Yekaterina Stravinsky | |
|---|---|
Екатерина Гавриловна Стравинская | |
 Yekaterina in 1907 | |
| Born | Yekaterina Gavrilovna Nosenko January 25, 1881 Gorval, Rechitsky Uyezd, Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | March 2, 1939 (aged 58) Paris, France |
| Resting place | Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4, including Soulima and Théodore |
Yekaterina Gavrilovna Stravinsky[a] (née Nosenko)[b] (January 25, 1881[c] – March 2, 1939) was a Russian and French[3] painter and amanuensis who was the cousin and first wife of Igor Stravinsky.
Born in Gorval, a village in Minsk Governorate, she spent most of her childhood in Kiev, where her mother died from tuberculosis in 1883. Yekaterina contracted latent tuberculosis from her mother, which would manifest itself later in her adult life. By the end of the decade, she moved to Ustilug, where her father had purchased an estate that formerly belonged to the Lubomirski family. As she matured, she developed her talent for painting, calligraphy, and music. After her father's death in 1897, she and her sister inherited the estate. Between 1901 and 1905 she studied art at the Académie Colarossi in Paris.
She first met her cousin Igor in 1890 during his family's first visit to the Nosenko estate in Ustilug. Their relationship developed into a furtive romance—which was accepted, but not openly acknowledged by their families—that culminated with their marriage in 1906. After spending their honeymoon in Finland, the couple moved into Igor's family home in Saint Petersburg, where she gave birth to the first of their four children. They built a new summer cottage for their family in Ustilug, which they would visit every summer until the outbreak of World War I, and moved to their own apartment in Saint Petersburg in 1909. After his international success with The Firebird in 1910, they and their family continuously moved around Switzerland and France until 1934, when they settled into their final home together along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Throughout their marriage, Yekaterina was the first to whom Igor would play his newest music, which she enjoyed. She was the principal copyist of his scores, counseled him on private and professional matters, and was an important influence in his reembrace of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
Chronic disease and Igor's adulterous affair with Vera Sudeikina marked her later years. His confession resulted in what he later described as a "tearful, Dostoyevskian scene", but he and Yekaterina agreed to maintain the marriage and their family's unity. In what musicologist Stephen Walsh called "an atrocious act of self-immolation", she acquiesced to Igor's demands to serve as an intermediary between him and Vera, establish an amicable relationship with her, and deliver the regular financial stipend he provided for her. By the 1930s, Yekaterina's health degraded to the point where Robert Craft observed that her marriage "had almost become purely vicarious". Both she and her eldest daughter became fatally ill with pneumonia in late 1938. Yekaterina, who outlived her daughter by three months, died in 1939. She is buried at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.
- ^ a b Walsh 2022, p. 134.
- ^ Walsh 2001.
- ^ Walsh 2006, p. xvii.
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