Vaslav Nijinsky.

Vaslav Nijinsky made his stage debut at age five in a Christmas pageant in Nizhni Novgorod. He was born on March 12, 1889, in Kyiv to Polish-Russian dancer parents, Foma and Eleonora, who ran their own touring company. His father gave him his first dance lessons. In 1900, he earned a seven-year state scholarship to the Imperial School of Ballet in St. Petersburg, where he studied until 1907 and graduated with honors.

At the Imperial School, he studied the Vaganova method and soon stood out as a prodigy. His sister Bronislava Nijinska trained there too and later became a choreographer. By his professional debut at the Mariinsky Theatre, Nijinsky partnered dancers such as Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina.

In 1909, impresario Sergei Diaghilev appointed Nijinsky as the premier dancer of the Ballets Russes, taking him to Paris for a landmark tour. There, his performances in ballets like Giselle and Swan Lake captivated audiences with his extraordinary leaps. He also danced with Isadora Duncan in 1909, incorporating modern elements.

Nijinsky’s choreographic debut came in 1912 with L’Après-midi d’un faune, which caused a scandal when he mimed masturbation with a scarf. He followed with Jeux and Le Sacre du printemps in 1913, the latter featuring Igor Stravinsky’s dissonant score and Nijinsky’s angular, anti-classical movements, provoking a riot. His personal life unraveled after he secretly married Romola de Pulszky in 1913, leading to a split from Diaghilev. His subsequent attempts to form his own company failed, and during World War I, he was interned as a Russian citizen in Hungary. Diaghilev secured his release and hired him for a 1916 American tour, where Nijinsky performed in his own choreography for Til Eulenspiegel. His mental health deteriorated; after further cabaret performances arranged by his wife, he gave his last public dance on January 19, 1919, at a hotel in St. Moritz, and soon doctors diagnosed schizophrenia.

Nijinsky married Romola de Pulszky, a corps-de-ballet dancer and obsessive fan, in 1913 in Buenos Aires. The marriage was disastrous: it ended his professional relationship with Diaghilev and subjected him to Romola’s domineering influence. The couple had two daughters: Kyra born 1914 and Tamara. Romola’s manipulations, including moving him to Hungary and away from the Parisian cultural scene, exacerbated Nijinsky’s instability.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1919, Nijinsky spent most of the next three decades in mental institutions across Switzerland, Austria, and Hungary. He was treated by psychiatrists Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler. During a lucid period in 1919, he wrote four volumes of diaries, which Romola heavily edited and bowdlerized for publication in 1936. He also created a system of dance notation and numerous drawings. Nijinsky died of kidney failure on April 8, 1950, in London.

Nijinsky’s radical choreography and tragic genius make him the most important male dancer of the early 20th century. His diary, published in full in 1999, became a key document of mental illness and artistic creativity. His dance notation system was decoded in the 1980s, enabling reconstructions of his works. Artists including Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, and Amedeo Modigliani drew his portrait. His tomb in Montmartre Cemetery, Paris, bears the inscription SEPULTURE NIJINSKY and is a pilgrimage site for ballet fans. The ballet Nijinsky based on his life continues to be performed. He is the subject of psychiatrist Peter Oswald’s biography A Leap into Madness.