The Nikitin Brothers - Revision history

Djando: /* The End Of An Era */

2022-04-27T19:31:38Z

‎The End Of An Era

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‎The End Of An Era

Djando: /* The Nikitin Empire */

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‎The Nikitin Empire

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‎The Nikitin Empire

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‎The End Of An Era

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‎The Nikitin Empire

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‎From Saratov to Moscow

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‎From Saratov to Moscow

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‎Image Gallery

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‎The End Of An Era

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 Circus Nikitin, which had been renamed ''Moscow’s Second State Circus'' (the "First" was the old circus Salamonsky on Tsvetsnoy Boulevard), eventually closed its doors in 1926: It had become too difficult to fill the programs of two circuses at the same time in Moscow (a problem that would lead to the creation, in 1929, of the [[State College for Circus and Variety Arts]]). The former Circus Nikitin was transformed into a variety theater.
-Nikolai Nikitin returned to Russia in 1922, and continued a brilliant career as a juggler on horseback. Made Honored Artist of the Soviet Republic of Russia in 1947, he passed away on November 24, 1963. His son, Nikolai Nikolaelevich Nikitin (1912-1943), was also a talented juggler on horseback; he was killed on the front during World War II.
+Nikolai Nikitin returned to Russia in 1922, and continued a brilliant career as a juggler on horseback. Made Honored Artist of the Soviet Republic of Russia in 1947, he passed away on November 24, 1963. His son, Nikolai Nikolaelevich Nikitin (1912-1943), was also a talented juggler on horseback; he was killed at the front during World War II.
 ==Suggested Reading==

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 Circus Nikitin, which had been renamed ''Moscow’s Second State Circus'' (the "First" was the old circus Salamonsky on Tsvetsnoy Boulevard), eventually closed its doors in 1926: It had become too difficult to fill the programs of two circuses at the same time in Moscow (a problem that would lead to the creation, in 1929, of the [[State College for Circus and Variety Arts]]). The former Circus Nikitin was transformed into a variety theater.
-Nikolai Nikitin returned to Russia in 1922, and continued a brilliant career as a juggler on horseback. Made Artist Emeritus of the Soviet Republic of Russia in 1947, he passed away on November 24, 1963. His son, Nikolai Nikolaelevich Nikitin (1912-1943), was also a talented juggler on horseback; he was killed on the front during World War II.
+Nikolai Nikitin returned to Russia in 1922, and continued a brilliant career as a juggler on horseback. Made Honored Artist of the Soviet Republic of Russia in 1947, he passed away on November 24, 1963. His son, Nikolai Nikolaelevich Nikitin (1912-1943), was also a talented juggler on horseback; he was killed on the front during World War II.
 ==Suggested Reading==

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 [[File:Akim_Nikitin_Circuses.png|Akim Nikitin and his circuses (c.1890)|thumb|300px|right|Akim Nikitin and his budding circus empire (c.1890)]]Salamonsky’s precautions proved useless: The following year (1888), the brothers returned to Moscow, where they rented the old [[The Circuses of Moscow|Circus Hinné]] on Vozdzvizhenka Street (which belonged to [[Andrea Ciniselli]]). Furious, Salamonsky reminded the Nikitins of their agreement; but Akim and Piotr were quick to point out that it was Dmitri who had signed the agreement… Dmitri, as it happened, had just left his brothers and gone his own way. (He had created the ''Panoptikon'', a traveling “museum” and menagerie.) Therefore, the Russian Circus of the Nikitin Brothers was not bound anymore by Dmitri’s agreements.
-Luckily for Salamonsky, the Nikitins didn’t do good business on Vozdzvizhenka Street and, before the end of the year, they left Moscow for Tiflis (today Tbilisi, in Georgia), where they built a wooden circus on Golovinsky Prospect (today Rustaveli Prospect). Tbilisi became their homebase, and from there, they created a touring circuit for which they used circuses of bricks or wood that they built over the years in several Russian cities.
+Luckily for Salamonsky, the Nikitins didn’t do good business on Vozdzvizhenka Street and, before the end of the year, they left Moscow for Tiflis (today Tbilisi, in Georgia), where they built a wooden circus on Golovinsky Prospect (today Rustaveli Prospect). Tiflis became their homebase, and from there, they created a touring circuit for which they used circuses of bricks or wood that they built over the years in several Russian cities.
-By the turn of the twentieth century, the Nikitins’ circus empire&mdash;and their well-oiled annual tour&mdash;included circus buildings in Tiflis (Tbilisi, which was the Nikitins’ home base), Baku and Astrakhan (where Circus Nikitin spent the winter season), Tsaritsyn (today Volgograd), Saratov, Samara, Kazan, Nizhniy-Novgorod, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, and Kharkov.
+By the turn of the twentieth century, the Nikitins’ circus empire&mdash;and their well-oiled annual tour&mdash;included circus buildings in Tiflis (their homebase), Baku and Astrakhan (where Circus Nikitin spent the winter season), Tsaritsyn (today Volgograd), Saratov, Samara, Kazan, Nizhniy-Novgorod, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Minsk, and Kharkov.
-Piotr, the great artist of the family, retired from the circus in the 1890s. (He would pass away on August 20, 1921, having outlived his brothers.) Akim was left alone at the helm of the Nikitin Brothers’s Russian Circus. When his flagship circus in Tbilisi burned down, Akim finally decided to build a permanent circus in Moscow, where he found a vacant lot on Triumfalnaya Plaza and Bolshoya Sadovaya Street.
+Piotr, the great artist of the family, retired from the circus in the 1890s. (He would pass away on August 20, 1921, having outlived his brothers.) Akim was left alone at the helm of the Nikitin Brothers’s Russian Circus. When his flagship circus in Tiflis burned down, Akim finally decided to build a permanent circus in Moscow, where he found a vacant lot on Triumfalnaya Plaza and Bolshoya Sadovaya Street.
 Designed by the architect Bogdan Mikhailovich Nilus, Circus Nikitin was a large stone building in the Art-Nouveau style with an imposing façade; it was equipped with a revolving ring that could sink to reveal a swimming pool&mdash;in the manner of Paris’s famous [[Nouveau Cirque (Paris)|Nouveau Cirque]]&mdash;and which allowed the presentation of water pantomimes. Inaugurated in 1911, it has survived to this day as the Variety Theatre (formerly Theatre of Satire), but only its old circus cupola, still visible behind its new façade, betrays its circus origins.

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 ===The Nikitin Empire===
-[[File:Akim_Nikitin_Circuses.png|Akim Nikitin and his circuses (c.1890)|thumb|300px|right|Akim Nikitin and his budding circus empire (c.1890)]]Salamonsky’s precautions proved useless: The following year (1888), the brothers returned to Moscow, where they rented the old [[The Circuses of Moscow|Circus Hinné]] on Vozdzvizhenka Street (which belonged to [[Andrea Ciniselli]]). Furious, Salamonsky reminded the Nikitins of their agreement; but Akim and Piotr were quick to point out that it was Dmitri who had signed the agreement… Dmitri, as it happened, had just left his brothers and gone his own way. (He had created the Panoptikon, a traveling “museum” and menagerie.) Therefore, the Russian Circus of the Nikitin Brothers was not bound anymore by Dmitri’s agreements.
+[[File:Akim_Nikitin_Circuses.png|Akim Nikitin and his circuses (c.1890)|thumb|300px|right|Akim Nikitin and his budding circus empire (c.1890)]]Salamonsky’s precautions proved useless: The following year (1888), the brothers returned to Moscow, where they rented the old [[The Circuses of Moscow|Circus Hinné]] on Vozdzvizhenka Street (which belonged to [[Andrea Ciniselli]]). Furious, Salamonsky reminded the Nikitins of their agreement; but Akim and Piotr were quick to point out that it was Dmitri who had signed the agreement… Dmitri, as it happened, had just left his brothers and gone his own way. (He had created the ''Panoptikon'', a traveling “museum” and menagerie.) Therefore, the Russian Circus of the Nikitin Brothers was not bound anymore by Dmitri’s agreements.
 Luckily for Salamonsky, the Nikitins didn’t do good business on Vozdzvizhenka Street and, before the end of the year, they left Moscow for Tiflis (today Tbilisi, in Georgia), where they built a wooden circus on Golovinsky Prospect (today Rustaveli Prospect). Tbilisi became their homebase, and from there, they created a touring circuit for which they used circuses of bricks or wood that they built over the years in several Russian cities.

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 Yet the circus scene was changing in Moscow. The old Circus Hinné had disappeared in 1892 to give way to the extravagant Morozov mansion (today the Foreign Ministry Mansion). Akim Nikitin’s only competition was the elegant Circus Salamonsky. But whereas Salamonsky had maintained the grand tradition of the aristocratic equestrian circus, Nikitin’s productions catered to a more popular audience&mdash;with an emphasis on thrill acts, exotic animals, and pantomimes.
-[[Image:Nikolai_Nikitin_Portrait.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Nikolai Nikitin (c.1950)]]Albert Salamonsky would die two years later, in 1913, heralding the end of the Russian Circus’s first Golden Age. (A new Golden Age would come later, during the Soviet regime.) The following year, Russia was engulfed into the First World War. Without the old showman at its helm, Circus Salamonsky was falling apart&mdash;to such an extent that its employees decided to elect their own director, Yury Radunsky. Indeed, the Bolshevik revolution was looming on the horizon.
+[[Image:Nikolai_Nikitin_Portrait.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Nikolai Nikitin (c.1950)]]Albert Salamonsky would die two years later, in 1913, heralding the end of the Russian Circus’s first Golden Age. (A new Golden Age would come later, during the Soviet regime.) The following year, Russia was engulfed into the First World War. Without the old showman at its helm, Circus Salamonsky was falling apart&mdash;to such an extent that its employees decided to elect their own director, Yury Radunsky. Indeed, the Bolshevik revolution was looming on the horizon.
 Thus Akim Nikitin found himself without any serious competition. Circus Nikitin and Circus Salamonsky began to present programs that were increasingly similar in form and content. Then came 1917 and the Bolshevik revolution; on April 21 of that year, Akim Niktin passed away, at age seventy-four. (Dmitri passed away the following year, on January 13.) Akim’s son, Nikolai Akimevich (1887-1963), who had acquired a solid reputation as a juggler on horseback, took over the management of the circuses of the Nikitin empire, in Moscow and in the provinces.

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 Then the Nikitins struck gold: On the occasion of the coronation of Tsar Alexandre III in May 1883, they were invited to erect a temporary hippodrome at Khodinskoye Pole, an old parade ground in Moscow. Their hippodrome was a large open-air arena, inspired by the famous [[Paris’s Circuses|Hippodrome]] [[The Franconi Dynasty|Franconi]] at the Barrière de l’Etoile in Paris, but whose actual configuration, with its two rings separated by a central stage, owed more to [[Phineas Taylor Barnum|P.T. Barnum]]’s later version of it.
-There, the Nikitins produced equestrian extravaganzas themed after old Russian legends, as well as chariot races and other traditional hippodrome fare. At the end of their run, which had been successful, they were awarded the Andreev Order’s Silver Medal by the City of Moscow. Then, they hit the road again. But now that they had experienced the great Russian metropolis&mdash;and its business potential&mdash;they longed to return.
+[[File:Nikitin_Tsvetnoy_Blvd.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Nikitins' Russian Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard (1887)]]There, the Nikitins produced equestrian extravaganzas themed after old Russian legends, as well as chariot races and other traditional hippodrome fare. At the end of their run, which had been successful, they were awarded the Andreev Order’s Silver Medal by the City of Moscow. Then, they hit the road again. But now that they had experienced the great Russian metropolis&mdash;and its business potential&mdash;they longed to return.
 Meanwhile, the brothers were trying to expand their circus empire. In 1884, they built their second permanent circus in Minsk. It passed under city ownership the following year (it was destroyed during WWII, a replaced later by another building), but others would come.

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 ===From Saratov to Moscow===
-The Nikitins’ Russian Circus toured the provinces with good success. Money was coming in, and three years later, in 1876, they were able to build their first permanent circus in Saratov, in southern Russia. Located in the center of the city, it was a wooden structure that was embellished over the years and stood until 1928. (It was demolished, and a stone circus was built in its place in 1931; in 1963, [[RosGosTsirk]], the central Soviet circus agency, replaced it with a brand new, state-of-the-art building, erected in a different part of the city. This latter circus, which still bears the name of ''Nikitin Brothers’ Circus'', remains active.)
+[[File:Circus_Nikitin_Saratov.png|thumb|right|400px|The original Circus Nikitin in Saratov (c.1890)]]The Nikitins’ Russian Circus toured the provinces with good success. Money was coming in, and three years later, in 1876, they were able to build their first permanent circus in Saratov, in southern Russia. Located in the center of the city, it was a wooden structure that was embellished over the years and stood until 1928. (It was demolished, and a stone circus was built in its place in 1931; in 1963, [[RosGosTsirk]], the central Soviet circus agency, replaced it with a brand new, state-of-the-art building, erected in a different part of the city. This latter circus, which still bears the name of ''Nikitin Brothers’ Circus'', remains active.)
-[[File:Circus_Nikitin_Saratov.png|thumb|right|400px|The original Circus Nikitin in Saratov (c.1890)]]Owners of a permanent circus building and managing a touring company, the Nikitin brothers had finally entered the circus world’s big league. While Dmitri and Akim increasingly took care of the business, Piotr developed into a remarkable bareback rider (he is said to have mastered the somersault on horseback), a flying trapeze and horizontal bars gymnast, a gifted mime, and even a quick-change artist.
+Owners of a permanent circus building and managing a touring company, the Nikitin brothers had finally entered the circus world’s big league. While Dmitri and Akim increasingly took care of the business, Piotr developed into a remarkable bareback rider (he is said to have mastered the somersault on horseback), a flying trapeze and horizontal bars gymnast, a gifted mime, and even a quick-change artist.
 Then the Nikitins struck gold: On the occasion of the coronation of Tsar Alexandre III in May 1883, they were invited to erect a temporary hippodrome at Khodinskoye Pole, an old parade ground in Moscow. Their hippodrome was a large open-air arena, inspired by the famous [[Paris’s Circuses|Hippodrome]] [[The Franconi Dynasty|Franconi]] at the Barrière de l’Etoile in Paris, but whose actual configuration, with its two rings separated by a central stage, owed more to [[Phineas Taylor Barnum|P.T. Barnum]]’s later version of it.

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 Image:Nikitin_Brothers.jpg|Dmitri, Piotr & Akim Nikitin (c.1880)
 Image:Akim_and_Alina_Nikitin.jpg|Akim Nikitin and his mother (c.1880)
 Image:Piotr_Nikitin.jpg|Piotr Nikitin (c.1890)
 File:Akim_Nikitin_Circuses.png|Akim Nikitin and his circuses (c.1890)