Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; ; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise. Diaghilev’s career can be divided into two periods: in St Petersburg (1898–1906) and in emigration (1906–1929). Biography Sergei Diaghilev was born in Selishchi to a noble officer . His mother died from childbed fever soon after his birth. In 1873, Pavel met and married Elena Panaeva, who loved Sergei and raised him as her own child. The in Perm was a local cultural centre, and the Diaghilevs housed a musical evening every second Thursday, Modest Mussorgsky being one of the most frequent guests. Sergei Diaghilev composed his first romance at the age of 15. When he entered the Saint Petersburg Imperial University, he also had private music lessons with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Instead of the usual four, it took him six years to graduate. By his own admission, Diaghilev used his student years ‘to look around’ and find his true interests in life. Seven months after graduation he opened his first exhibition. Life in St Petersburg During his years at University, Diaghilev's cousin Dmitry Filosofov introduced him to a circle of art-loving friends who called themselves The Nevsky Pickwickians. They included Alexandre Benois, Walter Nouvel, Konstantin Somov, and Léon Bakst. Although not instantly received into the group, Diaghilev was aided by Benois in developing his knowledge of Russian and Western art. In two years, he had voraciously absorbed this new obsession (even travelling abroad to further his studies) and came to be respected as one of the most learned of the group. In the late 1890s, Diaghilev created several art exhibitions that were intended to introduce the contemporary artists to the local public and, later, to the Europeans. The exposition of British and German watercolorists in 1897 at the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts became a huge success—one which Diaghilev repeated in 1898 with the exhibition of the Russian and Finnish artists at the Stieglitz Academy with the works of those such as Mikhail Vrubel, Valentin Serov, and Isaac Levitan. In the same year he opened an exhibition of young Russian painters in Germany. Though the young art connoisseur had no private fortune, he managed to gain the protection and support of such high nobility as the Grand