Diaghilev, Serge Pavlovich

Diaghilev, Serge Pavlovich (31 March 1872, Nijni-Novgorod; 19 August 1929, Venice), impresario, was the first and only son of his mother who died in childbirth on the military reservation where his father was stationed. He remained motherless until his father married Hélène Panaeva in St. Petersburg, where Diaghilev began to study law in 1890. The young law student soon became a member of a circle of painters, musicians, and writers over whom Alexander Benois and Léon Bakst presided. Diaghilev…