Difference between revisions of "Main Page"

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==In the Spotlight==
 
==In the Spotlight==
  
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===CYRIL BERTRAM MILLS===  
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===THE NIKITIN BROTHERS===  
  
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[[Image:Cyril_Mills_(1978).jpg|right|125px]]Howard Campbell, a distinguished journalist and a fellow "spook" at MI6 (the British Secret Services) during the Second World War, summed up Cyril Mills as "an enterprising, perceptive, obstinate, opinionated, cheerful, loyal, delightful and wholly lovable man." Praise indeed for one of the greatest circus proprietors of the twentieth century. Cyril Mills (1902-1991) and his younger brother, Bernard (1908-1985), continued, after the death of their father, Bertram W. Mills, in 1938 to direct the great circus he had created in England in 1920—until its closure in 1967. The Bertram Mills Circus was started by Bertram Wagstaff Mills, a former RASC Captain in the First World War, who was a coach builder, an international horseshow judge, and ran a very successful undertaker’s business in London. As the story goes, Mills, who had many influential friends in high places, attended a performance of the Great Victory Circus and Allied Fair at the Olympia exhibition hall in London during the 1919/1920 winter season; when pressed for his opinion of the show, he is recorded as having said, "If I could not give the people a better circus than that for their money, I’d eat my hat!"...  ([[Cyril Mills|more...]])
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In nineteenth-century Russia, circus was extremely popular among the aristocracy and the people alike, but the Russian circus was being developed mostly by foreigners whose names—Ciniselli, Truzzi, Salamonsky…—became synonymous with Russian circus. There was one notable exception, however: The Nikitin brothers, Dmitri (1835-1918), Akim (1843-1917), and Piotr (1846-1921), who became the first true Russian circus entrepreneurs of note, and would remain so until the Bolshevik revolution. They were born to Aleksandr and Alina Ivanovna Nikitin, who were serfs bounded to one of the vast lands belonging to the Crown. Tsar Nicholas I began to ease the condition of the serfs of his Imperial estates in 1842, when he established the "quit-rent" system, which allowed them to leave the land to which they were attached in exchange for a rent paid to their landowner, the Tsar. Aleksandr immediately took advantage of this new, if limited, freedom and became an itinerant organ grinder. His son Dmitri, who had learned to play the balalaika, followed him on the road. Akim and Piotr were born shortly thereafter, and almost as soon as they were able to walk and do a rollover, they joined their father and elder brother, entertaining passersby from village squares to street corners....  ([[The Nikitin Brothers|more...]])
  
 
==New Biographies==
 
==New Biographies==

Revision as of 19:05, 1 May 2011

Welcome to Circopedia,
the free encyclopedia of the international circus.
A project of the Big Apple Circus,
inspired and funded by the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.


In the Spotlight

THE NIKITIN BROTHERS

In nineteenth-century Russia, circus was extremely popular among the aristocracy and the people alike, but the Russian circus was being developed mostly by foreigners whose names—Ciniselli, Truzzi, Salamonsky…—became synonymous with Russian circus. There was one notable exception, however: The Nikitin brothers, Dmitri (1835-1918), Akim (1843-1917), and Piotr (1846-1921), who became the first true Russian circus entrepreneurs of note, and would remain so until the Bolshevik revolution. They were born to Aleksandr and Alina Ivanovna Nikitin, who were serfs bounded to one of the vast lands belonging to the Crown. Tsar Nicholas I began to ease the condition of the serfs of his Imperial estates in 1842, when he established the "quit-rent" system, which allowed them to leave the land to which they were attached in exchange for a rent paid to their landowner, the Tsar. Aleksandr immediately took advantage of this new, if limited, freedom and became an itinerant organ grinder. His son Dmitri, who had learned to play the balalaika, followed him on the road. Akim and Piotr were born shortly thereafter, and almost as soon as they were able to walk and do a rollover, they joined their father and elder brother, entertaining passersby from village squares to street corners.... (more...)

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A Message from the Editor

CIRCOPEDIA is a constantly evolving and expanding encyclopedia of the international circus. New videos, biographies, essays, and documents are added to the site on a weekly—and sometimes daily—basis. Keep visiting us: even if today you don't find what you're looking for, it may well be here tomorrow!
Dominique Jando
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