Late Czarist Russian Artistic Brilliance

The phrase “European with Asian characteristics” expresses our fascination with the enduring contribution to world culture of Russian music, art and literature created during the twilight years of Czarist Russia: Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev; Kramskoy, Repin, and Levitan; Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov. What cultural and historical influences helped Russians, and then the rest of the West, to recognize and to reward the gifts of these Russian artists? And how would the trajectory of European arts have been different without the genius of Russia’s contributions?