“Helena Roerich. Touches to the Portrait” – this was a name of a regular meeting of the lecture centre of the St. Petersburg Branch of the ICR that was held on February, 25th, 2011 in the Library of History and Culture of St. Petersburg (72, Marata St.). The lecture was devoted to life and creative work of an outstanding compatriot, philosopher and thinker, writer and translator – to Helena Roerich; her birth day is celebrated on February, 12th.

Collaborators of St. Petersburg Branch of the ICR made reports, each was about a different facet of Helena Roerich’s life and creative work. This made it possible for the public to grasp width and depth of Helena Roerich’s knowledge, to realize the value and amount of work that this amazing woman managed to accomplish in one life.

Morozova M.Ya., head of the exhibitions-in-schools section, made a report about Helena and Nicholas Roerich’s life. Her report, “Helena Roerich. Companion of Great Man”, stressed that all life of the Roerichs, from the beginning and up to the end, was marked by collaboration and co-creation. Nicholas Roerich called Helena Ivanovna “a friend, a companion and an inspirer”. Their collaboration and cooperation showed itself in solving life problems, in creating by N.Roerich prophetic paintings and in forwarding of the Roerich Pact and Banner of Peace ideas, and in working out Living Ethics, a philosophy of cosmic reality.

Valentina G.Gladysheva, a member of the St.Petersburg Branch of the ICR, spoke about Helena Roerich as a mother, who brought up two sons: Yuri Roerich, an outstanding orientalist, mongolist, a creator of Russian school of oriental studies, and Svyatoslav Roerich, an world known artist and a prominent public figure. It was Helena Roerich who her collaborators asked for advice on bringing up their children. In her answers to their letters we see care, attention and tenderness of her mother’s heart and her will to give them help. Helena Roerich gladly shared her knowledge, telling her collaborators main principles of up-bringing of a Man of New Epoch.

One more important facet of Helena Roerich’s creative work - a writer and a translator - was represented by Helena Korchemkina, head of the exhibitions-in-libraries section. She started her report with the Nicholas Roerich’s words: “Not every friend knows that Helena Ivanovna wrote a number of books. She did not give her name to them.” . The video presentation and the report showed the following books: ”On Eastern Crossroads”, “Foundations of Buddhism”, “Chalice of the East”, “Banner of St. Sergius of Radonezh”, “The Mahatma Letters” and “The Secret Doctrine”. Special attention was given to Helena Roerich’s attitude to translation of the Living Ethics. Helena Roerich said: “I would not like to soften or change words in the Teaching, which is given in time and for the certain epoch. The Teaching is given for all times, and one should not misrepresent the right definition in order to please a temporarily darkened consciousness”. Helena Roerich stressed that when we are very accurate in translation, we ought to care about its beauty.

Helena Yu.Tomsha, head of the scientific research section spoke about the main work of Helena Roerich’s life - creation of the Living Ethics books. Helena Tomsha noted that books of the Living Ethics were compiled by Helena Roerich from her diary notes, which were her talks with her Teacher. The method of creation of the Teaching had “various energy palette” and sometimes went beyond the generally accepted notions, said Lydmila Shaposhnikova, the famous scientist and indologist. Creation of the Living Ethics books by Helena Roerich included putting down the given knowledge in notes, organizing it and preparing it for publication in a book form. Thus the Living Ethics Teaching which describes cosmic evolution of the mankind appeared.

Helena Yu.Tomsha mentioned the principal ideas of the Living Ethics, Helena Roerich’s comments to them from her letters; Helena Tomsha’s speech was followed by meaningful video presentation.

Philosophy of cosmic reality, Living Ethics, has its followers. A lot of ideas of the Teaching sounded too difficult, even sometimes revolutionary for the mankind consciousness of XX century. Helena Roerich in her letters cleared up many difficult questions. Tatyana V.Aleksandrova spoke about Helena Roerich’s epistolary heritage.
One of the facets of Helena Roerich’s creative nature was her brilliant skill in the piano performing. She did not become a great musician, but music had special meaning in her life. In her creative work she depicted meaning and role of music in a man’s life, its influence on development of man’s consciousness and on the future of mankind. These matters were dealed with in the video presentation “Music in Helena I.Roerich’s Life” by Eduard A.Tomsha, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Branch of the ICR, RF Concert Workers Union member.

All speeches were of great interest; they widen people’s knowledge about versatile creative heritage of Helena Ivanovna Roerich.