Valery Tereshchenko, 1901-1994

For one of those odd reasons some time last summer or fall, I went on Google to see if there was any entry on Valery Tereshchenko; I met him at Pomona College’s 1949 summer school between my sophomore and junior years; it was a necessary task because of my indifferent academic record, to enable me to start my junior year.

Not only did Valery’s name emerge on Wikipedia, but his life rated two pages, a record of publications and honors in his specialty, agricultural economics. Surprise, but actually, because of my memories of him, no surprise at all. If nothing else, the fact he survived the wholesale, pell mell chaotic refuge trail of white Russians from their homeland alone would be fascinating. I remember particularly that he, having been a cadet in the White Russian Army, was part of the corps shoved on to an island in the Greek Archipelago where typhus broke out and death was a frequent shadow at morning exercises, but where drill and classes continued daily. Anatol Shmelov of Stanford University’s Hoover Institute said the island could have been Lemnos; another possibility was the Gallipoli peninsula.

Valery initially had planned to be a pianist; when World War I erupted there was no question; despite conservatory training, he was destined to serve in the Czarist’s officer corps upon completing his studies; hence the reason he was part of that cluster of young Russians on the island. I don’t remember how he managed to leave the island, working his way up the Balkan peninsula countries until he reached Prague, where he graduated in economics from the Czech Technical University and Institute for Agricultural Cooperation where he taught.

Assuming he had a Jansen passport providing him entry to the United States, Valery went to work for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, I’m sure during the Roosevelt Administration. Actually, when you think about it, as a native of the North Caucasus, on the river Volga, the land on either side must have stretched far and wide with grain crops.

I remember Valery as a man of middle height, slender, very precise in manner in virtually everything and possessed of a gold set diamond ring which I vaguely remember as being on his right hand, little finger. He walked with his feet in a semi-first ballet position, his carriage revealing that his muscle formation might have supplied him with a ballet career had he not been focused on the piano.

His face, an oblong topped by closely cut black hair, possessed a slightly florid hue, the setting of his eyes and brows oblique causing him to say, smiling, “There are Tartars in my blood.” When I heard that, along with the carriage of his head, and the keenness of his regard when talking to you or discussing any subject, it seemed very obvious.

The record of his career testifies to his demeanor as a reconciler, explaining divergences, trying to bridge differences in culture and conditioning. His commentary invariably was thorough, delivered with a precision and courtliness I believed to be in the European diplomatic tradition. A young woman teacher, about to become a farmer’s wife in Dixon, California, said rather flatly but not unkindly, “You know that Valery is a pinko.”

I don’t remember how, or even if I responded, because little of my small arsenal of explanations would have made any difference. What quieted me was knowing that Valery and I met on enthusiasm for the “ballett,” that second “t” usually spoken by classical dance lovers from eastern Europe. I must have asked him whether, on his business visits to Russia, had he gone to the Bolshoi. Out came his smile, a slight movement backward of the head, a flash of his eyes, along with the information that he attended at every opportunity. I suspect the opportunities were part of his perks as a visitor, together with the fact he was a native.

I particularly remember his recounting sitting in a box near the stage right exit, and, when Marina Semyonova was dancing Swan Lake, heaving a bouquet on to the stage while she was bowing during Act II. Such actions, of course, were defondu, he knew it, but the theatre personnel did not retaliate. “As she left the stage, she looked up at me,” Valery recounted with satisfaction, having exhibited all the hallmarks of a school boy immersed in a prank.

Valery’s love of “ballett” was very special to me, at a time when ballet company careers were tenuous and the two US professional enterprises were centered in New York City; Ballet Theater and Ballet Society, which would become New York City Ballet. There also was Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo, trouping around the country by train or bus, gradually being filled with American-trained dancers, with most of the principals, Russian or Europeans guesting.

Valery was the second person to feed my love of ballet, reinforcing its value for me.

I had come to my love of ballet too late to qualify for a career, my training limited to a dancer trained by Ernest Belcher in Los Angeles, a lovely woman whose health had been saved from the ravages of polio by those classes starting in the five positions. Of all the cache of names I find in my memory bank hers eludes me, a nasty lapse failing to honor someone who gave me the seeds of a life-long passion.

Valery Tereshchenko was the first adult after this teacher to feed this deep planted knowledge. At Pomona there was a modern dancer teaching in the women’s P.E. Department by the name of Karen Burt, teaching with the aid of a drum and jersey skirts of various hues. One of her comments referred to studying with Martha Graham. “She made lifting a leg a divine act.” Fine and good, but it was not ballet. Valery refreshed me.

A couple of times our little group persuaded Valery to play the piano for us. He clearly had not pursued his first love, but when he sat down on the bench, raised his hands to the keyboard, he looked like the protégé of Sergei Rachmaninoff whom I had heard at a 1940 Sunday matinee concert in Visalia, California. The brilliance was there in spots, the feeling constant.

I would have to rummage around basement papers to remind myself how I kept in touch with Valery. We did meet once again, in New York City in 1952 and talked about “ballett”, though we never attended a performance together. His hair had become visibly streaked with grey, but the carriage remained. He spoke in generalities of his work and it seemed obvious he traveled frequently.

Out of that last encounter I remember his speaking of a young woman in the office he occupied at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. “She was a typist and I noticed she wore a blouse with a round collar. Every day she wore that blouse, freshly pressed, to work. I never saw her wear any other.”

It made me realize Valery Tereshchenko’s powers of observation and the inferences he was able to reach. I am sorry now I made no further effort to keep in touch. Just two years shy of seventy, I am grateful Valery Tereshchenko emerged from my memory bank – a memorable personality indeed.