Rothschild money

"After a month or a month and a half, the Petersburg 1st guild was paid by the merchant Nikolai Romanov, who was frightened by the competition and the publication in the statements, paid, at the highest command of Rothschild, illegally detained money with interest and interest on interest, making excuses for the ignorance of laws, which he really could not know by his public situation." This poisonous passage can be read in the 39th chapter of the fifth part of the "past and thoughts" of Herzen. "The merchant of the First Guild Nikolai Romanov" - Russian Emperor Nicholas I, "Highest commanding him, Rothschild - Baron James Mayer de Rothschild (1792–1868), the youngest son of the founder of the Rothschilds of Mayer Ashchel Rothschild," Great Baron "," The Great Baron "," The Great Baron "," The Great Baron "," The Great Baron "," The Great Baron "," The Great Baron "," The Great Baron "," The Great Baron "," Betty's wife painted Engr. The story of Herzen's money is famous, so I will only remind her in short. After Alexander Herzen refused to return to Russia in the late 1840s, his property was arrested, and the fugitive himself was deprived of all the rights of condition. The first Russian socialist, which was a millionaire, took the "collateral tickets" to the hereditary estate. He cashed them with James Rothschild. When it turned out that Rothschild himself, due to the arrest of Herzen's property, could not get the due to him in Russia, he demanded that Emperor Nicholas behave decently and not to notice dirty political revenge on pure financial relations. The requirement was transferred through the Russian chancellor Nesselrode; Moreover, Rothschild hinted: if the Russian king does not pay, then the case will be made public and the whole of Europe will learn that, according to Herzen's minted formulation, "Cossack communism is more dangerous than Luiblanovsky." The trick worked, Rothschild received Herzen’s money, Herzen-the Rothschildovsky, to which, if you quote Lenin, he “launched agitation”, that is, he published the “Bell”, “Polar Star”, helped revolutionaries-emigrants, etc. In this plot, two things are curious. The first is how the great financier involuntarily contributed to the revolution. The second plot is much more interesting, it is that already in the middle of the century before last the money was stronger than the despots, the loot defeated evil, speaking the language of Putin's Russia. Then it was "new money" - the Rothschild dynasty existed for less than a hundred years; James Rothschild himself made a gigantic state not only on exchange speculations and banking transactions, he invested a lot in the industrial -growing industry in the middle of the year before lasting. That is, the Rothschild money was "new money of the era of the industrial revolution"; Herzenovsky "old serfdom" became "new" thanks to the deal between the revolutionary and the banker.

Baron James Mayer de Rothschild founded the Paris branch of the Rothschilds, his wife Betty Rothschild was the youngest daughter of Anselm von Rothschild from Frankfurt, the very one whose son Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839–1898) crossed London. It turns out that James and Ferdinand could call each other “Shurins” at a meeting-if they had once met at all. Their family affairs do not really occupy us here, but we note the differences and similarities of the Paris and London Rothschilds. Both were philanthropists. Both-although differently-actively participated in the political life of their new countries. Finally, both were energetic collectors of art, although they were attracted by very different eras and styles. As for the discrepancy, there are two opposite psychological types before us: confident in himself, the lifeless James (Herzen describes him like this: “The King of Judea sat calmly at his table, looked in the papers, wrote something at them, correctly all millions or at least hundreds of thousands”) and the unfortunate, gloomy, melancholy Ferdinand. The incident, which imposed an incorrigible imprint on the nature of the London Rothschild, was the death of his wife during childbirth in 1866. Shocked Ferdinand built at his own expense a children's hospital on the southern shore of Thames; He is known and other charity. The widower chaired the Council of the Central London synagogue, was elected the main sheriff of Bakingemnshire and even a deputy of the House of Commons from liberals. The “new money” of the Rothschilds needed social, even ethical legitimations, they needed a certain respectability, which is why, gradually, step by step, a cautious banker turned his “new capital” into “old new”.

Baron Rothschild

The main comfort of Ferdinand de Rothschild was art. In 1874, he began to build the Uoddesdon estate in Buckingmashir; Rothschild hired by the famous architect Hippolytus Dettler took as a basis the Renaissance French Castle Shambor. The estate was completed by 1889, nine years later, on the day of his birth, Ferdinand de Rothschild died. The favorite place of the owner of Waddesdon was a smoking room; Here was his famous collection of Renaissance and Baroque utensils, jewelry, weapons and other things. The heirs transferred the collection to the British National Fund, and recently they took a room in the British Museum for it, opening a special gallery. Any visitor to the best museum in the world can admire for free of free of charge a material that was materialized in gold, silver, precious stones with the Baron Rothschild melancholy, on these once “old new money”, which later became “old”, and now, thanks to the curators and restorers of the British museum, they already look like “new old new money”. I came to look at them.

This is one of the most stuffy - mentally and physically stuffy - museum spaces where I happened to be; Not being subject to claustrophobia, here in the new gallery of the British Museum called The Waddesdon Request. A Rotschild Renaissance , I felt a real panic. No, no, from the point of view of modern museum business, everything is impeccable here; However, in this room, no matter how well it is ventilated, no matter how the heavy smell of burgundy wallpaper, burgundy velvet curtains, covered with burgundy cloth of sofas and dull-festive old tapestries are spilled. We are in the Victorian era, in its height, in a world where we are not so often washed, the gentlemen are worn by depressing giant beards and checkered pantalones, praised by Dickens and Mandelstam, where they publish benefits on the basics of family life, in which wives are offered to fulfill her husband's eyes, with closed eyes, not moving with expression on their facial expression rising to the fire of Jeanne d'Arc. This is the time of total industrialization of the country, the emergence of giant industrial cities like Manchester or Sheffield, the time when any new ones - made in the industry and trade - tried to pretend not to urban, but by rural, not new, but not the result of nursing energy, but quite decent, old -fashioned, like rural squires. Britain, this "workshop of the world", thought of itself exclusively as a country of cute landscapes and rude, but good landlords - because of the Jew Ferdinand Rothschild, who became the subject of Queen Victoria at about the age of twenty, began to imitate the local bourgeoisie, which imitated the local aristocracy - hence the estate of the Udesdon, built in French, as in French, as in French. Britain, starting from the 18th century, was accepted, a style, hence the smoking room in the estate, in which gold, silver and diamonds of the collection of once beautiful junk shone dimly.

I walked around this room, whose contents (but not furniture and furniture!) Was transferred to the museum, flaunted by random visitors - and who would still wander there, except that the collectors of jewelry pieces wandering around the world? - And he suffocated from the pile of losing the meaning of the fakes. First of all, direct fakes. Among the exhibits there were several things - for example, arquebuses with excessively luxurious inlay - produced in the fakes of the 19th century, forgotten today. We should not forget: it was a century of new money that impersonate the old ones - and collecting is one of the best ways to bring a noble patina on freshly minted golden gineas and francs. The demand for old things that accidentally fell into the category of "art of the past" was incredible - exactly then, in the 19th century, and a huge antiques market developed. Bourgeois, having won the world, became a collector; Only here his collections, no matter how thin considerations the collector was guided, turned out to be only very expensive flea markets. Previously, starting from the 16th century, aristocrats, monarchs, scientists, artists gathered unusual things, there was such a genre as Cabinets of Curiosites ("Cabinets of bizarrence", even "Cabinets of bizarrence"), however, those solarponial collections were not based on the cost of stained in rooms, but on it Rare, oddities and even scandalous. The bourgeois, having adopted the passion for collecting old things, turned out to be much more reliable and pragmatic - he collected (and collects) things reliable, both in the economic and aesthetic sense. Hence two conclusions. If you collect not only for the soul, but also for investment, wait for you to deceive you. And the bourgeois - despite all his tricks - deceived. Ferdinand Rothschild also spent several times antiquers. But this is not so scary. The second conclusion is sadder: such collections are monstrously boring. More precisely, they are dead. Unlike Cabinets of Curiosites, everything placed in the bourgeois smoking room becomes hopelessly dead. That's why the Waddesdon Request gallery is so sad. A Rotschild Renaissance is a cemetery, but, alas, not in the open air.

Well, of course, things themselves. Most of them are excellent examples of applied and decorative art of long -gone times, when long -leaving people who have not been understood for a long time. The Catholic Paranium of the times of the Religious Wars, tens of thousands of brazlets, which desperately fought off the universal messenger of Protestantism, which declared criminal trash any decoration of true faith. Household ventures of the era of early colonial captures - cups trimmed with gold, silver salt shakers in the form of deer and hounds of dogs, painted vases. All this in those days had a direct political, economic, religious, social meaning, lost already in the 19th century and three times lost today. The audience, which ended up in the new gallery of the British Museum, can only wander in the darkness between brightly lit shop windows and sigh the immortal "eh, people lived!" The beautiful products devoid of historical context are boring, their series causes unbearable yawning, reinforced by a lack of oxygen in the room. Here, of course, not “art” is exhibited, but the material remnants of a special way of social representation of big money. And if something is interesting in The Waddesdon Request. A Rotschild Renaissance is a plot related to money.

Unlike the pre -bourgeois era, the bourgeois Europe was ashamed of its money. Quickly made money was urgently required to turn into something else, justifying both their very presence and a way to do it. For an aristocrat or monarch of the time of the Renaissance or Baroque, luxury was the most important social marker, direct and clear symbol of power. The European, and then the American bourgeois possessed the power much more than that of any duke or king, because it was secular in nature and was not associated with tradition, nor with ritual, nor religion. Money from the times of capitalism is free from any restraining factors, their owners are terrible from vast freedom. This money was eagerly spent on philanthropy, they went to support all sorts of sciences; Finally, they could buy things of other crops and times on them - but only those that "experts" recognized "valuable" in every sense. Schizophrenia of capitalism lies in the fact that he, knowing his boundless possibilities, obscures them, hides, is embarrassed. In the 19th century, the bourgeois, despite all its power, feels still uncertain, his power and authority need backups, so he finds them in collecting an expensive, perfectly fulfilled, meaningless junk. For the time being, the bourgeois stores the collection of the house, but then, sooner or later, they are exhibited for the general public, which thinks that it stares at the Renaissance Cups, medallions or crosses, and, in fact, in front of it is a sociopsychological history of an ordinary banker or industrialist. And here it becomes terrible and entertaining at the same time - depending on whether those people are interesting to us, for example, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild.

He was really a finished melancholic. Parisian Shurin Ferdinand Baron James Rothschild surrounded himself with modern musicians, artists, writers - he was occupied by the current cultural life. Unlike Paris from the time of the Second Empire and the Third Republic, in Victorian London, “Contemporary Art” was almost absent-not counting, of course, the Perefaetaelites, these purely bourgeois pop artists. But the British bourgeois, especially the financier Rothschild, the stranger who did everything to become his own, the pre -Raphaelites seemed insufficiently respectable - and here the old art and craft are on stage. Its creators are long dead and will not make any feints. “Old” means “good”, which means “rare”, means “expensive”, which is why British Rothschild is more comfortable to collect “old”, and not support the “new”, like Rothschilda of Parisian. The old art ages "new money", and, along with this, prescribes a rich comedian in "History", makes his existence legal. The plot is familiar and quite banal-it repeats from time to time, causing a desire to think about something more pressing-or, conversely, completely abstract.

And of course, the personal drama of Ferdinand Rothschild is played out in front of the viewer. This sad gentleman surrounded himself with objects from the everyday life of frantic fun - cups, bowls, vases, dishes. This manager of the synagogue smoked an afternoon cigar among symbols extremely hostile to his religion and his people of the Church. Finally, having lost his wife and an unborn child, Rothschild arranged the opportunity for hours to look at the impeccably executed images of the New Testament mothers and son. Probably, at these minutes he thought that money, especially "new money", is not as powerful as it seems. Although, of course, they are clearly stronger than the Russian emperor.