RUSSIAN SECRETS REVEALED.

Ever since it was first published, The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky has been the focus of enormous controversy. It was "edited" by the dancer's wife, Romola, who was widely suspected of having cut and doctored the text to throw the most favorable light possible on the certifiable madness of the man who had been the world's most famous dancer. The English edition of her version first appeared in 1936, with a reprint in 1968.

But the manuscript itself remained a closely guarded secret. "Diary" is a misnomer. Nijinsky was never a diarist in the true sense of the word. But over a six-week period in 1919 he filled four notebooks that chronicle his descent into psychosis. From then until his death in 1950, Nijinsky never danced again; he was a hopeless schizophrenic.

His Diary, even in Romola's version, was read by psychological analysts. Dancers read it as a memoir, the document of a dance prodigy, and for its insights into the Ballets Russes, the legendary company founded by Serge Diaghilev.

Only now has the "unexpurgated" edition become available. This is The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky, the Russian text newly translated by Kyril Fitzlyon with much of the French (some is beyond translation) in the fourth notebook translated by Joan Acocella, who was also editor of the whole (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 1999. 312 pages, $30. ISBN: 0-374-13921-0).

It is heavy reading. As Acocella admits in a lengthy introduction, "The document that Romola published is in many ways an editorial achievement, and, compared with the original, it is comforting to read--clearer, nobler, shorter--but it is not what Nijinsky wrote."

There were rumors that the Diary (i.e., the manuscript) was quite different. Igor Markevitch, once married to Nijinsky's daughter Kyra, compared the "diary's stream-of-consciousness narration to that of [Joyce's] Ulysses." Not comfortable reading, ever.

What were the sins of Romola? She cut the original drastically. She cast Nijinsky as a passive participant in the Nijinsky Diaghilev love affair. She contributed to the concept that Nijinsky was an idiot savant, a genius of dance but inept in social life. She shied away from the truth of the manuscript, and the fourth notebook was never published.

In fact, Nijinsky had come under the influence of the writings of Tolstoy and saw his mental stresses as a process joining him to divinity. He had become vegetarian and very passive. He was God-obsessed. At one point he writes, "I am a physiognomist-God. I will show Lloyd Georgians that I am man-God ... I am a man. I am God. I am man in God."

It wasn't until the Nijinsky daughters relented as holders of the copyright (the notebooks themselves were sold, and have belonged to a series of collectors) that the present book even became possible.

Those wanting insights into Nijinsky's own creations, L'Apres-midi d'un Faune, Jeux, and Le Sacre du Printemps, will be disappointed. Nor does the Diary give, great insights into Nijinsky's career. But it is an important document both in dance and psychiatry. Acocella's introduction and Fitzlyon's preface are also instructive.

What dancers will like is The Great History of Russian Ballet, Its Art and Choreography, from Parkstone Press (London. 1998. 207 pages, $55. ISBN: 1-85995-175-9). The originator of the volume is the Great Encyclopedia of Russia Publishing House. The preface is by Maya Plisetskaya.

This is a stylish chronological history of ballet in Russia from the arrival in 1734 of Jean-Baptiste Lande at the Russian court until almost the present. The illustrations are of particular interest in that most of them have not been reproduced elsewhere. But these don't always relate well to the text, and the captions lack documentation. Still, an eighteenth-century caricature depicting a theater owner and a serf ballerina is instructive of exactly how powerless the serfs were. Thumbnail biographies of historical dancers will be read avidly by dance students, but there is no useful index to get to them.

(Did you know that there was a Danilova predating Alexandra? Maria Ivanovna Danilova was a student of Charles Didelot.)

No longer is the revolution of Diaghilev ignored by Russian dance history, though the era is better treated in the West. Georgi Melitonovich Balanchivadze is also included, accompanied by a portrait by Zinaida Serebriakova that is unfamiliar. It's odd, though, to have the Kirov dancers shown in Apollo rather than Balanchine's company.

This is a flawed book, but it adds to Western appreciation of Russian accomplishments in ballet. It is, after all, a grand history indeed.

Glenn Giffin, dance critic for the Denver Post for twenty-eight years, is also curator of the Carson-Brierly Dance Library at the University of Denver.