PIONEER OF RUSSIAN STUDIES IN AUSTRALIA N. M. KRISTESEN-MAKSIMOVA

G. I. KANEVSKAYA

Doctor of Historical Sciences Far Eastern State Federal University

Keywords: Australia, Russian studies, N. M. Kristesen-Maksimova, Melbourne University, St. Petersburg, Russian emigration in Australia

In the first quarter of the last century, millions of Russian people were forced to leave their homeland for certain reasons and then live abroad. Among them, there were many who, while living in foreign countries, studied Russian culture and, moreover, sought to promote it and introduce it to representatives of educated circles in the countries of their forced stay. Among these" missionaries of Russian studies "(materials about many of them at different times published the magazine "Asia and Africa today") not the last place is taken by Nina Mikhailovna Kristesen (23.12.1911, Blagoveshchensk - 8.08.2001, Melbourne).

It is no exaggeration to say that few other Russian emigrants (and many thousands of them have made it to a distant continent in the Southern Hemisphere) have done so much to help Australians learn Russian culture and the Russian language, and many thanks to the work of this outstanding woman sincerely fell in love with our country.

N. M. Kristesen was born in the city on the Amur, where her mother, nee Tatyana Semyonovna Alekseeva-Podoskina (1888-1979), came for a while from the capital of the empire to her husband who was then serving in the Far East. But, as Nina Mikhailovna reports in her autobiography, in the documents the place of her birth is indicated as St. Petersburg ¹. It was in this city that her family lived, and her early childhood years were spent.

N. M. Kristesen's father, Mikhail Ivanovich Maksimov (d. 1967), graduated with honors from the St. Petersburg School of Long-distance Navigation named after Emperor Peter the Great, after which he began his naval service, mainly in the Far East. During the First World War, he commanded ships that brought medical supplies and fish for the army from Japan. With the beginning of the Civil War, Maximov performed assignments for Admiral Kolchak, cruising the Amur River on ships of the Amur Steamship Trade Society ².

"My adult life opened up for me in St. Petersburg," Nina Mikhailovna recalled. " [ ... ] The first thing I remember was the dazzling snow in the Summer Garden. And the smell of fresh, frosty air that takes your breath away. I can still feel it. 3

Nina Mikhailovna's impressions of the revolutionary events of 1917 in Petrograd were also truly indelible: "St. Petersburg in the fatal winter of 1917 remains in my memory as a beautiful, snow-covered, exciting city. The streets were filled with people, the sirens at the Putilov factory [...] sounded almost continuously, but on Sundays and holidays the church bells rang as usual. Putilov's workers - they all seemed so tall and courageous to me-marched through the streets with songs and banners; orators addressed the crowds from their balconies. Strangers stopped and talked to each other in the streets. Even the crackling seeds could spit the husks on the sidewalk without fear of police punishment! Aeroplanes flew low over the city, scattering leaflets. There was a shortage of food and bread lines, but we also attended opera and ballet performances. Public poetry readings continued, and my mother also went to bookstores. " ⁴

A LONG WAY FROM PETROGRAD TO MELBOURNE

The upheavals of the revolutionary years forced the Maximov family to leave Petrograd and led to many years of wandering and deprivation. Already in March 1917, Nina and her mother followed her father to the east. It took them three months to reach the Amur River, then Shilka, Sretensk, Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk, and at the end of 1919 the family ended up in Harbin. Here M. I. Maksimov got a job at the concessions of L. S. Skidelsky on the CER, Nina studied at one of the best educational institutions in the city - Rus-

Moscow women's commercial school. After the transfer of the CER to the joint Soviet-Chinese administration in 1924, the Maksimovs decided to emigrate to Australia and arrived in Brisbane in ^{March 1925.5}

The life of Russian emigrants on the fifth continent was not cloudless, especially during the global economic crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Nina's mother fell ill with tuberculosis. My father, along with hundreds of other unemployed people, stood for hours in front of the labor exchange, did not give up any, even the most difficult work, including on sugar cane plantations or cotton harvesting. Nina had to start working life at the age of 14. She worked as a maid and nanny in a private house, in a parking lot, as a cleaner and typist in an office. At the same time, she continued to study hard, graduated from high school and Teachers Training College, entered the University of Queensland in Brisbane and, after receiving a diploma, began working at school ⁶. At the same time, for several years she taught evening courses in Russian at the Institute of Modern Languages at the University of Queensland. One of her students was the Australian writer Nellie Triton, who later married A. F. Kerensky, who lived in Brisbane in 1946.

"In general," she wrote, " this period of our life in Australia was difficult, but far from bleak. We did not live by bread alone, we had our own joys, highs, raptures, spiritual life"⁷. A vivid event in the life of the Russian colony of Brisbane was the tour of Anna Pavlova in 1926 and 1929. "For us, Anna Pavlova was not only a famous and wonderful ballerina, she was the personification of Russian art, memories of the beautiful irrevocable past were associated with her, she inspired us, as if restoring our sense of self-esteem", - recalled Nina Mikhailovna ⁸.

The tour of Russian artists helped to introduce Australians to Russian culture, but, as N. Christesen wrote, "... having inherited from their Anglo-Saxon ancestors a rich and universal language, as well as the Islanders ' disdainful attitude towards the languages of other peoples, Australians were not at all predisposed to learn Russian."⁹. However, during the Second World War, the British self-sufficiency of Australians was shaken, their mentality began to change. The war contributed to the growth of the authority of the USSR in the world, including in the eyes of Australians, and in the post-war period, the number of Russians on the continent increased significantly due to the entry of displaced persons. The presence of the Russian diaspora in the country's public life has become more prominent. Thus, the war contributed to the creation of prerequisites for studying the Russian language at a higher school in Australia, in which Nina Mikhailovna took an active part.

In January 1942, she married the well-known journalist and writer, founder and editor of the literary magazine Miengin, Clem Christesen. In 1945, the magazine was moved to the University of Melbourne, and the Christesens moved to Melbourne, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

In 1946, N. M. Christesen passed the competition for the position of a teacher of the first Australian department of Russian language and literature being created at the University of Melbourne, but it became independent only in 1949, "branching off" from the French department. Nina Mikhailovna managed it for 30 years-until the end of 1976.

I HAD TO START FROM SCRATCH

Teaching Russian at the university had to start from scratch, as there were no experienced teachers, no developed course, no textbooks, no Russian library, or even a typewriter with a Russian font. N. Christesen's personal qualities, her love of the Russian language, her enthusiasm and teaching talent, and her ability to engage the audience played a big role. According to the students, she was an excellent and very strict teacher. One of the graduates of the Russian department, Nadezhda Cheng (Volkova), recalled that Nina Mikhailovna was particularly demanding of Russian students, believing that they should know their native language perfectly. Christesen herself continued to study continuously at European universities where Russian was taught - at Oxford, Cambridge, and the Sorbonne; she also visited Moscow.

According to O. V. Vinokurova, who worked as the secretary of the Russian department for many years, Nina Mikhailovna tried to arouse students ' interest in the Russian language and literature in a variety of ways. At the department, a poets ' club was created, led by teachers D. V. Grishin and I. I. Mezhakov-Koryakin, a student club that students from other departments also willingly attended. At the parties, students dressed up in Russian national costumes, treated each other to Russian pies, performed Russian songs, and staged plays in Russian

In English, they celebrated Orthodox Easter. At Christmas, Nina Mikhailovna invited all the students and teachers of the department with their families to her suburban estate "Eltam".

Every summer, she organized a ten-day school in a house by the sea, where the students ' conversation practice took place. Only Russian was spoken, and a fine was charged for each English word. The school proved to be very efficient, as there was one teacher for every two students. A significant part of the expenses for these events were spent at the expense of Nina Mikhailovna's personal funds. The library of the Russian department subscribed to magazines of 32 titles, and the number of students by 1958 reached 157 people.¹⁰

SCIENTIST, TEACHER, PUBLIC FIGURE

By the 1970s, the University of Melbourne had become a recognized center of Australian Slavic studies and Russian studies. In 1967. The Department of Russian Language and Literature of the University began publishing the journal Melbourne Slavonic Studies, edited by N. M. Christesen11. The journal published research in the field of studying and teaching the language, literature and history of Slavic countries in English and Russian. In 1970, the Association of Australian and New Zealand Slavists was established; Christesen was elected its first head, and she also represented Australia on the Executive Committee of the International Slavist Association. In addition, Nina Mikhailovna was the president of the Association of Teachers of the Russian Language and a government translator from Russian at international scientific congresses. She has repeatedly given lectures on Pushkin, Tolstoy, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Chukovskaya, Sholokhov, and others on ABC radio. ¹²

N. M. Christesen paid special attention to the history of the Russian presence on the fifth continent. She founded the Archive of Russian Immigration History at the University of Melbourne, and since 1968, under her editorship, the monographic series "Russians in Australia" was published, where 31 books of this series were published from 1968 to 2002. Most of them are biographical essays about the most prominent Russian Australians, including the writer and naturalist N. A. Baykov, the historian I. I. Gaponovich, the archaeologist V. V. Ponosov, the orientalist A. P. Khionin, the economist and geographer V. N. Zhernakov, the founder of ballet in Western Australia K. Buslova, and four archbishops of the Australian-New Zealand Church. dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church, etc.

The series ' publications shed light on such a little-studied area of activity of Russian Australians as charity, and the history of Russian charitable societies in Australia is described in detail. They also talk about the achievements of Russian engineers on the fifth continent, whose high professionalism contributed to the development of the leading sectors of the Australian economy and science. A number of articles are devoted to the selfless multi-faceted work of Russian women in various public organizations - church, charity, youth and others. These women generally played a huge role in preserving national culture among the Russian diaspora.

The significance of the series "Russians in Australia" was not limited to the publication of materials on the historiography of Russian emigration. The publication of these books in English was aimed at introducing Australians to the achievements of Russians on the fifth continent, thereby helping to awaken their interest in Russian culture.

After Kristesen's retirement, Professor R. Sussex took over the Russian Department, and in 1977 he became the head of the Department. it has acquired the status of a department.

N. M. Christesen died on August 8, 2001. Her death caused numerous sad responses not only from the Russian diaspora, but also from Australians, who, as her former student Dr. Armstrong wrote, thanks to her, got in touch with"the unique culture of Russia"¹³. Nina Mikhailovna was also remembered with gratitude in faraway Vladivostok, where she sent books from the series "Russians in Australia", which are now stored in the DVGU library and in the archive of the Far Eastern branch of Russian emigration at the Primorye United Museum named after V. K. Arsenyev.

SHE WILL BE REMEMBERED FOR A VERY LONG TIME...

The work of N. M. Christesen, a pioneer of Russian studies who played a special role in preserving the language and developing Russian culture in Australia, is highly appreciated by both the Australian and Russian communities. She became an honorary member of the University of Melbourne and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (1987). In 2003, a collection of articles was published in her memory, which included memoirs of both Russians and Australians who personally knew Nina Mikhaylovna14. In 2006, the Committee for Russian Ethnic Representation of the Russian People's Republic of China was established.-

The Government of Victoria erected a monument to N. M. Christesen in the Melbourne suburb of Eltham, where she lived.

Nina Mikhailovna lived a long and happy life and always kept a lively connection with her historical homeland. She had met many prominent Russian people, and had maintained long-term contacts with some of them. She left us her memories of Anna Pavlova, A. F. Kerensky, AL. Tolstoy, S. Richter, I. Smoktunovsky, B. Okudzhava, M. Rostropovich, G. Vishnevskaya, K. Chukovsky, Academician V. V. Vinogradov and others. For many years, her dream was to see the city of her childhood again.

This dream came true in 1957. About the feelings experienced by Nina Mikhailovna, when she was on a steamer going from Helsinki, approaching her native shores after an absence of forty years, can be judged from her letter: "And all of a sudden I saw Kronstadt far, far ahead and I started to cry."¹⁵ She extended her stay in Leningrad as much as possible, and wrote that she would have given a lot for it."..stay here for three months." Nina Mikhailovna traveled by car all over the city and suburbs, trying to see as much as possible, and visited the house where she once lived. "Every mile we drive thrills me," she wrote in a letter to her husband. [¹⁶]

During her trips outside the fifth continent, Nina Mikhailovna always tried to make the most of the opportunities for improving her skills and collecting literature and other materials in order to expand the opportunities for Australian Russian specialists to work. So it was in Leningrad. She met many philologists there, visited the branch of the Academy of Sciences, scientific institutes, archives, museums, and bookstores. And everywhere, as she wrote: "... met wonderful people. Modest researchers, honest intellectuals-and working so hard! " ¹⁷

The enthusiastic perception of his native city was somewhat overshadowed by some negative impressions. "I must say that the criticism of the Russians, unfortunately, is true. Lack of wealth, lack of benevolence... Most people don't respond to my smile, which is kind of frustrating. [... Middle-aged women look chronically tired, " noted Nina Mikhailovna ¹⁸.

N. M. Kristesen's special interest and participation was aroused by the stories of Leningrad residents about the tragic days of the blockade and the still preserved traces of the past war: "They suffered cruelly during the nine - hundred-day blockade-cold, hunger, lack of water, light, and death everywhere. When I think about how we in Australia were worried about some restrictions during the war... God, I'm sorry!"¹⁹.

She also communicated with poor people, and, as her father later wrote, sympathized with the current situation of the poor in Leningrad:" ... gave away everything that she had. " ²⁰

Until the end of her life, Nina Mikhailovna tried to provide all possible assistance to her compatriots, sending books, parcels with things to different addresses, transferring money. "They need everything right now," she said. As O. V. Vinokurova recalled, in 1997 N. M. Kristesen found out that the St. Petersburg University clinic did not have a surgery room. On her initiative, the staff of the University of Melbourne with great difficulty collected everything necessary for such an office, adding hospital beds and a large number of medicines. All this was sent by a Russian steamer to St. Petersburg, but, unfortunately, the gift did not reach the addressee-it disappeared without ^a trace...

Nina Mikhailovna's biographer O. A. Donskikh recalls that even in the last days of her life, without getting out of bed, she gave him money and asked him to send it to "an old lady from St. Petersburg": "She needs it very much, and medicines are expensive, you know." ²²

In her memoirs, N. Christesen wrote: "During my childhood in St. Petersburg, I was very aware that I was Russian, in particular, "Petersburg". The "Petersburgers" - residents of St. Petersburg - were considered the elite of tsarist Russia: they spoke better, dressed more elegantly, were more polite, and avoided vulgarity, bragging, or inappropriate behavior. "²³ These" Petersburg "qualities, which were laid down in her childhood, were always inherent in Nina Mikhailovna, and at the end of her life she believed that St. Petegburg was" ... a stunning city, regardless of the time year or historical time " ²⁴.

¹ Autobiography of N. M. Christesen // Donskikh O. A. Eltam Island, or one happy Russian life. Novosibirsk: Siberian Agreement. 2006. p. 286.

² To His Imperial Highness the Sovereign, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich / / Ibid., pp. 243-247.

³ Cit. by: Donskikh O. A. Decree, op. p. 14.

^{Christesen N.} 4 A Russian migrant // The Half-Open Door. Sixteen modern Australian women look at professional life and achievement. Sydney, 1984. P. 60.

⁵ Ibid. P. 60 - 63."

^{Christesen N.M.} 6 As I Remember // Eat Tongue. A Bilingual Anthology. Melbourne, 1997. P. 47 - 49.

⁷ Ibid. P. 49.

⁸ Ibid. P. 49 - 51.

^{9. Kristesen N. M.} 9 Memoirs of the creation and work of the first Department of Russian Language and Literature in Australia. Russian Chronicle. Sydney, 1997. N 16. P. 8.

^{Vinokurova O. V.} 10 Nina Mikhaylovna Kristesen / / Vestnik. Bulletin of the Russian Ethnic Representation of the State of Victoria. Melbourne, 2006. Июнь / июль. С. 8; Russia and the Fifth Continent: Aspects of Russian-Australian Relations / Eds. J. McNair and T. Poole. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1992. P. 267 - 268.

¹¹ Since 1987, the journal has been called Melbourne Slavonic and East European Studies.

¹² Autobiography of N. M. Kristesen ... pp. 287-288.

¹³ Australiad. Russian Chronicle. Sydney. 2001. N 29. P. 13.

¹⁴ Nina Christesen Remembered // Russians in Australia series (founded, sponsored and edited by Nina Christesen), now under the general editorship of Prof. Oleg Donskikh. University of Melbourne. 2003. N. 30.

¹⁵ Cit. by: Donskikh O. A. Decree, op. p. 138.

¹⁶ Ibid., pp. 142-143.

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 143.

¹⁸ Ibid., pp. 144-145.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 143.

²⁰ To His Imperial Highness the Sovereign... P. 260.

²¹ Nina Christesen Remembered... P. 47, 51.

²² Cit. by: Donskikh O. A. Decree, op. p. 231.

^{Christesen N.} 23 A Russian migrant... P. 56.

²⁴ Cit. by: Donskikh O. A. Decree, op. p. 14.

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