Serge Wolkonsky
| Serge Wolkonsky | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
May 4, 1860 Revel, Russia |
| Died | August 25, 1937 (aged 77) Virginia, United States |
Prince Serge Wolkonsky (also referred to as Sergei Mikhailovitch Volkonsky; Russian: Серге́й Миха́йлович Волко́нский) (4 May 1860 – 25 October 1937) was an influential Russian theatrical worker, one of the first Russian proponents of eurhythmics, pupil and friend of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, and creator of an original system of actor's training that included both expressive gesture and expressive speech.
Wolkonsky was born on the Fall estate near Revel in Imperial Russia (now Tallinn, Estonia). His mother was Princess Elizaveta Grigorievna Volkonskaya, daughter of Grigory Petrovich Volkonsky (son of Sophia, a sister of Decembrist Sergei Volkonsky) and Mary (née Countess Benckendorff, daughter of Count Alexander Benckendorff). Princess Volkonskaya profoundly influenced her son Serge, defining many of his interests, including his religious views; among her friends was the well-known Russian philosopher, theologian and poet Vladimir Solovyov. Wolkonsky's father, Mikhail Sergeevich, was a son of Decembrist Sergei Volkonsky and Mary, née Raevskaya; his godfather was Pushkin's friend Ivan Pushchin, another Decembrist. From his birth, Michael was registered as a serf, and as the son of a deportee wasn't allowed to enter the University, but in 1855, just after the death of Emperor Nicholas I, he reached Russia from Siberia, and by the 1870s had become a member of the State Council.
Wolkonsky graduated from the philological faculty of St. Petersburg University in 1884. In the spring of 1893, he attended the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago as an official representative of the Department of Public Instruction, and an article by him about it was published later on in Vestnik Evropy ("The European Bulletin"). Later that year he went on a world cruise before returning to Petersburg via Constantinople. In the mid-1890s, he delivered lectures on Russia at Cornell and Harvard.
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