Savva Mamontov

Savva Mamontovwas a Russian railroad entrepreneur, philanthropist, and founder and creative director of the Moscow Private Opera. Mamontov is best known for supporting a revival of traditional Russian arts at an artists’ colony he led at Abramtsevo.

One of nine children, Mamontov was the son of successful merchant Ivan Fyodorovich Mamontov. The family moved to Moscow when Savva was eight years old. He received the highest-quality education from private tutors, and in 1855, at age 14, he attended the Institute of Civil Engineer Corps in St. Petersburg. He continued his education at Moscow State University, where he studied law but also got involved in the school’s drama activities. In 1863–64, while on a trip to Milan to research the silk trade for his father’s business, Mamontov attended his first opera. His enthusiasm for that art form was such that he attended many performances and even began taking singing lessons during his stay in Italy. Though he continued to work in his father’s business, when Mamontov returned to Moscow, he began to get involved in the city’s art circles. In 1865 Mamontov married Elizaveta Sapozhnikov, whom he had met in Italy and who was also a lover of the arts, and they soon became great patrons to many of Russia’s artists and musicians.

Mamontov’s father died in 1868, and he took over the family business, becoming chairman of the Moscow-Yaroslavl Railroad Company. He continued to juggle his business pursuits with his patronage and interest in the arts, regularly hosting artists and musicians at his extravagant home. In 1870 Mamontov and his wife purchased Abramtsevo—an estate located about 30 miles (50 km) from Moscow—from the family of novelist Sergey Aksakov. The couple established an artists’ colony there, and soon artists and musicians—among them Mikhail Vrubel, Ilya Repin, and Viktor Vasnetsov—began to flock to the retreat. The artists who lived and worked at Abramtsevo at this time were called the Mamontov Circle. They collaborated on large-scale projects, including the construction of some of the estate’s buildings (e.g., the Church of the Savior and the children’s pavilion, which was nicknamed “The Hut on Chicken Legs”—see Baba-Yaga), as well as on dramatic and operatic productions throughout the 1870s and ’80s. Mamontov himself served as the artistic director for those performances. The Mamontov Circle also established woodworking and pottery workshops, all of which was funded by the Mamontovs.

In 1885 Mamontov founded the Moscow Private Opera, which initially produced operas by both Italian and Russian composers but quickly shifted focus to promote the work of Russia’s leading composers, among them Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky. With that extraordinary music, stage sets designed by Abramtsevo’s artists, and Mamontov directing, the enterprise flourished.

Meanwhile, Mamontov was also heavily invested in his railway pursuits and funded the construction of the Moscow-Yaroslavl-Archangel railroad (completed about 1898), then the longest railroad in Russia, and in 1897 cofounded the Mytishchi Rail Car Construction Plant, the largest such enterprise in the country (in operation into the 21st century). However, his success in business came to an unfortunate end when he was accused of embezzling funds from one of his railroad ventures. He was imprisoned in 1899 and brought to trial. Though his friends and family came to his defense, and he was released and acquitted of the crime in 1900, his reputation was demolished. He retired to Abramtsevo for the rest of his life and was buried near the estate’s church.

Olga Haldey, Mamontov’s Private Opera: The Search for Modernism in Russian Theater (2010).