This Diary is Nijinsky's message to mankind. His expressed desire to have it published during his lifetime was fulfilled when it first appeared in 1936. [...]The Diary was written during 1918-19 in St. Moritz where we had retired to await the end of the war. Isolated from the world, from all possibilities of exercising his art, my husband tried to reach the masses through other artistic mediums. He took up drawing and music, created choreographies, and finally wrote his Diary.
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Millions of years have gone by since the creation of man. Men think that God is where technical inventions are most advanced. God was already there when there was no mechanism. Steel is a necessary thing, but it is also a terrible thing. An aeroplane is a terrible thing. I flew in an aeroplane and cried in it. I do not know why, but I felt that aeroplanes destroy birds. All birds fly away at the sight of an aeroplane. An aeroplane is a useful thing but it must not be exaggerated. It is a thing coming from God and therefore I like it, but it must not be used for the purposes of war. An aeroplane should express goodwill. I like aeroplanes and will therefore fly in them where there are no birds. I love birds. I do not want to frighten them. A well-known flyer was flying in Switzerland and flew into an eagle.
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One must not kill tsars, emperors, and kings. I like tsars and the aristocrats, but their deeds are not always good deeds.
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War has not stopped through the thinking of men. I know how one could stop war. Wilson wants to stop war but men do not understand him. He wants tolerance in politics, therefore he does not like war. He did not want war. Lloyd George is a simple man, but he has a great brain. But his brain destroys feeling and therefore he has no wisdom in politics. Lloyd George is a difficult man.
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The murderer goes to death; those who start war are murderers because they kill millions of innocent people. I am a man in a million. I am not alone, because I feel more than a million others.
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I lived at my mother-in-law's during the war. Once I wanted to walk into a restaurant but an inner force kept me back. I stopped suddenly before a small restaurant frequented by working people. I wanted to enter but I did not like to as I was not a workman.
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I liked Paris cocottes when I was with Diaghilev. He thought me stupid, but I used to run to them. I ran about Paris looking for cheap cocottes, but I was afraid people would notice my actions. I know that those women have no disease as they are under special police supervision.
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I want Wilson to succeed in his undertakings, because they are near the truth. I feel the near death of Wilson. I was afraid for Clemenceau, too, because Clemenceau is a good man. His policy is stupid and therefore his life hangs on a hair. Men feel his mistakes. He is not aware of this and therefore his life is in danger. I love Clemenceau, because he is a child. I know children who do awful things, without wanting to. Lloyd George does not know that he will be found out, and therefore holds his head very high. I want to lower his head. I like him, but I must write the truth. I know that if he reads these notes, he will understand me. I know that Clemenceau is honest; he is the policy of France. He is a hard-working man, but he was mistaken when he sent France to her death. He is a man who seeks goodness, a child with a tremendous brain.
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Paderewski became a politician but he is a pianist. I like pianists who play with feeling. Music with feeling is Godlike. I do not like pure technique without feeling.
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During the World War every man was a criminal. The governments shielded the criminals, because the crimes of the governments were executed by them. God does not shield a government which wages war. He does not want war and has therefore sent horrors on mankind.
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I am neither Russian nor Pole. I am a man. I am not a foreigner or a cosmopolitan. I love the Russian soil. I will build a dam in Russia. I understand Gogol loved Russia. So do I. Russia feels more than any other country. She is the mother of all countries, and loves everyone. Russia is not a problem of politics. I know that many people in Russia will understand me. Russia is not Bolshevik. Russia is my mother. I love my mother. My mother lives in Russia. She is Polish, but she eats Russian bread and Schzi [sour cabbage soup]. I want love for my Russia although I know her shortcomings. She has destroyed the plan of war. The war would have ended earlier if she had not let in the Maximalists. The Russian people are like children. One must love them and govern them well.
If everyone will listen to me, there will be no more war.
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I have devoted a great deal of time during the war to dancing and have made great progress. I want to show the public how successfully I studied [...].
I am very fond of French artists and I wish I could dance for them. I know that a lot of French artists were killed in the war - many fathers died, leaving their children and wives without bread. I know too that the government is unable to provide for them all, therefore I would like to dance for the poor French artists. I want to dance for the Polish and other artists, too, when I go to the other countries.
The Poles love France because France gave them their Soul - so did the Poles: they died for France on the battlefields. The war has united the two nations. France knows the heroic deeds of the Poles.
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I understood that men urge horses and people on, till they fall down like stones, exhausted. I decided, like the horse, that they could beat us with a whip as much as they liked, but we would still do what we feel, because we want to live. The horse walked and so did I. In the sleigh a fat man was sitting with his wife, who was bored. So was the driver. Everyone was bored. I was not, because I was not thinking, I was feeling. I walked and walked, I came to the village of St. Moritz and stopped outside the telegraph office. I did not read the war bulletins.
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I am writing in small handwriting because paper is expensive - this is the trick of the shops. They take advantage of the war. They are afraid that it will end soon. The shops say that the war has forced them to increase their prices.
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They are ringing and ringing. I do not know who is calling as I do not like speaking on the telephone. [...] I am writing, crying, and thinking of my wife, who went out thinking that I am a barbarian of Russian origin. She heard these words in Hungary, when Russia was at war with Hungary. I was interned there. I lived there and composed the Theory of the Dance. I danced very little because I was sad, sad because I thought that my wife did not love me. I got engaged in Rio de Janeiro; I married suddenly in South America.
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It is over a year and a half since I have been able to communicate with her [wife]. She might think that I danced lately in England. Probably she will be frightened lest I be harmed on account of the revolution, as they might think I belong to the revolutionaries. [...] She knows I dislike forcefulness. She knows that even when I was a boy I disliked to fight with my classmates.
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Clemenceau will suffer, but I hope he will see through the whole company of diplomats and will be able to protect France. I love France and wish her well. I can see through the whole clique which has started the war. Clemenceau is a rich man and is not in need of anything, and so I feel that he has not been "bought." The Lloyd Georgians buy people, not only with money but with promises. Clemenceau thought that it would be good for France to get Alsace-Lorraine; this question can only be settled peacefully. Clemenceau understood Wilson and has consented to his plan. The French like the Alsatians and many families are weeping; they feel that it is unjust that they should not belong to French territory. The French do not like the Germans - I know how one can develop dislike for German people and I know who taught France to say Boche. One must not quarrel! German children are crying for their fathers too.
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Man's intelligence dies with his body, as it is limited. People say that intelligence has created everything; the aeroplanes, Zeppelins.
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My mother and sister escaped from Moscow to get away from the Maximalists. They were tired of the Civil War, and escaped together with Kotchetovsky, my brother-in-law, and their daughter Ira, leaving all their belongings behind.
Mais:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxwrrqPyqsnIUTNtMGI5MkJwM28 (subtitles)
