EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VISUAL MEDIA: THE NEW ARGONAUTS BALLET AND THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHESME VICTORY IN 1770

The New Argonauts ballet by Gasparo Angiolini was performed in St. Petersburg on September 24, 1770. It finalized a series of celebrations, including thanksgiving prayers, receptions and awards on the occasion of the Chesme victory, as well as celebrations of the anniversary of Catherine II’s coronation and the birthday of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich. The ballet, which literally showed how Peter the Great and Minerva (referring to Catherine II) inspired Russian sailors in the battle against the Turkish fleet, concluded with allegorical scenes. It summed up the providential coincidence of the “tsar” days and the news of the grand victory that had just been received. The performance is important, above all, not because of its allegorical frame, but because of its documentary plot. We can see the ballet as a part of the history of visual media. Usually performances “on the occasion,” such as the one-time performance of The New Argonauts, interpret current events in the language of allegory. The New Argonauts is a rare attempt to present the documentary story of a major event into a visual form. Traditionally at this time news was learned by reading or by ear. The ballet, judging by the surviving program, showed the Battle of Chesme and the destruction of the Turkish fleet by means of theatrical machinery. The text of the program (in its documentary part) is based on the victory reports from Marquis Cavalcabo, envoy to Malta, and from the Commander-in-Chief Count Alexei Orlov that had been published in the Supplement to the Newspaper Sanktpeterburgskie Vedomosti on September 7 and 17, 1770. The performance became a kind of a newscast, “seasoned” with a lyrical plot about the brotherly affection of Yazon and Promak, in whom the audience easily recognized the commander-in-chief Alexei Orlov and his brother Fyodor Orlov; this plot is also drawn from the battle reports. This case shows the complexity of the formation of media as technically mediated communication and technically mediated ways of seeing. It expands the history and archaeology of media in the Russian context. There are few studies in this field and they cover “classical” objects like camera obscura, magic lantern, panoramas and dioramas, i.e. they try European trajectories on our soil. The New Argonauts, perhaps, demonstrates a culturally specific format of the overall process. The “centaur phenomenon,” which combines traditional theatrical techniques with a new intention of reportage, allows raising the question about other similar subjects in the history of visual experience and technology.

visual media, early optical performances, New Argonauts ballet, Chesme victory