In Which we talk about The Nutcracker and the Russia that Could've been

Hello and good morning! Happy Christmas season once again, and well, this post will be a long one, but first I'd love to ask how are you? How are things going? How is the weather and how is the Holiday going so far? How is work going? Tell me everything!!! And with that, we should have a nice convo on the weird world of the Russian Empire, that would end on a tragic tone. Well, let's jump to it.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky is one of my favorite composers of the Russian Empire! He is mostly famous for his Swan Lake Ballet and also for the Nutcracker, that Christmas beauty, today being so part of tradition of endyear that we don't even think about it, some even reject it as a cliche and boring. I personally love it, not only because I love everything Christmas and I'm fond of the Tsars and the Russian Empire, and also, The Nutcracker provides us with an unique view of one group of people that often gets (sometimes maliciously on purpose) forgotten by many: The Russian Middle Class, people living specially in the bigger cities that started to become proeminent specially when Russia moved (at first slowly) towards a more modern economy, when Tsar Alexander II abolish serfdom, causing a havoc in the sleepy lives of the provintcial nobles and the peasants that lived under their strict command. It paved a way for the dramatic age of Tsar Alexander III, son of Alexander II, an age of expanding railways, oil drills, factories, paved streets and the automobile. For the most part, the sleepy life on the countryside was still like the old fairy tales, for the good and the bad, but in some points, the technological advancements brought from other parts of Europe, that came because of the more "welcoming" approach towards the market economy, caused permanent changes in Russia. It was a time of prosperous grocers, artists such as the master of jewelry such as Peter Carl Fabergé, the À La Russe fashion in architecture, fashion, music and painting, growing man of business, immigration, internal and external (and also emmigration, because that moment named the silver age of the russian empire was also one of persecution for Jews and other minorities of the empire, unfortunately, due to the strong Russian bias of Alexander). Anyway, it was a time of boom, a time of professionals rising, a time where traveling by train was fashionable and enviable. I am sure that there were always Christmas traditions in Russia, as the first Christmas tree was put up by Nicholas I, an homage to his wife from Germany, Alexandra Feodorovna I, and also on the tales of the russian serfs and peasants on Father Winter and his gift bearing, and there is nothing more Christmas-like in my opinion then the architecture with russian elements, inspired in old Rome and Byzantium, and also in the Gothic Renaissance Italy. But something about the urban life, the recognizable elements in Tchaikovsky's Ballet, those are the ones that particularly caught my attention. It doesn't portray the life of the Russian Noble, or the Russian Peasant, or the Russian Worker, but the life of the professional liberal of the Russian Middle Class, one that can only thrive under at least a minimum of economic freedom. It was what Russia was experimenting when the Ballet was composed.

The reign of Alexander III was filled with progress, but also short. His Successor was Nicholas (Nicky) II, a man that looked to continue his father's tendencies of government, for the good and the bad. It was during his reign where the serf situation started to properly taken care of, with them receiving some lands to cultivate their own substance. This caused a dramatic explosion in Russian Agriculture, catapulting the country into the top 10 rank in the production of Grain. Some peasants grew in prosperity, and those became part of that middle class, in this weird wonderful land that was the Russian Empire.

Alas, that age of prosperity was severely shaken by the Great World War, a time where man flew in the sky like birds and swam in the sea like fish (in fact, The Russian Empire was a pioneer in submarine vessels), this was, some say, was predicted by Father Abel, more than 100 years earlier, and gave the opportunity the russian communists were waiting for, to go on with their plans of spread of the new Utopia. The rest is page after page of tragic history.

So yes, as Christmas go on, we should reflect on the prosperous streets of St. Petersburg and Moscow, how those happy faces in the promenades disappeared violently after 1917. And as we think about it, we should look down to us, too, as this could happen again, some desire this happen again. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, they say.