How Russian nobles develop Russian culture in the USA

Member of the Congress of Russian Americans and the Russian Noble Assembly in America Lyudmila Selinskaya now lives in New York. Her family, belonging to the Russian nobility, experienced several emigrations to various European countries after the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia. As a result, fate brought them to the United States.

The woman shared her story of emigration and life in New York in an interview with the publication “Russian world".

“My childhood memories are connected with life in the barracks for displaced persons in Mönchehof and Schleissheim. I remember an unpleasant episode when my friend and I were sent somewhere like a German nursery, and there the nuns, knowing that we were Orthodox, still forced us to be baptized in the Catholic way. I stubbornly refused, for which they beat me on the hands with a ruler, after which my parents sent me to a Russian kindergarten at the first opportunity,” Selinskaya said.

According to her, in the refugee camps there were people from all emigrations, from “white” to recent “Soviet” ones, and there was even a Cossack village - a “horse yard”. The Russians made everything with their own hands, turned a barrack into a church, painted pictures for schools, managed to create costumes and decorations out of nothing, held round dances and arranged other entertainment.

“Everyone was sitting on their suitcases, waiting to see which country the “displaced” would be accepted into, which I, like other kids, had no idea about. In 1951, with the help of the Tolstoy Foundation, the family moved to the United States. “I was horrified by the noise, din and dirt of the streets of reinforced concrete New York, which replaced the forest Bilibinsk for me,” the woman admitted.

Life was hard, the color of the Russian intelligentsia often worked in factories. But wherever the Russians came, churches were built in the first place, which became centers of spiritual, cultural, and social life. The first churches of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR) in the Brooklyn region were arranged on the first floors of the rented premises, classes of Saturday schools were huddled together there.

Gradually, the parishes of the ROCOR moved into their own buildings.

“From the age of eight, I studied at St. Joseph’s School at the parish of St. Archangel Michael, where my father taught history. There were children of both the “first-white” and “second-Soviet” emigration, who gradually began to merge into the Russian Abroad,” Selinskaya said.

According to her, at school, children were taught the Law of God, the Russian language, Russian and world history and geography.

“We celebrated Christmas with the church, on January 7, and not on December 25, like other Americans. At the Christmas trees in the Russian school there was Father Frost, round dances with songs, and performances. We had a uniform, like in Russia, with capes, our own coat of arms, diaries and the school magazine “Snowdrop”, where my article “Let’s not be ashamed of the Russian name” was published,” shared the Russian immigrant.

She admitted that the adaptation was not easy, classmates in American schools called them names. red Communists etc.

“I graduated from a Russian school and entered a gymnasium in Manhattan, where art was taught in addition to the academic program. Once in the parish I was asked to help with the production of Gogol’s “The Night Before Christmas”, and then to teach the children Russian dances. I drew scenery and sketches of costumes, composed musical accompaniment, choreographed... Thus began my many years of “obedience” with productions in Russian schools, they began to invite me to youth ball committees, where I helped prepare the artistic program,” Selinskaya said.

Her organizational work in the United States is closely linked with the work of Pushkin.

“It all started with my Pushkin. His 175th anniversary was approaching, and the leaders of ORYUR asked me to hold the Pushkin Festival with the participation of our children and youth, combining it with professional actors. The host of the program was Igor Novosiltsev, a relative of the “Pushkin” Goncharovs. The production featured famous Russian singers of the New York Opera Lyudmila Azova and Tamara Bering; the troupe of Andrei Kulik, dancer and choreographer of the famous Joffrey Ballet; a Russian-born ballerina from the San Francisco Ballet; and George de la Pena, a Russian-Argentine soloist with the New York Ballet. The round dances were prepared by my ballerina friend Tatyana Pavlova, and the famous regent Alexey Petrovich Fekula took over the leadership of the youth choir,” she said.

The festival was a great success, prompting rave reviews in the press, after which a friend of Selinsky emigrant from Ukraine Andrei Kulik suggested creating a Russian musical theater with a Russian-Ukrainian repertoire with the participation of his dancers.

According to the woman, in those days, Ukrainians and Russians considered themselves to come from the same cultural environment and there were very warm relations between them.

“Ukrainians, Belarusians and others were part of the foreign Union of Peoples of Russia, which organized annual Russian balls, and our guys went to dances at Soyuzivka, a kind of resort in the Catskill Mountains (New York State), founded by the Ukrainian People's Union in 1952 . The youth found a common language,” Selinskaya explained.

Many Russian-speaking immigrants in those days studied at Columbia University, where there was an “Orthodox Brotherhood” that included Greeks, Lebanese, Copts and Slavs.

One of the students of this institution, Sergey Dyachenko, had the idea to create a Russian club in the House of Free Russia. It was the cultural center of the Russian diaspora in New York. There was a hall for lectures, concerts and balls, the headquarters of public organizations, clubs, publications, a museum with the most valuable archival materials and relics of the White Army.

“Russian youth from various organizations willingly supported the idea of ​​a common informal club, and Sergei joked that “the Muscovites themselves had not thought of this before.” The Russian club organized parties, creative meetings and rehearsals before performances at Russian balls. Thanks to the Russian Club, many couples met and got married, since it is not so easy to find Russian companions abroad,” said Selinskaya.

When she married, she continued to instill in the child Russian language and culture.

“In the first six months, my husband and my son learned “There is a green oak at the Lukomorye,” and by nine months the baby began to repeat after his father the words of Pushkin, who played the role of matchmaker for us during the preparation of the Pushkin Festival,” she noted.

In order to preserve the Russian language, parents born abroad often spoke only Russian with their babies, despite the fact that they often spoke English among themselves. Having mastered Russian, the children went to an American kindergarten and quickly learned English.

“Our son, like his father and grandfather, began to serve in the church and attend lessons in the Law of God for preschoolers. When he was a little over three, we took him to the ORYUR summer scout camp in the picturesque Adirondack Mountains in New York State, where there was a children's program. At the age of six, he went to kindergarten at the parochial school of St. Seraphim Church in Sea Cliff,” Selinskaya said.

“My husband and I became parishioners of St. Seraphim Church, and I began singing in the choir of our parish, where our son also served. My parents and husband began teaching at the temple school. And then I was again encouraged to organize school plays with the light hand of my husband, who said at a parent meeting: “Problems with the Christmas tree? So Mila will arrange it for you". I staged “Russian Fairy Tales” based on the works of A. S. Pushkin. The role of Sadko was now played by my seven-year-old Yura, who then played Mizgir in “The Snow Maiden” and Levko in “May Night,” the woman shared.

She admitted that her family is proud to be “Russian Americans.”

However, she noted that despite the great desire of Russians in emigration not to lose touch with Russia and its culture, they do not receive any support from their homeland.

“Not to lose contact with Russia is a natural desire even in the most difficult conditions... The first (white emigration), and then the second, post-war (where, by the way, in addition to immigrants from the Soviet Union, there were also representatives of “whites” from Europe, Asia and even Africa), did not receive any government support. There were such private charitable foundations as Tolstoy, where Alexandra Lvovna managed in the post-war years to achieve government support for the program for accepting refugees in the United States, and the Prince Beloselsky-Belozersky Foundation, which was able to provide assistance to Russian refugees and emigrant organizations,” Selinskaya said, adding, that when organizing Russian cultural events in the USA, you have to rely solely on your own strength.

The woman also has her own recipe for establishing US-Russian relations at this stage: “We need an information presence, the development of public contacts. America is not monolithic, but consists of many ethnic groups, and it is important to maintain relations with different groups, starting with more historically close ones, such as the Serbs, Greeks, Armenians, Orthodox churches, as well as conservative American groups who share the traditional views of the majority of Russians. to resist the flow of Russophobia. Hostile relations with Russia are bad for America itself. ”

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