dimitri semionovitch stelletsky

Dmitry Stelletsky was born in the family of a military engineer. Members of this family belonged to the legendary ancient Eleozorov clan. Stelletsky's childhood was spent in his father's estate, not far from Belovezhskaya Pushcha. In 1896 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg. Strongly interested in the Byzantine roots of Russian art, he copied the "Tale of Prince Igor" and illustrated it with miniatures, a work purchased by the Tretyakov Gallery. From 1900, Dimitry Stelletsky, alone or with his friend Boris Kustodiev, periodically visited the old Russian cities and monasteries: in 1903 he and BM Kustodiev visited Novgorod, in 1907 DS Stelletsky alone visited the monasteries of Ferapontov and Yuryevsky, traveled the north of Russia, writing his impressions and making sketches of monastic frescoes and icons. After obtaining his university degree (1904), he left for Paris. He attended the academy of R. Julien, intended to obtain a job at the Sèvres factory, but he did not succeed and he returned to Russia.

In 1914, D.S. Stelletsky made a trip to Italy and France. France, or rather the small town of La Napoule near Cannes, became his refuge for the rest of his life. He writes the following about his forced emigration: “The southern climate, nature and my activities in a foreign country are far to my liking. Here I am cut off from the roots of my talent, from Russia, my dear and close soul. I don't have enough Russian air, Russian fields and, above all, Russian people. I have always been inspired only by work for Russian life and Russian affairs ”.

After having founded the company "L'Icône" with a group of friends in 1925, he painted icons and frescoes for Russian churches, for the Church of ITO-Saint-Serge in Paris (93 rue de Crimée ) entirely decorated between 1925 and 1927 with the help of Princess Elena Sergeyevna Lvoff, then the iconostases of the Church of the Resurrection of Grenoble (1938) and that of the Church of Saint Raphael as well as many others.

A long and brilliant friendship linked for years the painter and iconographer Dmitri Stelletsky with the composer Igor Stravinsky. In fact, they both worked at the same time in the prestigious Russian ballets of Serge de Diaghilev, also expelled from Russia by the Bolsheviks. Dimitri Stelletsky gave Diaghilev's Russian ballets the sublime beauty of its sets.

This is why the exceptional musician Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), during the years 1931-1935 when he lived in Voreppe located 25 km from Grenoble, undoubtedly came to pray at the Church of the Resurrection of Christ because being Orthodox, he too was forced to leave Russia in 1917 under the mortal threat of the Bolsheviks. Musician Nadia Boulanger, sister of composer Lili, said of Stravinsky that he was a fanatic believer. The contemplation of the theophanic beauty of the Alps, brought to Igor Stravinsky the soothing of the soul he needed, at the Villa de la Véronnière (currently Stravinsky Media Library), after his tumultuous friendship with Serge de Diaghilev, during the creation Russian ballets with Nijinsky, Stelletski, Coco Chanel and Balanchine, Michel Fokine, Léonide Massine, Serge Lifar.

On October 1, 1938, Stelletsky completed the iconostasis of the Russian Church of the Resurrection in Grenoble (5, avenue de Vizille), Pr. Georges Choumkine (1894-1964) then being its rector. The church had been founded ten years earlier, in 1927, by decision of Metropolitan Euloge, in order to serve the Russians of Grenoble itself, of Rives and Rioupéroux in Isère, Ugine in Savoie, and Argentière-la-Bessée in the department of High mountains. These Russian communities were composed mainly of officers and soldiers of the Wrangel army, demobilized and exiled, who had obtained from recruitment agencies dispatched by these factories in Constantinople and in the Balkans, meager employment contracts in the various factories of these important alpine industrial centers in France. The Saint-Tikhon-de-Zadonsk church in Rioupéroux, in the Romanche valley, was founded after that of Grenoble, around 1928, thanks to the energy of General Lev Lvovich Illiachevitch (1877-1936). The Grenoble iconostasis is undoubtedly the most modest of those painted by Stelletsky, made with rather crude means, like the lifestyle of these former officers, confronted with the harshness and precariousness of a working life. which effectively prevented its members from diversifying their activities, founding families, growing and ensuring descendants.

In November 1943, at the time of the partial evacuations of the coastal fringe, or at the latest in February 1944, at the time of the total evacuation of the Riviera coast by the German occupation authorities in anticipation of the Allied landing of Provence, Dimitri Semionovitch left temporarily La Napoule. He joined the Isère, probably in Laffrey, before ending up in Allevard with Father Valentin de Bachst. He took with him the second version of Slovo, the Sketchbooks and Sketches, leaving most of his studio fund there, apparently in the custody of Russians in the Antibes region. He returns to the parish of Fr. Georges Choumkine, still in office, and painted some icons for the church. During the period from August to October, Stelletsky was in Allevard-les-Bains (Isère) at a place called La Tour-du-Treuil when he wrote to the matouchka of Father Valentin de Bachst (1904-1963) - who was perhaps found in Fenouillet, in the Cévennes, where Father Valentin had bought a house there just before the war - that his studio was destroyed by the Germans in 1944. For the Bachsts, he painted a version of the Archers on horseback in the Steppe, dated 1944 (private coll.) As well as the iconostasis of their domestic chapel (destroyed, known from photographs).

The last two years of his life, spent by the artist in the Russian House of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, were particularly difficult for him. Dimitri Stelletzky died almost blind.

After the great emigration of Russian refugees to France following the Revolution and the civil war, the Semenoff-Tian-Chansky family (one of the members of which became Monsignor Alexandre) greatly supported the great painter, in particular by accommodating him .

Sources:

• Doctoral thesis of Mr. Cyrille Semenoff Tian-Chansky
• Ms. Marie Dmitrievna Ivanoff, long-time parishioner in Grenoble, professor of philosophy, Master in theology from the Institute of Orthodox Theology of Saint Sergius
• Wikipedia Russia