Creative activity of S. P. Diaghilev in the context of trends in Russian culture at the turn of the ХIХth - ХХth centuries

The beginning of the article is devoted to the consideration of the views of A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche on art, since it was they who had an impact on Russian culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. The author emphasizes that Nietzsche, sharing Schopenhauer’s position that art helps to save a person from suffering, develops a new approach to understanding art, for which it is the result of unconscious drives inherent in a person, it is endowed with an active principle. Domestic cultural figures of the early twentieth century. believed that it was art and culture that could lead modern society out of an ideological crisis. The idea of transforming the world through art was conceptualized in the works of Russian religious philosophers (N. Berdyaev, E. Blavatskaya, P. Florensky), who emphasized its theurgic component. The article notes that the created S. P. Diaghilev’s opera and ballet performances cannot be classified as theurgic, but Diaghilev fully corresponds to the status of the Demiurge.The problem of finding a universal artistic language, which emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century, was solved by Diaghilev in the spirit of the times: the basis of this language was to be music, so turning to ballet and opera (genres that were already initially synthetic) seems quite logical. The author also notes the ecological and cultural orientation of S.P.’s activities. Diaghilev, associated with the popularization of national culture, both in the West and in Russia. In conclusion, it is concluded that it is the ballet and opera performance in Diaghilev’s interpretation that demonstrates the new art of the early twentieth century.