Bookshelf

Ramuz-Strawinsky: Noces et autres histoires russes. Eds. PUF et Fondation Martin Bodmer, 2007

Musique, peinture, poésie : les épousailles de l’art. Préface de Georges Starobinski.
L’histoire de cet objet d’exception se déroule en trois actes.

Acte I - Entre 1916 et 1919, Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz adapte en langue française huit œuvres d’Igor Strawinsky inspirées par des poésies populaires russes, en étroite collaboration avec le compositeur lors de son séjour en Suisse. Destinées au chant, ces adaptations sont éditées dans les partitions de musique, sous le texte original russe.

Acte II - Les adaptations de Ramuz sont rassemblées en 1943, à l’instigation de Richard Heyd, qui reprenait alors à Neuchâtel la direction des jeunes Editions Ides et Calendes. Un beau livre en résulte, dont le charme doit beaucoup à ses illustrations. En effet, si les textes se retrouvent séparés de la musique qui en a dicté a forme, ils sont en revanche accompagnés en belle page par des dessins de Théodore Strawinsky, fils du compositeur, aquarellés individuellement par l’artiste dans chaque exemplaire du livre.

Acte III - Tous les documents originaux ayant servi à l’établissement de l’ouvrage de 1943 (manuscrit de l’écrivain, études préparatoires et dessins aquarellés du peintre) sont reliés par la suite avec une partition autographe d’Igor Strawinsky de 1949 et la première version – inédite – de la préface de Ramuz. Dans cet exemplaire unique, les manuscrits de Ramuz apparaissent dans l’ordre où ils ont été publiés en 1943, les dessins de Théodore Strawinsky étant rassemblés à la fin du recueil. C’est cet objet exceptionnel que l’on découvre ici.

About the author

Nadia Sikorsky

Nadia Sikorsky was born and raised in Moscow. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University and went on to complete her postgraduate studies there, earning a PhD in History. She spent 13 years at UNESCO, first in Paris and then in Geneva. After serving as Director of Communications at Green Cross International, founded by Mikhail Gorbachev, she launched NashaGazeta.ch in 2007, Switzerland’s first Russian-language online daily newspaper.

In 2022, Nadia Sikorsky was named to Le Temps’ Forum des 100, which brings together individuals who, in the newspaper’s view, have “significantly contributed to the success of French-speaking Switzerland”, from across public life, business, politics, science and culture.

After 18 years at the helm of NashaGazeta.ch, Nadia Sikorsky decided to devote herself to what had always held a special place in her work as a journalist: culture in all its diversity. This led to the creation of Russian Accent, a trilingual cultural blog in Russian, French and English, born in the heart of Europe, in Switzerland, which has become her second home and whose multiculturalism and multilingualism have helped shape the character of this new project.

At the heart of the project is the perspective of a European of Russian origin, drawing on more than 35 years of professional experience and a deep knowledge of both cultural traditions. Nadia Sikorsky sees her role as that of a cultural mediator between the two. The title of the blog, Russian Accent, reflects this idea: the accent is neither a linguistic barrier nor a political position, but a distinctive cultural imprint within a European context.

Events
Ella Maillart
Brauner
saint laurent
Most read
Daniil Harms: Between Reason and Zaum

A new book by the Geneva-based Slavist Jean-Philippe Jaccard and his Russian colleague Andrei Ustinov, now living in San Francisco, has been published by the European University at St Petersburg: Vzir Zaumi. Daniil Harms and the Literary Avant-Garde of the 1920s. In the authors' own words, the volume offers a kind of X-ray of Leningrad's "left-wing " circles and their evolution during the period between Harms's poetic debut and the creation of OBERIU, as well as the dynamics that shaped those circles.

The Frail Iron Genius

A few days ago, the Lausanne-based publisher Éditions Noir sur Blanc brought out Guzel Yakhina’s novel about the celebrated Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein. French readers will be able to read it in Maud Mabillard’s translation and, importantly, in full, including the ninth chapter omitted from the Russian edition.