov
Three Bogatyrs (1898). A painting by Viktor Vasnetsov (1848-1926)

Recalling how, in 1869, he had suggested the Old Russian epic poem The Lay of Prince Igor's Campaign to Borodin as the basis of an opera, Stasov explained that he had done so because he felt that this subject contained all the elements which suited Borodin's artistic nature: "broad epic motifs, national character (narodnost'), the most diverse figures, passionateness, drama, the Orient in its most varied manifestations" [14]. With regard to "national character", it is worth noting here that Turgenev was generally sceptical of those Russian artists who tried to pack their works with supposedly 'national' motifs. Thus, in the speech which he gave during the festivities to mark the unveiling of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow, in June 1880, he reminded his listeners that:

"Displaying the banner of 'nationality' [narodnost'] in painting, poetry, and literature is something which is characteristic of weak nations who haven't matured yet, or of those which are enslaved or oppressed" [15]

Even so, Turgenev did appreciate and look for national "originality" in the works of Russian artists, as is clear from a letter which he sent from Paris in 1882 to the painter Ivan Kramskoi (1837-87), one of the founders of the group of Russian realist artists known as peredvizhniki, or The Itinerants:

"There is no doubt that French society has started to take an interest in Russian painting precisely ever since the latter acquired independence and displayed originality and became truly Russian" [16]

What Turgenev disapproved of was the tendentious emphasising of 'nationality', but where the latter had "become part of the artist's flesh and blood" (as he put it in his Pushkin speech), then that artist would be able to produce works of art that were full of life and originality. It is precisely to such works that the Bogatyrskaya Symphony belongs: without any direct 'quotations' from Russian folk music (in contrast to, say, Tchaikovsky's no less impressive Fourth Symphony), it is still distinctly and unmistakably Russian.

The foundations for the world-wide popularity of Borodin's music were laid by the Russian Concerts of 1899 in Paris, conducted by Rimsky-Korsakov, at which the short symphonic tableau In the Steppes of Central Asia Listen to «In the Steppes of Central Asia»! (1880) and the famous Polovtsian Dances Listen to the Polovtsian Dances scene! from Prince Igor were first performed in Western Europe. Paradoxically, these were pieces in which Borodin had set out to evoke not 'Russianness', but rather various aspects of the Orient, ranging from sweet languor (as Glinka had done with the figure of Ratmir in Ruslan and Lyudmila) to unbridled savageness, so vividly conveyed by the dances and choruses Listen to the Polovtsian Dances scene! of the Polovtsian warriors. Stasov was right to say that, after joining the circle of Balakirev (who had returned from his 1863 visit to the Caucasus with a treasure-trove of oriental songs and melodies), Borodin "suddenly turned into the composer in whom the Russian national element and the Oriental one which is indissolubly bound to it expressed themselves with the utmost force and talent" [17].

Unfortunately, Turgenev did not get to hear the music of the Polovtsian Dances Listen to the Polovtsian Dances scene! when they were first publicly performed at a concert of the Free Music School in Saint Petersburg in the winter of 1879 because he was in Paris at the time and did not come to Russia until February of the following year. (Incidentally, these dances too might have remained just in sketch form upon Borodin's death, had it not been for Rimsky-Korsakov, who literally forced his friend to sit down and orchestrate them a few days before the concert). It is very likely, though, that Turgenev would have liked the dances, even if he was somewhat ashamed of the 'oriental' elements in the Russian national character and culture, as suggested by the indignation with which the 'Europeanized' gentleman Pavel Kirsanov in Fathers and Children reacts to the young nihilists' invocation of brute force to eliminate all the ills of society:

"Why, that is enough to try the patience even of an angel! Brute strength!! You'll find plenty of that in a wild Kalmyk or in a Mongol! But of what use can it be to us? What we value is civilisation—yes, dear sir— civilisation... We value its fruits [...] You imagine yourselves to be progressive people, but you might just as well be sitting in a Kalmyk tent, for all I can tell!" (Ch. X)
Prince Igor takes leave from Yaroslavna before departing on his campaign
Prince Igor takes leave from Yaroslavna before
departing on his campaign against the Polovtsy.
Illustration by James Mayhew

Turgenev would certainly have liked Borodin's opera as a whole, given the music's remarkably successful combination of heroic sweep and tender lyricism, as well as the libretto's poetic qualities. In the overture Listen to the overture to «Prince Igor»!, which was written down from memory by the young Glazunov, we encounter the opera's main themes—from the martial trumpet-calls heralding the start of the campaign against the Polovtsy to the moving lyrical theme which conveys the faithful love of Yaroslavna and Igor. Significantly, Stasov suggested that the figure of Yaroslavna, who shows such resilience in misfortune, was partly influenced by Turgenev, who had paid tribute to the courage of Russian women in so many of his works—from Elena in On the Eve (1860) to the nameless young girl who becomes a revolutionary in the prose poem The Threshold (1878). As Stasov argued, 

"In Yaroslavna, Borodin combined the traits of the medieval princess Olga with the quivering of the hearts of Russian women from the later periods of the Tartar invasion, as well as with, moving further on in our history, the strength of character of the Decembrists' wives and of those young Russian girls whom Turgenev symbolically portrayed in his poem The Threshold" [18]

Turgenev's faith in Russian woman in general as "the representative of moral strength in society"[19] derived to a great extent from his observations of such remarkable women as Borodin's former student Adelaida Lukanina who overcame many obstacles in order to train as doctors or teachers and sought to lead useful lives helping the less fortunate.


Notes:

  1. From a conversation with Stasov recalled by the musicologist and composer Boris Asafyev (1884-1949). See: B. V. Asaf'ev, Izbrannye trudy, 3 vols (Moscow, 1952-57), iii, p. 237 [back]

  2. "Aber Sonntag ist immer ein Feiertag". See Borodin's letter to his wife from Jena on 3 July 1877, in which he describes his first visit to Liszt in Weimar, in: S. A. Dianin (ed.), Pis'ma A. P. Borodina, 4 vols (Moscow: 1927-50), ii, p. 131. Also quoted in: S. A. Dianin, Borodin. Zhizneopisanie, materialy i dokumenty (Moscow, 1955), p. 106 [back]

  3. See Borodin's letter of 7/19 January 1861 to Mendeleyev, in: S. A. Dianin (ed.), Pis'ma A. P. Borodina, 4 vols (Moscow: 1927-50), iv, p. 243 [back]

  4. Cf. the letter from Mariya Markovich (Marko Vovchok) to Turgenev from Rome in late February/early March 1861: "Have you handed Borodin his watch back? Write to me about this". See: Literaturnoe nasledstvo, lxxiii/2 (Moscow, 1964), p. 288. Borodin was famous for his absent-mindedness! [back]

  5. Letter to Pavel Annenkov, 19/31 December 1870. See: I. S. Turgenev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem, 28 vols (Leningrad, 1961-68), Pis'ma, viii, p. 321 [back]

  6. See Stasov's account of this soirée in his reminiscences of Turgenev, in: V. G. Fridliand and S. M. Petrov (eds), I. S. Turgenev v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2 vols (Moscow, 1983), ii, p. 107 [back]

  7. Borodin's letter of 16/28 October 1877 to Turgenev was first published fully by E. M. Khmelevskaia in: Literaturnyi arkhiv, iv (Moscow / Leningrad, 1953), p. 392-94. S. A. Dianin's edition of the composer's letters, Pis'ma A. P. Borodina, 4 vols (Moscow: 1927-50), included only a few lines from the rough draft of this letter [back]

  8. Letter from Borodin to Turgenev, 16/28 October 1877. See: Literaturnyi arkhiv, iv (Moscow / Leningrad, 1953), p. 393 [back]

  9. Adelaida Lukanina's reminiscences of Turgenev, first published in 1887, are included in: V. G. Fridliand and S. M. Petrov (eds), I. S. Turgenev v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov, 2 vols (Moscow, 1983), ii, p. 192-223. In 1885, Lukanina was finally given permission to return to Russia. She worked as a doctor in various psychiatric hospitals, but also went as a volunteer to Samara province in 1892 when the region was struck by a severe cholera epidemic. Later, she set up a laundry workshop in Saint Petersburg and made sure that the women who worked there received a good general education as well. Throughout these years she continued her literary work. She would always recall both Borodin and Turgenev with the deepest gratitude. For more information on Lukanina's life, see E. M. Khmelevskaia's introductory article in: Literaturnyi arkhiv, iv (Moscow / Leningrad, 1953), p.346-55 [back]

  10. Letter to Borodin, 27 October/8 November 1877. See: I. S. Turgenev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem, 28 vols (Leningrad, 1961-68), Pis'ma, xii/1, p. 223. This is Turgenev's only known letter to the composer [back]

  11. Letter from Borodin to Aleksandr Dianin, 6/18 November 1877. See: S. A. Dianin (ed.), Pis'ma A. P. Borodina, 4 vols (Moscow: 1927-50), ii, p. 191. Aleksandr Dianin (1851-1918) was Borodin's successor in the chemistry faculty at the Military Medical Academy. The composer's widow Ekaterina Sergeyevna appointed him the executor of Borodin's will, and Dianin accordingly ensured that the royalties from performances of Prince Igor went to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. His son, Sergei Dianin (1888-1968), though also a scientist by profession, worked on Borodin's archive, publishing a four-volume edition of the composer's correspondence and several books about his life and works [back]

  12. Commenting on the failure of the Bogatyrskaya Symphony at its first performance, Sergei Dianin points out that the conductor, Eduard Nápravník, had had trouble with the new work's somewhat dense orchestration, and, in particular, had not been able to perform the scherzo in the right tempo. Moreover, there had been many enemies of the "Mighty Handful" in the audience. See: S. A. Dianin, Borodin. Zhizneopisanie, materialy i dokumenty, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1960), p. 111 [back]

  13. E. M. Gordeeva, Kompozitory "Moguchei kuchki" (Moscow, 1985), p. 151 [back]

  14. V. V. Stasov, Izbrannye trudy o muzyke (Leningrad/Moscow, 1949), p. 237 [back]

  15. See: I. S. Turgenev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem, 28 vols (Leningrad, 1961-68), Sochineniia, xv, p. 69. Turgenev gave his Pushkin speech on 7/19 June 1880, the day before Dostoevsky delivered his more famous tribute to the poet [back]

  16. Letter to Ivan Kramskoi, 6/18 December 1882. See: I. S. Turgenev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem, 28 vols (Leningrad, 1961-68), Pis'ma, xiii/2, p. 121 [back]

  17. V. V. Stasov, Izbrannye trudy o muzyke (Leningrad/Moscow, 1949), p. 234 [back]

  18. Stasov, as recalled by Boris Asafyev. See: B. V. Asaf'ev, Izbrannye trudy, 3 vols (Moscow, 1952-57), iii, p. 267 [back]

  19. As Annenkov put it in his reminiscences of his late friend: 'The Youth of I. S. Turgenev. 1840-1856' (1884). See: P. V. Annenkov, Literaturnye vospominaniia (Moscow, 1960), p. 388 [back]