Mikhail Vasilyevich Matyushin was born on October 16, 1861, in Nizhny Novgorod. His mother, Irina Matyushina, had 16 children. During the brutal cholera epidemic of 1857–1858, nine of them, as well as her husband, died.
Mikhail’s father was Nikolay Alexandrovich Saburov, an accountant who came from a famous Moscow family of actors. The father refused to accept the boy, and Mikhail was considered an illegitimate child, so he received his mother’s surname.
The family’s life was filled with need and struggle for the bare necessities, little Mikhail did not even have boots. The hardships of life toughened the boy up, fostered independence in him, and taught him to make decisions.
From the age of five, Mikhail started learning music without any help. His mother’s live-in partner had a guitar. Mikhail listened to him play and sing, and in secret, when no one was home, tried playing the instrument by himself. At the age of six, he could already accompany and sing all the songs that he heard.
His mother rented out rooms, and when musicians of a theater orchestra moved in, the boy became acquainted with the violin. Matyushin taught himself to read and write. By the age of seven, he had already read “The House of Ice” by Ivan Lazhechnikov, “Fathers and Sons” by Ivan Turgenev, and fairytales by the brothers Grimm; he was also interested in various magazines, including Alexander Herzen’s “Kolokol” (The Bell).
Later, little Mikhail took up drawing. He liked to draw trees and animals, color pictures with pencils, and look at drawings, popular prints, paintings and icons. From an early age, Matyushin had great observation skills.
A conductor who rented a
room from Irina Matyushina once noticed that her son was drawn to music and
began to take him to the theater. Opera performances had a tremendous influence
on the teenager. Matyushin wrote the following about his multifaceted talent,
