Why I chose Nijinsky

Vaslav Nijinsky, who died 64 years ago, was one of the most famous dancers in the world. But the dance in him had died 30 years before that, leaving him to spend half his lifetime in and out of mental institutions. Astonishingly, at the very point in his life that he was going mad, when, in fact, the dance was leaving him, he started to write a diary, and kept on writing for six weeks.

               

        During the First World War, Nijinsky suffered from Hunger but Diaghilev succeeded in getting him released for a North American tour in 1916. Thereafter, though, the dancer became more and more mentally ill. He was even taken  for treatment to Switzerland. There he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1919, and spent the rest of his life in and out of psychiatric institutions. 

        In 1919,Nijinsky began writing a diary and he continued to do so for six weeks. A version of this diary was first published in English in 1936. In a review of the French edition, The New York Times said: ‘Much of the text reads like a stream of consciousness dominated by a series of fixations, including Nijinsky’s identification with God and Jesus Christ, his love of humanity, his concern for feelings, his distaste for eating meat, his disdain for money, his wife’s curiosity about his writing and his need to confess his sexual habits.’
       There are many reviews of the diary  on the internet. The New York Times concludes about the English edition with this thought: ‘The diary’s final lines are not, as the old edition had it, ‘God seeks me and therefore we will find each other,’ but a mundane thought that never gets finished. How ironic that in erasing the real ugliness of his insanity, the old version silenced not only Nijinsky’s true voice but the magnificently gifted body from which it came. And how fortunate we are to have them both restored.’

        Here is a very interesting extract from The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky I really like it.. . . I am afraid of the Stock Exchange because I do not know it. I went there once with Diaghilev, who knew a man who was a stockbroker. Diaghilev gambled for low stakes and therefore won. I will gamble for low stakes because I too want to win. I know that little people lose because they get very nervous and do silly things. I will observe everyone with complete detachment, and I will understand everything. I do not like knowing everything in advance, but God wants to show me the way people live and therefore is warning me. I will go to the railway station on foot and not in a cab. If everyone is going in a cab, I will too. God wants to show people that I am the same kind of person as they are ...................

  I will go now..............

  I am waiting..............
        I do not want.............
        I will go to my wife’s mother and talk to her because I do not want her to think that I like Oscar more than her. I am checking her feelings. She is not dead yet, because she is envious.................’

 From the extract, we can see how serious Nijinsky's illness is. He became a mad and apparently nervous artist. Or because he is a great artist, who was born a temperamental genius. That's why I chose Nijinsky. Geniuses and great men all have something totally different from normal people. However, they are always considered mad men. I really appreciate people who can stick to his dreams even nobody understands him, which really needs courage and adherence. Nevertheless, even though we are just ordinary people, we still need to keep moving and pursue our dreams. Never give up.