Russian culture in Germany

Russian Orthodox Church in Wiesbaden , aerial photography

For the first time, the discussion of Russian culture in Germany came in the 19th century. At this time, Russia was ruled by Nicholas I , the son of Paul the First and Sophia Dorothea of ​​Wurttemberg , and his son Alexander II , married to Maria of Hesse-Darmstadt . This led to close ties between the royal court and the German princely houses, primarily with the princely house of Hesse-Darmstadt . The trips of Russian tsars to German resorts led to the fact that other representatives of the Russian nobility and the bourgeoisie, as well as the cultural elite of Russia, followed the example of their sovereigns. In the Hesse-Nassau district, Russian guests were specially prepared for the arrivals, and until now in the cities of Bad Ems , Bad Nauheim , Bad Homburg and Darmstadt , Russian Orthodox churches and other institutions, for example, the Russian Courtyard, a former grand hotel in the city, have been preserved Bad Ems . With the outbreak of World War I, the tradition of the Russian elite to visit German resorts was interrupted.

In the 1920s, an extensive cultural community of Russian emigrants who emigrated to Germany after the October Revolution was founded in Berlin.

The writer Vladimir Nabokov lived in Berlin from 1922 to 1937, and wrote 7 novels in Russian there. The artist Leonid Pasternak lived in Berlin from 1921 to 1936. Dancer and choreographer Tatyana Gzovskaya worked in the German opera, and lived in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin until her death in 1993.