LIFAR SERGE: (1905-1986) On Nijinsky's body being reinterred at Montmartre Cemetery

LIFAR SERGE: (1905-1986) On Nijinsky's body being reinterred at Montmartre Cemetery

LIFAR SERGE: (1905-1986) Ukrainian ballet dancer and choreographer. An interesting T.L.S., Serge Lifar, one page, 4to, Paris, 19th June 1951, to 'Momsieur le Senateur', on the printed stationery of the Reunion des Theatres Lyriques Nationaux, in French. Lifar acknowledges receipt of his correspondent's letter in which he informs him of the decision taken by the Prefect of the Seine 'a la suite de votre si aimable et efficace intervention' (Translation: 'following your so kind and efficient intervention') and continues to remark 'Je tiens a venir vous exprimer mes remerciements auxquels s'ajoutent ceux du Corps de Ballet de l'Opera qui vous devra la joie d'accueillir en terre de France le corps d'un de ses plus illustres aines, Vaslav Nijinsky. Ainsi, Paris aura-t-il en son cimetiere Montmartre deja gardien de tant de depouilles glorieuses, celles de deux des plus grands danseurs de l'histoire, Vestris et Nijinsky' (Translation: 'I would like to express my thanks to you, as well as those of the Corps de Ballet de l'Opera, which owes you the joy of welcoming to French soil the body of one of its most illustrious ancestors, Vaslav Nijinsky. Paris will thus have in its Montmartre cemetery, already the repository of so many glorious remains, those of two of the greatest dancers in history, Vestris and Nijinsky.'). VG

From 1947 Vaslav Nijinsky lived in Virginia Water, Surrey, England and died of kidney failure at a London clinic on 8th April 1950. Initially buried in London, Nijinsky's body was moved to Montmartre Cemetery in Paris in 1953 and reinterred alongside the graves of the damcers Gaetano Vestris and Emma Livry.