Pulszky, Romola

NOBLEMAN, BALLET DANCER (HUNGARY)
BORN 20 Feb 1892, Hungary - DIED 8 Jun 1978, Paris
CAUSE OF DEATH cancer
GRAVE LOCATION Paris: Cimetičre de Montmartre, 20 Avenue Rachel (division 22)

Daughter of the famous and beloved actress Emília Márkus. She had the title of Countess Pulszky-Lubocy-Cselfalva. When she was a child her father Charles Pulsky was exiled and later he committed suicide in Australia.

She admired the dancer Nijinski and took ballet lessons herself. With the help of her family connections she managed to approach him but he hardly noticed her. After she managed to get on the same ship she was able to win his affections. They married in 1913 in Buenos Aires.

Their marriage outraged Diaghilev, the leader of the Ballets Russes, and he fired Nijinski. In 1914 they had a daughter, Kyra, who was born in Vienna. During the First World War they were under house arrest at the home of Romola's mother. After two years they were allowed to leave for New York. They toured in North America and South America and afterwards lived in St Moritz until the end of the war.

Nijinski started to suffer from a mental illness that ended his career and some blamed his marriage to Romola for all of this. Although he was often treated in mental institutions in Switzerland they had a second childr and they stayed together until his death in London in 1950.

After her death of cancer in 1978 relatives of Nijinski refused her body to be buried in his grave at Montmartre Cemetery. A legal battle followed. In 2005 she was finally buried in his grave but her name is not on the stone.

Family
• Mother: Márkus, Emília
• Husband: Nijinski, Vaslav (1913-1950, Buenos Aires)

Images

The grave of Vaslav Nijinski at Montmartre Cimetičre, Paris.
Picture by Androom (19 May 2005)

 

Sources
Internet Movie Database
Romola de Pulszky - Wikipedia (EN)
Vaslav Nijinsky - Wikipedia (EN)


Purkyne, Karel

Published: 30 Nov 2014
Last update: 03 Oct 2021