Nicholas and Helena Roerich: The Spiritual Journey of Two Great Artists and Peacemakers

Nicholas and Helena Roerich: The Spiritual Journey of Two Great Artists and Peacemakers

by Ruth A. Drayer
Nicholas and Helena Roerich: The Spiritual Journey of Two Great Artists and Peacemakers

Nicholas and Helena Roerich: The Spiritual Journey of Two Great Artists and Peacemakers

by Ruth A. Drayer

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Overview

In her latest title, Ruth Drayer provides a factual account of the two Russian visionaries who believed beauty could solve the world's problems and unify humanity. Partners in all things, charismatic Nicholas (1874-1947) was an internationally acclaimed artist, author, daring explorer, conservationist, archeologist, humanitarian and peacemaker, while his wife, Helena (1879 - 1955), was a teacher and healer as well as the inspired co-author of the 'Agni Yoga' series. This is the first book in English to interweave the Agni Yoga writings and the Roerichs' relationship with their spiritual teacher in with their fascinating travels, disclosing the long-hidden story of the Roerichs' connection with Tibetan Buddhism. Though it may read like a tale, Drayer takes us on the real-life adventures of the Roerichs as they travel to the most remote and dangerous regions of India, China, Mongolia, the Gobi, Tibet and Siberia. We bear witness as the couple flees the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 Russia and as they arrive in New York City in the fall of 1920 where they later founded the first school that teaches all of the arts under one roof. We experience their trials and tribulations as the Roerichs trek through the following years.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780835631143
Publisher: Quest Books
Publication date: 04/01/2014
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 381
File size: 11 MB
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Nicholas & Helena Roerich

The Spiritual Journey of Two Great Artists and Peacemakers


By Ruth Abrams Drayer

Theosophical Publishing House

Copyright © 2005 Ruth Abrams Drayer
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8356-3114-3



CHAPTER 1

AN INNER URGENCY FOR ARTISTIC CREATION


What could prevent an adventuresome young Russian boy from digging among the long-abandoned battlefields and ancient burial grounds scattered throughout the forest beyond his family's estate? By the summer the slim, blond, blue-eyed Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich was ten years old, the answer was nothing. Early one morning, in 1884, when the lure of those mysterious moss-covered kurgans, or mounds, and intriguing piles of stones, called tumuli, became irresistible, he began exploring. Unearthing a tenth-century bronze ornament encouraged him to continue. Before long, he had a collection of burial urns, charred bones, double-headed axes, spears, bronze and iron swords, threadbare scraps of embroidered cloth woven from the hair of horses, reins, belts, brooches, and other relics that needed to be concealed from his parents.

On some days visions of campfire smoke seemed to float in the mists around him. He could almost hear horses neighing or glimpse young warriors racing or brawling. Armed with short javelins, they were the dark-eyed Avars, who drank horse's milk and were buried beside their horses. They had traded with the Greeks on the shores of the Black Sea before being driven off by the fierce Iranian-Mongolians, who armored themselves and their horses in finely woven bronze chain mail. "With each swing of the shovel, each stroke of the spade, an alluring kingdom emerged," Nikolai later wrote.

As he dug, the ancient record that sifted through his hands gave life to the tribes he studied in school: the Scythians, who depicted animals in their art; the Sarmatians, who reigned supreme across southern Russia until about AD 150; the Celts; the Huns and Attila, who crossed Asia in AD 375 on the way into Europe. He also studied the Goths, whose tribes had dominated Russia's waterways long enough to multiply and divide into the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, and the brutal Teutonic Goths, who clasped their tunics at the shoulder with the distinctive fibula. "My very first burial finds coincided not only with my beloved history lessons, but with my geography and Gogol's fantastic fiction as well," Nikolai wrote in his diary. At age eleven, he presented his school with a collection of his archaeological treasures.

History and tales of the olden days always fascinated him, especially the legend of Rurik, the Viking prince from Jutland whose blood was believed to run in Roerich veins. The story went back to AD 862, when the Varengians and the Pechenegs threatened to invade the settlements of Slavs from the Carpathian Mountains who were cultivating land and forming hill-fort communities. All along the Oka, the Don, and even the lower Volga River, Vikings were protecting villages in exchange for tribute. Prince Rurik had visited their land earlier, so the Slavs sent him a delegation requesting that he establish a dynasty and become their protector. Though he failed to stave off the waves of invasions, which continued long after his death, Rurik did succeed in fortifying the rivers and installing deputies in the outlying villages. As time went on, others of his line instituted Christianity, built churches and monasteries, opened the waterways for commerce, established trade routes, codified Russian law, and developed the alphabet. Since the Vikings had been called the "Russ," some believe Russia's name came from them.

Nikolai's mother, Maria Vasilevna Kalashnikova, traced her lineage back to the early Slavs who had invited Rurik and his tribe to rule. She was considered, therefore, to have an eastern, "Pure Russian" heritage. Since the Slavs belong to the vast family of Indo-Europeans, who entered European history in the sixth century, she could have been a mixture of many things, but her forefathers were known to have been merchants in Pskov, one of Russia's earliest cities, in the tenth century.

Wealthy and politically influential, Nikolai's father, Konstantin Fedorovitch Roerich, was a prominent notary and attorney born in Riga, Latvia. Throughout the centuries, many of the Roerich men had devoted their lives to service as political leaders, military figures, and members of secret societies like the Knights Templar and the Masons. Nikolai's parents were part of the intelligentsia, the class of educated and liberal thinkers who mingled with royalty and worked actively to improve conditions in their country. When they received guests on Wednesday nights, archaeologists and Orientalists were often among the group.

Nikolai Konstantinovich was born in St. Petersburg on October 9, 1874 (September 27 by the Old Russian Julian calendar). His birth coincided with the short epoch of reform that began in 1861 when the Tsar decided to abolish serfdom and liberate twenty-three million people. Young Roerich's colorful lineage gave him a love for beauty and music, an unquenchable desire to travel, and a fervor to preach, evident even when he was young.

The Roerich family occupied a gracious building on the Neva River across from the prestigious Admiralty. Konstantin Roerich's office was downstairs and the family lived in rooms above it. Much of their leisure time was spent watching ships coming up to St. Petersburg from the Gulf of Finland. The walls shook and the glassware rattled with each booming salute of an incoming military vessel. During the winter holidays, or when mosquitoes and cholera began to cloud the stifling hot, long "white nights" of summer, the family happily moved to their country estate, fifty-five miles to the southwest. Its name, given by the previous owner, was Isvara, Sanskrit for "Lord" or "sacred spirit."

Prolonged bronchitis and weak lungs plagued Nikolai until about age eleven, when his doctor prescribed the fresh, cold air of the winter and spring to strengthen him. This radical treatment freed him to roam Isvara's three thousand acres, frequently accompanied by the estate manager, who imbued him with a love of the woods. It was here that young Roerich's happiest childhood memories were made. He loved being in nature and, as he learned to ride, trap, and shoot, he became a passionate hunter. Entire days were spent silently watching birds or tracking deer, bears, and tiny woodland animals. At twilight, he hunted the giant trolls and pixies hiding in the green and violet shadows of massive rocks and trees. The stones and clouds and the nature devas and spirits on other planes of reality seemed to speak to him. Once the snows fell, he strapped on skis and gulped great breaths of invigorating air while gliding down the sparkling white hills. His explorations eventually expanded to the serenity of the vast forests near the imperial hunting grounds and the neighboring villages.

The peasants greatly interested Nikolai, and they responded to his seriousness and curiosity by telling him stories and explaining their customs and traditions. Most Russians were devoutly Christian and belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church. Pilgrims and wise holy men of great spiritual authority, called Startsy, wandered the countryside. Many chose lives of poverty and asceticism so they could guide others through times of anguish and turmoil. Large monasteries were located everywhere. Hundreds of priests and monks staffed the plentiful churches filled with brilliantly colored, miracle-working icons that were looked to for healing, protection, and inspiration. Russia's immense landscape, with its dark forests and moonless nights, combined with the general lack of education to become a breeding ground for superstition, legend, and a rich tradition of the supernatural. Children's heads brimmed with stories of fairies, fire-breathing serpents, and dangerous water sprites, as well as the legends of Christ, the apostles, and the saints.

Nikolai was a serious, sensitive, highly creative, and imaginative child. He spent much of his time alone and was aware of otherworldly influences. People noticed that, despite his friendly smile, he remained aloof. He learned to read early and enjoyed stories of Russian heroes and historical events. The Vikings, Genghis Khan's army, and Marco Polo crossing the great unknown into China all marched through Isvara in the plays he created to be staged by his older sister, Lydia, and his two younger brothers, Boris and Vladimir. Drama, science, and geography were his favorite subjects. He collected plants, minerals, and ancient coins, and wrote poetry and essays on his views. Some of his hunting adventures were published while he was still in middle school. At age sixteen, he learned scientific procedures and methods of excavation by accompanying a noted archaeologist during the summer.

Nikolai's earliest drawings were efforts to illustrate things that could be explained better with pictures. When a family friend discovered he had received no formal drawing instruction, he gave young Nikolai lessons, and the top floor of Isvara was soon converted into a studio. Years later, Roerich confided to a reporter, "Between the time I began my first painting and completed it, an inner urgency for artistic creation took such complete possession of my entire being that it convinced me I would perish unless I devoted my life to art." However, obtaining his father's approval was another matter. Since Nikolai was the oldest son, he was expected either to serve in the military or to join his father in his law practice, but young Roerich believed he could help his country more with his art than with a sword or a degree in law.

This belief arose from his excavations, through which he discovered a richness of the Russian spirit too significant to be denied. From the time Peter the Great had first built St. Petersburg as "the window on the West" and demanded that people drop their traditional ways, Russians had been taught to look to Western Europe as the model of everything desirable. Many regarded their ancient eastern heritage and bloodlines as savage, ignorant, and subhuman. Roerich wanted to give his countrymen national pride and believed his paintings could help them find the same dignity he had found in the legacy of their remarkable past.

He placated his father by attending both the Imperial University and the Imperial Academy of Art, holding himself rigidly to the following schedule: 9:00, rise; 10:00–1:00, Academy; 1:00–3:00, University; 3:00–5:00, work on sketches; 5:00–9:00, evening classes and practical training at the Academy; 9:00–midnight, reading literary works, meeting friends, and participating in student circles. Holidays and vacations were devoted to nature trips, archaeological excavations, and hunting. After his first year at the art academy, he wrote in his diary: "Still far from my goal, it is now time to begin preparation for it—the pouring out of light, illustrations of my own history. Why is it that our history is usually made to look coarse and violent? Why don't the paintings ever show any signs of joy in the eye? Isn't it possible that even emaciated peasants could have attractive qualities?"

Although the current artistic trend was toward realism, Roerich had no desire merely to illustrate actual historical events. He wanted to depict the ancient Slavs and Vikings colored with the feeling of the times in which they had lived. Using vivid primary colors, he began to portray them developing new lands, building towns, battling and hunting, giving his paintings titles such as Guests from Foreign Lands, Building a Town, and The Slavs on the Dnieper. Everything in his work was enormous: strong, sturdy ships with heavy sails; hills and mountains and humans that seemed carved from stone. The smooth, unbroken contours and calm rhythm of forms created an impression of clarity and monumentality. In his paintings, Nikolai transmitted the feeling of the harmony and beauty of the distant past that he had unearthed with the graves. "The whole district is akin to my soul," he wrote in his diary. "The horizons, hills, moss, lakes, rivers, and clouds—all of it is mine ... all of it is me."

The financial burden of enrollment in two schools came at a time when the elder Roerich was having crippling financial misfortunes. To pay for art supplies, books, and acquisitions to his stamp, mineral, and archaeological collections and also to have money for the theater, concerts, and trips, Nikolai took an assortment of jobs, including painting icons for churches and writing short stories for magazines. Although his heart was at the art academy, he managed to complete both courses of study.

By the age of twenty-three, he had conducted archaeological expeditions throughout Russia and presented scientific papers discussing Slavic and Finnish archaeology from the eleventh through fourteenth centuries. After having several articles published in Art and Archaeology and other journals and receiving praise from the Archaeological Society of Prussia for his discovery of amber ornaments near the Baltic Sea, Roerich was elected to the prestigious Imperial Archaeological Society. He was the youngest member.

In 1899, when Roerich was twenty-four, the Imperial Archaeological Society sent him east to the provinces of Pskov, Tversk, and Novgorod to study Russia's oldest monuments. The home of Prince Putyatin, another archaeologist, was on his route; there Roerich found not only a night's accommodation, but his future wife as well. When he arrived, Elena Ivanovna Shaposhnikova and her mother were visiting her mother's sister, Prince Putyatin's wife, as they did most summers. Born on February 12, 1879 (January 31 in the old style), Elena was five years Nikolai's junior, extremely intelligent, beautiful, and gifted. Her family was distinguished and aristocratic—the composer Moussorgsky was her uncle, and Mikhail Kutusov, who had commanded the victorious Russian forces opposing Napoleon in the War of 1812 and been portrayed by Tolstoy in War and Peace, was her great-uncle.

Despite a protected childhood marked by frequent illness and delicacy, Elena was cultured, wise, mature, exceptionally sensitive, and an excellent pianist. She was a comfort and solace to all; even the birds and animals benefited from her healing skills. She had taught herself to read as soon as she could carry the family's two large volumes of the Bible illustrated by Doré, and by age seven she was able to read and write in French, German, and Russian. She was six years old when she first met the "tall figure, dressed in white" she came to know as a "Teacher of Light, who lived somewhere far away." Shortly afterward, she began having numerous dreams and visions that would allow her access to deeper realms of reality and gave her the ability to predict future events.

By the time she and Nikolai met, Elena had read the entire collection of books in her grandfather's library and had progressed to studying the philosophies and traditions of the East, such as the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, and the three Vedas, the oldest existing works of literature. The young couple quickly discovered that, except for Nikolai's love of hunting, they had much in common and shared all interests; before the end of the year they announced their desire to marry. Elena's family was at first opposed but relented after her third dream that the marriage was the wish of her deceased father. In December 1899, Roerich wrote in his diary: "The evening of the 30th I told E.I. all that was in my soul. Strange, when for the first time, you consider another person in addition to yourself. It is now a new year. In it I must be much newer."

Many other challenges also came with the new century. Roerich's father, disillusioned and depressed, died in the spring, leaving the family to face the debts left by his poor financial decisions. Isvara was sold, and Roerich's share of the inheritance allowed him to study in Germany and France, as all rising artists were expected to do. The young couple thought of combining their honeymoon with Nikolai's year abroad, but it seemed wiser to postpone the wedding.

Finally, in the fall of 1901, they were married and moved in with Nikolai's mother. Roerich began working as secretary of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, organizing exhibitions and lectures and appointing new, more broad-minded teachers. Shortly thereafter, he also became assistant editor of Art & Artistic Industry, a magazine for which he had been writing. Spiritual philosophy permeated their home and their hearts as the couple studied Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Buddha, and the work of India's poet laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. Their two sons were born within the first three years of their marriage. Roerich continued his excavations and, becoming especially interested in the Stone Age, started a collection of relics that grew in time to seventy-five thousand, including one hundred pieces of amber ornaments accepted as being four thousand years old.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from Nicholas & Helena Roerich by Ruth Abrams Drayer. Copyright © 2005 Ruth Abrams Drayer. Excerpted by permission of Theosophical Publishing House.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Color Plates,
Foreword,
Acknowledgments,
Prolog,
1 An Inner Urgency for Artistic Creation,
2 Magnetic Mysticism,
3 Culture Is of the Spirit,
4 Santa Fe,
5 The Master School of United Arts,
6 India at Last,
7 Where Can One Have Such Joy?,
8 The Central Asian Expedition Begins,
9 Ladakh and into Chinese Turkestan,
10 The Silk Road and Chinese Hospitality,
11 The Road to Urumchi,
12 Wayfarer, Let Us Travel Together,
13 The Altai: Sacred Magnet for the Future,
14 Across the Gobi,
15 Into Tibet,
16 New York: The Roerich Museum,
17 The Pact and Banner of Peace,
18 The Asian Botanical Expedition,
19 A Dark Spot,
20 Kulu Valley,
Epilog,
Notes,
Bibliography,

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