Vladimir Belski

• Name — Vladimir Ivanovich Belsky • Native Name — Владимир Иванович Бельский • Birthplace — Trakai, Russian Empire • Died — 28 February 1946 • Place of death — Heidelberg, Germany • Education — Saint Petersburg Imperial University • Occupation — Poet, librettist • Years Active — 1898-1909 • Notable Works — * Sadko (1898) • The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1900) • The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (1907) • The Golden Cockerel (1909)

Belsky was born in Trakai, Russian Empire (modern Lithuania) in 1866. Nothing seems to be known of his family or early life. He studied at Saint Petersburg Imperial University, where he was awarded degrees in law (1889), physics and mathematics (1893), and political economy and statistics (1897). In 1894, he and Rimsky-Korsakov became acquainted. They collaborated on four operas, all on fantastic or fairytale subjects: Sadko (1898; in part), The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1900), The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (1907) and The Golden Cockerel (1909), and on several unrealised projects. Subsequently, he disappeared from public view. According to one account, he emigrated to Germany in the early 1920s, and lived there for the rest of his life. According to another, he emigrated in 1921 to Belgrade (then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), where he wrote, among other things, several memoirs and articles on Rimsky-Korsakov. All his papers were destroyed during the bombing of Belgrade in World War II. In 1946, he died in Heidelberg, Germany, in what was then the American Zone of Occupation following World War II. He admired and was influenced by Pushkin, one of Russia's national poets. Rimsky-Korsakov described him as intelligent, educated and learned, a great connoisseur and lover of Russian antiquity and ancient Russian literature, epics and songs, and a humble, shy and honest man. He is said to have known fourteen languages.