В пучине бренного мира. Японское искусство и его коллекционер Сергей Китаев - Евгений Семенович Штейнер

Kitaev’s letter to Pavel Pavlinov. Aug. 20, 1916.

Kitaev’s letter to Pavlinov. Aug. 20, 1916. The underlining is by Kitaev.

Nagata Seiji, “Kaette kita hizō ukiyo-e ten” (Exhibition of returning treasures of ukiyo-e), in Pushikin bijutsukan: Ukiyo-e korekushon no tokusho (The Pushkin Museum: A special exhibition of the ukiyo-e collection) (Tokyo: Ota Memorial Museum of Art, 1994), 10.

Kitaev’s letter to Pavlinov, Aug. 15, 1916.

Kitaev’s letter to Pavlinov, Aug. 20, 1916.

An Illustrated Catalogue of Japanese Old Fine Arts Displayed at the Japan-British Exhibition, London, 1910 (Tokyo: The Shimbi Shoin, 1910).

Kitaev’s letter to Vasily V. Gorshanov, Dec. 7, 1916, Department of Manuscripts, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, stock 9, inventory I, document 22.

Kitaev’s letter to Pavlinov, Aug. 20, 1916.

Kitaev’s letter to Pavlinov, Aug. 20, 1916.

Kitaev, Ukazatel’ vystavki Iaponskoi zhivopisi v Imperatorskoi Academii Khudozhestv (Guide to the exhibition of Japanese painting in the Imperial Academy of Arts) (St. Petersburg: Tipo-Litografiya R. Golike, 1896); Ukazatel’ vystavki Iaponskoi zhivopisi (Guide to the exhibition of Japanese painting) (St. Petersburg: Tipografiya I. Kh. Usmanova, 1905). The text of the latter is very similar to the former.

Syn Otechestva (The Son of the Fatherland) 301, Nov. 6 (18), 1896. I am grateful to Boris Katz for sharing the information from old Petersburg newspapers with me.

Novoe Vremya (The New Times) 7453, Nov. 25 (Dec. 8), 1896.

Novoe Vremya 7454, Nov. 26 (Dec. 9), 1896.

Kitaev’s letter to Pavlinov, Aug. 15, 1916.

Novoe Vremya 7458, Nov. 30 (Dec. 12), 1896.

Novoe Vremya 7474, Dec. 16 (28), 1896. Alexander I. Nelidov (1835–1910), an influential diplomat, was a Russian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Avtobiograficheskie Zapiski (Autobiographical notes) (Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, 1974), 106–7.

Kitaev’s letter to Valerian P. Loboikov of June 12 (25), 1904, Research Archives of the Russian Academy of Arts, Saint Petersburg, vol. for 1896. This letter is placed next to the receipt of Kitaev’s expenses and an unsigned report saying that Kitaev was made to pay in strict accordance with the law. I thank Boris Katz for sharing the text of this letter with me.

The institution evolved from a museum of plaster casts to a true museum of fine arts only after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, when the communist government nationalized all private collections and palaces and ordered their contents brought to the new museum (opened in 1912), although, before 1924, the main collecting point was the Rumyantsev Museum. It should be mentioned here that if Tsvetaev was not sympathetic to the idea of having Japanese collections in his classical art museum, he advised Moscow tea merchant K. S. Popov to collect Far Eastern arts and crafts: “I inveigled him in creation of a museum of Japanese and Chinese art industry in hope that later it would become either an independent museum, or an autonomous addition to the ethnographic department of the Rumyantsev Museum, or the Museum of Stroganov’s school of technical drawing.” See Tsvetaev’s diary entry 285 of April 27, 1899, Department of Manuscripts, Pushkin Museum, stock 6, inventory II, document 18. This quotation was drawn to my attention by Margarita Aksenenko, the Head of the Pushkin Museum Archive, in her e-mail message to me of March 3, 2008. Kitaev tried to attract the interest of Popov, but was not successful.

N. Georgievich, “Plennitza” (The Captive), Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti (Saint Petersburg Gazette) 138, Sunday, May 23 (June 5), 1904. N. Georgievich is a pseudonym of Nikolai G. Shebuev (1874–1937), a journalist and author of Iaponskie Vechera (Japanese evenings). A Japanese national, Shiratori, who lived in Saint Petersburg (and was arrested as a Japanese spy in August 1904) helped him to write it. Kitaev was among visitors to Shiratori’s apartment at 15 Italianskaia St., and was noticed several times entering through the service entrance. See the report of Captain Chevazhevsky, the acting head of the 1st department of Spassky district of Saint Petersburg (1904), Central Russian Historical Archive, stock 6c/102, inventory 1, document 20, in Iz istorii Russko-Iaponskoi voiny 1904–1905 gg, 387. The Russo-Japanese War began February 8, 1904.

As it became evident in the light of a newly discovered document, Elisseeff did not recommend the collection for purchase by the state because of its quality and a very high price. See: The Archive of the Russian Ethnographic Museum, Stock 1, inventory 2, document 324, f. 7–8. / Quoted from: Marakhonova S., The Order of the holu Treasure of Sergei Eliseev. – St. Petersburg: Sinel Publishers, 2016, c. 76.

Draft of a letter from Kitaev to Vasily V. Gorshanov, Dec. 7, 1916, Department of Manuscripts, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, stock 9, inventory I, document 22.

Arnold I. Gessen, “Vystavka Iaponskoi Zhivopisi” (An exhibition of Japanese painting), Sankt- Peterburgskie Vedomosti (Saint Petersburg Gazette) 230, Sept. 24 (Oct. 7) 1905. Gessen (1878–1976) was a young journalist who later became a prominent historian of literature and wrote several books about the poet Pushkin.

Ishigaki Katsu, “Serugei Kitaefu to daini no kokyō Nihon” (Sergei Kitaev and his second motherland, Japan),