Perhaps the greatest ballet artist of all time, Russian dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky (March 12, 1889 – April 8, 1950), was a prodigy from youth. He was trained by and eventually led the most promising theatre group, Ballet Russe, and sustained a vertical leap of legend.

In 1919, at twenty-nine, Vaslav Nijinsky had a psychotic breakdown and was placed in a mental institution, never again able to live independently. These Diaries cover six weeks during that period.

The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky, first published by Romola, Nijinsky's widow, were censored to diminish the appearance of psychosis. This version is unexpurgated and was edited and introduced by the late Joan Acocella, a former dance critic for The New Yorker. 

Acocella helps us appreciate the presence of this man:

Though still flourishing in Russia, ballet had been in decline for more than half a century in Europe, and male classical dancing was all but dead as an art. To his audiences, Nijinsky was something utterly unforeseen, a miracle.

Vaslav Nijinsky as dancer Albrecht in the ballet Giselle in 1910. "He was very docile and much-liked by everyone," said his then-partner Tamara Karsavina in a 1976 interview. Learn more.

Vaslav Nijinsky has an exceptional legacy; his dances are still performed today. These Diaries, however, add another dimension. Acocella notes that they represent "the only sustained, on-the-spot (not retrospective) written account, by a major artist, of the experience of entering psychosis."

Van Gogh, for example, wrote letters to his brother until the month he committed suicide, but his words never directly demonstrated more than anxious melancholy. His episodes happened off-camera. Or Joan Didion, who called her daughter's manic-depression episodes "quicksilver changes" and then fell silent as to what that meant. 

There is a section of Oliver Sacks' autobiography where he speaks of his schizophrenic brother's method of indicating an approaching psychosis:  
"When I was still at school - he became floridly psychotic and delusional. Sometimes there was a warning of this: he would not say 'I need help,' but he would indicate it by an extravagant act, such as flinging a cushion or an ashtray... this meant "I am getting out of control - take me to the hospital."  

Even William Styron's honest, authentic account of depression intellectualizes the disease away from itself. 

Our seats to view others' mental illness are twice removed from the pending or extant psychosis. Except with Nijinsky. Even the most coherent parts of the Diaries are intense and nonsensical. Nijinsky uses known words; however, his syntax, meaning, and narrative are scrambled—rhythm without purpose.

I love Russia. My wife is afraid of Russia. I do not care where I live. I live where God wills. I will travel all my life if God wills it. I have drawn a picture of Christ without mustache or beard with long hair. I look like Him; only his eyes have a calm expression, while my eyes are restive. My habits are different from Christ's. He liked sitting. I like dancing. Yesterday, I went to see my little girl, Kyra, whose bronchitis made her gasp for breath. I do not know why Kyra has been given a machine for inhaling steam with medicine. I am against all medicine. I do not want any medicine to be used.

The Diaries are extremely difficult to read. Not only for the jumbled and frenzied expression but also for the great, intrinsic sorrow of knowing we are witnessing a man slipping free of his conscious mind.

From Acocella's introduction:

This is the most wrenching thing about the Diary. He knows that something extraordinary is going on in his brain, but he does not know whether this means that he is God or that he is a madman abandoned by God.

 Vaslav Nijinsky.

Mental illness is such a shrouded, isolating thing. It might be acceptable to say, "I suffer from such and such," but it is still impossible to show what that means to act it out with an audience. Many individuals—van Gogh, Stephen Fry, John Clare —are at great odds to avoid public display of mental illness.

Even Robert Lowell, one of the most prominent American poets of the 20th century, wrote about being institutionalized for his manic depression. Still, he avoided why he was there or what it looked like to be manic depressive.   I'd like to mention here a wonderful book by Emma Mitchell, a British author, about finding space in nature to exist outside depression, for even a moment. The Wild Remedy is a lovely, heart-stringing read.

The night attendant, a B.U. sophomore,
rouses from the mare's-nest of his drowsy head
propped on The Meaning of Meaning.
He catwalks down our corridor
Azure day
makes my agonized blue window bleaker.
Crows maunder on the petrified fairway.
Absence! My heart grows tense
as though a harpoon were sparring for the kill.
(This is the house for the 'mentally ill.')
From Robert Lowell's "Waking in the Blue"
Read full poem here.

Nijinsky's journals are a rare thing.

Crayon drawing by Vaslav Nijinsky, c. 1919. Nijinsky drew dozens of images with eyes; when his wife asked him what they were, he answered, "Soldiers' faces, it is the war." Courtesy of Tamara Nijinsky.

One day, I was in the mountains and got onto a road that led up to a mountain. I went along it and stopped. I wanted to speak on the mountain because I felt the desire to do so. I did not speak because I thought everyone would say that that man was mad. I was not mad, because I felt. I felt not pain, but love for people. I wanted to jump from the mountain into the little town of St. Moritz. I did not shout, because I felt that I had to go farther. I went farther and saw a tree. The tree said to me that no one could not speak here, because men did not understand feeling.

These Diaries show the truth. Painful to watch, unbearable to digest, yet undoubtedly the inconceivable loss of mind and self.

I wanted to speak, but my voice was so strong I could not speak, and I shouted. 'I love everyone, and I want happiness!' 'I love everyone!' 'I want everyone.' I cannot speak French, but I will learn it if I walk by myself. I want to speak loudly so that people will feel me. I want to love everyone, and therefore I want to speak all languages.

Crayon drawing by Vaslav Nijinsky, c. 1919. "I often draw one eye," wrote Nijinsky. Courtesy of Tamara Nijinsky.

A beautiful accompaniment to Nijinsky's writing and life is American Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Frank Bidart's narrative poem "The War of Vaslav Nijinsky."

Still gripped by the illusion of an horizon;
overcome with the finality of a broken tooth;
suspecting that habits are the only salvation,

—the Nineteenth Century’s
guilt, World War One,

was danced

by Nijinsky on January 19, 1919.
From Frank Bidart's The War of Vaslav Nijinsky."
Read full poem here.

Rebecca Solnit wrote an excellent book about getting lost and the distinction between being lost within ourselves and being lost to ourselves. It is a fitting accompaniment, as is Oliver Sacks' quest for personhood among patients with severe brain defects who lacked all memory or sense of being.

Is there anything more heartbreaking than a person locked away from the world?