Valerian Obolensky

Russians in Exile -- The History of A Diaspora

2011-07-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

My e-book Russians in Exile -- The History of A Diaspora has been published on this blog for some years now, but it's also published om my website. Since I do not have the time to update both, I have only updated the e-book on the website, and I will keep doing so.
Hence, if you want to read the updated version instead of the older version on this blog, please visit the website of Russians in Exile -- The History of A Diaspora.

On this website you will also find my database of the Russian Aristocracy, an ongoing project, with new additions almost daily. Click here to visit the Russian Aristocracy database.

Thank you very much,

Valerian S. Obolensky

Legitimacy and justice - two terms that should not be mixed up

2006-04-14T04:18:00.000-07:00

Legitimacy (in the sense of lawfulness) is not the same thing as justice (in the sense of rightfulness). Something (a judgement, behaviour) can be legitimate without being right, and something can be right without being legitimate. In ideal situations there is none or little discrepancy between legitimacy and justice. Unfortunately these ideal situations do not exist. Codes can never include all practical situations and states place legitimacy higher on the hierarchical ladder than justice. Legitimacy is assessed by judges. Justice is assessed by the public.

Proposition: when the resources of the institutional right are exhausted and there is, however, talk of legitimacy but not of justice, the citizen has the right to present his problem to the public for assessment.

Above proposition is indeed subjective, because the opinion of the citizen that there is no justice is not an objective perception, but doesn't that also apply to institutional law? And if not, why are there higher courts that can reconsider the judgement of lower courts? Why isn't the judgement of a Dutch judge not the same as the judgement of an American or Iranian judge?

In a civil process, for example between a bank and a citizen, the legal possibilities have been exhausted. The court has ruled against him, the bank has been put in the right, on the basis of legitimacy. However, the bank has behaved carelessly in its relation with this citizen, as a result of which the citizen has suffered material and immaterial damages, whereas the court has insufficiently taken into account the fact that in these conflicts banks are professionals, whereas most citizens are amateurs, whereas banks can use the most expensive lawyers, contrary to the average citizen. Most of the judges do not take this inequality before the law into account in their sentences. Anyway, the legal remedies of the citizen are exhausted and there was legitimacy, but certainly no justice.

According to my proposition (see above) the citizen can now present the matter to the public, by means of publication of the problem. He can do that by means of the Internet, or by means of other media. The public can react to the problem, for example by discontinuation of doing business with this bank if one finds that the citizen has been treated wrongfully, or contrary, to continue doing business with this bank because one finds that the citizen is wrong.

When the bank at some stage realises that the judgement of the public is detrimental for the bank, the bank can try to urge the citizen to stop further publication and other actions. That could be done by means of legal remedies, such as a lawsuit in which the citizen is required to stop or modify the publication, but our experience learns that judges will not assign such a requirement when the publication does not deviate from the truth and when the publication ventilates a clear opinion. You can publish anything you want about a person or an organisation, but you can not mention untruths. The bank however can also try to reach an extrajudicial agreement with the citizen, for example by compensating the citizen for the material and immaterial damages he has suffered, in exchange for which the citizen stops or removes his publications. In that case, at least in the eyes of the citizen, justice has been done.

It is possible that aforesaid incident creates a precedent, as a result of which the bank is obliged to reconsider its policy so that in the future less (lawful yet wrongful) negligence will take place. In that case the extrajudicial actions of the citizen have conducted the fact that in this particular bank the discrepancy between unlawfulness and injustice has become smaller.
Unfortunately this system does not work good, or not at all, when the antagonist of the citizen is a monopolistic organisation. For this reason it is a giood thing that more and more markets are liberalised and the number of monopolists is limited.

Proposition: justice increases as organisations are dependent on the public.

Banks are, at least to a great extent, dependent on their customers. That also applies to debt-collection agencies, bailiffs and credit suppliers, because they also have competitors in their markets. A company that wants money from its debtors will hesitate to use a debt-collection agency that has become the talk of the town, and people will hesitate to lend money from a credit supplier who treats his customers legitimate but wrong, certainly when one knows that there are competitors with highhigher standards regarding justice.

Conclusion: a society becomes more just as citizens publish the injustices that happen to them.

Jack Vanderwyk, April 2006

It can happen to anyone of us

2006-04-06T02:23:00.000-07:00

Denis Donaldson is dead. Shot through the heart, his arm shot off. IRA signature, but were the assassinators IRA or just copy cats?
It’s obvious that you can’t spy for 20 years and just walk away from it to live happily ever after. Other spies got Witness Protection Programs and are living in England, protected by Special Branch employees. Donaldson lived in a bothy, no electricity, no water, no gas. A journalist from Dublin was able to track him down, so anyone could have found him.
There is the Robert McCartney murder, linked to the IRA, but denied by the IRA. Donaldson must have known the secrets of this murder, if there were any.
Anyway, he’s not here anymore to tell us all about it.
It can happen to anyone of us.

How did he die? I'm sure his assassinators were professionals, but were they being professional about it, or were they personally involved? Did they kill him first, to shoot his arm off later, or did they shoot his arm off, watch him suffer while smoking a cigarette, to kill him afterwards?
Knowing Donaldson, he did not beg for mercy. He was convinced that he deserved what was coming to him. He thought he deserved to die. He felt no fear, just depression and guilt for what he did to his family. Special Branch selected him more than 20 years ago in a "vulnerable episode" of his life. They always do. Donaldson could have told us more than any other mole in the history of the IRA, not only about the IRA, but also about Special Branch and MI5, and that's why he had to die. No "Donaldson best-seller", that was the order.

Black, grey and white moles

2006-03-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

by Valerian Obolensky
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Any significant organisation - state or corporate - knows what moles are, and uses them and fears them. Black, grey and white moles have one thing in common: they do their "mole-thing" under cover, usually in favour of a competative organisation, and they do it for a reason. For American moles money is an important motivational tool, others have less earthly ideals and ideologies. After all, in the rest of the world you’re not necessarily a winner if you’re filthy rich, and not necessarily a loser if you’re broke. "Job satisfaction" and money are in no way a guarantee for mole-free organisations. Moscow has known for decades that you pay American moles, while you motivate (and pay) the others. Another common thing is the fact that moles are silently waiting for a sign to come into action.
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Black moles
Black moles are the classic example of spies, usually political or military ones. They are highly trained officers, posted abroad or in their native country for an illegal purpose, without having diplomatic immunity in case of arrest. These cadre moles are usually full officers of the CIA, MI6, SVR or the GRU. You will not find black moles in the economic espionage business; most of them work in (counter)intelligence services, and live and work under assumed names. A good black mole is beyond suspicion.
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White moles
White moles are usually embassy personel. They are always under suspicion, and they know it. Their diplomatic status enables them to play a bit with their opponents, and their opponents to play with them. Starting intelligence officers are assigned to white-mole surveillance, to learn the tricks of the trade.
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Grey moles
Grey moles are the freelancers of the intelligence business. They do not receive direct orders from "HQ", but from a "handler", usually a friend from the past. A grey mole could choose his own career, while his handler just hopes that he ever could be of any use in that position. (The careers of black moles and white moles are thoroughly planned by their superiors.)
Grey moles are rather unreliable, in general, but there are a lot of them about, so a handler will probably get the job done, even if one or two of his grey moles let him down.
Grey moles do care about money, but their main motivation is their ideology. Grey moles usually live and work under their own identities, and they do not work in (counter)intelligence services, although you may find them in other civil service branches and in certain industries. They do their jobs like they’re supposed to, and once in a while they do an old friend a favour, that’s all.
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Examples of grey mole activity
A grey mole could be a trusted warder. Years could pass without using him. And then, one day, he would be approached by an old friend, a fellow who used to go to protest marches with him when they were young, and this friend would ask him to slip some drugs to a certain prisoner, say Milosevic. The grey mole receives some money in return, and last but not least the impression that he has done something important, that he makes a difference.
Industrial spies often have short term assignments. It’s in and out, they do their thing, they’re gone. Grey moles are long term investments. You never know when they have to be used, if it all, and they’re not on a pay roll. Grey moles can even be long term prisoners, as long as they are reasonably trusted in and by their systems, and they can have access to certain other prisoners. Most grey moles have key positions of some kind in the systems they are part of, professionally or socially.
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The handlers
Grey mole running can be fun. All you need are motivational skills, a budget and cool. A grey mole handler will never become filthy rich, but he will earn enough to make a more than decent living. Of course he has to be careful not to disclose any of his contacts, above or below. A handler needs to get things done, just like any manager. If one grey mole is unable to help you, you turn to another. Because of the fact that there are so many about, you are never really depending on one certain mole.
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The importance of moles
Moles are important for political and economical balance, which prevent the rise of super powers. Nationalists just want their country and their companies to be this greatest, the strongest, the most powerful, but nationalists don’t realise that their goals often lead to war. There will not be wars as long as there is balance. Okay, we could call all our moles back, but would the opposition or our competitors do the same? Nah, so we have to keep our moles to keep the balance.

Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Appendixes

2006-03-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

Appendix A: Russian freemasons who escaped abroad

The list below shows that not all Russian freemasons were aristocrats. Moreover it shows what kind of people escaped abroad.
Michael Constantinovich Adamov (1855-1937). Well known lawyer; one of the founders of the lodge `Free Russia'.
Grigori Viktorovich Adamovich (1894-1971). Poet and literature critic; escaped to Paris.
Valeri Constantinovich Agafonov. Writer, professor. Escaped to Paris. Died in 1955.
Mark Alexeevich Aldanov (1889-1957). Writer of historic novels, member of the Social Democratic People's Party (trudovik). At first he escaped to Paris, in 1940 he emigrated to New York. In 1954 he returned to France.
Alexander Valentinovich Amfiteatrov (1862-1923). Well known novelist and journalist. In 1902 bannished to Minussinsk, because of his sketch The Obmanov Gentlemen, a satire on the Romanoffs. In 1905 he escaped to Paris. Editor of the newspaper Voldzha Rossii (Free Russia).
Nicholas Efremovich Andreev (1908-1982). Professor of History. First escaped to Prague, then emigrated to London.
Evgeni Vasilievich Anichkov (1866-1937). Professor of Literature history, friend of Viacheslav Ivanov and other symbolists. Lived since 1920 in Belgrade, moved to Paris in the thirties.
Paul Nikolaevich Apostol. Commercial Attaché of the Russian Embassy in Paris. He and his wife were deported to Auschwitz, where he died in 1942.
Nicholas Nikolaevich Astrov (1868-1934). Mayor of Moscow. During the Civil War he was part of Denikin's government. Married to Countess Sophia Vladimirovna Panin.
Nicholas Dmitrievich Avksentiev (1878-1943). Social Revolutionary. Several positions in the White government. Escaped to Paris.
Alexis Ilyich Bakunin (1874-1945). Doctor of medicine. Father of T.A. Bakunin-Ossorgvin, author of a book about the Russian freemasonry in the 18th and 19th century.
Prince Vladimir Vladimirovich Bariatinsky. Playwright and journalist. Husband of the actress Yavorskaya. Escaped to Paris in the thirties.
Peter Lvovich Bark (1869-1937). Last Finance Minister under the Tsar, succeeded Kokovtsov. Escaped to London in 1918, where he became director of an English bank.
Ruben Ivanovich Berberov (1872-1941). Father of Leon and brother of Minas Berberov (who were also freemasons). Director of a bank in Rostov on the Don. Escaped to Paris, passed away in Southern France. Member of `North Star'.
Ossip Samoylovich Bernstein (1882-1962). Well known Grand Master of chess. Lived in the United States. Translated books of Tolstoy, Chekhov and other Russian writers into English.
Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (1876-1942). Painter. Escaped to Paris. Became a freemason in 1928 and returned to the Soviet-Union in 1936.
Serge Dmitrievich Botkin. Descendant of the writer Vasili Petrovich Botkin (1812-1869) and Serge Petrovich Botkin (1832-1889), who was the physician of the Imperial Family. Between 1920 and 1936 he was spokesman of the Russian refugees in Berlin.
Marc Chagall (1887-1985). Painter. Freemason since 1912.
Alexander Ivanovich Khatissov (1874-1945). Friend of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanoff. Escaped to Paris, where he became chairman of a committee of escaped Armenians.
Ivan Mikhaïlovich Cheraskov. Escaped to Paris and worked in the thirties for Kerensky's newspaper Dni (Days), and other papers for Russian emigrants.
Alexander Vasilievich Davidoff (1881-1955). Descendant of the Decembrists Troubetzkoy and Davidoff. Escaped to Paris.
Igor Platonovich Demidov (1873-1946). Member of the Imperial Duma and the KaDet Party. Grandson of Vladimir Dahl. Escaped to Paris, where he became Milyukov's assistant at the Russian newspaper Posledniia Novosti (The Last News).
Nicholas Savich Dolgopolov. Doctor of medicine. Minister of Health in the Denikin administration. Escaped to Paris.
Prince Paul Dmitrievich Dolgoroukov (1866-1927). Member of the Central Committee of the KaDet Party, member of the second Duma. Escaped to Germany in 1916. During the twenties he often crossed the Soviet border illegally, but at one time he was caught and shot.
Prince Peter Dmitrievich Dolgoroukov (1866-1945). Twin brother of Paul. Escaped to Prague. Was surprised there in 1945 by the Soviet troops and executed.
Nicholas Nikolaevich Evreyinov (1887-1972). Well known director, actor, playwright and historian of theatre. Escaped to Paris.
Boris Ossipovich Gavronsky. Good friend of Kerensky. Escaped to London.
Gayito (Georges) Ivanovich Gazdanov (1903-1971). Writer, escaped to Paris.
Alexander Mikhaïlovich Glyukberg (1880-1932). Humoristic poet (pseudonym: Sacha Cherny). He died the same year in Le Lavandou (Southern France).
Alexander Ivanovich Guchkov (1862-1936). Member of the Imperial Duma and the State Council, Minister of War in the Provisional Government. In 1920 he and General Krasnov asked the Germans for help against the bolsheviki.
Moshe Leontievich Goldstein. Lawyer and professor in the University of Moscow. Was chairman of an organization which helped the victims of pogroms. Escaped to Paris. First editor of Posledniya Novosti.
Nicholas Nikolaevich Golovin. General and professor in the military academy. Liberal politician. Advised Kerensky to use General Alexeev's services. Was evacuated with the army of General Vrangel. Escaped to Paris.
Roman Borissovich Goul (1896-1986). Literary man. Was in 1927 correspondent of a Soviet Russian newspaper in Berlin. Escaped to Paris. Emigrated to the United States in 1950.
Leon Adolfovich Grinberg. One of the owners of the famous antique shop `A la vieille Russie' in Paris.
Paul Pavlovich Gronsky (1883-1937). Professor, member of the KaDet Party, member of the fourth Imperial Duma. Escaped to Paris. Brother of Nicholas Gronsky, the poet who died in a Paris subway station.
Vladimir Evgenievich Yabotinsky (1880-1940). Well known zionist. Writer, poet, translator and journalist. Founder and leader of the corps of Jewish volunteers who in World War I fought the Turks on the Palestinian front. P.P. Yureniev (1874-1945). Member of the KaDet Party, Minister of Transport. Escaped to Paris.
Kristof Gavrilovich Kafian (1900-1971). Musician. He said that Gurdjiev, who he knew personally, was a charlatan. Wrote on March 21, 1971, regarding the closure of the last Russian lodge in Paris, `Everything has been said! We are exhausted! We have no more to say! We're all going to die!'
Leontii Dmitrievich Kandaurov. During the government of the tsar diplomat of the Russian Embassy in Paris. After the communists seized to power he stayed in Paris to work for Russian emigrants.
Michael Mikhaïlovich Karpovich (1888-1959). Historian. In 1916 member of a Russian committee which had to buy certain American goods. He saw that the things went wrong in Russia and stayed in America. Became professor in Harvard University.
M.A. Kedrov. Admiral. Minister of the Navy in the Provisional Government (May 1917). Escaped to Paris.
Alexander Feodorovich Kerensky (1881-1970). Lawyer, member of the Imperial Duma, Minister of Justice, Minister of War, Chairman of the State Council and Prime Minister of the Provisional Government. Escaped to France, where he founded the newspaper Dni (Days). Later he emigrated to England, and afterwards to America.
A.A. Kiesevetter (1866-1933). Member of the KaDet Party, historian. Member of the Second Imperial duma. Left in 1918 for Prague, where he died in 1933.
Igor Alexandrovich Kistyakovsky (1868-1920). Member of the KaDet Party, journalist and lawyer. Escaped to Paris.
Yakov Yakovlevich Kobetzky (1883-1946). Journalist. Escaped to Paris, where he wrote the stock market column of the Posledniya Novosti.
Alexander Mikhaïlovich Kulisher (1890-1943). Journalist, escaped to Paris, worked for the Posledniya Novosti, wrote under the pseudonym of `Juneus'. Imprisoned in Germany, where he was murdered by Spanish communists.
Vladimir Dmitrievich Kuzmin-Karavaev (1859-1927). General, professor in the military academy and the university of St. Petersburg. Member of the KaDet Party, member of the first and second Imperial Duma. In 1919 member of the government of North-West Russia (Whites). Escaped to Paris.
Ervant Grigorievich Kogbetliants (1886-197?). Escaped to Paris and later emigrated to New York. Professor of mathematics in the University of Columbia. Invented three dimensional chess.
Alexander Ivanovich Konovalov (1875-1948). Member of the fourth Imperial Duma and the KaDet Party. Minister of Trade and Industry in the Provisional Government. Escaped to Paris, where he became chairman of the board of the Posledniya Novosti. Antonin Petrovich Ladinsky (1896-1961). Officer in the White Army, writer, poet. Escaped to Paris. After 1944 supporter of Soviet communism, deported to the Soviet- Union.
Vladimir Ivanovich Lebedev (1884-1956). Social Revolutionary. Minister of the Navy in the Provisional Government. Escaped to Paris, where he was part of the editorial staff of La Liberté de Russie from 1921 to 1932. Died in the United States.
Leon Dmitrievich Lyubimov (1902-?). Son of the governor of Vilnius. Escaped to Paris. Became in 1945 member of the Union of Soviet Russian Patriots and worked for Soviet Russian newspapers in Paris. In 1948 he was deported to the Soviet-Union.
Josif Grigorievich Loris-Melikov (1860-1950). Diplomat under the tsar in Siam, Sweden and Norway. Escaped to Paris and died in the Russian nursery home of Sainte- Geneviève-des-Bois.
Prince Grigori Evgenievich Lvov (1861-1925). Member of the KaDet Party, member of the first Imperial Duma; from March until July 1917 Prime Minister of the Provisional Government. Was arrested by the bolsheviki in 1918, but managed to escape to the United States.
Nicholas Vasilievich Makeev (1889-1975). Journalist and artist. From 1919 to 1921 secretary of Prince Grigori Lvov; accompanied him to the United States in 1920. Makeev was the second husband of the writer Nina Berberova, who died in 1993.
Vasili Alexeevich Maklakov (1869-1957). Member of the Central Committee of the KaDet Party, member of the second, third and fourth Imperial Duma. Lawyer. In 1917 appointed Ambassador of the Provisional Government in Paris. Stayed in Paris, where he after World War II was criticized for his friendly attitude towards the Soviet-Union.
Serge Constantinovich Makovsky (1877-1962). Son of the well known painter; poet, literary man. Was from 1909 to 1917 artistic director of the revue Apollon, in St. Petersburg. Escaped to Paris.
Manuel Sergeevich Margulies (1868-1939). Lawyer, member of the KaDet Party. During the Civil War minister of the government of North-West Russia (Whites). Escaped to Paris.
Alexander Nikolaevich Naumov (1868-1950). Minister of Agriculture under the tsar. Escaped to France.
Dmitri Sergeevich Navashin (1889-1937). Initially symbolistic poet. Escaped to Paris. Was murdered in the Bois de Boulogne, likely because of his contacts with Soviet Russians.
Nicholas Grigorievich Niedermiller. Lawyer in St. Petersburg. Brother in law of Khodassevich. Escaped to Paris. Was arrested by the Germans. Died in 1953.
Peter Alexandrovich Nilus (1869-?). Escaped to Paris. Painter, writer who belonged to the group of Bunin and Kuprin.
E.L. Nobel, of Swedish ancestors. Relative of Alfred Nobel (the one of the prize). Oil baron in Baku. Moved to Sweden in 1918.
Prince Vladimir Andreevich Obolensky (1869-1938). Member of the Central Committee of the KaDet Party. Escaped to Paris.
Serge Feodorovich von Oldenburg (1863-1934). Member of the KaDet Party, minister in the Provisional Government.
Count Dmitri Adamovich Olsufyev (1862-193?). Member of the State Council. Marshall of Nobility of the district of Komishansk, in the province of Saratov. Escaped to Paris, where he equiped a freemasons' lodge in his house.
Count Alexis A. Orlov-Davidoff (1872-?). Member of the fourth Imperial Duma. Escaped in 1925 to Paris, where he financed Russian charitable organizations.
Michael Andreevich Ossorgin (1878-1942). Writer and journalist. Escaped to Paris in 1924.
Alexander Arutyunovich Paronian (1885-1947). Owner of a cinema in Paris.
Paul Nikolaevich Perevertsev (1871-1944). Lawyer, Minister of Justice in the Provisional Government. Lived in Paris during the thirties.
Vladimir Ivanovich Pohl. Composer and music critic. Was director of the Russian Conservatoire (Rakhmaninov) in Paris. Husband of the singer Ian-Rouban.
Salomon Lvovich Poliakov-Litovtsev (1875-1945). In Russia journalist of the Ruskoe Slovo (The Russian Word). In Paris editor of the Posledniya Novosti. Died in the United States.
Peter Alexandrovich Polovtsev (1874-193?). In 1905 assistant to the Military Attaché in London, in May 1917 Brigadier General. During the Provisional Government working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Escaped to Monaco.
Nicholas Nikolaevich Poradyelov (1887-1948). Colonel. Friend and bodyguard of Kerensky. Escaped to Paris in 1917. In Paris he was a neighbor and good friend of Nina Berberova and Makeev. When Poradyelov was burried Nina Berberova threw his freemason's glove on the coffin.
Peter Petrovich Potemkin (1886-1926). Humoristic poet, escaped to Paris. For years his wife had a restaurant in the Latin Quarter.
Paul Pavlovich Riabushinsky (1871-1924). Member of the State Council. Good friend of Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador in Petrograd. Escaped to Paris.
Evgeni Frantsevich Rogovsky (1888-?). Held several governmental offices. In 1945 he became director of the Russian nursery home in Juan-les-Pins (Alpes-Maritimes).
Grand Duke Alexander (Sandro) Mikhaïlovich Romanoff. Husband of Xenia, the sister of Nicholas II. Escaped to England and later emigrated to the United States, but returned to Paris eventually.
Yakov Lvovich Rubinstein. Lawyer, chairman of the Duma of Charkov. Former menshevik. Escaped to Paris. Worked as an expert on Russian emigration for the Nansen Committee of the League of Nations.
Vladimir Feodorovich Schlippe. From 1920 to 1924 chairman of the Committee of Russian Emigrants in Berlin.
Vladimir Theofilovich Seeler. Mayor of Rostov on the Don. Home Minister in the Denikin administration. Secretary of the Union of Russian writers and journalists in Paris. From 1948 editor of a Russian newspaper (Ruskaya Misl') in Paris.
Yulii Feodorovich Semenov. Chairman of Congress of Russians Abroad.
Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Shachovskoy (1861-1939). Member of the KaDet Party, member of the first Imperial Duma. From May until July 1917 Minister of Social Affairs in the Provisional Government.
Prince Grigori Sidamon-Eristov. Escaped to Paris and later emigrated to the United States, where he lived for twenty years. He died in Princeton.
Marc Lvovich Slonim (1894-1976). Journalist, literary man. Escaped to Paris. From 1921 to 1932 editor of the revue La Liberté de Russie, subsequently chairman of the Russian Literary Association. Left after World War II for the United States, died in Switzerland.
Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968). Until 1917 secretary of Kerensky. Escaped to the United States and became professor in Harvard University.
Michael Alexandrovich Stachovich (1861-1923). Member of the State Council, member of the first and second Imperial Duma. Marshall of Nobility of the district of Orlov. Ambassador of Russia to Spain. Stayed in Madrid after the Revolution.
Baron Alexander Feodorovich de Staël. Procurator of the Hall of Justice in Moscow. Escaped to Paris.
Perikles Stavrovich Stavrov. In the thirties chairman of the Union of Russian Poets in Paris.
Michael Ivanovich Tereshchenko (1888-1958). Industrialist from Kiev (sugar). Friend of Alexander Blok, Alexis Remizov and many other Russian writers and poets. Was in March and April 1917 Finance Minister in the Provisional Government and from May to October 1917 Minister of Foreign Affairs. Escaped to London, where he died in 1958.
Ossip Sergeevich Trakhterev. Lawyer in St. Petersburg. Escaped to Paris. Died in Auschwitz.
Serge Nikolaevich Tretiakov. Chairman of the stock exchange in Moscow. Minister of Trade in the Kolchak administration. Escaped to Paris and was shot by the Germans.
Prince Grigori Nikolaevich Troubetzkoy (1873-1929). Brother of Evgeni and uncle of Nicholas, who was a professor in the University of Vienna. In 1916 ambassador of Russia to Belgrade, in 1920 State Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the Denikin administration. Escaped to France.
Nicholas Nikolaevich Chaveishev (1865-1937). Before 1917 he was a senator. In 1920 he joined General Vrangel in the Crimea. After the evacuation of the White Army he lived in Constantinopel (Istanbul), where he published several Russian papers. Emigrated to Paris.
Ariadna Vladimirovna Tyrkova (1869-1962). Literary woman, journalist, member of the KaDet Party. Lived in St. Petersburg, Paris, London and New York. Spouse of Harold Williams, the well known correspondent of the London Times.
Admiral D.N. Verderevsky. Minister of the Navy and Minister of War in the Provisional Government. Escaped to Paris.
Marc Lvovich Vischnitzer (1882-1955). Jewish politician, historian and educator. He escaped to Paris and later emigrated to the United States. Was chairman of the Union of Russian Jews in New York, from 1951 to 1955. Died in Tel Aviv.
Prince Vladimir Leonidovich Viatzemsky. Breeder of race horses. Escaped to Paris, where he covered trotting and racing for the Posledniya Novosti.
Nicholas Constantinovich Volkov (1875-?). Member of the third and fourth Imperial Duma. Escaped to Paris, where he was the financial director of the Posledniya Novosti.
Alexander Maximovich Volkovisky (?-1957). Sculptor. In 1920 member of the board of the Writers' House in Petrograd. Escaped to Paris.
Vasili Vasilievich Vyrubov. Lived a long time in Paris before 1917. Kerensky persuaded him to come to Petrograd. Good friend of Kerensky. Returned to Paris in 1920 , where he became chairman of the United Russian Freemasons' Lodges.
Vladimir Mikhaïlovich Zenzinov (1881-1953). Member of the Executing Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. Escaped to Paris, where he was Kerensky's right hand at the paper Dni.
Evgeni Alexandrovich Znosko-Borovsky. Chess player. Escaped to Paris, where he was the editor of the chess column of the Posledniya Novosti.
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Appendix B: Last resting places

Cimetière du Montparnasse, 3 Boulevard Edgar-Quinet, Paris:
Alexander Alyechin (Moscow 1892 - Estoril 1946). 8th division. In his tomb are inscripted the following words, `Russian and French grand-master of chess. World- champion of chess from 1927 to 1935 and from 1937 until his death.'
Lev Aronson (Dominique) (Minsk 1893 - Paris 1984). 6th division. From 1911 to 1919 drama critic in St. Petersburg, after which he escaped to Paris. Founder of the Prix Dominique, for young artists.
Ivan Gagarin (Moscow 1814 - Paris 1882). 27th division. Russian prince, from 1831 official in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg. From 1840 secretary in the Russian Embassy in Paris. Founder of the Slavonian Library and later publisher of Russian poetry and literature.
Simon Petlyura (Kiev 1879 - Paris 1926). 11th division. Militant Ukrainian nationalist. As President of the Democratic Ukrainian Republic he fiercely fought the bolsheviki, later also the Whites. He and his army withdrew in 1921 to Poland, and he emigrated to France in 1924. He was murdered in Paris in 1926. More than 1.500 Ukrainians who were residing in Paris came to his funeral.
Jean Pougny (St. Petersburg 1892 - Paris 1956). 8th division. On his tomb is an Orthodox cross. Painter, escaped in 1919. In the same tomb is resting the painter Xenia Boguslavsky (Novgorod 1892 - Paris 1972), to whom he got married in 1912.
Chaim Soutine (Smilovochi 1894 - Paris 1943). 1st division. Painter of Jewish parents, who became famous, especially for his portraits. He became French citizen.
Ossip Zadkine (Smolensk 1890 - Paris 1967). 8th division. Sculptor, who also made gouaches and watercolours. One of his most well known works is the bronze monument Destroyed City (1953) in Rotterdam.
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Cimetière de Passy, 22 Rue du Commandant-Schloesing, Paris:
Marie Bashkirtseff (Poltava 1860 - Paris 1884). Painter and writer, who became the idol of an artistic circle of friends in Paris. Was mainly known for her diaries. Beautiful chapel, with Orthodox cross.
Princess Brassova, née Natalia Sheremetyev (Moscow 1880 - Paris 1952). Widow of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich Romanoff, the brother of Nicholas II. After their secret marriage in Vienna (1911), the couple called themselves `Count and Countess of Brassov'. In March 1917 Michael refused to succeed his brother Nicholas as Tsar, and in July 1918 he was murdered in Perm, by the Cheka. In 1928 Grand Duke Kiril Vladimirovich Romanoff accorded the Romanoff-widow the title `Princess Brassova'. In the tomb also rests their only son George (Prince Brassov, 1910-1931).
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Cimetière des Batignolles, 8 Rue Saint-Just, Paris:
Léon Nikolaevich Bakst (Rosenberg) (St. Petersburg 1866 - Paris 1924). 25th division. Painter and stage designer, who became famous by his work for the Ballets Russes of Diaghilev, for which he also designed the costumes.
Alexandre Benois (Alexander Nikolaevich Benua) (St. Petersburg 1870 - Paris 1960). 25th division. Russian painter and stage designer who mainly worked for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Meritorious art historian and art critic. Worked from 1918 until 1926 as curator of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and settled down in Paris in 1926.
Feodor Chaliapine (Kazan 1873 - Paris 1938). 25th division. World-famous sing bass, who interpreted the titlepart of Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov. In 1984 his mortal remains were transferred to the Novodyevichi- cemetery in Moscow, which made many fans of him angry. The remains of Feodor's wife Marie were allowed to stay in Paris.
Serge Liapunov (Yaroslavl 1859 - Paris 1924). 24th division. Piano player and composer, teacher in the conservatory of St. Petersburg. Escaped in 1923 to Paris.
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Cimetière Montmartre, 20 Avenue Rachel, Paris:
Antoine-Henri, Baron of Jomini (Payerne 1779 - Paris 1869). 11th division. Swiss general and historian, who from 1813 until 1843 was in Russian military service. He was in 1813 aide-de-camp of Alexander I, and in 1828 commander of a battle against the Turks. He also founded the Russian Military Academy.
Viachlav Fomich Nijinsky (Kiev 1890 - London 1950). 22nd division. Dancer and choreographer who triumphed with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. In 1953 Serge Lifar brought his mortal remains to Paris.
Prince Peter Tufiyakin (1769-1845). 4th division. Lord Chamberlain of the Russian Imperial court, director of the Imperial theatres under Paul I. When he retired, he went to Paris, where he enjoyed life in any possible way. On the right hand of his tomb is the memorial chapel of Princess Soltikov, née Maria Potochka.
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Cimetière du Calvaire, 2 Rue du Mont-Cenis, Paris:
Princess Galatzin, née Barbe Shipov. Died in 1804. Spouse of Prince Feodor Nikolaevich Galatzin (1749-1827), curator of the University of Moscow.
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Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Boulevard de Ménilmontant, Paris:
Princess Demidova, née Baroness Elizabeth Stroganov. Passed away in 1818. 19th division. her husband, Nicholas Demidov, was plenipotentiary minister of Russia in Florence and became rich in the mining-industry. Their son, Prince Anatoli Demidov, also found his last resting place there. In 1840 Anatoli (Florence 1812 - Paris 1870) married Mathilde, a daughter of King Jérôme Bonaparte, but that went Nicholas I down the wrong way, and in 1846 Anatoli and Mathilde were divorced, and for the rest of his life he traveled and collected art.
Mademoiselle George (1787-1867). 9th division. French actrice who in 1807 became the mistress of Count Alexander Benckendorff. Count Benckendorff was the aide- de-camp to the Russian ambassador Peter Tolstoy, and later, under Nicholas I, he headed the gendarmes. Mademoiselle George lived in Russia from 1853 until 1857.
Ivan Yakovlev (1804-1882). 82nd division. Friend of Pushkin. Yakovlev was chamberlain and Privy Councillor to the Russian court.
Felia Litvin (St. Petersburg 1860 - Paris 1936). 95th division. Singer who became famous by her interpretation of Wagners Isolde (1899) and Brunhilde (1902).
Michael Omelanovich-Pavlenko (1878-1952). 88th division. From December 1918 until November 1920 commander-in- chief of the army of the Democratic Ukrainian Republic. He took part in the Russian-Japanese War.
Metropolitan Polycarpe (Peter Sikorsky) (Kiev 1875 - Paris 1953). 88th division. Lawyer and from 1918 until 1920 a high official in the Democratic Ukrainian Republic. In 1942 appointed Metropolitan of the Ukrain-Orthodox Church.
Nicholas Sergeevich Turgenyev (Simbirks 1789 - Bougival 1871). (His tomb was removed in 1980, because his relatives failed to pay the fee.) Decembrist. Brother of the writer and prosaist Ivan Sergeevich Turgenyev. He escaped in 1824 to England, was in 1825 in his absence condemned to death, but Alexander II pardoned him. Although he often visited Russia afterwards, he lived in France from 1832 until his death.
Princess Sophie Troubetzkoy (St. Petersburg 1838 - Paris 1896). 54th division. Her first marriage made her Countess of Morny, and after her second marriage she was allowed to use the title of Countess of Sesto as well.
Alexis Zubov (1838-1904). 68th division. Secretary of State and Governor of the province of Saratov, from 1882 to 1887.
Columbarium (87th division): Isadora Duncan (San Francisco 1876 - Nice 1927). Nr. 9796. American dancer of Scottish-Irish parents, who turned away from the classical ballet, and had a great influence on the European art of dance.
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Cimetière de Gagny (Seine-Saint-Denis):
Yuri Terapiano (Kerch 1892 - Gagny 1980). Literature critic and poet. Went to law-school in Kiev. After the White Army was defeated, he escaped to Constantinopel. Some time later he settled down in Paris.
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Cimetière de Noisy-le-Grand (Seine-Saint-Denis):
Constantin Balmont (Gumnishchishi 1867 - Noisy-le-Grand 1942). The symbolistic poet Balmont, who escaped to France in 1920, was during the first years of the emigration considered the Nestor of the young Russian poets in Paris, but then he became older, his poetly qualities went downhill, and he fell into oblivion. He died in the Russian old people's home in Noisy-le-Grand, 26 Avenue du Général-de-Gaulle.
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Cimetière de Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine):
Vladislav Khodassevich (Moscow 1886 - Paris 1939). The seventeen years which this poet and literature critic spent in exile, have been one long, sad period. During the memorial service the writer Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899- 1977) called him `the greatest Russian poet of our era', and a `valuable successor of Pushkin and Tyutchev'.
Leo Shestov (Lev Isaakovich Schwarzmann) (Kiev 1866 - Paris 1938). Existentialist philosopher and essayist, who escaped to France in 1920 and became professor in the Sorbonne.
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Cimetière de Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines (Yvelines):
Caran d'Ache (Emmanuel Poiré) (Moscow 1858 - Paris 1909). Illustrator and caricaturistic painter (the Russian word `karandash' means `pencil'). He became especially known by his drawings in the magazine Chronique Parisienne.
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Cimetière de Fontenay-aux-Roses (Hauts-de-Seine):
Alexandra Ekster (Belostok 1884 - Fontenay-aux-Roses 1949). Painter who studied in the academy of arts in Kiev, and mainly designed theatre décors and costumes. She escaped to France in 1924.
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Cimetière de Gambais (Yvelines):
Sonia Delaunay, née Terk (Gorodishche 1885 - Paris 1979). Painter and decorator, who graduated from the academy of arts of St. Petersburg in 1905, and settled down in France in 1910.
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Cimetière nouveau de Neuilly, 40 Rue de Valmy, Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine):
Vasili Vasilievich Kandinsky (Moscow 1866 - Neuilly-sur- Seine 1944). Went to law school in Moscow. In 1901 he founded the artist union Phalanx, which mainly organized exhibitions. Successively he founded the Neue Künstlervereinigung and Der blaue Reiter.
Alexander Constantinovich Glazunov (St. Petersburg 1865 - Paris 1936). Composer, pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov. Was director of the conservatory of St. Petersburg from 1906 until 1917, and lived in Paris since 1926 in Paris. Glazunov wrote orchestra, chamber and ballet music and became known by his composition Stenka Razin. In October 1972 his mortal remains were transferred to Leningrad.
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Cimetière de Avon (Seine-et-Marne):
Georges (Grigori) Gurdjiev (Alexandropol 1877 - Paris 1949). Controversial philosopher and writer.
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Cimetière de Chelles (Seine-et-Marne):
Nicholas Kalmakov (Nervi 1873 - Chelles 1955). Painter and member of Monde de l'Art. In 1908 his décor of Oscar Wilde's Salomé, in the theatre of Vera Kommissaryevskaya in St. Petersburg, caused an enormous fuss, and the play was prohibited the same evening. He died under miserable circumstances in a nursing home in Chelles.
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Cimetière Parisien, 44 Avenue de Verdun, Ivry-sur-Seine:
Michael (Michael Feodorovich) Larionov (Tiraspol 1881 - Fontenay-aux-Roses 1964), and his wife Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova (Nagaevo 1881 - Paris 1962). Painters. Larionov is the founder of rayonism, which had a great influence on the development of modern art in Russia. Was at first influenced by the impressionism and the neo- impressionism. Goncharova also kept herself busy with rayonisme. In 1914 the `couple' settled down in Paris, to design décors and costumes for Diaghilevs Ballets Russes, but they didn't get married until 1955. After Natalia's death Larionov married Alexandra Tomilin, who died in 1987, and was cremated. Her ashes joined the mortal remains of Larionov and Goncharova, in their grave.
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église Notre-Dame de l'Assomption, Rue Léo-Lagrange, St.e-Geneviève-des-Bois (Essonne).
In the crypt are burried:
Albert Benois (1870-1970), the architect of the church, and his spouse Marguerite Benois, née Novinsky (1891-1974).
Archbishop Cassien (Serge Bezobrazov) (1892-1965). Rector of the Russian-Orthodox Institute Saint-Serge in Paris.
Metropolitan Evlogi (Vasili Grigorievsky) (Somovo 1898 - Paris 1946). He was a member of the second and third Duma, and in 1922 he was appointed Metropolitan.
Archbishop Grigori (Tarassov) (Voronej 1893 - Paris 1981). Chemistry-engineer. He was sent to France in 1916, where he became a pilot and flew for the French airforce. In 1953 he succeeded Metropolitan Vladimir.
Countess Olga Kokovtsov (1860-1950) and Countess Olga Malevsky-Malevich (1868-1944). These two Olga's have gathered the money for the construction of the church.
Count Vladimir Kokovtsov (Novgorod 1853 - Paris 1943). From 1904 until 1914 Kokovtsov was Secretary of the Treasury. After Stolypin's assassination he was chairman of the council of ministers, from 1911 to 1914. He escaped to France in November 1918.
The Reverend Father Alexis Medvedkov (1867-1934). He died of cancer and was burried in the cemetery of Ugine, but when this closed down a couple of years later, his mortal remains were transferred to Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, where they found out that his body was still completely intact.
Archpriest Grigori Spassky (1877-1934). Until the Revolution navy chaplain in the Russian Black-Sea fleet, after which he was appointed archfather of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris.
Archpriest Dmitri Troyitsky (1886-1939). First archfather of the Saint-Nicolas-le-Thaumaturge in the Russian House of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
Metropolitan Vladimir (Viacheslav Tikhonitsky) (1872- 1959). Studied theology in the seminary of Kazan. Worked in Nice from 1925 to 1945. In 1946 he succeeded Metropolitan Evlogi, and he performed this task until his death, December 18, 1959.
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In the cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, right behind the Russian-Orthodox church, one finds the graves of about ten thousand Russians, among them the following persons:
André Alexeevich Amalrik (Moscow 1938 - Guadalajara 1980). Tomb 483, plan I. Historian and writer.
Alexander Bernardi (Odessa 1867 - Ermont 1943). Tomb 697, plan I. Musician, singing-master in the Conservatoire Rakhmaninov.
Afrikan Bogaevsky (1872-1934). Tomb 8214, plan IV. Lieutenant-General, decorated for his courage in the Battle of Tarnopol in 1917. Was commander of a regiment of partizans and successively of a brigade of the White Army. In February promoted ataman of the Don-Cossacks. His predecessor, General Krasnov, ranged on the side of the Germans in World War II, and was executed in the Soviet- Union after the war.
Archpriest Serge Bulgakov (Livny 1871 - Paris 1944). Tomb 579, plan I. Theologist and former Marxist. Was expelled from the Soviet-Union in 1923, and was one of the first professors in the Russian-Orthodox Institute of Paris.
Ivan Alexeevich Bunin (Voronej 1870 - Paris 1953). Tomb 2961, plan II. Writer and poet. Escaped in 1920 to France. His wife, Vera Muromtsev, is resting in the same grave. They were a couple since 1907, and they married in 1922. In 1934 Bunin won the Nobel Literature Prize, and he became particularly known by The Village (1910), A Gentleman from San Francisco (1915) and The life of Arsenyev (1933).
Tatiana Botkin. Daughter of Dr Evgeni Botkin, the last personal physician of the Tsar. Tatiana and her brother Gleb joined their father in his voluntarily bannishment with the Imperial Family in Siberia.
Nicholas Nikolaevich Cherepnin (St. Petersburg 1873 - Issy-les-Moulineaux 1945). Tomb 1627, plan I. Composer and conductor. Pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov. From 1905 to 1917 he was principal of the conservatory of St. Petersburg, and from 1918 to 1921 he was principal of the conservatory of Tbilisi. Escaped in 1921 and from 1925 until his death he was principal of the Rakhmaninov-conservatory in Paris. Father of the American composer and piano player Alexander Cherepnin.
Boris Durov (St. Petersburg 1879 - Sainte-Geneviève-des- Bois 1977). Tomb 3066, plan V. Lieutenant-Colonel of the Russian expeditionary troops in France and Macedonia. In 1920 he was one of the founders of the Russian lyceum, where he at first worked as a mathematics teacher, and from 1931 to 1961 as principal.
Nicholas Feodorov (1895-1984). Tomb 5004, plan II. Escaped in 1926 from Estland to Paris, where he headed the youth department of the ACER (Christian Union of Russian Students). He was founder of the Union Vitiaz, which has the device, `For Russia, for Faith'.
Alexander Galich (1919-1977). Tomb 8045, plan IV. Lyric poet, actor and drama writer. He put his poetry to music and accompanied himself on the guitar. Because of his critical songs he was expelled from the Union of Writers. He escaped in 1974.
Olga Glebova-Sudeyikina (St. Petersburg 1885 - Paris 1945). Tomb 847, plan I. During the first decade of this century she was an actrice with the Meyerhold Theatre. When he was twenty-two, the poet Vsevolod Kniazev committed suicide because of her; his rival was the poet Alexander Blok.
Count Michael von Grabbe (1868-1942). Tomb 540, plan I. General. In 1916 and 1917 ataman of the Don-Cossacks.
Grigori (George) Ivanov (1894-1958). Tomb 6695, plan III. Poet. In 1922 he married Princess Irina Odoevstseva, and in the same year he escaped to France. He described the miserable circumstances in which the Russians in France lived. In 1963 his mortal remains were transferred from Hyères to Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
Paul Yevdokimov (St. Petersburg 1900 - Meudon 1970). Tomb 5462, plan V. Writer and theologist. Studied theology in Kiev, successively in Paris. He was a professor of Theological Morals in the Russian-Orthodox Institute of Paris, and wrote Dostoievsky et le problème du mal.
Prince Felix Yussupov (St. Petersburg 1887 - Paris 1967). Tomb 391, plan II. One of the men who were responsible for the death of Rasputin, on December 30, 1916. In the same tomb is resting his spouse Irina Alexandrovna Romanoff (Peterhof 1895 - Paris 1970). Irina was the eldest daughter of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhaïlovich Romanoff, and a cousin of Nicholas II.
Archpriest Alexander Kalashnikov (1860-1941). Tomb 577, plan I. First priest of the Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption.
Nicholas Kedrov (1871-1940). Tomb 411, plan II. Founder of the Kedrov Quartet of St. Petersburg.
Constantin Korovin (Moscow 1861 - Paris 1939). Tomb 3182, plan V. Painter and designer of décors and costumes for the ballet and the opera. Teacher in the academy of arts of Moscow. His paintings can be seen in the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow.
Vladimir Krymov (Dvinsk 1878 - Chatou 1968). Tomb 3067, plan V. Publisher in St. Petersburg. After the February Revolution of 1917 he left Russia helter-skelter. At first he tried his luck in Berlin, but successively he left for Paris. The novels which he wrote in the twenties and thirties, were very much valued by the Russian emigrants, and even translated into English and published in Great- Britain.
André Lanskoy (Moscow 1902 - Paris 1976). Tomb 8764, plan IV. Expressionist painter. He escaped in 1921 to Paris.
Serge Lifar (Kiev 1905 - Lausanne 1986). Tomb 6114, plan III. From 1923 to 1929 dancer and ballet master of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. From 1929 to 1944 leader of the ballet of the Opéra of Paris, from 1945 to 1947 artistic director of the Nouveau Ballet of Monte Carlo, and from 1947 to 1958 once more leader of the ballet of the Opéra of Paris. Serge Lifar was chairman of the Russian Union of Musicians in Paris, and he had a great influence on the development of modern French ballet.
Nicholas Lokhvitsky (1868-1933). Tomb 159, plan II. Commander of the Russian expeditionary troops on the French front in 1916. After World War I he joined the army of Admiral Kolchak in the Far East, and in 1923 he settled down in Paris.
Nicholas O. Lossky (Vitebsk 1870 - Sainte-Geneviève- des-Bois 1965). Tomb 6106, plan III. Philosopher. Epistemological he advocated intuitionism, and metaphysically personalism. From 1916 he was professor in the university of Petrograd. In 1922 he was expelled from Russia. Was professor in Prague, and from 1947 to 1950 professor in the Russian Theological Academy in New York.
Vladimir Nikolaevich Lossky (1903-1958). Tomb 6115, plan III. Theologist. Son of Nicholas Lossky. Author of Théologie mystique de l'église d'Orient.
Prince Grigori (George) Evgenievich Lvov (Tula 1861 - Paris 1925). Tomb 574, plan I. Deputy of the CaDet Party in the first Duma of 1904, from 1914 to 1916 chairman of the Pan-Russian Union of Zemstvo's and the Red Cross, and from March 15 to July 20, 1917 Minister of Internal Affairs and Prime Minister of the Provisional Government.
Vasili Alexeevich Maklakov (Moscow 1869 - Baden, Switzerland 1957). Tomb 742, plan I. Lawyer and from 1904 deputy of the CaDet Party in the second, third and fourth Duma. In 1917 he was appointed ambassador of Russia in Paris, where he, after the October Revolution, joined the White emigrants.
Serge Constantinovich Makovsky (1877-1962). Tomb 2487, plan I. Art critic and founder of the art- and literary circle Apollon, which from 1909 to 1917 was active in St. Petersburg, and became known by the poetry of Ossip Mandelstam, and the acmeism of Gumilyov and Goredtsky.
Dmitri Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (St. Petersburg 1866 - Paris 1941). Tomb 440, plan II. Writer, poet and philosopher, known by his historic-religious novel trilogy Julius Apostata (1893), Leonardo da Vinci (1896) and Peter and Alexis (1902). Merezhkovsky looked for a synthesis of Hellenism and Christianity, of enjoyment of life and asceticism. Escaped in 1919 to Poland, successively to Paris. In the same tomb rests his wife Zinaida Hippius (Belev 1869 - Paris 1949). Journalist, literature critic, poet and writer, whose' salon in St. Petersburg was the center of young symbolistic poets. She also escaped in 1919. Most important works: New People (1896), White on Black (1908) and Living Faces (1925).
Princess Vera Meshchersky (1876-1949). Tomb 386, plan I. Founder of the Russian House in Sainte-Geneviève-des- Bois.
Bishop John of Messina (Prince Ivan Kurakin) (1874 - 1950). Tomb 2925, plan II. Deputy of the third Duma. In 1931 ordained priest, until 1949 bishop of the Russian- Orthodox church of Florence.
Alexander Moshukin (1877-1952) and his brother Ivan Moshukin (Michel Shodzko) (1887-1939). Tomb 3299, plan II. Film actors and opera singers.
Viktor Platonovich Nekrassov (Kiev 1911 - Paris 1987). Tomb 2461, plan II. Writer of film scenario's and novels. His book In the Trenches of Stalingrad (1946) belongs to the best Russian war novels. By his objective view of the Western world, in the book On both Sides of the Ocean (1962), he got into serious trouble with the regime, and in 1974 they forced him to emigrate. He settled down in Paris, where he wrote until to his death.
Rudolf Hametovich Nureyev (1938-1993). Tomb 8328, plan III. Choreographer and the greatest male ballet dancer of all times. In 1961 he asked for political asylum in Paris, in 1962 he was engaged by the Royal Ballet of London, and he triumphed as Margot Fonteyn's dancing partner. In 1983 he was appointed director of the ballet of the Paris Opéra Garnier.
Dmitri Panin (Moscow 1911 - Paris 1987). Tomb 8120, plan IV. Physician. He was arrested in 1940, but already released in 1955, due to lack of evidence. He spent four years in prison with Solzhenitsyn, who describes him as Sologdin in his In the first circle (1968). He escaped in 1972 to Paris. His reminiscences are embedded in his Mémoires de Sologdine.
Polycarpe Pavlov (1885-1974) and Vera Grech (1893-1974). Tomb 8135, plan IV. Actors of the Artistical Theatre of Moscow (MXT). They opened a school for dramatic art in Paris.
Zinovi Peshkov (Nizhni-Novgorod 1884 - Paris 1966). Tomb 5740, plan III. General in the French army. Elder brother of the bolshevik Yakov Sverdlov, who got this name from his godfather Maxim Gorki. Peshkov enlisted in 1914 in the Foreign Legion, and in 1915 he lost an arm. Chargé d'affairs of Kolchak, later of Denikin. Became French citizen in 1923, and was sent to Morocco as an officer in the Foreign Legion. From 1942 to 1950 he was the Military Attaché of France in Southern Africa, China and Japan.
Antoine Pevsner (Orel 1886 - Paris 1962). Tomb 5860, plan III. Painter and sculptor, brother of Naum Gabo. Studied in the academies of arts of Kiev and St. Petersburg. In Paris he came in touch with cubists and futurists, who increasingly influenced his work. Used materials like glass, steel-wire, iron and plastic, and generally is considered an important representative of constructivism.
Serge Poliakoff (1901-1945). Tomb 3079, plan V. Cousin of Dmitri Poliakoff, interpreter of Russian gipsy songs. Painter, at first of nudes and landscapes. Settled down in 1937 in Paris, where he came in touch with people like Kandinsky and Delaunay, who influenced him a lot. In 1938 he made his first abstract work, which was characterized by simple, geometric forms, harmonic, warm colors and a plastic, rough style of painting, which revealed an enormous emotionality.
Boris Poplavsky (Moscow 1903 - Paris 1935). Tomb 1447, plan I. Poet, o.d.'d on drugs. He escaped in 1919 to Paris, where he lived under miserable circumstances. Khodassevich considered him the most promising Russian poet of his era. He was burried in the cemetery of Ivry, and in 1948 his mortal remains were transferred to Sainte- Geneviève-des-Bois.
Olga Preobrazhenskaya (1871-1962). Tomb 2469, plan II. Prima-ballerina of the Imperial Theatres. Performed in 1909 in Camille Saint-Saëns' ballet Javotte, in the Opéra of Paris. Escaped in 1921 to Paris, where she opened a school of dance, which soon became famous.
Alexis Mikhaïlovich Remizov (Moscow 1877 - Paris 1957). Tomb 5466, plan V. Writer of legends and novels. Escaped in 1921 to Berlin, and emigrated to Paris in 1923. Remizov's works are extremely varied, and his style of writing is refined. He also wrote poems.
Grand Duke André Vladimirovich Romanoff (Tsarskoe Selo 1879 - Paris 1956). Tomb 3103, plan V. Major- General of the Russian Imperial army, grandson of Alexander II, cousin of Nicholas II. In the same tomb is resting his spouse Maria Feliksovna, née Mathilde Kshessinskaya (Peterhof 1872 - Paris 1971). For a long time Kshessinskaya was the sweetheart of Nicholas II, when she was a prima-ballerina in the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. In 1908 and 1909 she performed in the ballet Coppélia of Léo Delibes, in the Opéra of Paris. She was the mistress of Grand Duke Serge Mikhaïlovich Romanoff, who was murdered in 1918, and in 1921 she married Grand Duke André Vladimirovich. The marriage was celebrated in Cannes, and in 1935 her brother-in-law Kiril Vladimirovich Romanoff gave her the title `Princess Romanovsky-Krassinsky'. In 1929 she opened a school of dance in Paris.
Grand Duke Gavril Constantinovich Romanoff (Pavlovsk 1887 - Paris 1955). Tomb 2502, plan VI. Great-grandson of Nicholas I. Major in the Guards regiment of Hussars. In 1939 he was appointed Grand Duke by Vladimir Kirilovich Romanoff.
Zinaida Serebriakov (1884-1967). Tomb 6970, plan III. Painter of landscapes and village scenes.
Serge Sharshun (Orenburg 1888 - Paris 1975). Tomb 8244, plan IV. Painter, escaped in 1912 to Paris.
Ivan Shmelev (Moscow 1873 - Paris 1950). Tomb 277, plan II. Writer. Escaped in 1922 to Paris.
Constantin Somov (St. Petersburg 1869 - Paris 1939). Tomb 119, plan II. Painter of portraits and landscapes. His work is exhibitioned in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg and the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow.
Peter Spassky (1850-1968). Tomb 5407, plan V. From 1927 to 1947 choirmaster of the Russian-Orthodox church in Boulogne-Billancourt, and from 1947 to 1968 leader of the chorus of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris.
Dmitri Stelletsky (1875-1947). Tomb 2065, plan I. Iconographer, painter, sculptor and illustrator of Russian legends. He studied in the academy of arts of St. Petersburg and his icons are to be seen in several Russian- Orthodox churches in France.
Pierre Struve (Perm 1870 - Paris 1944). Tomb 3121, plan II. Economist, went to law school in St. Petersburg. Was member of the second Duma and from 1909 leader of the right wing of the CaDet Party. He was a member of the Vrangel administration and in the early twenties he escaped to Prague, and successively to Paris.
Viktor Taranovsky (1864-1937). Tomb 2508, plan IV. General and from 1916 to 1918 commander of the Russian Expeditionary troops on the Macedonian front.
André Tarkovsky (Zavroe 1932 - Paris 1986). Tomb 7255, plan III. Film director and son of the poet Arseni Alexandrovich Tarkovsky.
Teffi (Nadezhda Buchinsky, née Lokhvitsky) (1875-1952). Tomb 3059, plan II. Writer of humoristic stories. Her book La petite ville is about the Russian emigrants in Paris.
Boris Zayitsev (Orel 1881 - Paris 1972). Tomb 6109, plan III. Writer. Escaped in 1922 and became chairman of the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists in Paris. He wrote novels and the biographies of Zhukovsky, Chekhov and Turgenyev.
The Reverend Father Vasili Zenkovsky (1881-1962). Tomb 3121, plan II. After he had worked in Kiev, Belgrade and Prague, he became professor in the Russian-Orthodox Institute of Paris. From 1923 until his death he was chairman of the ACER. In 1945 he was ordained priest. Author of l'Histoire de la philosophie russe. He is resting in the same grave as Pierre Struve.
In this cemetery (my favorite of all) is a memorial stone in honour to Princess Vera (Vicky) Obolensky, née Makarov (Moscow 1911 - Berlin 1944). She was in the French resistance, was arrested by the Germans on December 17, 1943, and shot on August 4, 1944.
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Cimetière de Samois-sur-Seine (Seine-et-Marne):
Prince Nicholas Troubetzkoy (1807-1874). The Prince was a Catholic and payed for the construction of the church of Samois. Turgenyev wrote on account of his death, `That's all for the poor Prince Troubetzkoy. He went ahead to see if it's true what the Jesuits have told him about heaven.'
Prince Nicholas Orlov (1827-1885). Major-General, aide-de- camp to the Tsar, Ambassador of Russia in Brussels, London and Paris.
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Cimetière de Thiais (Val-de-Marne):
Leon Sedov (1906-1938). 22nd division, row 13, tomb 20. Son of Lev Trotsky. Every year at August 20 the Trotskyites come to visit this tomb, to commemorate the murder on Trotsky, and every year they sing the International. Evgeni Zamiatin (1884-1937). 21st division, row 5, tomb 56. Writer of satire. His futuristic novel Nous autres, which was written in 1920 and was published in Paris in 1924, describes the totalitarian world of the future. He escaped in 1931, after he had written a letter to Stalin, in which he demanded the right for freedom of speech.
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Cimetière d'Aix-les-Bains (Savoie):
Paul Nikolaevich Milyukov (Moscow 1859 - Aix-les-Bains 1943). Historian and politician. In 1894 expelled from the university of Moscow. From 1896 to 1899 he was professor in Sofia. Versatile authority on Russian history. Belonged to the founders of the Constitutional-Democratic (CaDet-) Party, which he headed from 1909. Was member of the third and fourth Duma and in 1917 Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Provisional Government. He escaped in 1920 and from 1921 to 1940 he was editor-in-chief of the Russian emigrants' paper Posledniya Novosti.
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Cimetière de Chabris (Indre):
Michael Andreevich Ossorgin (Ilin) (Perm 1878 - Chabris 1942). Writer, mainly of novels. After the Revolution of 1905 he escaped to Italy. In 1916 he returned to Russia, but in 1922 he was expelled from the country. He settled down in Paris, where he became member of the editorial staff of the Posledniya Novosti.

Cimetière de Salbris (Loir-et-Chèr):
Nicholas Sokolov (1882-1924). Sokolov worked for the Whites at the Court of Omsk, and towards the end of 1918 he was ordered to investigate the murder of the Imperial family. On the cross which adorns his tomb, one can read the Russian words for `Your truth is the eternal truth'. This however is considered rather doubtful.
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Cimetière du Grand-Jas, Cannes:
Charles Fabergé (St. Petersburg 1846 - Lausanne 1920). Jeweler and goldsmith of the Imperial Court. In 1870 Pierre succeeded his father Gustave, who in 1842 had opened a jeweler's store in St. Petersburg. He was famous for his preciousness, and every year at Easter he made a beautiful egg for Alexander III (and later for Nicholas II), which the Tsar presented to the Tsaritsa. His company had branches in Moscow, Odessa, Kiev and London. In the same tomb is resting his wife Avgusta (Tsarskoe Selo 1852 - Cannes 1925).
Olga Ruiz Picasso, née Khoklova (1891-1955). Dancer with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, first spouse of Pablo Picasso. In 1935 they separated, without legally being divorced. She is burried with her grandson Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1949-1973).
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Russian-Orthodox church Saint-Michel-Archange, 40 Boulevard Alexandre III, Cannes:
In the crypt are the mortal remains of the following persons:
Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanoff (St. Petersburg 1856 - Cap d'Antibes 1929). Grandson of Nicholas I, Cavalry General, from 1914 to 1915 commander- in-chief of the Russian army, from 1915 to 1917 Viceroy of the Caucasus. The White emigrants considered him their head of state, and he was respected by anyone. Marshall Pétain attended the funeral on behalf of the French government.
His spouse, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna (Cetinjé 1866 - Cap d'Antibes 1935). Daughter of King Nicholas I of Montenegro. She was one of the two Montenegran princesses who accompanied Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna, and introduced her to occultism.
Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich Romanoff (St. Petersburg 1864 - Cap d'Antibes 1931). Lieutenant-General, aide-de- camp to Nicholas II, brother of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich.
His spouse, Grand Duchess Militsa Nikolaevna (Cetinjé 1866 - Alexandria 1951). Twin sister of Anastasia Nikolaevna, the other Montenegran princess.
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Cimetière de Caucase, 78 Avenue de Sainte-Marguerite, Nice:
Grigori Viktorovich (Georges) Adamovich (1894-1971). Poet and critic. Studied history in the university of St. Petersburg. Escaped in 1922 to Paris.
Princess Nina Bagration-Moukhransky (1882-1972). Lady in waiting to the Tsaritsa.
Vladimir Bezobrazov (1857-1932). Cavalry general, aide-de-camp to the Tsar.
Adam Cwiecinsky (1827-1881). General and aide-de-camp to Alexander II.
Michael Grulev (1857-1943). Lieutenant-General and author of Carnets d'un général juif, in which he sharply criticized the Imperial Army.
Nina Ivanov-Lutzevin (1888-1986). Lady in waiting to the Tsaritsa.
Nicholas Yudenich (Moscow 1862 - Saint-Laurent-du-Var 1933). Infantry general. From 1914 to 1917 commander of the Russian army on the Caucasian front. In October 1919 he was commander of the North Western White Army, and with 13,000 men he was about to capture St. Petersburg, when he was defeated by Trotsky's crack troops of the Red Army. He withdrew, to reinforce his troops, but abandoned the plan of a second attack and left for France.
Princess Catharina Yurevsky, née Princess Dolgorouky (Moscow 1847 - Nice 1922). Second wife of Alexander II. When she was his mistress, she had three children: Grigori (1872), Olga (1873) and Catharina (1880). On July 18, 1880, a month after his wife Maria Alexandrovna had passed away, Alexander and Princess Catharina Dolgoroukaya married in St.-Petersburg, and in December 1880 she became, by virtue of an ukase, the title `Princess Yurevsky'. After the murder of her husband the Princess withdrew in France.
Serge Kanshin (1863-1944). Last Russian consul in Nice, from 1906 to 1917.
Arkadi Kostin (1863-1953). Minister and Privy Councillor of Nicholas II.
Vladimir Lazarevsky (Kiev 1897 - Nice 1953). Journalist. Finished law school in Prague and in Paris he founded the paper La Pensée russe.
Serge Lyubimov (1851-1918). Father confessor to Princess Olga von Württemberg, successively, from 1887 to 1918, archpriest of the church Saint-Nicolas-et-Sainte-Alexandra in Nice. Father Lyubimov is burried in the sanctuarium of the Saint-Nicholas Chapel, in the middle of the cemetery.
Serge Sazonov (Moscow 1860 - Nice 1927). From 1910 to 1916 Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 1914 he tried to talk the Tsar into announcing a mobilisation, to show loyalty to Serbia. Soon afterwards World War I was a fact.
Princess Elena of Serbia (Reka 1884 - Nice 1962). Daughter of King Peter I of Serbia, spouse of Grand Duke Ivan Constantinovich Romanoff, who in July 1918 was murdered by the Cheka.
Dmitri Shcherbatov (Moscow 1857 - Nice 1932). Cavalry general, aide-de-camp to the Tsar.
General Michael Svekhin (Ekaterinoslav 1876 - Nice 1976). Grand-cousin of Sophie Svechin. From 1915 he was commander of the Guards Cuirassiers of Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. In 1917 he was promoted Divisional General, and in 1918 he joined the Don Cossacks of the White Army. In 1925 he escaped to France.
Cimetière de Roquebrune-Cap Martin:
Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna Romanoff (St. Petersburg 1875 - Hampton Court 1960). Daughter of Alexander III, sister of Nicholas II.
Her husband Grand Duke Alexander (Sandro) Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (Tiflis 1866 - Roquebrune 1933). Lifetime friend of Nicholas II. Vice-Admiral, Minister of the Merchant Navy, and in 1917 aide-de-camp to the Tsar.
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Cimetière de Saint-Paul-de-Vence:
Marc Chagall (Vitebsk 1887 - Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1985). Painter who became very popular by his warm colours and emotionality. Escaped in 1922 to Paris, where he had lived from 1910 to 1914. After World War II he became many official assignments In 1973 the Chagall Museum was opened in Cimiez (Nice).
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America
Unlike the French the Americans are not very keen on hordes of tourists, who infest cemeteries, and the relatives of Russian celebrities are very much set on the privacy of the last resting place of their beloved ones. I respect this wish, and that's why I only mention two cemeteries where Russian aristocrats, artists and musicians are burried:
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Roslyn Cemetery, Glen Cove Road (on the corner of Southern Boulevard), Roslyn, Long Island, New York. The cemetery was founded in 1860, and has no separate section for Russian deceased. Many Russian-Orthodox crosses are scattered all over the cemetery. Since the late eighties one can find the graves of several Russian princes and countesses in the front of the cemetery, on the side of Glen Cove Road, left from the main driveway. A while ago a new terrain was opened in the back of the cemetery, where a special section for Russian deceased will be created.
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Novo Diveevo Cemetery, Smith Road, Spring Valley, New York. This cemetery is found behind the monastery and Russian old people's home of the same name. Since the thirties many Russian aristocrats have found their last resting place here.

Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Glossary And Bibliography

2006-03-16T07:59:00.000-08:00

Glossary and Bibliography

ACER: Association Chrétienne des Etudiants Russes; Christian Union of Russian Students. Marshall of Nobility: the most important task of a Marshall of Nobility was the presidency of the zemstvo; besides that he was an important link between the local population and the government in St. Petersburg. The district Marshalls of Nobility were appointed by the nobility itself, while the provincial Marshalls of Nobility were appointed by the Tsar.
Bedniaki: poor farmers; they who didn't possess cattle and granaries.
Bolsheviki: members of the majority party. This notion was used very wrongly, because the bolsheviki were in fact a party of the minority.
Chin: the `steps' of Peter the Great's table of ranks.
Govenie: preparation for confession.
Igumen: superior of a monastery.
Intelligentsia: progressive population group of which the members usually had more than a secondary school education.
Kabala-slaves: probational slaves; contract workers.
Mensheviki: members of `the' minority party.
Mir: village council.
Muzhik: peasant. Sometimes also used as vituperation.
Obrok: lease.
Pomyestye: land tenure.
Prikaz: department; predecessor of ministry.
ROVS: Union of Russian Veterans Outside Russia.
Ryurikides: descendants of Rurik. All of them were grand monarchs, but since Peter the Great they may only call themselves `prince'.
Starets: elderly monk with strict ascetic way of living.
Tayinstvo: sacrament of the Russian-Orthodox Church.
Trudovik: member of the Social-Democratic People's Party
Uezd: district.
Veche: urban assembly of all free men.
Zemsky sobor: national assembly of all free men.
Zemstvo: regional home rule.
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Bibliography

Most important written sources
Dolgorouky, Prince Pierre Notice sur les Principalles Familles de la Russie, Berlin 1859
Ponfilly, Raymond de Guide des Russes en France, Paris 1990
Sumner, B.H. Survey of Russian History, Oxford 1947
Vernadsky, G. A history of Russia, New Haven, Conn. 1961
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Other written sources
Blair Lovell, James Anastasia, the lost princess Washington, 1991
Botkine, Tatiana Anastasia retrouvée, Paris 1985
Buckle, Richard George Balanchine, London 1988
Daniloff, Nicholas Two lives, one Russia, London 1988
Denikin, A.I. The White Army, Cambridge 1992
D”mling, Wolfgang Igor Strawinsky, in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Hamburg 1982
Dragadze, Peter The White Russians, in Town & Country, March 1984
Figner, Vera Night over Russia, Amsterdam 1930
Heresch, Elisabeth Feigheit, Lüge und Verrat, Munich 1992
Ignatieff, Michael Russian Album, London 1991
Jussupoff, Fürst Felix Rasputins Ende, Munich 1985
Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra, London 1969
Massie, Robert K. Peter the Great - his life and world, New York 1985
Metternich, Tatiana Verschwundenes Russland, Vienna 1980
Nijinsky, Romola The diary of Vaslav Nijinsky, London 1963
Ouspensky, P.D. Letters from Russia 1919, London 1978
Rachmanowa, Alia Studenten, Liebe, Tscheka und Tot Vienna, 1931
Radzinsky, Edvard The Last Tsar - The Life and Death of Nicholas II, London 1992
Roland Holst-van der Schalk, Henriëtte Foundations and problems of the new culture in Soviet-Russia, Amsterdam 1932
St. John of Kronstadt Press 1991-1992 Directory of parishes and clergy, church organizations and suppliers of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Liberty, USA 1991
Summers, Anthony & Mangold, Tom The file on the Tsar, New York and London 1976
Sutherland, Christine The princess of Siberia, London 1984
Troyat, Henri La vie quotidienne en Russe au temps du dernier Tsar, Paris 1959
Vishnevskaya, Galina Galina, London 1984
Ware, Timothy The Orthodox Church, London 1963

Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 3 - After The Revolution - Epilogue

2006-03-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

Epilogue

The communists have never been able to form a majority, in spite of the fact that bolsheviki means `group of the majority'. They have always tried to make the world believe that the Russian Revolution was an action of the people, but statistics provide us with another picture: In 1920 the communist party had about 600,000 members, hardly 1 percent of the population. The proletariat, in whose name the communists pretended to reign, consisted of less than 15 percent of the Russian population. It was the responsibility of the Cheka, later GPOe and successively KGB, to persuade the remaining 85 percent of the Russian population into accepting the communist gospel. In 1925 the party had about a million members. In 1941 4 million people were member of the communist party, while the country had a population of 170 million people, which comes down to slightly more than 2 percent of the population. The lack of support of the majority of the population was also the reason why during and after the October Revolution of 1917 not a single aristocrat was executed in the open. Princess Zinaida Shakhovskoy, `The execution of the last Tsar and his family was, like all executions in that period, an assassination, in which the people had no share. There were hangmen in Russia, and murderers, and fanatics of bloody oppression, like Dzherzhinsky, but there were, except in the days of revolt, no ``tricoteuses'' and ``sans-culottes'', like in the French Revolution. One could not publicly kill us in the Red Square of Moscow, or in the square of the Hermitage in Petrograd. The people wouldn't have allowed that.' Yet since 1917 many Russians have perished by Russian state violence. Professor Ivan Alexeevich Kurganov was professor of economy and statistics in the universities of Leningrad and Moscow. He escaped to the United States. In his calculations he comes to an estimation of 66 million dead, not included the millions who died of famine. Solzhenitsyn, `More than all belligerent nations together, in two world wars, have lost.' They were shot like dogs; that's how the communist regime dealt with the ones who were discontented, or gave evidence of rebellious inclinations. As the years went by the machine-gun was used less, because the means of communication improved considerable, and after the Stalin period the Soviets tried to crack up their reputation in the West, but violence was still not shunned and opposition still not tolerated. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, `And if in that entire army of crowned, honorable, moderate and youthful historians, one Amalrik is found, who does not ruminate, who does not make a collage of quotations of the churchfathers of the progressive doctrine, but who dares to give a substantive analysis of the present structure of society, and who dares to predict the real future for our country, then they, far from analyzing his work and selecting the matters of practical use, throw him in jail. (...) In the spotlight of the world publicity our prison has retreated and hidden itself. Amalrik, who should already have been liquidated in 1970, was first sent to Kolyma, under a ``common'' article, to avoid the political camps of Mordovia. The reactions of the whole world once more resulted in a conviction of three years imprisonment; without that it would have been much more.'
Every year, on May 9, the day on which the Russians celebrate their victory over German fascism, hundreds of men and women gather in the neighborhood of the Bolshoy Theatre and the Gorki Park in Moscow. After all these years they still are searching for disappeared comrades and relatives. Everywhere are notice-boards with messages like, `Who has known my father? Zayitsev Serge Alexeev, party worker and journalist,' `Who knew Serge Ivanov, born in 1893, printer and typographer?' and `Anxious to trace Peter Efimovich Pashitsev, arrested February 3, 1938, in Novosibirsk.' The walls of the Kremlin aren't long and high enough for the sesquipedalian lists of missing persons. For many relatives the search is in vain; the people they search for are most likely tortured to death in the torture chambers of the state security, died of exhaustion, burned alive or drawn in the blowholes of a river. A simple calculation learns however that their hope is sometimes justified: during the Red Terror, following the October Revolution, 16 million people were carried off. `Only' a short 2 million would be exterminated. But they who hope that their fathers, sons or comrades were among the 40 million survivors, perhaps forget that in the 1930s 22 million Russians died of famine. The stalinist genocide, which after all put an end to the lives of 98 million Russians, was mainly directed against workers and farmers. The proletarians of all Soviet-countries were unified in death. Stalin's laws made it possible that even children were arrested and tortured.
Michael Antonov, a journalist of the Russian paper Nash Sovremenik writes, `Communism was imposed on us with the use of violence, and lead to enormous destruction and loss of human lives. A country is prosperous when people make sure that prosterity finds the land in a better condition than their parents and grandparents found it. A nation is rich when there's produced enough to let the people survive, while at the same time the population realizes that there are more important moral and spiritual values in life. People are rich when they are not guided by selfishness, but by higher qualities, like generosity, charity and sense of duty. Until 1917 such elevated opinions dominated in Russia. The real Russian culture is shut out since 1917. Only by returning to the original virtues and values the country can still be saved.' One thing's for sure: when all those thousands, the crême de la crême of the Russian people, wouldn't have had to flight, Russia would, in a cultural, artistical and scientifical respect, have been one of the most prominent nations in the world.
`The party is the mind, the honour and the conscience of the present era' Lenin had printed on the party membership books. On Friday, August 23, 1991, most party membership books disappeared in the bonfires. After an unsuccessful coup d'état of some co-operators of Michael Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin took over and signed the death-sentence of Russian communism. In the Baltic republics a witch-hunt was opened on everything that more than slightly smacked of communism. `The time is right for bolshevik Nuremberg-trials,' stated the Lithuanian president Landsbergis.
Yet the communists aren't dislodged, and there are still lots of people walking about with large portraits of Lenin and Stalin, their heroes. The genocidophily concentrates mainly in Moscow, where since seventy years everyone who made himself somewhat useful to the party, was awarded an apartment. Several millions of former party officials and their descendants live in the Moscow area. The red dogmatists cumulated in the present capital of Russia, where they still form a large part of the population. Not so long ago Yeltsin managed to resist a rebellion and his opponents Ruchkoy and Khasbulatov were arrested. Despite the many reports which should have convinced them of the opposite, there are still people who feel that Yeltsin used anti-democratic methods. They call Yeltsin's actions `unconstitutional' and accuse him of putting the `parliament' out of action. They base their accusations on the anti-Yeltsin demonstrations of `the people'. When we assume that the Russian concepts of `constitution', `parliament' and `the people' have the same meaning as in every Western democracy, than Yeltsin has gone far beyond his authority. But what does reality look like? The `constitution' dated back from the 1970s and the `parliament' - the Supreme Soviet in those days - also was a relic of communism. `The people' that rise against Yeltsin are not the people of Russia, but a mixed lot of communists, fascists, anti-Semites and rioters out of Moscow. For good reason the rebels weren't able to mobilize a following in St. Petersburg and other cities.
How can someone who tries to rule out the anti-democratic forces and institutions be accused of anti- democratic actions? History taught us that communists and fascists abuse the democratic system to eliminate democracy by `democratic' means, as soon as possible. Present day Russia not yet witnessed democracy, due to the fact that the `constitution' and the `parliament' weren't effected in a democratical way. When silencing the anti-democratic or pseudo-democratic forces is necessary to be able to create a democratic system in Russia, then this comes across quite unelegant with the people in Western democracies, yet it is question of sink or swim, of kill or cure, as you wish. Would the rebellions have had it their way, the burgeoning democracy would have died untimely.
They who keep repeating oversimplified dogma's like `Yeltsin's rule is unconstitutional' and `Yeltsin puts the parliament out of action', they who keep comparing the American or British parliament to the Russian parliament, are utterly naive and play - conscious or not - the game of the communists and fascists. Thanks to constitutions and parliaments who came into being in democratical ways, they are able to do so without being punished, and that's why we have to give the Russians the opportunity to continue the process of democratization, even if this means that the remains of communism have to be pushed aside with a certain (limited) amount of violence.
Truly capable political leaders are scarce in Russia, and one of them I want to light out: Anatoli Sobchak (1937-), the present (chosen) mayor of St. Petersburg. Former professor of commercial law Sobchak is an enterpriser, a man who is capable of making political contact on both national and international level. He is a pragmatic, who shows that he has profited much from his American colleagues. If he would become the next president of Russia, which I far from exclude, then he would be able to get rid of the Moscow `court clique' in one blow, by moving the machinery of government to St. Petersburg - just like Peter the Great did. We talked about this and the mayor was bemused by my ingenuousness. However, he agreed with me on my overall political ideas. Sobchak: `In my opinion the communist ideology is a dead ideology, an 19th century ideology, which until now was artificially respirated by the grace of the October Revolution. In fact it is an ideology that Marx based on the political and economical situation of the last century, and that's why it doesn't relate to the changed economical, social and political circumstances at the end of the 20th century. One could say that it's the ideology of the dinosaurs, but unfortunately these dinosaurs are still alive. Their deathstruggle continues. The instability of the political forces, the continuing economical crisis and the painful efforts to break with the totalitarian past, will last for a while. Once we understand that it isn't necessary to butcher one half of the population to make the other half happy, we are on the firm ground of a social constitutional state.'
Alexander Kerensky once said, `Without a Rasputin, there wouldn't have been a Lenin.' Most likely he was right. The Russian people saw that a simple muzhik influenced the Russian Tsar and Tsaritsa in a negative way, which of course was unacceptable. In the end this situation resulted in Nicholas's abdication, of which Lenin profited in a nimble way. But the Tsar didn't have to leave because the people of Russia couldn't wait for Lenin to became head of state! During the administration of Nicholas II the Ukrain was the granary of the world. Lenin was not even three years in power, when all this was finished and millions of Russians died of famine. In 1917 everywhere in Europe and America were developing democratization processes. Socialists and social-democrats got lots of votes, conservative governments had to make place for liberal and socialist administrations. Russia was no exception. The difference between Russia and other countries was that Russia had to deal with the Red Terror of nobleman Ulyanov and his comrades. From the moment the bolsheviki were in the opposition, they snapped their fingers at all democratic principles, and that was to come worse after they seized to power. In the rest of Europe the new opposition - the former rulers - did not move to the cemetery, but to the opposition-benches, as a result of which there was a healthy counter-balance. Would this have happened in Russia, then history would probably have had a different course. In several European countries it became obvious that a socialist government and a monarchy do not necessarily exclude each other. After Rasputin was murdered, Nicholas and Alexandra found themselves in a deep valley, but undoubtedly they would have come out of that, after which the way to a constitutional monarchy would have been free. Russia would have stayed an empire, but would have been reformed according to the present British model. I don't think it's possible and likely that there ever will be a Tsar in Russia. It is far too late for that. But in the Moscow subway are posters for sale, with portraits and family trees of the Romanoffs, which are in great demand with the Russian and international public. Since 1924 there is a monarchist party, which only since some years is working overground. However, chairman of this party is Serge Yurkov-Engelhardt, a nonentity that only would be taken seriously in a musical comedy. Since 1990 Tsar Nicholas' birthday is celebrated yearly in the Donskoy Monastery of Moscow. Prince André Golitsyn, grandson of the last Tsarist mayor of Moscow and a big shot in the Russian Union of the Nobility, is present every year. `Seventy years of Soviet regime have, from a moral point of view, been disastrous,' says the prince. `We, the emigré's, have the task to contribute to the ``re-education'' of the people of Russia, by telling them which values, virtues and traditions this country knew before the bolsheviki seized to power. Most Russians know absolutely nothing about this period, and consider this a handicap.' Another important member of the Russian Union of the Nobility is Count Bobrinsky, a descendant of Catherina the Great and Grigori Orlov. He works in the information center of the Union, which is housed in a wing of the former Dolgorouky Palace, which after the Revolution was seized by the Marxist-Leninist Institute. Today the Union has to share its wing with the Vostok Bank and the editors of the newspaper Free Thought, which until recently was called Kommunist. Count Bobrinsky told me that they have changed their name, but not their manners. Princess Troubetzkaya (1922-) is chairwoman of the charity committee, since 1990, when the Union could afford to come in the open. The members of the Union are allowed to send their children to the Union's gymnasium, where they can also learn etiquette and public administration. Another member, Count Tolstoy, recently visited the former family estate of Novinki, outside Moscow. The building was destructed and he wasn't allowed on the premises, because construction workers were building a new mansion for Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin, Russia's Prime Minister. The old elite still has to make place for the new... The Russian Union is not the only organization of Russian aristocrats in Russia. There are many of them, all over Russia. Chairman of the Council of Russian Unions of the Nobility - Crown - is my cousin Prince Vladimir Nikolaevich Obolensky. Since 1991 there are calendars available, with the portraits of Nicholas II and his family, in most Russian newspaper stalls. Money is being collected to raise a cathedral in Ekaterinburg, in honour of the last Tsar. In 1991 Russia officially sent the film Regicide, based on the last days of the Romanoffs, to the film festival in Cannes, France. On Friday, July 17, 1992, in Ekaterinburg, a ceremonious gathering was organized for the first time, by the Russian-Orthodox Church, in memory of the fact that Tsar Nicholas II and his family were shot down in this city. Vladimir Kirilovich Romanoff, the claimant to the throne, who was born in 1917 in Finland, and since then lived in France, Spain and America, was burried with official honour in April 1992, in the Peter and Paul fortress of St. Petersburg, beside some relatives. Why some Romanoffs and Russian monarchists did consider Vladimir Kirilovich and did not consider his daughter Maria Vladimirovna (1953-) and her son Grigori Mikhaïlovich (1981-) as rightful claimants to the throne? `Feodor' Romanoff, `I'm deeply ashamed, but that's mainly due to the fact that Maria is divorced, and because some people suspect that Vladimir Kirilovich' wife, Princess Leonida Grigorievna Bagration- Moukhransky - so also her daughter Maria and her grandson Grigori -, have some drops of Jewish blood in them. Anti-Semitism is also very Russian, unfortunately. ``Pogrom'' is a Russian word, which means ``destruction''.' In Russia, the former Yugoslavia and in many other places in the world, still `pogroms' find place, people's lives are being ruined, because the religions or the political preferences of these people deviate from prevailing opinions. The problem of refugees is still very topical. How long will it take before we will be willing and able to put a stop to this misery?

Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 3 - After The Revolution - Chapter 9 - The Last Of The Mohicans

2006-03-16T06:57:00.000-08:00

9. The Last of the Mohicans

1926 March 24: Mathilde Kshessinskaya, the former sweetheart of Tsar Nicholas II and prima-ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg, who after the death of her husband, Grand Duke André Vladimirovich Romanoff, lives on the address 38 Villa Molitor, Paris, opens the doors of her school of ballet, 6 Avenue Vion-Whitcomb, on March 6. The school is consecrated by Metropolitan Evlogi.
April 4, 1926: World Conference of Russians in Paris. 420 deputies from 26 countries gather here, headed by chairman Pierre Struve, and they speak about which possibilities the people of Russia have to free themselves from the communist yoke.
May 2, the night of Russian Easter: Grand Duke André Vladimirovich Romanoff and Mathilde Kshessinskaya have invited Serge Diaghilev and his company. Mathilde: `The cars I rented brought all of us to the Cathedral of Nice. After midnight mass we returned to the villa for the ``razgoveni'', the traditional Easter meal with ``pashka's'' and ``kulich'', painted eggs, ham and other tasty dishes. (...) After the meal the guests started to dance. Serge Lifar, who was a little bit tipsy, wanted to court Tamara Karsavina, but Diaghilev was offended and put an end to the flirt by saying, ``Young man, you are obviously a little too merry! It is time to go home!'', and they left together for Monte Carlo.'
May 14: General Vrangel, now the President of the ROVS (Union of Russian Veterans in France) writes, `My labour hasn't been for nothing. By founding the ROVS in 1924, we have brought together all organizations of officers in exile. Today more than 40,000 men are member of the ROVS; what an army! (...) What is the purpose of this organization? To go to battle against the communists who have occupied Russia, without compassion. The Russian people still hope for improvement of the situation. Only the Russian people have the right to determine which form of government Russia will have in the future.'
Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya is born.
August 22: Alec Ignatieff becomes an engineer and leaves for Sierra Leone. His brothers Nick and Dima Ignatieff leave for Canada.
1927 Paris, April 27: Princess Vera Meshchersky founds the `Russian House', in the Rue de la Cossonerie, Saint-Geneviève-des-Bois. The Russian House is a home where about 250 retired Russian refugees can be accommodated.
Aleksandr Feodorovich Kerensky publishes his book The catastrophe; his own story about the Russian Revolution.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: August 22, 1927: A letter from my mother, `Father is arrested and thrown into a dungeon. I don't know why. He hopes it's a misunderstanding.'
August 24: Out of the gatherings of old and young Russian writers in the salon of the writer Dmitri Merezhkovsky and his wife Zinaida Hippius `The Green Lamp' comes into being, a literary circle with a respectable number of members.
Nice, France, September 14: After finishing her book My Life the dancer Isadora Duncan dies, in a car, just like her children Deirdre and Patrick. Her long scarf gets stuck in the spokes of her car, and literally strangles her. Isadora Duncan caused a stirr by appearing on stage barefooted and only dressed in a tunic. In 1922 Isadora married the Russian poet Serge Esenin. They met in February 1921, when Isadora danced with the Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow. From 1921 to 1924 she had a school of dance in Moscow.
December 28: The writer and poet Serge Alexandrovich Esenin (1895-1925), who was married to Isadora Duncan and in Russia is criticized for his shocking statements, commits suicide in Hotel Angleterre in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).
Paris, December 3: The Russian cabaret Shéhérazade, 3 Rue de Liège, opens its doors. (The establishment became world famous by Erich Maria Remarque's novel Arch of Triumph, and the film of the same name of 1948, with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in the leading parts.)
1928 January 31: Stalin has ordered Leo Trotsky to leave Alma Ata. Trotsky is bannished to the isle of Prinkipo, in Turkey.
From the beginning of May to August 8 Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanoff lives in the house of her cousin, Grand Duchess Xenia Grigorievna. On May 27, 1928 Xenia states in World magazine, `I am convinced that she is the daughter of Nicholas II. I have often played with Anastasia; she has my age. Mrs Chaikovsky has surprised me completely by arousing the memories of what we did and said in our childhood. I'm absolutely sure of her identity and I'm prepared to put my whole capital at stake to prove that she is Anastasia.' It is of no avail. 44 members of the House of Romanoff are still alive. A family council is held, in which is proposed to sign a statement against Anastasia. 32 members of the family refuse to sign the statement; the 12 who sign it are coincidental the direct heirs when it can be proven that none of the children of the tsar is still alive: Xenia Alexandrovna and her husband Alexander, Olga Alexandrovna and her second husband Nicholas Kulikovsky (1881-1958), the 6 sons of Alexander and Xenia, their daughter Irina and Irina's husband Felix Yussupov. Several million English pounds are at stake.
My informer `Feodor' Romanoff, `I can't tell you too much about it without blowing my cover, but I have known her. Sure, the money had a lot to do with it, but that wasn't all. Noblesse oblige. She was eccentric, broken, mentally ill, and would have been the most important Romanoff of all, once she was acknowledged. Many of my relatives found this absolutely unacceptable. The families of Windsor and Von Hessen-Darmstadt also had an important part in this decision. The lesser gods of the Romanoff clan found the fuss around Anastasia rather amusing. Only one or two were however prepared to support her at the cost of everything. Also important was the role of the Russian-Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, which had canonized the entire Imperial Family, and was in a tight corner when it became clear that Anastasia was still alive and anything but a saint.' Anastasia knew who she was, and that was good enough for her. That, and her confabulations, filling the gap of missing information in the own memory with common known facts or the memories of others, have cooked her goose during the many lawsuits about her identity, because during the years the `facts' changed, and if she `lied' about one thing, she most likely didn't tell the truth about other things.
October 14: Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanoff, who lived in Antibes until July 1923, after which he moved to the Chateau de Choigny in Santeny, near Paris, returns to the Villa Thénard; he is seriously ill, and he wants to be near his brother Peter.
Paris, October 24: Prince Felix Yussupov and his wife Irina found their fashion house Irfé (Irina-Felix), on the second floor of 19 Rue Duphot. (Are they expecting some money, perhaps?) Almost their entire staff consists of Russian refugees. Successively they open branches in Touquet, London and Berlin. The Yussupovs live in the Rue Pierre Guérin. (That house was demolished. Only a green garden door with a door bell and a sign `Chien mechant' is left of the old building.)
Paris, October 25: Maria Solovyov, a daughter of Rasputin, institutes legal proceedings against Prince Felix Yussupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanoff. She demands a compensation of 25 million francs, because the gentlemen have murdered her father. The French court however considers itself not cognizant to deal with this case.
London, October 26: Dima Ignatieff returns to England and takes his mother and his brothers Lionel and George with him to Canada. His father Paul stays in Paris.
New York, October 27: Igor Sikorsky becomes an American citizen. His first real American success is the S-38 (Amphibian). The S-38 is so successful, that Sikorsky has to move to Connecticut, where his company is taken over by the United Aircraft Company, in which Sikorsky becomes one of the managers. Successively he works on the development of long-range flying boats.
Copenhagen, November: Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna Romanoff (1847-1928) dies at the age of 72. In 1919 she escaped from Russia with the British warship Marlborough, together with her daughters Xenia and Olga and their families. She returned to Danmark (she was born Princess Dagmar of Danmark), where she since then lived in a wing of the palace of her cousin, the Danish King Christian X. King George V of England granted her a pension of 10,000 pounds per year.
Paris, November 18: Drama critic Lev (Dominique) Aronson opens a Russian restaurant on the address 19 Rue Bréa. The Russian writers who frequent the restaurant Dominique, call themselves `the Dominicans'.
November 19: Count Alexander Buxhoeveden is a real estate agent in Paris, and because his business is doing well he and his family move to Nice.
Alexander Kerensky is a professor in the Hoover Institute of the Stanford University in California. That's where his son Gleb Alexandrovich marries the English Mary Hudson. Gleb and Mary moved to Rugby, England, where he at first works for English Electric and successively for General Electric. Alexander's other son, Oleg Alexandrovich Kerensky, marries the Russian Nathalie Bely, who just like him studies in London.
1929 January 5: Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanoff dies.
January 7: Vera Bunin writes in her diary, `The funeral ceremony lasted almost an hour. Ivan (Bunin) was very touched, especially when the Cossacks in uniform arrived to form the guard of honour Ä he did not hold back his tears. We felt that we were committing old Russia to the ground. Surely we realize that all this will pass, but our wounds are hardly healed, and Nicholas Nikolaevich' death teared them open again, and that hurts, that really hurts.' Paris, February 10: The Théatre Intime Russe, on the address 6bis Rue Campagne-Première, opens with the play Wolves and Sheep, by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886). The small theatre is headed by D. Kirova, an artist of the former Small Theatre of St. Petersburg.
March 16: Tatiana Souchotin-Tolstoy, the eldest daughter of Lev Tolstoy, opens a Russian art academy in the Rue Jules-Chaplain, on number 11. However, due to a lack of pupils the school has to close down. (Nowadays the ballet school of the Russian Irina Gryebina is resided there.)
May 22: Igor Sikorsky turns back to his first love: the development of the helicopter.
June 5: The composer Serge Sergeevich Prokofyev (1891-1953) moves to the address 5 Rue Valentin- Haüy, Paris, where he will live until 1932. Serge is a child prodigy and already played the piano when he was only three years old. He was a pupil of Glière, Liadov and Rimsky-Korsakov, worked with Diaghilev in London and Paris since 1914, and since 1917 he gave numerous concerts all over Europe, America and Japan.
June 18: Marina Tsvetaeva publishes her essay Natalia Goncharova in the paper Liberté de la Russie. Tsvetaeva met the painters Larionov and Goncharova in Café de Flore, Paris, where she offered to write a story about them.
October 27: Grand Duke Michael Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (1861-1929), brother of Sandro, dies in London, where he used to live during the summers. He was a Colonel of the Caucasian tirailleurs. He lived for a long time in Cannes, in the Villa Kazbek, 18, Avenue du Roi-Albert. Michael Mikhaïlo- vich was married to Countess Sophie de Torby, a granddaughter of Pushkin.
November 2: Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov and her husband Vladimir emigrate from Bulgaria to France. Shortly afterwards the rest of her family joins her in Besan‡on, where Vladimir works at a metallurgical factory. Tatiana Nikolaevna's father dies.
1930 January: General Kutiepov, who since April 1928, after the death of General Vrangel, was the President of the ROVS (Union of Russian Veterans in France), lives on the address 26 Rue Rousselet, Paris. After Kutiepov left his house on January 26, 1930, nobody has seen or heard anything of him. His story, and the one of his successor General De Miller, who was struck by the same unenviable lot, is told in the book Le général meurt à minuit, by Marina Grey, the daughter of General Denikin.
January 9: In London Oleg Olegovich Kerensky, the son of Oleg Alexandrovich and Nathalie, is born. Grandfather Alexander Kerensky comes to visit the new born.
Paris, April 22: Grand Duke Kiril Vladimirovich Romanoff takes the salute of 2,000 former officers of the Imperial Army. The officers shout out Cossack war cries and, `The day of victory is near!'
September 3: Paul Poustochkine and his wife Nathalie have two children: Constantin (Toto), who was born in Crete on September 14, 1910, and Iwan, who was born on February 10, 1918 in The Hague, Holland. Paul Poustochkine knows the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina and her husband Prince Hendrik very well, and Queen Wilhelmina, who always has been proud of the fact that Anna Pavlovna's blood rushes through her vains, makes sure that Constantin and Iwan will be able to go to university. September 28: Gleb and Mary Kerensky, who still live in Rugby, have three children: Katherine, Elizabeth and Stephen.
1931 January 14: In France the Russian School for Cadets `Nicholas II' is founded by Lieutenant-General Vladimir Rimsky-Korsakov, the former director of the School for Cadets in Moscow. The school is resided on the address 71 Rue Gambetta, Villiers-le-Bel (Val-d'Oise). Until his death in 1934 Rimsky- Korsakov stays on as director of the school, after which it is transferred to Versailles, and subsequently to Dieppe.
January 17: Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich Romanoff (1864-1931), a brother of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich and uncle of Tsar Nicholas, dies in Cap d'Antibes, France. Peter Nikolaevich was married to Princess Militsa of Montenegro. He was a Lieutenant-General in the Cavalry and aide-de-camp to Nicholas II.
July 30: The British playwright George Bernard Shaw (74) is an admirer of the Soviet system, like so many `progressive' Western writers. While he visits Moscow, he says, `Tomorrow I leave the land of hope, to return to the Western lands of despair.' Shaw talked for more than two hours with Stalin. The Soviet-Union is also glorified by the famous Dutch writer Henriëtte Roland Holst-Van der Schalk, after whom in Holland streets are named. In her book Foundations and problems of the new culture in Soviet-Russia (1932) she writes, `One wants to create a new, entirely on one principle imbued culture. Such attempts can only succeed in a stage of very strong rationalized thinking. Also it can only be exercised in a society in which the main means of culture (school, press, publishers, bookstores, theatre, film, radio) are controlled by a central authority. (...) This systematically ruled society includes also that the new form of living is much less than before to be found in friendly co-operation, but in a system, cut and dried by the leaders, which is imposed on the subordinates. In this respect the coming culture in Russia is aristocratical. (...) When the children of the farmers now say, ``There is no God,'' then, in a way, they speak the truth. The old Russian God, who was attached to a perished world, a world of random and cruelty, of haughtiness and arrogance, of humility and servility, that old God does no more exist. He was knocked to the ground, together with his earthly representative, the tsar. And with him perished a world of half-mouldered notions, of rigid morality, which had gotten into a groove.' One is tempted to think that Mrs Roland Holst is misled, that she does not know what's she's talking about, but that notion is not correct. When she commits her stalinistic propaganda to paper, she is positively well informed about the abuses, but with her it's the same as with a lot of other European and American armchair revolutionaries: facts are neglected for the sake of ideals. On page 133 she writes, `The health of the working youth is also undermined by night shifts, which is reinstated for large groups of young workers. In the textiles area of Ivanovo-Vosnosensk (in February 1930) out of 1,664 youthful workers 972 worked at night. In lots of plants they have to do night shifts, inter alia in the glass-industry, food-industry and shoe-factories. There's also child labour in branches of industry which are injurious to health. The ``Youth Pravda'' of February 10, 1930, from which we took these data, stated in fact that the health of the children is very bad. In Siberia 4,000 out of less than 6,000 youthful workers had to be treated medically. Most likely the present conditions are still not much improved.' Finally a critical word? My God, no! In page 135, nota bene less than two pages furtheron, she writes, `Almost everyone who visited the Soviet-Union in the last couple of years, no matter what they think of the new form of living, assured us that the Russian youth is happy. We readily believe them.' And another two pages furtheron, in page 137, ``The Russian youth,'' writes Hindus, ``is perhaps the happiest on earth.'' In my opinion he should have left out the word ``perhaps''. Where can a child be happy today, except in Russia?'
Impudent stalinist propagandists like Henriëtte Roland Holst-Van der Schalk make sure that homesick Russian refugees are persuaded into their return to the Soviet-Union, where many commit suicide, or are murdered by Stalin.
August 21: Alexandra (Alya) Rakhmanova's first book Love, Cheka and Death, is published. It becomes a best seller!
1932 April 6: After his sojourn of three years in Paris the composer Serge Prokofyev returns to the Soviet- Union.
March: Famine, especially in the Ukrain, which in the times of the Tsar was the granary of Russia.
May 7: The Union of Russian Cab Drivers and Employees in the Car Industry (9 Rue St.-Charles, Paris) organizes its yearly `Day of the Russian Driver', to line the petty-cash of the union.
Nice, Southern France, June 2: Count Anatol (Alec) Buxhoeveden (1905-), the eldest son of Count Alexander Buxhoeveden, marries Vera Illarionov, daughter of Count Nicholas Illarionov and Countess Natalia Peresviat-Soltan.
June 18: Nobody is willing to donate any more money to the Russian Red Cross, and that's why Paul Ignatieff joins his wife and children in Toronto. However, Paul and Natasha are virtually grown apart.
1933 February 26: Grand Duke Alexander (Sandro) Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (1866-1933), an old friend of Tsar Nicholas, dies in his villa Sainte-Thérèse in Roquebrune, France.
March 21: Lincoln Kirstein brings the famous Russian choreographer George Balanchine from Paris to New York. A couple of months later Balanchine, who since 1928 worked with Igor Strawinsky, founds the New York City Ballet.
June 3: When Prince Alexis Alexeevich Obolensky reaches New York, his mother, Princess Lyubova Obolensky, née Troubetzkoy (1909-1980), who has a real head for business, opens the first of her successful American enterprises, which boom on Park Avenue. As `Princess Obolensky Incorporated' she retails quilts, bed covers and pillows. Later she expands and exhibits her wares in all the social resorts. Prince Alexis himself starts out as a perfume salesman.
August: The archives of the prohibited Scouting Club Ruskii Skautizm were smuggled to Odessa. After the Whites were defeated some loyal scouts hid the archives, but last month they were caught and imprisoned. Nothing was heard of them since. To prevent that the names in the archives can be used to try (former) illegal scouts, the archives are stolen from the secret police and moved to Moscow, by some former scouts, who became officers in the Red Army. They hide the archives in the basements of the Ministry of Defense, of all places. (That's where they still are today, in remembrance of all the murdered scouts.)
August 11: Count Alexander Buxhoeveden and Countess Olga Buxhoeveden, née Olensky, are divorced in Sremsky-Karlovci, Yugoslavia, by the Synod of the Russian-Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
September: Vladimir Smirnoff has financial difficulties and is forced to sell the Smirnoff brand and the secret vodka formula to the Russian refugee Rudolph Kunnett, who lives in the United States.
Paris, September 24: Count Alexander Buxhoeveden marries Rosine-Marie Vidal (1911-), daughter of engineer Paul Vidal and Germaine-Marie Delvoueuillerie de Costaire.
1934 Nice, Southern France, July 1: Count Theodor Buxhoeveden (1934-1965), Count Alexander's first son out of his marriage to Rosine-Marie Vidal, is born.
Aleksandr Feodorovich Kerensky publishes his book The crucifixion of liberty. September 12: After General Yuri Daniloff dies in Paris, his wife Anna leaves for America, to see after her grandchildren.
Paris, November 21: At 8 p.m., a 25 year old Russian poet falls off the platform on the railway, in the subway-station Pasteur. He is run over and transported to the Necker Hospital, where he succumbs to his wounds at 10 p.m. On account of this accident Tsvetaeva writes a letter to her friend Anne Teskov, `On November 21 Nicholas Gronsky has been run over by a subway-train. When we saw each other for the first time, he fell in love with me instantly; it took some time before I fell in love with him. This love lasted a year, but because I found that my freedom was rather limited by it, and because our ways of life rather differed, we grew apart. In the spring of 1931 we said goodbye for good. In three years time I've only seen him one more time, in a subway-train. I called him, but he didn't come to me. And then I read in the newspapers what had happened on November 21... (...) This young man was a great poet.'
November 23: Igor Strawinsky becomes a French citizen. Until now he lived in Brittany, Garches, Biarritz, Nice and Voreppe, but from now on he will live in Paris, in the chique Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Due to the fact that Russia didn't sign the Bern Convention, Strawinsky can't claim royalties and copyrights. Had he been German, French or American, then he would have been a rich man.
Leningrad, December 1: Serge Kirov, the secretary of the Communist Party in Leningrad, is killed in the Smolny Institute, by Leonid Nikolaev. This way Nikolaev, an embittered communist, wanted to draw attention to the deterioration and officialism of the party.
Moscow/Leningrad, December 6: In connection with the murder of Serge Kirov many people are executed in Moscow and Leningrad. Start of the Big Terror.
Paris, December 13: Countess Marianna Buxhoeveden (1913-), daughter of Count Alexander, marries the Russian nobleman Vladimir Vassiliev (1907-).
1935 January: Rudolph Kunnett tries to sell his Smirnoff distillery for $ 25,000. John G. Martin pays $ 14,000 for the distellery, the formula and the brand.
Aleksandr Feodorovich Kerensky and Paul Bulygin publish their book The murder of the Romanovs; the authentic account, which is translated from the Russian by Aleksandr's son Gleb.
October 17: In apartment 17bis, above the large Citroën garage in the Rue Barrault, the poet Boris Poplavsky dies of a drug-overdose, accompanied by his also drugged friend Serge Yarko, who has promised to join him on his long trip to the hereafter. Khodassevich puts the blame of Poplavsky's suicide on the atmosphere of decay and doomwatch, which masters the young Russian poets of Montparnasse. They have no more confidence in the world, in themselves and in their work; they are discouraged by their endless exile and the indifference of society.
Just before his tragical death Poplavsky wrote the poem Il neige sur la ville, and the agonizing words:
We leave for the land of sleep, where perhaps another sun will rise, or perhaps is no sun at all.
1936 March 8: The painter Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin, who escaped from Russia in 1920 and became a citizen of the Soviet-Union in 1935, leaves Paris to live in Leningrad.
April 24: Grigori Yevseevich Zinovyev, who in 1919 ordered the execution of a large number of hostages in the Peter and Paul Fortress, among them the Grand Dukes Nicholas Mikhaïlovich Romanoff, George Mikhaïlovich Romanoff, Paul Alexandrovich Romanoff and Dmitri Constantinovich Romanoff, is executed by order of Stalin, by a shot in the neck.
June 4: Paul Ignatieff and his wife become Canadian citizens. Their son George leaves for England, to study in the university of Oxford.
Nice, Southern France, June 29: Count Alexander Alexandrovich Buxhoeveden, Count Alexander's second son out of his second marriage, is born.
Paris, November 10: After a trip to Russia the French writer André Gide sharply criticizes the Soviet Union, in his book Retour de l'URSS. The French communist newspaper L'Humanité and the left wing friends of the writer attack him about his statements, but Trotsky praises him for his `intellectual courage and honesty'. Gide used to be an admirer of the Soviet regime, but since his return in July his opinions are rather changed. In his book he denounces the stranglehold of conformism and censorship in the Soviet Union, the terror, the bad living conditions, and the lack of food. `Stalin's personal rule is in flagrant contradiction to the communist principles,' says Gide.
1937 March 2: in the Conservatoire Serge Rakhmaninov in Paris Marina Tsvetaeva reads from her book My Pushkin, and also some poetry of Pushkin, in remembrance of the fact that the poet died a hundred years ago.
March 29: Alexander Kerensky, who from August to November 1917 was Prime Minister of the Provisional Government, lives in Paris, 9bis Rue Vineuse, while his wife and two sons settled down in London. Just like the tsar, Kerensky loves to walk. A couple of days ago, during his walk, he was watched by a Russian lady and her daughter. The lady said, `Look, look, Tania, that's the man who wracked and ruined Russia!' A friend of him says that Kerensky was completely cut up by this incident, and has been depressed for days. On February 26, March 7 and March 17 Kerensky held a lecture about the tragical fate of the Russian Imperial family, in the Musée Social, 9 Rue Las-Cases.
April 14: Serge Efron, the husband of the poet Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva, who from the beginning of the thirties worked for the Union of Russian Repatriants, 12 Rue de Buci, Paris, escapes to Spain and after that to the Soviet Union, before the French police can arrest him. The legal investigation on the murder of the defected Soviet agent Ignace Reiss shows that through this office agents for the soviets have been recruted. Marina's daughter Ariadna also leaves for the Soviet Union.
Moscow, June 12: Eight high placed military leaders are sentenced to death during a secret trial. All of them admit they are guilty of treason. June 13: The eight officers are executed, just like the thousands other real and latent opponents of Stalin's regime, who during their trials confess to crimes they never could have committed, because they weren't even born then.
1938 Paris, February 16: Leon Sedov, the son of Lev Trotsky, was struck by appendicitis on February 9, and brought to the Mirabeau clinic in the Rue Narcisse-Diaz, because the management and the staff of this hospital are Russian. He was operated on the same night, and the following days his condition improved considerably, in such a way that the doctors were planning to send him home. But during the night of February 13 his condition deteriorated: once more he was operated on, but he died the following day. Although a legal investigation proves that Sedov died from natural causes, Trotsky, who lives in Mexico, states that the death of his son should be blamed on `Russian agents in a Russian hospital in Paris'. Leon Sedov is burried in the Cimetière de Thiais, Val-de-Marne, France (22nd division, row 13, tomb 20). (Every year at August 20 the Trotskyites come to visit this tomb of Lev Trotsky's son, to commemorate the murder on Trotsky, and every year they sing the International.)
Lake Baikal, near Mongolia, March 17: Rudolf Nureyev is born on a train.
André Alexeevich Amalrik is born in Moscow.
March 28: The Buxhoevedens move to Florence, Italy, where Count Alexander Alexandrovich is baptized.
Allassio, Italy, July 16: Countess Rosine-Marie Buxhoeveden (1938-), Count Alexander's first daughter out of his second marriage, is born. She will be called Marie-Rose.
Neuilly, France, October 13: Grand Duke Kiril Vladimirovich Romanoff, who called himself `Tsar of all Russians', dies. His son, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirilovich Romanoff (1917-1992) succeeds him as chief of the Imperial House, but he wisely restricts to the title of Grand Duke.
1939 April: In New York the Tolstoy Foundation is founded by Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, the youngest daughter of the great writer Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910).
June: The writer Marina Tsvetaeva returns to Russia, to join her husband and daughter. However, she couldn't have chosen a worse moment, because Stalin's witches' sabbath is at it's pinnacle. (Stalin had ordered the execution of more than 1,500 talented Russian writers.) She finds out that Efron already has been executed, and that her daughter Ariadna is locked up in a hard labour camp, where she will have to stay until 1956. Marina's work is not published. All her colleague's and friends, also Boris Pasternak, let her down. Pasternak, `We were good friends.' Hypocrite.
July: Nick and Dima Ignatieff enlist in the Canadian army, and are transported to England, where their brothers George and Alec live. Alec works as a manager of a gunpowder factory. Lionel stays in Toronto.
August: Igor Sikorsky presents the prototype of his V-300 helicopter to the American public. Sikorsky, who in the mean time is over fifty, is the test-pilot. After the V-300 he designs the XR-4, the XR-5, the S-55 (Whirlwind), the S-58 (Wessex and the Sikorsky Sea King.
September: Igor Strawinsky emigrates to the United States.
Merano, Italy, October 18: Countess Catherine Geneviève Buxhoeveden (1939-), Count Alexander's second daughter out of his second marriage, is born.
November 30: The Soviet-Union declares war on Finland.
1940 Moscow, April: Stalin orders that 21,000 Polish soldiers, most of them officers, who are imprisoned in Katyn, near Smolensk, are to be murdered and thrown into a mass grave.
The Germans occupy Paris. All Russian papers and magazines move abroad. Their editors escape to America. The nazi's now publish a new Russian newspaper - Paridzhki Vestnik (The Paris Guide).
Alexander Kerensky, who until now alternately lived in California, New York, Prague and Paris, leaves Paris forgood, to join his family in London. Some time later he moves to New York.
Paul Poustochkine is still recorded in the Dutch state directory as, `Paul Poustochkine, charged with the liquidation of the affairs of the former Russian legation'. Paul keeps in touch with the Russian refugees in Paris, and visits the meetings of the Diplomats of Imperial Russia Outside of Russia.
June 20: The Soviet Union captures Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
June 27: The Soviet Union captures Bessarabia and Bukovina (Romania).
Mexico, August 21: Lev Trotsky (64) is murdered by the Spanish communist Ramon Mercader. There's no doubt that Stalin ordered the execution.
1941 The writer Marina Tsvetaeva hangs herself, in the doorway of a hut, in the Russian town of Elabuga.
Prince Alexis Alexeevich Obolensky becomes a foreign intelligence agent for the U.S. government in Palm Beach. `I have to interrogate Latin Americans and sniff out German spies infiltrating from the south.'
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-) leaves for the front as an officer in the Russian Red Army.
The Tolstoy Foundation in New York City buys a 70-acre farm in Spring Valley (Rockland County, New York), for the symbolical amount of one dollar.
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanoff (1891-1941) dies of tuberculosis in Davos, Switzerland.. Dmitri's father, Grand Duke Paul, was bannished from Russia because he, after his wife Alexandra, Princess of Russia, had died, started a relationship with Olga Karnovich (Princess Paley), the wife of Grand Duke Vladimir's adjutant. Paul was determined to marry his beloved Princess Paley, but the Dowager Empress was unrelenting and forced Paul's brothers Serge and Vladimir to choose her side. This was the first scandal in the Romanoff family in which Nicky had to be the arbitrator. Nicholas was forced to evict his uncle Paul from Russia. Paul's son Dmitri and daughter Maria Pavlovna Romanoff (1890-1958) were raised in Russia by Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich and his wife Elisabeth Feodorovna. This couple was childless and loved Dmitri and his little sister Marie as if they were their own.
Later Dmitri was taken into the family of Nicholas II. He was in love with Olga Niko- laevna Romanoff, daughter of Nicholas II, and wanted to marry her, but the Tsar and the Tsaritsa did not agree to it. For a long time Dmitri was an intimate friend of Felix Yussupov. He, Yussupov and Vladimir Purishkevich killed Rasputin. Dmitri was bannished to Persia and in 1926 he married the American Audrey Emery, in Biarritz. For some years Dmitri Pavlovich made a living as a champagne salesman, in Florida. In 1928 their son, Prince Paul Ilyinsky, was born. (Prince Paul Ilyinsky married Mary Prince, but this marriage ended in a divorce. Subsequently he married Angelica Kauffman. Paul has two daughters and two sons, Dmitri Pavlovich Ilyinsky (1953-) and Michael Pavlovich Ilyinsky (1960-).)
Besancon, France: The factories close down, there's no more work. Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov, her husband, her mother and her brother decide to move to Germany and work there. Her two sisters marry and stay in France.
June 22: The Germans attack the Soviet Union. General Von Reeb is on his way to Leningrad; General Von Bock marches towards Minsk; General Von Rundstedt advances against Kiev; Operation Barbarossa has started.
1942 February: The painter Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin and thousands of others die of famine, as a result of the German siege of his new domicile Leningrad. Hamburg burns! After three bombing rugs of the English the city is completely destroyed. Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov, her husband, her mother and her brother move to Silesia, where Vladimir and Tatiana Nikolaevna find a job at a metallurgical factory. It isn't really work: they have to be there on time, and stay all day long, but there's no work at all.
1943 November 12: Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich Romanoff (1877-1943), a grandson of Alexander II, son of Vladimir Alexandrovich, and brother of Kiril Vladimirovich and André Vladimirovich, dies in Paris. He is burried in Contrexeville, in the Vosges, in the Russian-Orthodox chapel, where his mother, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna Romanoff (1854-1920), found her last resting place. Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich Romanoff was married to Zinaida Raevsky.
December 17: Princess Vera (Vicky) Obolensky (1911-1944), who works for the French resistance movement, is arrested by the nazi's and taken to Berlin.
1944 The Soviet armies occupy Eastern Europe. Many Russian emigrants are once more the victims of communism, and numerous people are repatriated against their will. In Paris the communists found pro- Soviet newspapers, like Sovietsky Patriot and Rusky Novosti (Russian News).
The soprano Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya (1926-) is 18 years old when she marries a sailor, Grigori Vishnevsky, but this marriage doesn't last long. Successively she marries Mark Ilyich Rubin, the director of her operetta company. He is 40, she still is 18. Her father is arrested for `political' reasons, which makes her blackmailable.
Berlin, August 4: Princess Vera Obolensky is executed by the nazi's.
Vasili Vasilievich Kandinsky (Moscow 1866 - Neuilly-sur-Seine 1944) dies. He went to law school in Moscow. In 1901 he founded the artist union Phalanx, which mainly organized exhibitions. Successively he founded the Neue Künstlervereinigung and Der blaue Reiter, in Germany. Until 1909 his style reminded of expressionism, but nowadays he's reckoned among the pioneers of the abstract art. After the Revolution he returned to Russia, but because of the rigid system he left soon afterwards. In 1921 he became teacher in the Bauhaus, Germany, and in 1933 he settled down in France.
Nice, Southern France, December: Countess Elisabeth Buxhoeveden, Count Alexander's first daughter out of his first marriage, marries the Russian nobleman Vladimir Panov (1880-1945).
Gleb Kerensky is in Holland with the Allied Forces, fighting the nazi's. He's a Captain of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
1945 Budapest, January 17: The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who rescued thousands of Jews from the nazi's during World War II, is arrested by the Soviets and brought to Moscow. Nobody knows why.
February 1: Patriarch Serge (Serge Vladimirovich Simansky, 1877-1970) succeeds Patriarch Alexis I.
February 14: The Red Army enters Budapest.
February 14: Alexander Solzhenitsyn is arrested in Eastern Prussia because he has written critical words about comrade Stalin in his letters to a school friend.
The Chinese communists `repatriate' the Russian refugees who left for the Caucasus in 1918 and 1919 Ä more than 200,000 people Ä and were routed by the Red Army for thousands of miles, through Kazakhstan, Siberia and Mongolia, to the border of Manchuria. They settled in Harbin and Shanghai. Many of them end up in Soviet Russian hard labour camps and prisons Ä after more than 25 years!
Eastern: Alexandra Rakhmanova's only son Jurka-Alexander is killed outside Vienna, by the Red Army. Alexandra and Arnulf move to Switzerland. Her books are published in more than 20 languages, all over the world.
May 8: Germany is defeated. Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov and her husband are moved to a Displaced Persons Camp in Kempten (Allgäu, Germany). As more and more refugees are joining their DP Camp, they're transferred to a larger camp in Füssen (Bavaria), and successively to Camp Schleissheim, north of Munich, which is founded by the International Refugee Organization (IRO).
Paul Ignatieff dies. His wife Natasha died in 1944. They are burried in the cemetery of the Saint- Andrew's Church in Upper Melbourne, a town south of Montreal.
Their children Alec, Nick, Dima and George return to Canada.
John G. Martin and Jack Morgan invent the `Moscow Mule', which makes Smirnoff vodka world famous. The company is saved!
1946 Fulton, Missouri, March 6: Winston Churchill warns the Western countries for the Iron Curtain and the colonization politics of the Soviets. The Cold War has started.
Just like his grandfather Alexander, Oleg Kerensky's ambition is to go into politics. From Westminster School he goes straight to Christ Church, Oxford, where he becomes both treasurer and librarian of the Union. He is excused national service because of poor eyesight.
Berlin, April 21: Moscow forces the political parties in the Russian zone of Berlin to merge in one party, the SED, which submits itself to the CPSU in Moscow.
Eastern: Almost 30 years after the communists have seized to power, the church bells are allowed to sound in entire Russia. The communists also allow new churches being built. A Russian-Orthodox seminary is opened and the government approves of the election of Patriarch Serge. Patriarch Serge is even welcomed by Stalin. Nevertheless the relation between Church and State remains complicated.
Prague, May 26: The Czechoslowakian Communist Party wins the elections, with substantial financial help of Moscow.
Sofia, October 27: By murdering thousands of opponents and with the help of Moscow the Bulgarian Communists win the elections.
Alexander Alyechin (Moscow 1892 - Estoril 1946) dies. In his tomb are inscripted the following words, `Russian and French grand-master of chess. World-champion of chess from 1927 to 1935 and from 1937 until his death.' Alyechin escaped in 1920 and later became a French citizen. He lost the world- championship to Professor Max Euwe in 1935, but recovered it two years later. He felt that his `deep Russian soul' often was not understood in the West, but he didn't commit suicide, like the Soviet-Russian grand-master Kotov states in his biography of Alyechin.
The Synod of the Russian-Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, which until now often gathered in Sremsky-Karlovci, Yugoslavia, moves to Munich.
1947 Warsaw, January 19: With the help of Moscow and by tampering with the election results, the Polish communists seize the power in their country.
Budapest, June 2: By kidnapping his little son, the Soviet Secret Service forces Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy of Hungaria to resign his office.
July, 17: The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is executed in the gulag. Immediately after the prison physician A. Smoltsov has reported that Wallenberg `probably died of a heart attack', the body is cremated, before it can be properly examined.
Bucharest, July 28: By banning the Farmers Party, a large oppositional party, the Romanian communists now hold absolute sway.
Budapest, August 31: The communists seize to power in Hungaria.
Sofia, September 23: The Bulgarian politician Nikola Petkov is hanged. He was the most important opponent to the communists.
The Buxhoevedens emigrate from Italy to the United States. On September 30 their son Count Daniel Paul Buxhoeveden (1947-) is born in Great Neck, New York. The Russian writer/journalist Peter Dmitrievich Ouspensky dies in England.
George Ignatieff's son Michael is born.
1948 Serge Sergeevich Prokofyev's work is criticized sharply by the Soviet regime, and he has to comply to the directives of `socialist realism', which in fact is a Goebbelian realism. Prokofyev wrote symphonies, opera's, ballets, as well as the music for two films.
New York, May 11: Count Alexander Buxhoeveden, who worked as an engineer in Long Island, dies. Countess Vera Buxhoeveden, the wife of Count Anatol (Alec), his eldest son, takes charge of young Alexander, her brother in law. She and father Anthony von Grabbe are instrumental in getting Alexander into the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York. Countess Vera organizes the annual ball of the Russian Nobility Association in America.
August 12: Vladimir Kirilovich Romanoff marries Leonida Grigorievna, Princess Bagration-Mukhransky. Vladimir Kirilovich, who in August 1917 saw the light of day in Borga (Finland), studied law and politics in London and Paris. During World War II he was deported by the Germans. Although he is holder of a passport of the Order of Malta, the French government considers him a political refugee. The title of Grand Duke, which was approriated by Kiril Vladimirovich and Vladimir Kirilovich, are not recognized by other members of the Imperial Family, who form The Romanoff Family Association. The same applies to the titles which Kiril and Vladimir granted certain relatives and friends (like Mathilde Kshessinskaya).
Nice, Southern France, December 7: Countess Elisabeth Buxhoeveden, Count Alexander's eldest daughter, dies. Her husband Vladimir Panov died on August 19, 1945, also in Nice. Their marriage didn't even last one year.
Refugees
In 1918, after the October Revolution, most Russian refugees in France were still given extended hospitality, because the bolsheviki were considered criminals. Didn't they betray their allies, by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? After World War II this attitude changed. Thousands of Soviet Russian soldiers wanted to stay in France, but in June 1945 the Soviet Russian and French government signed a treaty in which was agreed upon that all Soviet citizens who lived in France should be returned to the Soviet-Union. The KGB saw personally to it that this treaty was fulfilled. The resolution was cheered by a large part of the French population, because the communists were the allies of France. Why had these so-called refugees left their country in the first place? One year later the Cold War started, and by then everyone knew why all those thousands didn't want to return to the Soviet-Union, but then it was too late for them. Once the terror of Russian communism was common known, the Russian refugees were once more welcome, particularly the dissidents, people who resisted the Soviet regime, but didn't want to leave their country. Vladimir Bukovsky: `No, I didn't want to leave. The Jews go to Israel, the Germans go to Germany. That is their privilege; the right of every human being to go there, where he likes it best. But where can we Russians go to? There is no other Russia. And why should we have to? Why don't Brezhnev and his likes emigrate?' `Rebellions' like Bukovsky were confined in psychiatric institutions, because their behaviour was supposed to be morbid. The Soviet-Russian psychiatrist Professor Timoféeff: `Oppositional behaviour can be caused by a disease of the brains, in which the pathological process develops very gradually and slowly (sluggish advancing schizophrenia), and other symptoms (like criminal behaviour) are not being noticed. The age of twenty to thirty is characterized by an increased sensibility for conflicts, a strive for self-affirmation, rejection of values, opinions, et cetera, and that's why this behaviour is used to keep alive the myth that some young people, who in reality are suffering from schizophrenia, are unjustified admissioned in mental institutions, and that they are held there just because they think differently about certain matters than all other Russians.'
Did Tsarevich Alexis really die in 1918?
Although Radzinsky doubts that Anna Anderson was the real Anastasia, he reproduces testimonies which make it plausible that Tsarevich Alexis was alive and kicking a very long time after 1918. From a letter of psychiatrist Dr D. Kaufman from Petrozavodsk, to Edvard Radzinsky:
This will be about a man who for a time was treated in a psychiatric hospital in Petrozavodsk, where I worked on staff from September 1946 to October 1949, after graduating from the Second Leningrad Medical Institute.
(...) our patient load consisted of both civilians and prisoners, whom we were sent during those years for treatment or for legal- psychiatric examination. (...) In 1947 or 1948 in the wintertime another prisoner came to us as a patient. He was suffering from severe psychosis of the type we call hysterical psychogenic reaction. His mind was not clear, he was disorientated, and had did not understand where he was. (...) He waved his arms and tried to run off. (...) Amid incoherent utterances in a mass of other expressive exclamations the name `Beloborodov' flashed by two or three times. At first we paid no attention to it, since the name didn't mean anything to us. From his accompanying documents we found out he had been in several camps for a long time and that his psychosis had developed suddenly, when he had attempted to defend a woman (prisoner) from being beaten by a guard. He was tied up and, naturally, `worked over', although as far as I recall no visible bodily injuries were noted when he entered the hospital. His file indicated his date of birth as 1904; as for his first and last names I can't remember them exactly. The variations I recall are the following: Semyon Grigorievich Filippov or Filip Grigorievich Semyonov. After two or three days, as usually happens in these cases, the manifestation of severe psychosis had disappeared completely. The patient became calm, in full contact. Clear awareness and proper behaviour were maintained from then on for his entire stay at the hospital. His appearance, as far as I can say, was like this: a rather tall man, somewhat stout, sloping shoulders, slightly round-shouldered, a long pale face, blue or grey, slightly bulging eyes, a high forehead receding into a balding head, the remaining hair chestnut with grey. (...) So it became known to us that he was the heir to the crown, that during the hasty execution in Ekaterinburg his father had hugged him and pressed his face to him so that he wouldn't see the rifle barrels aimed at him. In my opinion, he had not even realised that something terrible was going on since the commands to fire were uttered unexpectedly, and he didn't hear the sentence read. All he remembered was the name Beloborodov. (...) Shots rang out, he was wounded in the buttocks, he lost consciousness, and he collapsed on a common heap of bodies. When he woke up he found he had been saved, someone had dragged him out of the cellar, carried him out and ministered him for a long time. (...) Gradually we began to look at him with other eyes. The persistent haematuria he suffered from found an explanation: the heir had had haemophilia. On the patient's buttock was an old cross-shaped scar. (...) Finally we realised who the patient's appearance reminded us of: the famous portraits of Nicholas I and II. (...) At that time consultants used to come to us from Leningrad for two or three months at a time. (...) Professor S.I. Gendelevich, the best psychiatric practitioner I ever met, was consulting with us then, and naturally we showed him our patient. (...) For two or three hours he `pursued' him with questions we could not have asked, since we were not conversant, but it turned out who he was. So, for example, the consultant knew the names and titles of all the members of the tsar's family, the branched network of the dynasty, all the court positions, the layout and use of every room in the Winter Palace and the country residences in the early part of the century, and so on. He even knew the accepted protocol for all the court ceremonies and rituals as well as the dates of the various name days in the tsar's family and other ceremonies marked in the Romanoff family circle. To all these questions the patient responded utterly accurately and without the slightest thought. For him it was as elementary as a primer. (...) From a few answers it was clear that he possessed wider knowledge in this sphere. His behaviour was as always: calm and dignified. Then the consultant asked the women to leave and he examined the patient below the waist, front and back. When we walked in (the patient had been dismissed), the consultant was blatantly dismayed. It turned out the patient had a cryptorchidism (one testicle had not descended), which the consultant knew had been noted in the dead heir Alexis. (...) The consultant explained the situation to us: there was a dilemma and we needed to make a joint decision - either put a diagnosis of `paranoia' in a stage of good remission with the possibility of employing the patient in his former occupations at his place of confinement, or consider the case unresolved and in need of additional observation in the hospital. In that case, however, we would be obliged to motivate our decision carefully for the organs of produratorial oversight, which would inevitably send a special investigator from Moscow. (...) Having weighed these possibilities, we considered it to the patient's good to give him a definite diagnosis of paranoia, of which we were not entirely certain, and return him to camp. (...) The patient agreed with our decision about returning to camp (naturally he was not told his diagnosis) and we parted as friends.
Radzinsky wanted to hear more sides and approached the psychiatric hospital. A letter from the deputy chief physician, Dr V.J. Kiviniemi, verified Dr Kaufman's story:
In my hands is medical history no. 64 for F.G. Semyonov, born 1904, admitted to psychiatric hospital January 14, 1949. Noted in red pencil `prisoner'. (...) The patient was released from the hospital April 22, 1949 to ITK (Corrective Labour Camp) No. 1. Semyonov was admitted to the hospital from the ITK clinic. The doctor's order describes the patient's acute psychotic condition and indicates that Semyonov kept `cursing someone named Beloborodov'. He entered the psychiatric hospital in a weakened physical condition, but without acute signs of psychosis. (...) From the moment he entered he was polite, sociable, behaved with dignity and modesty, neat. In his medical file a doctor notes that in conversation he did not conceal his origins. `His manners, tone and conviction speak to the fact that he was familiar with the life of high society before 1917.' F.G. Semyonov told how he was tutored at home, that he was the son of the former tsar, that he had been rescued during the time when the family perished, was taken to Leningrad, where he lived for a certain period, served in the Red Army as a cavalryman, studied at an economics institute (evidently in Baku), after graduating worked as an economist in Central Asia, was married, his wife's name was Asya, and then said that Beloborodov knew his secret and was blackmailing him. (...) In February 1949 he was examined by a psychiatrist from Leningrad, Gendelevich, to whom Semyonov declared that he had nothing to gain from approriating someone else's name, that he was not expecting any privileges, since he understood that various anti-Soviet elements might gather around his name and so as not to cause any trouble he was always prepared to leave this life. In April 1949 Semyonov underwent a forensic psychiatric examination and was declared emotionally ill and in need of placement in an Internal Affairs Ministry psychiatric hospital. This last must be regarded as a humanitarian act towards Semyonov for that time, since there is a difference between a camp and a hospital. Semyonov himself regarded it positively.
A short while later Radzinsky received a telephone call from an old man, a former prisoner, who knew the mysterious `Semyonov'. He told that all the prisoners called him `the Tsar's son', and they all believed it absolutely. One thing is remarkable: the name of Beloborodov. If this Alexis was just an imposter, who only had learned all the facts by heart, then something doesn't quite fit. For a long time it was common knowledge who took part in the murder of the Romanoffs: Yurovsky, Medvedev, Nikulin, Ermakov and some lower Cheka agents. Until the end of their lives they boasted about having executed the Romanoffs. But Beloborodov wasn't one of them! When Semyonov was an imposter, he would have stuck to the known `facts' of those days, and he would have mentioned Yurovsky, Medvedev, Nikulin or Ermakov. But that's not what he did. Nobody knew why he cursed Alexander Beloborodov when he was under severe pressure, because in those years nobody could know that Beloborodov had been part of the execution! It was a top secret. Summers and Mangold have a statement from Poul Ree, who in 1918 was the Danish vice-consul in the city of Perm. After Ekaterinburg had fallen into the hands of the Whites, the Red commanders withdrew to Perm. Ree stated that he spoke to `one of the men who sentenced the tsar to death'. After this conversation Ree was convinced that the tsar was shot after he got out of the car of the `regional commissionary'. And that was Beloborodov. In July 1918 the Pravda wrote, `On the morning of July 16 the ex-tsar was transferred from his prison to a parade ground outside of the city of Ekaterinburg, where ten soldiers of the Red Guard were waiting for him. The chairman of the Soviet read the death sentence, after which the ex-tsar asked permission to say a few last words to his wife and children before he was executed. This request was turned down. Without any resistance and completely poised the tsar stood in front of the firing squad; the execution was carried out. His body was taken away by car.' Is it possible that the Pravda told the truth this time? If so, then the murder didn't take place in the House of Ipatiev at all, and then the story of Poul Ree makes sence. Moreover this explains why Alexis, who adored his father, screamed `Beloborodov!' Was Filip Grigorievich Semyonov Tsarevich Alexis Nikolaevich Romanoff? I am inclined to fully endorse this, but I have to admit that I'm a hopeless romantic.
1949 Munich, Germany: The DP Camp Schleissheim has become a real town. Thanks to donations out of America there are schools, a hospital, a theatre, et cetera.
A friend of Vladimir Masalitinov, who has served with him in the White Army, and lives in Sao Paulo, sends them an affidavit and Tatiana Nikolaevna, her husband and her brother move to Brazil, where Vladimir is going to work in a large Brazilian company, binding books of the company's files.
The Synod of the Russian-Orthodox Church Outside of Russia moves from Munich to New York.
December 17: Princess Vera Meshchersky, who founded the Russian House in Saint-Geneviève-des-Bois, and wielded the sceptre there until she became ill a few weeks ago, dies.
1950 All Russian refugees want to leave Germany as soon as possible. My uncle Alexander Ivanov and his wife decide to meet the first consul who comes to `invite' emigrants to his country, and this consul just happens to be the Brazilian one; they're accepted.
1951 Paris, February 8: I am born.
1952 Prince Serge Mikhaïlovich Obolensky (1906-1952), my father, is murdered in a Moscow prison, because my mother, Princess Marina Vladimirovna Obolensky, née Ivanova (1924-1952), has managed to escape to France. A couple of months later she dies in a car accident in the Champs élysées in Paris, in front of the Café Fouquets. Her brother, Nikolai Ivanov, a Russian painter who lives in Paris, takes care of me.
Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya starts to worked with the Bolshoy-opera.
Oleg Alexandrovich Kerensky, Alexander's son, has become a very meritorious motorway engineer, who is mentioned in the Dictionary of National Biography. After Oxford Alexander's grandson, Oleg Olegovich Kerensky, joins the BBC Worldservice, to combine his political interests with his second love, journalism. The need to conceal his homosexuality makes his life miserable, and that's why he decides to abandon his political ambitions. Journalism offers a happier life.
1953 January 15: The `Physicians' Conspiracy'. Start of full-scale anti-Semitic purges in the Soviet Union.
Moscow, March 6: Josif Stalin dies.
Paris, November 3: The writer Ivan Bunin dies in the arms of his wife Vera, in his apartment on the corner of Rue Jacques-Offenbach (nr.1) and Rue des Bauches. He lived there since 1922.
1954 Anna Frolov-Davidoff, General Davidoff's wife, dies in the United States. Her son Serge Davidoff has her urn added in the columbarium of the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, but he forgets to renew the five-yearly contract, so in 1960 her ashes are scattered into a nameless grave.
1955 Paris, February 2: Grand Duke Gavril Constantinovich Romanoff (1887-1955) dies. He was a great- grandson of Nicholas I and Major of the Imperial Guard Regiment of Hussars. In 1939 Grand Duke Vladimir Kirilovich granted him the title of `Grand Duke'. His brothers Ivan, Constantin and George were murdered in a mine, together with Elisabeth Feodorovna, while his brother Dmitri died a couple of months later in the Peter and Paul Fortress. On the way from his cell to the place of execution Dmitri kept saying, `Oche! Prosti jim, ibo nye znayut, chto dyelayut.' (Father, forgive them, because they know not what they're doing.)
Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya meets the cellist Mstislav (Slava) Rostropovich. He is a friend of Prokofyev. My uncle Alexander Ivanov and his wife live in Brazil. Their daughter Irma Ivanova is born. Her godmother is Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov.
1956 Moscow, February 26: During the 20st Congress of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev criticizes Josif Stalin. He says that Stalin deported entire peoples from their motherland, and that he has the blood of millions of Soviet citizens on his hands. About 30 members of the Congress faint; some even become a heart-attack. Khrushchev himself weeps.
The cellist Mstislav (Slava) Rostropovich goes for the first time on tour through England. His wife Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya stays at home because she is pregnant. March 18: their daughter Olga is born, in the Pirogov hospital in Moscow. Slava once more goes on tour, this time to America, and when he comes back, he tells her all about cultural life in the United States. Galina can't believe that almost every American family has a car, and sometimes even two, and that there are TV sets with dozens of channels in every hotel room.
Tokyo, September 1: Count Theodor Buxhoeveden, Count Alexander's first son out of his second marriage, who is now working as an engineer for the UNO, marries Akiko Sasaoka.
New York, September 10: Dowager-Countess Rosine-Marie Buxhoeveden, née Vidal, Theodor's mother, marries the private teacher Hans Kessler (1899-).
New York, September 17: Count Anatol (Alec) Buxhoeveden, Count Alexander's eldest son, divorces his wife, Countess Vera Buxhoeveden, née Illarionov.
November 4: Soviet troops occupy Budapest, to crush the opposition against the communist regime.
1957 Oleg Olegovich Kerensky becomes a dance critic at the Daily Mail.
1958 June 22: Slava and Galina have a second daughter: Elena.
August: Nikolai Ivanov, my uncle, and I move from Paris to Amsterdam.
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Het Binnenhof of September 18, 1958:
Tomorrow morning at 11.30 the former chargé d'affaires of the Imperial Russia in The Hague, Mr. P. Poustochkine, who passed away last Tuesday in the age of 72 years, is burried in the General Cemetery `Westduin' in Loosduinen.
Mr. Poustochkine was born in Napels in 1886, where his father was Consul-General of the Russian Empire. Just like his father he went into diplomatic service. His first office was Vice-Consul on the isle of Crete, from 1910 to 1912. In 1913 he came to the Netherlands, as Secretary of the Russian Imperial legation in The Hague. After the Revolution in Russia, as the Dutch government still not recognized the Soviet regime, Mr Poustochkine became chargé d'affaires, charged with the liquidation of the affairs of the former Imperial legation. He held this office from about 1920, until the German occupation in May 1940 closed the legation down. Mr Poustochkine retired after World War II, when the Soviet government was recognized by our country.
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Stockholm, October 25: The Soviet-Russian writer Boris L. Pasternak is nominated for the Nobel Literature prize.
Moscow, October 29: Pasternak refuses the Nobel prize and writes a letter to Khrushchev, in which he begs him not to ban him from the Soviet Union.
1959 New York, April 21: Count Anatol (Alec) Buxhoeveden marries Miss Roberta (Bobby) Montague Rose (1907). Miss Rose was born in London, as a daughter of the banker Archibald Adolph Rose and Francis Lake Montague. She is the widow of publisher Thomas Leaman (1904-1951), whom she married in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on January 3, 1933.
Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya goes to the United States, on tour with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra. On December 31 she arrives in New York.
1960 Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna Romanoff (1875-1960) dies. She was the daughter of Maria Feodorovna and the sister of Nicholas II. In 1919 she escaped from Russia with the Marlborough. In summer she and her husband Alexander (Sandro) Mikhaïlovich Romanoff lived in a palace in Hampton Court, London, which belongs to the English Royal Family, and in winter they lived in Southern France, in the village of Roquebrune-Cap Martin, where both of them were burried.
Grand Duke Olga Alexandrovna Romanoff (1882-1960) dies. She was the daughter of Maria Feodorovna and sister of Nicholas II. First she married Prince Peter (Petia) Alexandrovich von Oldenburg (1868- 1924), and later Nicholas Kulikovsky (1881-1958). Until 1948 she led a secluded life in Danmark. After that she left for Canada, where she lived for years in a small farmhouse near Toronto. Her neighbours were rather surprised when she was invited for lunch with Queen Elisabeth and Prince Philip in 1959, aboard the Royal yacht Britannia. A couple of months ago, at the age of 78, she moved in with a Russian couple, who lived above a hairdresser's shop in a poor quarter of Toronto. There she died.
Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov's husband Vladimir dies in Brazil. Her sister, who lives in the United States, sends an affidavit to Tatiana and her brother, and they join their sister in New York, where Tatiana finds work as a textile designer.
Mstislav Rostropovich is appointed professor of violoncello in the conservatories of Leningrad and Moscow.
1961 The Russian Lyceum, which was founded by the Society for Assistance to Children of Russian Emigrants, has closed down. From 1921 till 1928 the lyceum resided on the address 7 Rue du Docteur-Blanche, Paris. The rectress was Maria Maklakov, the Russian Ambassador's wife. In 1926 the lyceum had 228 pupils, and in 1928 it moved to Boulogne-Bilancourt (6 Boulevard d'Auteil), in which building also was put up the `Union of Zemstvo Members Outside of Russia'.
Paris, Airport Le Bourget, June 16, 9 a.m.: The Kirov Ballet is waiting for the plane from London, which will take them back to Moscow. Pierre Lacotte waits for the young dancer Rudolf Nureyev, to say goodbye, but Nureyev hasn't arrived yet. The place is full of KGB-agents and officials of the Russian Embassy in Paris. Clara Saint enters the airport and walks directly towards Lacotte. She whispers in his ear, `If you see Rudolf, tell him to throw himself into the arms of the man behind me. He's a policeman.' 9.20 a.m.: Rudolf Nureyev enters the airport, accompanied by KGB-agents. Lacotte walks towards him. One of the agents says, `Sorry, we have no time to loose,' but that doesn't stop Lacotte to take Rudolf in his arms. He says, `Rudolf, it's time for us to say goodbye,' and whispers Clara Saint's message in the dancer's ear. Then he says, `Don't forget to say goodbye to Clara.' Without hesitating Rudolf runs towards the man behind Clara, throws himself in his arms, and shouts, `I want to be free!' Immediately the two men are surrounded by other policemen in civilian clothes. Rudolf once more shouts, `I want to be free!' The policemen take him away, Clara Saint and Pierre Lacotte follow them, leaving the KGB- agents behind dumbfounded. Rudolf Nureyev has defected to the West.
Aleksandr Feodorovich Kerensky and Robert Paul Browder publish their book The Russian Provisional Government, 1917: documents.
1962 Noroton, Connecticut, September 29: Countess Catherine Geneviève Buxhoeveden, Count Alexander's second daughter out of his second marriage, marries the author, composer and parapsychologist Hans Holzer, from Vienna, Austria. Countess Catherine Geneviève is a well known painter.
In 1961 Igor Strawinsky was officially invited to the Soviet-Union, but he hesitates a long time before he accepts the invitation. At the end of 1962 Strawinsky sets foot on native soil. He is welcomed by Nikita Khrushchev and gives concerts in Leningrad and Moscow. Dmitri Shostakovich, `Strawinsky looked quite foreign when he visited us. (...) The invitation of Strawinsky had a highly political background. The top had decided to make Strawinsky National Composer Number One, but Strawinsky didn't want to play the game. He hadn't forgotten that they had called him a ``lackey of American imperialism'' and ``bootlicker of the Roman-Catholic Church''. He didn't make the same mistake as Prokofyev, who ended like the chicken in the soup.'
1963 Mstislav Rostropovich signs a contract as a solo performer with the English Chamber Orchestra. He keeps living in the Soviet Union. Jack Brymer writes about him, `Rostropovich is a fantastic cellist, who looks like an office clerk, but plays like an angel.'
André Alexeevich Amalrik is expelled from the university of Moscow, because of his `non-confor- mistic' thesis about Rurik in Kievian Russia.
Oleg Kerensky, Alexander's grandson, who works for the BBC Worldservice, becomes deputy editor of The Listener.
My uncle Nikolai and I attend the funeral of Tristan Tzara, who used to visit us.
1964 Moscow, October 15: Nikita Khrushchev has to resign his office. He is succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev.
1965 André Amalrik is bannished to Siberia, where he will have to stay until 1968. There he writes his book Undesired trip to Siberia and Will the Soviet-Union last till 1984?.
Aleksandr Feodorovich Kerensky publishes his book Russia and history's turning point.
1967 Uncle Nikolai and I return to Paris to attend the funeral of Ossip Zadkine. When I was a little kid and we were living in Paris, Mr. Zadkine worked nearby, in Rue de la Grande Chaumière, where he taught his students how to sculpture, and where I admired the most beautiful girls in the world, who came to model for his class - naked! His studio was in Rue Delambre, and it was a mess. Mr. Zadkine once told me that he could use a guy like me. True, my uncle's studio was always tidy. I loved it when the place was clean, when his six huge identical easels were standing next to each other in line, ready for action, and when the brushes were standing clean and dry in vegetable tins, cat's tongues with cat's tongues, stipplers with stipplers, and pencils with pencils. My uncle was proud of me.
1968 January: I move from Amsterdam to Paris, to study in the école des Beaux Arts. My uncle Paul Obolensky invites me to live with him and his wife Jacqueline.
May: Students organize demonstrations in the French capital. My girlfriend Marie-Claire, also a student, and I were there.
May 3: The students occupy the Sorbonne.
May 6: More than four hundred people are wounded in a struggle with the police.
May 11: Fierce fights between the students and the police; we are in the middle of it, on Place St. Michel. Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Jean-Paul Sartre hold speeches in the Sorbonne. We want De Gaulle to step down.
May 13: We occupy the Odéon Theatre.
May 22: New fights. Daniel Cohn-Bendit isn't allowed to return to France, after his return from Germany. All over Europe students follow our example. June: The state of emergency was proclaimed in Berkeley, California. In France we are called `les enragés' (the wild ones). We protest against `bourgeois' society, the American actions in Vietnam, the military regime in Greece and General Franco's dictatorship in Spain. We, the students, demand more (sexual and personal) freedom and modern education, and we challenge the legitimacy of the authorities' power. The professors express their solidarity with us.
August 28: Marie-Claire's and my son is born. We call him Dimitri. I'm 17 and not at all ready for fatherhood. Marie-Claire understands and returns to her parents in Vichy. I leave for Hamburg, Germany, to stay with my uncle Theodore Ivanov.
Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov retires, and moves to Santa Barbara, California.
Czechoslowakia, August 21: The Red Army occupies Prague, to crush the so-called Prague Spring. The Czechoslowakian leaders of this progressive movement are arrested and deported to the Ukrain.
Maurice Ashley, the editor of the BBC program The Listener, retires and Oleg Kerensky, the deputy editor, does not get the editorship. He leaves the BBC to become a freelance with the New Statesman. The rest of his life he will write about his chief interests, the performing arts: above all ballet, but also opera, plays, musicals and concerts. As a dance critic Oleg works for several newspapers. When his father leaves his mother, Nathalie Bely, Oleg remains closer to her. Oleg's great virtue as a reviewer is his ability to communicate his enthousiasm and enjoyment.
September: My friend Mike, a street artist from Santa Barbara, and I are innocently locked up in a prison in Duesseldorf-Derendorf, Germany. Three months later there's a trial, after which we are released immediately. I'm going to live with my uncle Michael Obolensky and his wife Vera, in their summer residence in Forio d'Ischia, Italy.
1969 April 28: President De Gaulle resigns his post.
The Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who stayed in Russian hard labour camps for many years, has been thrown out of the Writers Union.
Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya tours with the Bolshoy Theatre through Western Europe and the United States. It will be the last time she's permitted to perform in the United States.
December 12: Jack McPherson, one of my uncle Alexis's `associates', takes me from the isle of Ischia to New York. I can't do anything against it, because I'm still a minor and he is my guardian. Moreover, this former intelligence officer he's made me an American citizen, also against my will.
1970 Grand Duchess Irina Alexandrovna Romanoff (1895-1970) dies. She was the daughter of Xenia Alexandrovna and Alexander (Sandro) Mikhaïlovich Romanoff, and married to Prince Felix Yussupov. They mainly lived in Paris, where their generosity towards other Russian refugees became legendary.
Oleg Olegovich Kerensky publishes his lively and well informed book Ballet Scene, which is published in the United States under the title The world of ballet, supplemented by two new chapters and further references to American ballet.
The parents of my niece Irma Ivanova's pass away in Brazil. Irma emigrates to the United States, where she finds a job in New York as a bilingual executive secretary.
The Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn becomes the Nobel Literature prize.
The historian and writer André Alexeevich Amalrik is convicted once more, on account of the fact that he wrote two critical books about the Soviet Union, and once more he will have to spend three years in prison.
Jerusalem: Count Alexander Alexandrovich Buxhoeveden, Count Alexander's second son out of his second marriagewho was a lay brother in the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York, for seven years, before he last year went to Jerusalem with father Anthony von Grabbe, is forced to return to New York, due to a terrible accident.
Aleksandr Feodorovich Kerensky, former Prime Minister of Russia, dies.
1971 April 6: Igor Strawinsky dies in New York. His mortal remains are taken to Venice, Italy, where Strawinsky is burried in the cemetery San Michele.
Oleg Olegovich Kerensky becomes the ballet critic of the International Herald Tribune.
1972 October: Igor Sikorsky dies at the age of 84, knowing that his invention, the helicopter, already has saved more than a million people's lives. He is burried in Connecticut, near the spot where his dream of vertical flying came through.
Igor Sikorsky retired in 1957, but he kept designing helicopters. His aim was improving the lifting capacity of the helicopter. He designed the S-60 and the S-64 (Skycrane). Until 1972 Sikorsky worked as an advisor for the United Aircraft Company, but the Skycrane, with a lifting capacity of ten tons, was the last large project that he worked on.
1973 Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya and her husband Mstislav (Slava) Rostropovich aren't allowed to leave the Soviet-Union, because of the fact that they openly supported their friend Alexander Solzhenitsyn. They also aren't allowed to show their faces in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Oleg Kerensky has published several books about the ballet and the theatre. This year he publishes another biography: Anna Pavlova, his most important book, which shows that he is capable of patient research.
1974 February 13: Alexander Solzhenitsyn is bannished from the Soviet Union, because of his book The Gulag Archipelago. After arriving on the airport of Frankfurt, Germany, where he is welcomed by the German writer Heinrich Boell, he leaves for Switzerland.
When the boycott of Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich increases, Slava writes a letter to Brezhnev, in which he asks permission for the whole family to go abroad for two years. The state machinery works remarkably fast this time, but it would have ended very badly, hadn't Senator Kennedy and Leonard Bernstein intervened. After Brezhnev gives his permission, Slava leaves immediately. He isn't allowed to take anything with him. Galina and the children leave some weeks later, in July. Galina, `We were in Sheremetyevo Airport. Someone opened a bottle of champagne. ``Galina Pavlovna, one for the road! Come back as soon as you can! We can't miss you!'' I see the sad faces of my fans. Time to leave... Passport control. If they only let me go! ``Go on.'' Thank God! Faster! Faster! We're in the aeroplane. O my God, why doesn't it move? I know they're coming to get us. I can't stand it anymore. I close my eyes and count the seconds, the minutes... Finally the doors are closing. No, it is still to early to cheer, they can easely open the doors and arrest us. But now we're moving to the runway. My heart beats wildly. The plane goes faster and finally we're in the air. Tears come to my eyes.'
1976 July 15: The historian and writer André Alexeevich Amalrik (37) `emigrates' to the West, together with his wife Gyuzel, who is also bannished from the Soviet Union. They are welcomed in Amsterdam by a crowd of sympathizers.
December 9: The Soviet-Russian scientist André Sakharov becomes the Nobel Peace prize. The Soviet Union doesn't allow him to leave the country, so Sakharov's wife Elena Bonner accepts the prize in the name of her husband. The official Soviet press calls Sakharov an `anti-patriot' and a `laboratory rat'.
1977 Mstislav Rostropovich is appointed artistic director of the English Aldeburgh Festival.
Oleg Olegovich Kerensky publishes his The New British Drama; fourteen playwrights since Osborne and Pinter, a study of postwar British playwrights. He also contributes to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
1978 Rotterdam, Holland, January 3: Gynaecologist Iwan Poustochkine, who rocked the cradle of jazz music in Holland, together with his brother Toto, dies. From Jazz/Press no. 48 of February 1, 1978:
In memoriam: Iwan Poustochkine. Iwan Poustochkine was one of the pioneers of Dutch jazz music. In the thirties, when Holland was introduced to the new music of the Northern American negroes, many people found it barbarian and thought it would blow over. Iwan Poustochkine, at the time a medical student and stimulated by his brother Toto Poustochkine, formed an orchestra called `Swing Papa's'. That was the beginning of a jazz tradition in The Hague, the city which until long afterwards remained the Dutch center of many jazz activities.'
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Alexander Solzhenitsyn settles down in the United States.
Oleg Kerensky's parents have passed away in London. Oleg moves to an apartment in Greenwich Village, New York, where he finds the life both congenial and economical. He keeps his British nationality and supplements his income with writing for British papers and magazines, including The Times and The Stage.
The Izvestia of March 16 states that Galina Pavlova Vishnevskaya and Mstislav Rostropovich lost their citizenship of the Soviet-Union by an ukase of the Supreme Soviet.
Moscow, July 13: The Soviet authorities send three Russian dissidents to jail. Anatoli Shtsharan- sky: 13 years; Alexander Ginsburg: 8 years; Viktoras Piatkus: 15 years. All they want is that the Soviet Union complies with the Helsinki Agreement. By these punishments the Soviet regime hopes to discourage the dissenters movement.
1979 Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, the founder of the Tolstoy Foundation in New York, dies, and is burried in the Russian cemetery of Spring Valley, New York.
Sonia Delaunay, née Terk (Gorodishche 1885 - Paris 1979) dies in Paris. She was a painter and decorator, who graduated from the academy of arts of St. Petersburg in 1905, and settled down in France in 1910. At first Sonia was influenced by Gauguin. She designed textile fabrics, décors and costumes for Diaghilev, illustrated work of Apollinaire, and has contributed much to the development of the abstract art after 1945. She was married to the painter Robert Delaunay (1885-1941), who became famous by his development of a new, abstracting cubist style, which was characterized by the turnover of colors and iridescence, as a result of which depth and movement were created (orphism).
1980 Moscow, July 19: Boycott of the 22nd Olympic Summer Games in Moscow, due to the Soviet-Russian occupation of Afghanistan.
Tatiana Metternich (1914-), a daughter of Prince Ilarion (Lari) Vasilchikov and Princess Lydia (Dinka) Viatzemsky, publishes the diaries of her mother.
Thursday, August 21: a message in the society column of The Paris Post-Intelligencer, a Paris, Tennessee newspaper:
Miss Porter Weds In New York City. Announcement has been received here of the marriage in New York City of Miss Emy Louise Porter and Alexander Buxhoeveden at the Russian-Orthodox Cathedral of the Protection of the Holy Virgin on Aug. 12, Saint Alexander Nevsky Day. The Rev. Benedict DeSocio officiated with the exchange of rings and the traditional double crown wedding ceremony of the Orthodox Church. Bible reading and prayers were in both English and Russian. A full a capella Russian choir accompanied the service, the cathedral being filled with lighted candles, vigil lamps and icons in accordance with the Eastern rites. Miss Porter chose a 96-year-old wedding ring from Paris inscribed with the initials M.B. and the year 1884, which had belonged to Myrtle Beattles, mother of the late Mary Farabough Blakemore of Paris and San Francisco.
The bride is the daughter of the late Will Burgess Porter and Beulah Dumas Porter, and the granddaughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Don Dumas Sr. and Dr. and Mrs. Felix F. Porter, pioneer families of Henry County. Mr. Buxhoeveden, a native of Nice, France, is the son of the late Count Alexander Buxhoeveden of St. Petersburg (Leningrad) Russia.
After her marriage to Alexander Emy-Louise is baptized a Russian-Orthodox, after which her saint's name is Maria. Like most descendants of Russian refugees Alexander doesn't have any pictures, documents or objects of the Russian period of his ancestors. The only things Count Alexander and Countess Maria have of the Buxhoeveden heirlooms are a plate on their wall, one of a set that Catharina the Great gave to an ancestor, and a tiny icon of Alexander Nevsky. They live near Washington Square Park, New York City, in a neighborhood which especially in summer has a Parisian atmosphere. I am proud to be able to say that the Count and Countess Buxhoeveden belong to my best and dearest friends.
1981 Tsar Nicholas II, Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna, their five children and the Tsaritsa's sister Elisabeth Feodorovna are canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The Moscow patriarchate utters sharp protests.
Oleg Olegovich Kerensky publishes The Guinness Guide to Ballet, a popular exposition of the dance world.
1982 Moscow, November 10: Leonid Brezhnev dies. He is succeeded by Yuri Andropov (68), who headed the KGB for fifteen years.
1983 Tuesday, May 3: George Balanchine, who wrote 149 ballets, of which 27 to the music of Igor Strawinsky, died on Saturday April 30, at 4 p.m.. Today a memorial service was held in the Russian-Orthodox Cathedral `Our Lady of the Sign' in New York, on the corner of Park Avenue and East 93rd Street. George Balanchine is burried in Sag Harbor, Long Island. His widow and all his ex-wives were present to throw white roses into the grave: Tamara Geva, Alexandra Danilova, Maria Tallchief, Tanaquil Le Clerq, Allgra Kent, Suzanne Farrell, Karin von Aroldingen and Natalie Molostwoff. Balanchine's friends, the piano players Robert Fizdale and Arthur Gold, who live near the cemetery, prepared a traditional `Balanchine-lunch' for the mourning, with caviar, vodka, smoked ham and toast.
Oleg Olegovich Kerensky is delighted to play the role of his grandfather Alexander in the film Reds, next to Jerzy Kosinski, Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty, who also directed and produced the film.
1984 Moscow, February 9: Yuri Andropov dies. He is succeeded by Constantin Chernenko (72).
Charlottesville, February 12: Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanoff dies. (I own three encyclopaedias. All three of them say, `Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, 1901-1984.' After having read James Blair Lovell's beautiful book Anastasia, the lost daughter of the Tsar I am absolutely convinced: Anna Anderson (1901-1984) was Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova (1901-1984).)
1985 March: Chernenko dies and is succeeded by Michael Gorbachev. Start of the perestroyka.
1986 February 8: My uncle Prince Alexis Alexeevich Obolensky (1914-1986), also known as `Mr. Backgam- mon', dies. He was married three times. In 1939 he married Jane Wheeler (1914-) from New Orleans, in 1952 Catherine Pearce (1919-) from Memphis Tennessee and in 1966 Jaqueline Stedman (1939-) from New York, whom he divorced in 1971. Since then he was looking for a fourth spouse. Tall, gallant and gaunt `Obi' was the last of the great Russian raconteurs and a dashing sportsman. His life style made him the enfant terrible of the Russian high-society in Manhattan. In the society columns of the New York press he was called a playboy, a professional gambler and a professed woman chaser, and the last years of his life he was living in a bachelor flat off Fifth Avenue. He didn't make a secret of the fact that he was an adventurer. `My father, Alexis Obolensky, was a fine basso profundo, who sang with Nelly Melba all over the world. Right after our escape from St. Petersburg in 1917 my father earned money by giving concerts in Constantinopel and other places in Turkey, where a lot of White Russians were waiting for the revolution to blow over. Our Turkish gardener has taught me how to play backgammon. The backgammon developed by itself. There had always been a certain number of people who played in small tournaments, for one dollar a point, but when gambling started in the Bahamas in 1964 a friend with a new hotel offered me $ 10,000 to gather a jet-set backgammon crowd, and fly them down for the opening. I lined up a tournament, and though the rest of the people in the hotel looked at us as if we were from Mars with all those checkerboards, that is how big backgammon in the Western hemisphere was born. The whole thing snowballed from there. We organized a backgammon association, we put out a newspaper, and I wrote a book teaching the five-thousand-year-old game; it sold 800,000 copies, with royalties still coming in.' The children from his first marriage are: Anna (1939-), who runs a public relations-firm in Palm Beach, Florida, and divorced from her first husband, Antonio Piedrabuena, in 1970, after which she married the concert piano player Christopher Czaya Sager (1941-); Alexis (1944-), real estate broker in Aspen, Colorado; Maria (1946-1986), who was married to the London hotel-owner Anthony Underwood.
Although Serge and Michael Daniloff settled down in the United States and even became American citizens, they never thought of themselves as Americans. Michael Daniloff dies in 1986. His ashes are scattered by Nicholas Daniloff, Serge's son.
August 30: Nicholas Daniloff, since 1981 correspondent of the U.S. News and World Report in Moscow, is arrested by the KGB, on suspicion of espionage.
September 13: After two weeks of imprisonment and interrogation in the Lefortovo prison, Nicholas Daniloff is deported from the country, because the KGB can't prove anything. The misery started when a KGB agent asked him, `Are you a relative of General Yuri Daniloff?' and Nicholas answered, `I am his grandson.' Michael Sergeevich Gorbachev has been General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet- Union for more than a year, and the Soviet-Union already is considered a civilized country.
After been married for 10 years Grand Duchess and claimant to the throne Maria Vladimirovna Romanoff (23-12-1953 -), the daughter of Vladimir Kirilovich, divorces Prince Franz-Wilhelm of Prussia (1943-), who was converted to Russian-Orthodoxy and adopted the name of Michael Pavlovich. An ukase of Vladimir Kirilovich granted his son in law and his descendants the title of Grand Duke and the last name of Romanoff. Maria Vladimirovna grew up in Madrid and studied for three years Russian, French and Spanish in the university of Oxford. The ecclesiastical marriage was celebrated in the Russian-Orthodox church in Madrid, and attended by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophie of Spain. Juan Carlos is a first cousin of Maria Vladimirovna, while Queen Sophie is a first cousin of Michael Pavlovich. In 1981 their son (at present Tsarevich) Grigori Mikhaïlovich Romanoff was born.
Film director André Tarkovsky (Zavroe 1932 - Paris 1986) dies in Paris. Tarkovsky studied under Michael Romm in the film academy of Moscow, and made his first appearance in 1962, with the feature film Ivan's Youth, for which he was awarded the Golden Lion on the Venice film festival. Abroad he became especially famous by his film Solaris (1971). In Russia he wasn't appreciated, in view of his social and political criticism on the Soviet system. During the shooting of his last film, Le sacrifice, Tarkovsky already suffered from an uncurable type of cancer. His father, the poet Arseni Tarkovsky, said, `Don't be afraid, my boy, death doesn't exist. Fear for death does exist though, and that fear is horrifying. (...) but everything changes, and one fine day we will even be extricated from fear for death.'
Chernobyl, April 26, 01.23 a.m.: The reactor of the nuclear plant explodes.
Moscow, May 15: President Michael Gorbachev informs his people and the rest of the world about the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl.
1987 At first Count Alexander and Countess Maria Buxhoeveden mingled with other Russian aristocrats in New York, but since some years this relationship is watered down. I very well understand the reasons for this; the modesty, the unpretentiousness, the helpfulness and the cordiality of the Buxhoevedens is very un-American. Most Russian aristocrats in New York belong to the jetset of Manhattan - millionairs and real snobs, who think that Noblesse Oblige means, `Nobility is obligatory to be hoity-toity'. It's obvious that the Buxhoevedens don't belong in this category. I like style and class, but most people don't seem to realize that you can't judge style, class or the absence of it by ones looks, clothes or possessions. Class and style are inner things, and have nothing to do with heredity, status or ostentation.
1988 Oleg Kerensky learns that he is HIV positive and knows from now on that he will have his life cut short.
1989 Princess Ekaterina Meshcherskaya (she and her mother stayed in Russia) celebrates her 85th birthday in Moscow. (I don't know if she's still alive; all my letters to Russia and the Ukrain seem to disappear in thin air.)
Michael Ignatieff, who describes himself as `a displaced Canadian writer, married to an Englishwoman, with a house near a park in Northern London, overlooking a cluster of plane-trees,' receives the Royal Society of Literature Award for his beautiful book, The Russia Album, in which he tells about his search for his Russian origin. Michael Ignatieff is the compère and compiler of the BBC-program The Late Show.
In Russia freedom of religion is regulated by law. Russia witnesses a religious revival.
Moscow, May: The Russian weekly Ogonyok (weekly 3,200,000 copies) organizes the `Week of the Conscience', to commemorate the 98 million victims of the Stalin administration, a genocide unique in human history.
1991 Moscow, August 19: The Soviet press agency TASS announces that president Michael Gorbachev is replaced by vice president Gennadi Yanaev.
Washington, August 20: The American president George Bush refuses to recognize the new government.
Moscow, August 21: The coup d'état is over. Michael Gorbachev returns from his datcha in the Crimea.
Grand Duke Vladimir Kirilovich Romanoff, who lived many years in Madrid and later in the United States, visits Russia for the first and last time. He talks to Boris Yeltsin and Anatoli Sobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg. In Germany he presents his book Das Zarenreich, a such-and-such book about the rise and fall of the Russian Empire.
In Moscow a statue is put up to Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna Romanoff, who was murdered by the bolsheviks in 1918.
Moscow, December 8: The USSR ceases to exist. Michael Gorbachev is no longer president of the Soviet Union. The leading figure is now Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation.
1992 April: Grand Duke Vladimir Kirilovich Romanoff dies in Miami of a heart attack. He is interred in a crypt in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, where other Romanoffs found their last resting places. His daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, succeeds him as a claimant to the throne, while her son Grigori Mikhaïlovich is the new Tsarevich. The Romanoff Family Association however doesn't share this point of view.
April 4: The Moscow Patriarchate canonizes Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna Romanoff.
May 10: The Sunday Times publishes a story which says that a thorough examination shows that the remains of all five children of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra were found, and that Anna Anderson was a phoney.
September: Oleg Kerensky begins to lose his appetite. His doctor put him on AZT and his appetite problem improves. He has a melanoma skin cancer surgically removed.
November: The Saint-Nicholas Cathedral, 15 East 97th Street, New York, celebrates its 90th anniversary.
1993 Paris, January 6: Rudolf Nureyev dies of AIDS. I attend his funeral.
May: Oleg Kerensky feels ill and a second melanoma skin cancer is removed; he never recovers from this operation, as the cancer has metasticized and is all through his body. Oleg knows death is imminent.
London, July 7: In Aldermaston scientists of the Home Office state that the bones which were found in a grave near Ekaterinburg, belong to Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsaritsa and three of their four daughters. The scientists compared the DNA of the bones to the DNA of Prince Philip. His grandmother was Princess Alice Von Hessen, one of the Tsaritsa's sisters. The remains of the Tsarevich and Anastasia were not identified. One of the scientists, Dr Thompson, says that the Aldermaston laboratory possesses hairs of Anna Anderson, so her DNA can also be compared to that of Prince Philip, to make sure if she was Anastasia or not, but that he's not permitted to perform these tests. How strange...
Moscow, September 21: President Yeltsin sends the Supreme Soviet home and announces parliamentary elections on December 11 and December 12.
Moscow, September 22: The dissolved Supreme Soviet proclaims Alexander Ruchkoy president of Russia.
Moscow, October 3: Ruchkoy orders the people to capture the Moscow city hall and the Ostakino television tower.
Moscow, October 4: President Yeltsin restores the peace with the help of the army. Khasbulatov and Ruchkoy are brought to the Lefortovo prison.
New York, October 6, 3 a.m.: Oleg Olegovich Kerensky, aged 63, dies of AIDS. He is fully awake when he dies. He is cremated and his ashes are returned to his cousins in England, for internment in the family plot in Putney Vale. A memorial service is held in London. The Times publishes a three column obituary on Oleg. He loved to travel, yet he never managed to visit Russia, the homeland of his grandfather. When I met him for the first time, he didn't know anything about my Russian and aristocratic origin, and he highly blamed me for reminding him of his Russian origin. `I spent most of my life trying to escape my Russian inheritance,' he said to my astonishment. `Why?' `I'm just not interested in mixing with Russians. Never had the urge to do so.' `Can you explain what's the reason for that?' `No, I haven't got the time for it, and moreover I'm absolutely not in the mood for it.' Some weeks later we met again. I discovered that since our last meeting a strange thing had happened, which I since witnessed with many other descendants of Russian refugees: a sudden interest in their Russian origin, as if I had awoken something in them. This time Oleg was very accessible, but he still didn't want to go into my question why he always had avoided other Russians abroad. He did however tell me everything he knew about his family, and years later he helped me with my search for the `last of the Mohicans'. Some weeks before he died we met once more. `If democracy survives there, I am thinking of making my first visit to Russia before too long,' my friend said hesitating, as if he should be ashamed of this sudden interest in the country of his ancestors. In the mean time my informer `Feodor' Romanoff, who has the same age as Oleg, had told me why the Kerensky's and lots of other Russian refugees were at daggers drawn. `By many Russian refugees, particularly by the Russian nobility, Alexander Kerensky was considered the man who bartered away Russia to the bolsheviki. Of course this was absolutely unjustified, because if Lenin had not been helped by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Kerensky's Provisional Government would have founded a democratic Russia, and nobody would have had to flight. Alexander Kerensky, Oleg's grandfather, was often denigrated, particularly by Nina Berberova and her likes, and unfortunately today someone with the name of Kerensky still wouldn't be welcome in certain Russian circles. I can imagine very well why Oleg doesn't feel like justifying the fancied misbehaviour of his grandfather, and why he doesn't feel like socializing with a group of the population so ignorant and intolerant.' There was another reason, though. Oleg's cousin Stephen Kerensky told me, `We had very little contact with other Russians; my mother is English and I do not speak or read Russian with any fluency, although I'm learning. Both Oleg and a family friend, daughter of one of my father Gleb's colleagues, spoke Russian until they dropped it within weeks of going to English schools, so no serious attempt was made to teach me or my elder sister Katherine. We did celebrate our saint's days as lesser birthdays when we were children and we continue to make kulich and pashka at Easter. Oleg's parents were both Russian, and the actually resented all things Russian very much when he was a child. He wanted to be English and, even more than me, became so at Westminster, Christ Church and the BBC. However, he developed a great affection for Russia through his love of ballet and always refused to stand for the Soviet anthem at performances by their ballet companies. He also came to knowledge that much of his character stemmed from a Slavic warmth and sociability. I also felt a certain alienation from what I saw as the strangeness of Russian relations. Society in all countries demands a degree of conformity, and being called `Russian spy' at school was not exactly fun, even if it didn't last very long as a nickname. After 30 years when I considered myself to be completely English, my most direct feelings of being Russian come from my style of argument and my attitudes to friendship. We always had terrific political arguments at home, conducted with a vehemence that the English find intimidating. My father Gleb fought all his life against the prejudiced ideas of pre-revolutionary Russia, the distorted histories of 1917 that are still current and I have taken op the cudgels to some extent, because I believe quite strongly that a many ills of the 20th century derive from Lenin. However, not a few also stem from the commercialism of the USA, and that country's bizarre notions of religion, truth, decency and freedom, as ridiculed by Mark Twain, Tom Lehrer, Lenny Bruce and Frank Zappa.' Oleg considered to return to London forgood. His uncle Gleb had passed away, but his aunt Mary still lived in Rugby, just like her son Stephen. Daughter Katherine Walker lived in Farnham, Surrey. Her eldest daughter studied Russian in the university of Durham, and called herself Tanya Kerensky Walker. Daughter Elizabeth Hudson lived in Titley, Herefordshire. Knowing he was dying Oleg wanted to send me photographs of him and his grandfather, he wanted to visit Russia, and he wanted to leave New York to join his relatives in England. He didn't make it. In the last seven years he lost a large portion of his closest friends, some quite young, to AIDS, the disease that eventually struck him down as well. Before he died he completed his autobiography, but Oleg's friend, Arthur G. Lambert Jr., thinks it's unlikely that it will ever be published. That would be a pity. Oleg, I raise a glass of vodka to you, my friend, and I hope that you'll be happier up there than you ever were down here.
Moscow, October 9: Michael Gorbachev announces in the Komsomolskaya Pravda that he is willing to `set everything aside to save Russia.'
Washington, October 14: Michael Gorbachev announces in the Washington Post that he considers to be a candidate in the Russian presidential elections next year.
December 13, Black Monday: The fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky has won the elections. Zhirinovsky is an anti-Semite, a Pugachov, a man who solves international problems with bombs and national problems with cheap vodka. If Zhirinovsky really comes to power, I foresee a second Russian diaspora, because if Yeltsin can change the constitution, so can Zhirinovsky. Alexei Triumfov of Novosti Publishers in Moscow calls me: `Your Excellency, we think you're a bit pessimistic. After the collapse of communism Russia indeed has been going through a difficult time trying to find its feet again. We are sure it will pull through in the end.' I don't know. In 1917 Ekaterina Meshtsherskaya was also very assured that everything would be just fine...
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What happened to my leading characters?
Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov still lives in Santa Barbara. She's almost blind, but still very lucid. She says, `I left Russia when I was nineteen years old, and now I'm ninety-two. There are almost no survivors from the Russian White Army. I consider myself as one of the last Mohicans!' Tatiana's godchild, my niece Irma Ivanova, is out of work; she's looking for a new job. She also thinks that her godmother's voice starts to sound weaker...
New York, February: The ninety-five years old Evgenia Demidova, another last of the Mohicans, has to go to the hospital. I fear for her life, but ten days later I'm glad to hear that she's allowed to go home. Her daughter, Nathalie Vorhaus, takes care of her. She's fine now, but daughter Nathalie is also in her seventies, and every time I hear from her my heart is heavy. Evgenia, `We belong to the hundreds of thousands of nameless refugees. No nobility, no capitals, no popularity Ä just working and learning hard, in Russia, in France and afterwards in the United States. We would have liked to stay in Russia, but the repressive administration made this impossible. We have always lived our life abroad in exile; never have we become Americans; we have always longed for our native country.'
Count Alexander Buxhoeveden found a job at the World Trade Center in New York. He likes his job and doesn't see any other Russian aristocrats. Countess Maria is now recuperating at home, but in August it looked as though she was going to make a trip to see Saint Peter. I'm happy that she's feeling well again. The countess asked me, `What exactly is the feeling of the Russian spirit?' I answered, `That's a difficult question, my dear Louise, but I'll try to answer it. Perhaps the Russian spirit is a web, in which one can be caught. One thing's for sure: the Russian spirit is a cultural thing, and it cannot be inherited by blood alone. A Russian who is born in an African jungle and raised like any other African, will never know what the Russian spirit is, unless he will search for it, experience it. Michael Ignatieff's grandfather was the last Minister of Education under the Tsar. Michael was born in Canada. Count Pavel, his grandfather, died there. Michael grew up as a Canadian kid, a non-believer. Recently he came to the Ukrain, to visit the Orthodox church his great-grandfather built. At the grave of his great-grandfather, in church, (during the famine the grave was used as a butcher's block), Michael said, `Your home is where your graves are.' A few hours later he was completely overwhelmed by the beautiful Orthodox singing in the church, and that was the first time in all his life he experienced the Russian spirit. He was caught in the web, in the endless catacombs of what we call the `Russian spirit'. Mind you, I love to be there, but you have to realize you can never leave. Most important: entering the Russian spirit is a quest for the inner man or woman. You may not like what you will find there, but once confronted with it, you have to deal with it. The Russian spirit knows high mountains and deep valleys, higher and deeper than any European or American spirit. Sure, melancholy is a part of the Russian spirit, but so is joy and laughter; they keep each other in balance, like yin and yang. A Russian is inclined to let himself being dragged down by his emotions, and so am I, but what is wrong with that, if those emotions are pure and straight from the heart? In our society one can only hear too often, `Control yourself, don't get carried away.' Why not? Because this way the outer world will see the inner man? What's wrong with that? So once more: what is the Russian spirit? For you it's Alexander's photo in front of the Novodichi Convent in Moscow, but it probably wouldn't be if you hadn't been there yourself to experience it. For Michael Ignatieff it was his visit to the church of his great-grandfather in the Ukrain. For me it's my $ 1,95 icon of the Mother of God of Kazan, combined with the sound of Orthodox hymns. Whatever it is, it's a quest for the inner man. Keep searching, and you will find it.'
Olga Alexandrovna Davidoff Dax (1928-), a descendant of Vasili Lvovich Davidoff, the Decembrist, came into possession of beautiful drawings and diaries of her great-aunt Mariamna, which she turned into a beautiful book: On the Estate: Memoirs of Russia before the Revolution, London 1986.
One of the great-granddaughters of Princess Hélène Obolensky, who was brutally murdered by her own godson in 1918, is my niece Princess Nina Anna Obolensky (1961-). Nina married the American James Prudden, and is very busy, because she is writing a doctoral dissertation for her degree in Clinical Psychology. She knows very little about the history of her ancestors and regrets this. Her only direct connection to Russia was her paternal grandfather. She also knows that Prince Felix Yussupov was a cousin, but that's about all. Nina, `Just like you I know very little about my ancestors, which is sad, unfortunate, but true. The only Russian I knew was my grandfather, Prince Michael Alexeevich Obolensky, who died shortly after my birth. My father did not keep up his Russian heritage, as he did not have the opportunity to know his own father because his parents were divorced when he was a child. Everything I know, I read in history books. In really am a very American woman and grew up as a typical American girl. Perhaps the only unusual thing about me is that I have often been involved in animal rescue operations.'
Alexis Czetwertinsky, the son of Peter Czetwertinsky and the grandson of Alexis Czetwertinsky and Princess Tatiana Dolgorouky, lives and works in Paris. He's a computer expert.
Igor Sikorsky was succeeded by his son, who still is a director of the United Aircraft Company.
Nicholas Daniloff is alive and healthy. He and his wife Ruth live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Paul Ivanovich Poustochkine, the grandson of the last representative of Imperial Russia in Holland, was born in 1951. He went to law school in Rotterdam, worked as a jurist for the Dutch State Council and nowadays is a judge in The Hague. Paul may consider himself lucky, because his grandfather retained all photographs, invitations, letters and other documents, which contain a treasure of information. I'm very sure that almost every descendant of Russian emigré's is jealous of this sympathetic companion in adversity, because most refugees couldn't take anything with them, and if this was possible at all, then the large, heavy photo albums didn't have highest priority. But Paul Constantinovich Poustochkine came to Holland in 1913; the World War would only break a year later, and it would still take more than four years before the October Revolution took place. He was able to move his personal property out of Russia in peace and quiet. The Poustochkines very soon integrated in Dutch society, most likely because there wasn't a large Russian community in Holland, unlike Paris, Berlin and New York.
Michael Ignatieff, the grandson of Paul Ignatieff, the last Minister of Education under the Tsar, just finished a documentary series called `Blood and Belonging', about rising nationalism in Europe, for BBC- Wales, and he wrote a book about it.
Even today the patriarchate of Moscow refuses to recognize the Synod of the Russian-Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, while the Synod in turn does not wish to recognize the election of Patriarch Serge and his successors, nor takes any notice of the interdicts which are published by Moscow. Patriarch, Alexis II, tries to arbitrate in the dispute between Boris Jeltsin and his opponents Ruchkoy and Khasbulatov, with no effect whatsoever. There are more than 9,000 registered religious organizations in Russia, of which only a small part are Orthodox. The Russian-Orthodox Church of Russia claims the rights it had in 1917, to be able to dominate the Russian religious market as before.
The story of a survivor
Much to my surprise I learned that a cousin of mine, Prince Vladimir Nikolaevich Obolensky, was still alive and lived in Moscow. I wrote him a letter and sent him the manuscript of this book. His reaction speaks for itself:
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Moscow, Russia, 1 February 1994
Dear Prince Valerian!
I received your letter and book in the middle of January. So as you I was very glad to receive your letter and to know of your existence, and I hope you are in good health. I am very thankful Mr. Triumfov (head of foreign rights Novosti Publishers Moscow, VSO) for his help.
For an irony of fate you don't speak Russian and I don't speak English. So excuse me for my English: my wife translated your letter and now she is translating your manuscript; we acquaint with several parts of it. Your fate was very hard and cruel, and so was mine. Of course it must have been horrible for you to become an orphan at the age of one. I became an orphan when I was twelve. You are right believing that the communists killed many Obolensky's and other aristocrats. They physically murdered millions of Russians. But you underestimate the unique lineage of Obolensky; the family consists of innumerable people, who have many talents and a strong background. In emigration you can easily calculate and restore all blanks and all Obolensky's names, because they were not killed there. It's more difficult to do it in Russia, sometimes one spends all his life searching for parents and greatparents, and even then there are people who cannot find their relatives. Many of our people chose other family names to save themselves and their children from shooting and concentration camps. It was a terrible and bloody experience. Before I will tell you about myself, I'd like to inform you: today I live in Moscow. I have organized and I am head of the Council of Noble Societies `Crown'. In Moscow and the rest of Russia are many organizations of nobles, unfortunately they live and associate with each other worse than before 1917, that is frequently not friendly and even hostile. Mainly they are nobles' descendants with deformed lives and sovietic habits. But there are many good men among them. There are agents of the KGB among them too, so our life is hard and not simple.
My main profession is writer (playwright, critic) and journalist. I am a member of the editorial board of the newspaper The press of Russia. I am author of the books Russia once more in the mist and The death of Cornet Obolensky, which are published in Russia, and of many plays and a few tv films and telecasts. I am a leader of the broadcast `Russian's estates' on Radio Ostankino I. I have graduated from Moscow University and literary seminar (studio). Thank you for your efforts in searching of my background.
Presumably version number 2 written by you (2. You're a son of Prince Nikolai Alexandrovich Obolensky. Your father was born in 1916 and died in the war, between 1941 and 1945. In that case your father had two brothers (Yuri and Michael) and one sister (Olga), and in that case your grandfather Alexander and my grandfather Michael were brothers. VSO) may be right, because some documents I received after many years, from archives of the KGB, after August 1991, and also from the Prosecutor's Office of the USSR indicate this.
My grandfather Alexander Feodorovich Obolensky was shot in 1937 on sentence of the `troika' (three members) of an extraordinary committee of the former KGB. I was told that he was a prince, that he had innumerous relatives, that his sons were Nikolai and Mikhail, and his great-grandfather was the Decembrist Evgeni Petrovich Obolensky, and his mother was called Teplova, a granddaughter of the Decembrist Annenkov. I was born in 1939. My mother, Princess Zinaida Nikolaevna Obolensky, died in 1951 during the last Stalin repressions. As she told me in her family there were Princes Obolensky and they lived in Moscow near the Polytechnical Museum, near Maroseika Street. She knew three foreign languages.
In 1951, when I became an orphan, I was put in a special boarding school for children of `the people's enemies', where I stayed until 1955. It was in fact a children's concentration camp. Thanks to Nikita Khrushchev I survived and came back to Moscow. Rehabilitation of political prisoners began. But I had to start my life all over again, without family and relatives, without dwelling and a profession. I got over many difficulties and came through many circles of communist hell, before I became what I am now, having some `status' and respect in society. We live however very modestly.
My only daughter Kristina Obolensky is 14 years old. She is studying flute in the Central Musical School of the conservatoire. She is the daughter from my first marriage; I love her very much. We were in Paris twice on a festival of gifted children. I believe that God has kept us alive.
Peter Obolensky from Princeton is now in Moscow. He found me and soon we'll meet. He is 18 years old and is learning Russian in Moscow.
Our life today is a constant struggle! Russia is now going through a tragedy not less than in 1917! As for your book Russians in Exile, I think it is very interesting, especially your style. Of course I'll show your book to publishing houses; I have already spoken with one publisher. But take into consideration the fact that many publishing houses in Russia are bankrupt.
You can see the friend in me. I know all Princes Obolensky are from one progenitor - Rurik - and Saint Michael Chernigovsky.
Write me on my home address, it's on the envelope.
With sympathy, sincerely yours,
Vladimir Obolensky
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A self made man
The originally Italian lineage of Cassini was since the 17th century occupied with astronomy and the geodesy. Four successive generations of Cassini's were engaged at the Paris astronomical observatory. Other relatives settled down for good in Russia, during the administration of Peter the Great. The parents of Oleg Cassini (1917-) could only take with them a couple of suitcases, as they escaped from Russia to France, in 1920. Oleg was only three years old. After they had lived for some years in Paris, the Cassini's left for Italy. When Oleg was old enough to take care of himself, he left for America, with only 25 dollars in his pocket. At present he owns a large fashion house in New York. Among his top- models were Jacky Kennedy and Grace Kelly, with whom he was engaged to be married. Oleg Cassini was married several times, inter alia with Jean Harland. He is active as a jockey, extremely rich, and besides as a couturier he has a great reputation as the manufacturer of the Cassini perfumes, the Cassini shoes, Cassini sun-glasses and Cassini bathing suits.
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The four hundred Russian aristocrats of Manhattan
The succes story of Oleg Cassini is no exception to the rule. Prince Serge Leonidovich Ourusoff, vice- president of Morgan Guaranty Trust, `My father's first job in America was for the Washington Gaslight Company. When he became a U.S. citizen, the New York Post ran a picture of him, wearing a bow tie and carrying his tools.' Many Russian emigrants, also the most proud aristocrats, earned, at least at first, a living by working as cab drivers or waitresses, and worked their way up. Today most of them are retired bankers, lawyers, corporate executives, educators or engineers. Their aristocratic titles are only known to a few. In daily life they are `Mr. Obolensky' instead of `His Highness Prince Obolensky', `Mrs. Romanoff' instead of `Her Imperial Majesty Grand Duchess Marina Constantinovna'. Prince Serge Ourusoff, `A title is not good for business in Manhattan.' However, during the annual Petrushka-ball, the ball Blanc, and the ball of the Russian Nobility Association in America, at the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf-Astoria, in the heart of Manhattan, the Russian aristocrats put out all the stops. Professor Prince Alexis Shcherbatov, a professor of Russian language in the University of New York, `The protocol may not be as strict as it was at the Imperial court, but titles are reminders to us that our ancestors were people of consequence and that old Russia was beautiful.' Alexis Shcherbatov lives in East 81th Street and passes several hours each day as chairman of the Russian Nobility Association, on the corner of First Avenue and 53rd Street, which was founded in 1938. One of the tasks of the Russian Nobility Association is unmasking phony bluebloods. The annual subscription is only ten dollars, but the members are supposed to contribute to the fund raising parties of Russian charitative institutions.
Not everyone with the name of Romanoff is a relative of the former Russian Imperial family, and not every Romanoff stems from a noble family. The name of Romanoff is quite common in Russia, and in the Manhattan telephone directory are several Romanoffs enlisted. However, the real relatives of the last tsar have an ex-directory telephone number, to protect their privacy. Some of them have taken up their residence in a large apartment house in East 96th Street, which they call `Nevsky Prospect'. In East 95th Street is the `House of Rurik', where many Princes and Princesses Obolensky, Troubetzkoy, Wolkonsky and Shcherbatov clannishly cluster together. In the 1920s the apartments in the East Nineties were very inexpensive, thus one family called another every time a vacancy appeared, and soon the building was filled with Russians. Today the East Nineties and Carnegie Hill section of upper Manhattan are very fashionable, and the prices went through the roof.
Count Nicholas Bobrinskoy is a great-great-great-grandson of Catherina the Great; the founder of the Bobrinskoy line, her son by Prince Grigori Orlov, was half-brother to her son Tsar Paul I. His father, Count Alexei Alexandrovich Bobrinskoy, was born in 1852 and was forced to leave everything behind when he and his wife fled. The estate of his family in the Ukrain was equal in size to the state of New Hampshire, and the Bobrinskoys were extremely rich. Count Nicholas was born in 1921, in Nice, France. He went to Paris to live the starving artist life for a while, and in 1954 he came to New York, where he found a job in a factory. His wife, Countess Tatiana Nikolaevna Bobrinskoy, née Timashev, was born in Berlin. They married in the 1950s in New York, where her father, Professor Timashev, taught sociology. They started Zina Studios, a small fabric design and production firm of wallpaper and draperies, and still own and operate it in Mt. Vernon, north of the Bronx.
One day the German magazine Geo wanted photos of the exiled nobility in New York. They asked the Countess to wear her jeweled tiara for the occasion, but she told them she didn't have one. Okay then, they replied, just wear your diamand necklace. She didn't have that either. Well, at least wear some of your jeweled eardrops, they insisted. She didn't have those either, so she went to Woolworth's and purchased a pair of plastic pearl eardrops for a few dollars. The photographer assumed they were real, because she was, after all, a countess. Count Bobrinskoy is chairman and founder of the Orthodox Order of St. John (or Knights of Malta), which came to being in New York in 1973 and received the sanction and blessing of Patriarch Alexis II in November 1992, at the Orthodox cathedral in Garfield, New Jersey. The Knights (about 300 of them) help mankind suffering from any type of cataclysm no matter where in the world, regardless of their faith. They helped with the tremendous earthquake in Friuli, Italy, in 1976, and they do similar charity work, on a modest scale, for victims of natural catastrophes in Southern Italy, Armenia, Mexico and elsewhere. The Countess: `Russians are constantly writing us to ask us to write down our memories. We are already the second generation in exile. They are trying to reconstruct the historical threads that in 1917 were cut off.' What about her offspring? `We have a son and a daughter. Our daughter is married and our son is a struggling actor, off-off-off-Broadway. He's 27, and all he wants to do right now is act. He doesn't seem to have the time for the Russian renaissance. Both our children have told us, ``I am a first class American. I can become the president of the United States, and you can't.'' They are Americanized and not really interested. The Russians better hurry up, because the second generation is getting older, and the third generation knows much less. Already we don't know a lot. And there's almost nobody left after 75 years. Those that are left are so old.'
Prince Vladimir Galitzine is a banker. He was born in Belgrade, where the Yugoslavian Royal Family offered protection to Russian aristocrats who had settled there after the October Revolution. In 1945 the Galitzine's wound up in the American zone in Germany, and successively they travelled to America, on a troop ship, as part of the Displaced Persons Program. They started in a cold-water flat in Brooklyn. Prince Galitzine, `My parents were divorced, and I owe everything to my mother. She bought an old sowing machine and took in sewing. Besides that she scrubbed and did odd jobs, so I could go to Hartford, a small boarding school, where I got rid of my Brooklyn accent and won scholarships to college.'
The old struggle between the Petersburg and Moscow nobility continues in New York, with unflagging fierceness. The Petersburg aristocrats compare themselves to champagne, while they consider the Moscovite nobility home-brewed vodka. `Feodor' Romanoff, `I can tell you things about today's Russian nobility, which would make your hair stand on end.' `Like what?' `Two Russian Princesses grew up together in New York. They were school-friends. When the both of them were married for years, one of them read in a history book that there once had been a quarrel of long standing between their families. The friendship was determined instantly, and the quarrel was resumed. Finally one of them, the one who resumed the quarrel, used the almighty gossip circuit to make sure that the husband of her former friend was fired from his job. And what about the fine Russian nobleman, with high religious and social standards, who has been reviled by the Russian nobility abroad, all his life, because he didn't care for their pomp and circumstance, and who's been neglected ever since he married a woman 20 years older, in stead of 20 years younger than he?'
There is no real Russian community. Prince Galitzine, `That's impossible. We are not organized the way other countries are, like Italy or Holland. Russia isn't a country, but a continent. When you say Russia, you mean Moslems, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants, you mean Georgians, Russians, Eskimo's, Tatars, Armenians et cetera. Not to mention political conflicts and differences.'
Prince Constantin Sidamon-Eristoff, a Princeton graduate, is a leading New York lawyer with a hand in politics. In 1978 he founded the law firm `Sidamon-Eristoff, Morrison, Warren & Ecker'. Prince Eristoff is married to Anne Phipps, and tries hard to live up to the expectations of Russian nobility in a new geographical setting. `But a count without a bank account is of no account, and it's useless being a penniless prince.' When Constantin's father and his cousins Pierre and Dmitri escaped to America, neither of them spoke a word of English. However the Georgian network had already spread in the U.S. and Norman Whitehouse, who was married to Princess Tamara Bagration-Moukhransky, had placed each. Prince Eristoff's father was sent to the Huntington Tracy place to be a chauffeur, which was unfortunate, because he could only ride a horse. He was met at the station by Miss Ann Huntington Tracy, who eventually became his wife.
Prince Eristoff, `When I entried into New York politics, I found out that a name like Constantin Sidamon-Eristoff was an advantage. The Jews thought I was Jewish, the Italians thought I was Italian. Being half Protestant and half Orthodox simply means I tend to move about peacefully and unobtrusively. In any case I'm I Georgian, and nobody dislikes Georgians!'
Princess Janet Romanoff is proud of the achievements of Russians in the United States. `Russian nobility always, that is: since the end of the 19th century, walked hand in hand with intellectuals, scientists and artists. Today, over three hundred American colleges and universities offer courses in Russian studies. More than twelve important Russian periodicals are published in the United States, and there are numerous Russian organizations across the nation. World-famous Russian composers Serge Rakhmaninov, Serge Prokofyev and Igor Strawinsky became U.S. citizens, as did dancers George Balanchine, Igor Youskevich, Michael Fokine and Alexandra Danilova. And who can forget the genius of Vladimir Zworykin in electronics, of Igor Sikorsky in aeronautics, of Vladimir Nabokov in literature, of Pitrim Sorokin in sociology, of Vasili Leontief in economics, and Serge Semenenko, the innovative financier from Odessa, who became president of the First National Bank of Boston.'
In April 1939 the Tolstoy Foundation was founded by Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, the youngest daughter of the great writer Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910). With her friend Tatiana Schaufuss, she gathered a group of concerned Americans and prominent Russian expatriates. In 1941 the Tolstoy Foundation `bought' a seventy-acre farm in Spring Valley (Rockland County, New York), for the symbolical amount of one dollar. From that moment the Tolstoy Foundation made history in the field of refugee assistance. Alexandra Tolstoy died in 1979 and is burried in the Russian cemetery of Spring Valley, New York.
The headquarters of the Tolstoy Foundation are resided in New York City, in Park Avenue, from which a world wide program of aid to refugees and exiles, regardless of race, religion, ethnic background or country of origin, is coordinated. Chairman is Prince Alexis S. Troubetzkoy, who is related to the Obolenskys.
Countess Sophia Galinitchev-Koutouzov, nowadays Mrs Sophia Koutouzov Winkelhorn, was born in St. Petersburg. She can remember the first years of her exile well, `After the Revolution many of our men and women had to fend for themselves in the hardest possible way. Grand Duchesses were scrubbing floors; Grand Dukes were digging roads. Other European aristocrats were better off than we. In France was a restoration and the French still have a claimant to the throne, living peacefully on native soil. The German and Austrian aristocrats continued to have their castles and estates. The Italian King just went away, and the Italian nobility have much of the land they had for centuries. The Russian aristocrats who survived the Revolution had nothing but their own will to continue. I am desperately proud of the White Russian colony in New York, because we stuck together and we shared our bread, because our children and grandchildren maintain our heritage. At least among ourselves, we will never be the forgotten Russian Four Hundred.'
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Little Russia in New York
The Russian aristocracy is only a very small part of the total Russian population of New York. The majority of the Russian emigrants and their descendants go out every morning with their lunch-boxes, to the office or the plant. Of course their history is not less sad than the one of the aristocracy.
The first Russian emigrants wave of this century was in the early 1920s. After the October Revolution of 1917 more than a million people escaped from Russia. Many of them did not go to America directly, but stayed some years in Europe first, particularly in France. This first wave brought the Russian culture to New York. Some remains of this community can still be found between East 60th and East 96th Street, but probably not for long.
The second Russian emigrants wave arrived in the United States towards the end of the 1940s, mainly from Germany, where many of them had been in Displaced Persons camps. Especially for elderly people it was very hard to start their lives in a new country, with a completely different language. Most of them worked as maids, cleaning women and mill hands, in other words: where there was no need to speak good English. The younger generation went to school and later they worked in offices, or, if their parents could afford it, continued studying in universities, pursuing higher education. The computer field is very popular among this generation. Some Russians were welcomed with open arms by the American government, in view of certain knowledge they had of communist society, and others worked for the anti-communist radio station `The Voice of America', which broadcasted in Eastern Europe, but many had to take odd jobs. The second Russian emigrants wave mainly settled down in and Glen Cove, Long Island, which since has developed as a real Russian enclave. Besides the Cathedral of the Ascension, in Old Tappan Road, there are some smaller Russian-Orthodox churches, which have been build by the emigrants themselves. On the streets almost everyone speaks Russian, and everywhere around you can see Russian stores, people reading Russian newspapers, et cetera. Nearby, in Roslyn, is a Russian cemetery.
Recently, after everywhere in Europe the walls of the communist prison had been demolished, a lot of Russians came to the States, mainly to New York. This third Russian emigrants wave, which consists of many Russian Jews and in the mean time has grown to over 60,000 people, settled in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where they are very active. Since the third Russian emigrants wave many Russian restaurants and Russian cabarets were opened, not only in Brighton Beach, but everywhere in New York.
In the 1940s the most famous Russian restaurant of New York was The Russian Bear, but this establishment closed down some years ago. Nowadays it is the Russian Tea Room, 150 West 57th Street, beside Carnegie Hall, which is very fashionable. I don't understand why, because there's nothing Russian about the place. The prices are sky-high and the only reason to visit it, is to gaze at celebrities, if that's what you like. Another well known Russian restaurant is the Samovar, 256 West 52nd Street, which has a pleasant atmosphere, with two or three nights per week nice music and singing. Russian is the new trend and means money, because no week passes by without a new Russian restaurant being opened in Manhattan.
Russian books, magazines and newspapers are bought at Victor Kamkin's, 149 Fifth Avenue, and Russian House Ltd., 253 Fifth Avenue.
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Russian organizations in America
The Congress of Russian Americans (CRA) consists of the following Russian-American organizations: Alexander Nevsky Foundation Inc.; Alliance of Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks; American Russian Aid Association Inc.; American Russian Heritage Association; A.S. Pushkin Literary Association in America; Association of Gallipoli in U.S.A.; Association of Russian American Engineers; Association of Russian Cadets Inc.; Association of Russian Explorers; Association of Russian Imperial Naval Officers in U.S.A.; Cappella; Federated Russian Orthodox Clubs (FROC); Kharkov Institute Alumnae; Mariinsky Donskoy Institute; National Alliance of Russian Solidarists; North Shore Chapter of Congress of Russian Americans; Orthodox Action; Otrada Inc., the Society of Russian Americans; Rodina American Russian Welfare Society Inc.; ROVS; Russian American Professionals Club; Russian American Scholars in U.S.A. Theological Fund Inc.; Russian Children's Welfare Society Inc.; Russian Serbian Gymnasium Association; Ruthenia Student Corporation; School Council; Slavic American Cultural Association Inc.; St. George Pathfinders of America; St. Seraphim Foundation; The Order of Imperial Union of America and the Tolstoy Foundation.
On the corner of 86th Street and Riverside Drive is the House of Free Russia, in which several social organizations are accommodated.
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Romanoffs
Many Romanoffs in exile had children and grandchildren. Little is known about their life. For obvious reasons my informer `Feodor' Romanoff wanted to stay anonymous. He only wanted to say that he was born between 1925 and 1935, is married and lived in Brittany and the United States. A mutual friend introduced us in Paris. We met three times. The first two times he interviewed me, in stead of the other way around, while he didn't reveal anything at all. The third time he suggested not to dine in the Café de Flore, but somewhere in the Latin Quarter. On the corner of my Parisian pied-à-terre is a very nice alley with lots of small Greek restaurants, and we decided to meet in one of them.
`Why do you want me to call you ``Feodor''?' `I'm a looser, a traitor, a layabout...' As he speaks, he leans back, while he smiles nervously. `Why?' `If only because I'm talking to you?' `Thank you very much for this compliment.' `You're welcome.' `I don't get it; you travel around the world, so you can't be a complete failure.' `Businesslike perhaps not, but personally...' `What do you mean? As a Romanoff, as a Russian, as a husband, as a father?' `I am not an ideal husband and not at all an ideal father.' I hesitate to ask more questions. `Do you like retsina? I don't.' `We could share a bottle of Monte Nero.' `Right. Red wine with mutton, no problem.' `It's a disease that runs in the family.' `What is?' `My aberration.' `Which aberration?' `I love boys.' `Ah...' I study the menu. Perhaps I take icecream for dessert. Shit! I wasn't waiting for this! Should I continue the interview? Obviously he's dying to get it off his chest, but do I need this? I say, `Just like Felix Yussupov and Tchaikovsky.' I can't think of a less stupid reaction on such a short notice. `Yes, and just like Dmitri Pavlovich, Serge Alexandrovich, Constantin Constantinovich, Dmitri Constantinovich, Oleg Constantinovich and so on.' `All homosexual?' `Yes, and all decently married.' `Gee...' `Why don't you write this down?' `Because I already knew, who doesn't? Moreover I don't think it's important; it has little news value. We live in 1993, what's so special about being gay?' `Are you married?' `Yes, and I have also children, just like you.' `What would your son think if he saw his father in a New York faggot's bar?' `Why? Did that happen to you?' `Feodor' nods his head and takes a sip of wine. `So it's a family disease after all,' I blurt out, and I burst out laughing. `Feodor' nearly chokes and I'm afraid I messed things up for good. But I'm wrong. As soon as he's recovered he also starts laughing; the ice is broken, thank God the subject's off. We talk about dead and living Romanoffs, that is: he talks while I take notes. I ask him why so little about the present Romanoffs is published. `Despite the impression I have given you, most of my relatives lead an absolutely normal life; they have worked their way up in business. Now and then something is published in the gutter press, but the truth calibre of these stories is usually very low. Only few Romanoffs are keen on publicity.'
My search for other Romanoffs didn't lead to much. `Feodor' preferred not to talk about it, which I could understand. I contacted the editor of the Echos de Russie, who would try to get me in touch with `la Grande Duchesse de Russie', that is: Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Romanoff, the present claimant to the throne. The Grand Duchess promised the editor to contact me, and after nine months she responded. I was surprised that she spoke Russian so well. She told me about her visits to Russia, in English and Spanish, and we seemed to have a mutual friend, Anatoli Sobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg. I don't know if the Grand Duchess is imperial material, but she's certainly a nice lady.
Princess Vera Romanoff, daughter of Grand Duke Constantin Constantinovich Romanoff, great- granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I, died in the Russian nursery home in Spring Valley, New York.
After 1918 many Romanoffs settled down in New York. Many of them still live in a large appartement building in East 96th Street, which they call `Nevsky Prospect'.
The eldest living great-nephew of Tsar Nicholas II is Nikita Romanoff and lives in Upper East Side, New York. He is a great-grandson of Alexander III and was born in London. Prince Nikita grew up in England and in 1949 he emigrated to the United States. He was a student in the University of California in Berkeley, became a historian, and wrote biographies, like Ivan the Terrible's. He went to the Soviet Union, for research purposes, and to his surprise the Soviet government didn't put the slightest obstacle in his way, although they knew exactly who he was. Nikita's uncle, His Highness Prince Vasili Alexandrovich Romanoff, lives in California and is chairman of The Romanoff Family Association, the organization which was founded to look after the interests of the former Russian Imperial House. Princess Marina Romanoff, a second cousin of the Tsar, also lives in New York and married the well known art collector William L. Beadleston. Her niece, Ekaterina Ivanovna Romanova, whistles her way through as the Marquise Farace di Villa Foresta.
I visited Romanoffs in Paris, Berlin, London, New York, Chicago, and even in Woodside, California, but I promised not to publish anything about them. I want to keep that promise. I can only say that most of them don't speak Russian at all, and that they all are nice, hard working people.
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Obolenskys
Prince Serge Obolensky-Neledinsky-Meletzky (1890-1978) preferred to be called `Colonel Obolensky', a title he earned as a parachutist in the U.S. Army during World War II. In 1916 he married Princess Catharina Yuryevsky (1878-1959), a concert singer, in Yalta. In 1924 he married Alice Astor (1902-1956), and although they divorced in 1932, he remained a close friend of her brother Vincent, who put Colonel Serge in charge of public relations for his famous St. Regis Sheraton Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Later the Colonel went to the Sherry Netherland Hotel, also on Fifth Avenue, where he founded the famous Russian nightclub downstairs. Nowadays the Doubles Club is resided there. On June 3, 1976 the Colonel married Marylin Fraser-Wall (1929-). Prince Ivan Obolensky-Neledinsky-Meletzky (1925-), the son of Colonel Serge from his second marriage, is a banker and was vice-president of Sterling Grace & Co. Inc., in New York and New Jersey. He also married several times. His youngest son David (1953-) is a stock broker in Nashville, Tennessee.
Prince Alexander Petrovich Obolensky (1915-) was a prominent multilingual Ph.D., professor of Slavonic languages in the university of Albany, New York and president of the Association of Russian American Scholars in the U.S.A. His wife, Helene Reza-Bek (1919-), daughter of the Russian khan Ali Heidar Reza-Bek, has been a fashion editor. Their son Michael (1944-) also is a Ph. D. In 1974 he married the teacher Hetty Huising (1945-), daughter of Willem Cornelis Huising and Erika Maria Strompfe. Michael and Hetty live in New Bedford, Massachusetts and have three children: Dmitri (1976-), Nicholas (1979-) and Natalia (1982-).
The Obolenskys who stayed in Paris had a different evolution. The American Obolenskys find their Russian aristocratic origin rather interesting, but don't pay much attention to it in daily life. The Parisian Obolenskys - of which I stem from - find their history less important than their present aristocratic status and appearance. Prince Serge Sergeevich Obolensky (1918-) is an engineer and a retired major in the French National Reserve. He was born in Essentuki, in the Caucasus, on February 9, 1918. On April 28, 1946 he married the Russian emigré Elisabeth Voytechovich (1923-), in Grenoble. She was born in Bulgaria. The couple had six children. Olga (1947-) is a translator and married Jean de Lantivy. Michael (1948-) is a physician and married Elena Gliniasti. Elisabeth (1951-) married Prince Leonid Nikolaevich Obolensky. Hélène (1953-) is an executive secretary and married Alexis Mikhaïlovich Ivangin (1951-), professor in the Paris Conservatory. Tatiana (1955-) is a biologist and married the engineer Nicholas Yurievich Sokolov. The youngest, Catharina (1963), married a Frenchman called Marc Lureault. Prince Serge is the president of Soyuz Dvoryan, l'Union de la Noblesse Russe. He signs his letters with, `Le Président, Pr. S. Obolensky.' He keeps calling me `Monsieur le Prince', and deals with my interest in his and my ancestors as follows, `No Sir, I don't have a family tree and I don't feel like investigating it. The Obolensky's you mention I don't know. Moreover, most people you mention are already dead for a long time. Why are you interested in them?' (I myself don't like to be called `Prince'. I am a Prince because my father was one; I didn't have to do anything to become one.) Before I approached this Prince Serge Obolensky, my relationship with the Russian nobility in Paris was rather good, as long as I didn't forget addressing everyone as `Your Royal Highness'. That was difficult for me, because I'm used to call my American Russian princes and princesses, counts and countesses `Nina', `Christian', `Alexander', `Paul' or `Maria'. When I gave Prince Serge Obolensky the inkling that this sky-wide cultural difference astonished me, he became inhibited. Suddenly he didn't remember where and when he was born, who his parents were and if he ever had any brothers or sisters. One day later the doors of the Russian nobility in Paris stayed closed for me, and three days later an initial good contact with the Russian Nobility Association in America was terminated without a single reason. Fortunately most Russian aristocrats in America ignored the boycott, so I could continue my investigation as if nothing had happened. `Feodor' Romanoff, `On the one hand you must not forget that the Russian nobility is reviled by the whole world. People like Prince Serge Obolensky have no doubt been double-crossed by journalists numerous times. Perhaps their suspicion is not justified, but it's imaginable. On the other hand it is a well known fact that the Visky-Nikolskoe-branch, to which Prince Serge belongs, is one of the least spectacular branches of the lineage of Obolensky. Serge Petrovich, the progenitor of this branch, was nothing but a captain in the cavalry. Prince Serge Sergeevich' grandfather, Alexander, was a small government official. Serge Alexandrovich, Prince Serge's father, was a lieutenant in the Imperial Guard, the lowest officer's rank. Because he was quite a nice chap, they made him the marshall of nobility of the Bronnitza district, but this branch has really gone to pot, and the Prince may call himself ``président'' of the Union de la Noblesse Russe, but when it comes to his origin, he has nothing to be proud of, and I think it's rather logical that he prefers not to bragg about his ancestors. By the way, the same applies to almost all Russian aristocrats in France: they don't like really critical investigators, for the same reasons as Prince Serge, because they are afraid that their personal esteem might be damaged by certain facts out of a distant past. Pitiful, isn't it?' Yes it is. And I also find it a bit disturbing that a stranger like `Feodor' Romanoff knows much more about my relatives than I do.
The only branch of the lineage of Obolensky which culturally and politically is more insignificant than the Visky-Nikolskoe-branch, is the Yeskino-branch of progenitor Prince Nicholas Petrovich Obolensky (1775-1820). Although Prince Nicholas produced five sons and two daughters, this line ran out inglorious during the Red Terror. The offshoots of the Yeskino-branch never seemed to be interested in other cultures abroad, and while most Obolenskys after the October Revolution seeked safety in their flight to the West, the Yeskino's stayed behind, hoping that communism would blow over. After the revolution nothing was heard from them; the Soviet government has always refused to show birth- and death certificates of these Obolenskys. But even today every official in Moscow, Kiev and Novgorod refuses to reveal anything, no matter what I try. The worst may be feared.
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Orlovs
Christian Orlov's progenitor was Feodor Grigorievich Orlov, a brother of the famous (notorious?) Alexis and Grigori Orlov. Feodor fathered one illegitimate child after another, and Catharina the Great allowed them all to call themselves `Orlov'. Some of these Orlovs moved to the United States in the 19th century, and Christian is one of their offspring. Christian is a genealogist and for years he tried to recover the history of his ancestors, but without any success. The Soviet authorities never even bothered to answer his letters. Christian seeks the company of the aristocratic Russian community in Manhattan and is proud of his origin. His ex-friend was the ex-friend of Rudolf Nureyev, who he knew personally - and in that capacity. Never have I in the United Stated (qua life style, not qua origin) met a more aristocratic Russian than Christian Orlov, an outstanding and amiable man.
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The world of theatre, music and ballet
Since the beginning of this century many Russian ballet dancers and musicians went abroad. Some did this entirely out of their own free will, but most escaped because the new situation forced them to. Others left Russia before the communists came to power, and after the October Revolution they realized that they would never again be able to visit their motherland as free Russian citizens.
After the umpteenth flight of Soviet Russian ballet dancers, people in Moscow used to say, `Do you know what the Malyj (small) Theatre is? That's the Bolshoy (grand) Theatre after a foreign tour.' Many celebrities in the theatre, the music and the ballet, escaped and built a new existence in the free world.
Léon Nikolaevich Bakst was the pseudonym of Léon Nikolaevich Rosenberg (1866-1924). He was a Russian painter and a famous costume- and stage designer, who worked particularly for the Ballets Russes. Bakst was burried in Paris, in the Cimetière des Batignolles.
Michael (Misha) Baryshnikov (1948-) is a Russian dancer. From 1969 to 1974 Baryshnikov danced in the Kirov Ballet (the later Mariinsky Ballet) in Leningrad. He's a classical dancer, but also did modern dances. Because of his virtuosity he is widely considered Nureyev's successor. Michael Baryshnikov works since 1974 at the American Ballet Theatre, since 1980 as artistic director.
Olga Khoklova (1891-1955) was a dancer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. She married Pablo Picasso on July 12, 1918, and was burried in Cannes.
Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929) was leader of the Ballets Russes for twenty years, without ever having been a dancer or choreographer himself. He also organized exhibitions of paintings and concerts in St. Petersburg and Paris. Together with his compatriots Léon Bakst and Alexandre Benois he founded The world of the art (Mir Iskustva), a trend-setting magazine for plastic art, which was published from 1899 to 1904. In 1895 he wrote to his foster mother, `First of all I'm a charlatan, but a rather brilliant one; second I'm a great charmer; third I'm not afraid of anything; fourth I'm a man with logical insight and few scruples; fifth I seem to have no real talents. Yet I think I have found my destiny; to be a maecenas. I have everything one needs for that, except money, but that will come in time.' As leader of the Ballets Russes Diaghilev gathered the top people of the Imperial Russian Ballet of Moscow and St. Petersburg, like Fokine, Nijinsky, Karsavina and Pavlova. Diaghilev was called `Nijinsky's lover, father and teacher'. His first great musical success in the West was the performance of Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov, with the famous bass singer Feodor Chaliapine in the title role. Diaghilev's death meant the end of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev died of diabetes and is burried in Venice, in the cemetery San Michele, where he rests besides Igor Strawinsky.
Michael Fokine (1880-1942) was a Russian balletdancer and choreographer. For Anna Pavlova he created The Dying Swan (1907), in which he was inspired by Isadora Duncan, who he saw dancing in 1905 in St. Petersburg. As house choreographer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes he wrote famous ballets: Les sylphides (1909), The Firebird (1910), Le spectre de la rose (1911) and of course Petrushka (1911), the artistic success of the duo Fokine-Strawinsky. Petrushka is considered the antipole of Goncharov's Oblomov, a symbol of the Russians who refuse to be anyone's slave. Fokine developed to be the first great renewer of the classical ballet tradition and counts as the father of the ballet expressionism of the 20th century. Since 1923 he worked in New York. When he died 17 ballet groups all over the world performed Les sylphides, as an homage to the choreographer.
Vladimir Horowitz (1904-1989) was a famous Russian-American piano player. Horowitz studied in the conservatory of Kiev, but the Russian Revolution forced him to interrupt his study. His American debut was in 1928, after which he decided to stay. In 1933 he married Toscanini's daughter. Horowitz had unparalleled successes in Paris, Berlin and the United States, particularly with his interpretation of the music of Chopin, Liszt, Brahms and his idol Rakhmaninov. At the age of 80 he still gave a series of remarkable recitals, one of them in Moscow.
Tamara Karsavina (1885-1978) was Diaghilev's most famous ballet dancer, the first modern ballerina. She often danced with Nijinsky and worked at the same time for the Ballets Russes in Paris and the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg. In 1918 she escaped to London, after which she only did guest performances with the Ballets Russes. In the 1960s Karsavina was a member of the board of the British Royal Dance Academy, and as a teacher of mime she played an important role in the development of British ballet.
André Kostelanetz (1901-1980) was a Russian-American conductor. In 1922 he escaped to the United States. In 1930 he became conductor of the radio-orchestra of CBS. Kostelanetz made his name in light music, and was married to the soprano Lily Pons.
Mathilde Kshessinskaya (1872-1971) was a brilliant ballet dancer. She was the last ballerina of the Imperial Ballet who became the title of prima-ballerina. Moreover, she and Galina Ulanova were the only ballet dancers who ever became the rank of prima ballerina assoluta. At first Mathilde Kshessinskaya was the mistress of Tsarevich Nicholas, subsequently of Grand Duke Serge Mikha&i- uml;lovich Romanoff and from 1890 of Grand Duke André Vladimirovich Romanoff (1879-1956), whom she married in Paris. From 1929 she headed her own ballet school in Paris. One of her pupils was Tatiana Riabushinska, who later married David Lichine. Her brother in law, Grand Duke Kiril Vladimirovich Romanoff, entitled her in 1935 the right to call herself Princess Maria Feliksovna Romanovsky- Krassinsky. The Princess is burried in that capacity in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
David Lichine was the pseudonym of David Liechtenstein (1910-1972), a Russian-American dancer and choreographer. Since 1956 Lichine was an American citizen. He was trained in Paris, where he married the dancer Tatiana Riabushinska (1917-), a pupil of Mathilde Kshessinskaya. From 1932 to 1941 they danced with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, after which she opened a ballet studio in Los Angeles, where they trained generations of dancers until the late 1980s.
Serge Lifar (1905-1986), a famous Russian dancer and choreographer, was discovered by George Balanchine. He studied in Kiev with Bronislava Nijinsky. Lifar came in 1923 to Paris and was from 1925 solo performer at Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. From 1929 to 1945 and from 1947 to 1958 he was director of the Paris Opera Ballet. Serge Lifar has carried through important reforms, like renewing the repertoire, and had a great influence on the development of modern French ballet. This admired dancer and choreographer founded the Choreographical Institute in 1947, and in 1957 the University of Dance. Serge Lifar de Kiev was burried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
Leonid Feodorovich Massine (1896-1979) was a Russian-American dancer and choreographer. While dancing with the Moscow Bolshoy Ballet he was discovered by Serge Diaghilev, and he joined the Ballets Russes in 1913. Very much against Diaghilev's will he married the British dancer Vera Savina in 1921, but he and Diaghilev reconciled in 1925. After 1960 he organized great plays in revue style. His son Lorca used to work for Balanchine as a choreographer.
Bronislava Fominichna Nijinska (1891-1972) was a Russian dancer and the first influential choreographer in the history of the academical ballet. She was the sister of Viachlav Nijinsky. Until 1925 she danced for Diaghilev in Paris, after which she worked as a choreographer for Diaghilev, Ida Rubinstein, De Basil and the Markova-Dolin Ballet. In 1938 she did guest performances with different American ballet groups, after which she became a ballet teacher.
Viachlav Nijinsky (1890-1950) was a Russian dancer and choreographer, from Polish parents. He was called Le dieu de la dance, and if I don't count Rudolf Nureyev he was the greatest male ballet solo performer of all times. Nijinsky worked for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes since 1909, and became world famous in Carnaval, Le spectre de la rose, Shéhérazade, Swan Lake, Giselle and Petrushka. As an interpreter of the romantic repertoire he was the favourite dance partner of prima-ballerina's like Mathilde Kshessinskaya, Anna Pavlova and Olga Preobrazhenskaya. Thanks to Diaghilev, who was in love with him, he made the choreography of L'après midi d'un faune (1912), Jeux (1913) and Le sacre du printemps (1913). Since 1919 he was often admissioned in a mental institution. His wife, the dancer Romola de Pulszky, published his diary in 1953. This Journal de Nijinsky was translated into English in 1963, and can be summarized as `ten years of growth, ten years of training, ten years of bloom and thirty years of darkness'. Nijinsky: `Diaghilev does not like to be called an impresario, as all impresarios are supposed to be thieves. Diaghilev wants to be called ``a patron of art'', he wants to get into history. Diaghilev cheats people and thinks that no one sees through him. He dyes his hair in order to look young. Diaghilev's hair is white. He buys black dyes and rubs them in. I have seen this dye on Diaghilev's cushions Ä his pillowcase is blackened by it. I hate dirty linen and therefore was disgusted by this sight. Diaghilev has two false front teeth. When he is nervous he passes his tongue over them. Diaghilev reminds me of an angry old woman, when he moves with his false teeth. His front lock is dyed white. He wants it to be noticed. Lately this lock had grown yellow, because he has bought bad dye. In Russia it looked better.' Viachlav Nijinsky died in London and was burried in the Cimetière Montmartre in Paris. He concluded his diary with the following words, `God is in me. I am in God. I want Him, I seek Him. I want my manuscripts to be published so that everybody can read them. I hope to improve myself. I do not know how to, but I feel that God will help all those who seek Him. I am a seeker, for I can feel God. God seeks me and therefore we will find each other. GOD AND NIJINSKY, Sankt Moritz (Dorf), Villa Guardamunt, February 27th, 1919.'
Rudolf Hametovich Nureyev (1938-1993), the most famous Russian dancer and choreographer, was born on March 17, 1938 in a train, as the son of a Siberian military man. In 1961 he asked and became political asylum in Paris, after he left the Kirov Ballet and the Soviets tried to force him to return to the Soviet-Union. He was solo performer with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuévas and from 1962 he danced as a guest performer with the British Royal Ballet, often being the dance partner of Margot Fonteyn. Nureyev was a classical dancer with a virtuous technique, who's jumps and pirouettes were breathtaking. Besides that he had a rare magnetic personality. In 1965 he made his debut as a choreographer with the Vienna State Opera, with an own version of Swan Lake. Also famous were his versions of The Sleeping Beauty (1966) and Nutcracker (1967). He danced Giselle over a thousand times. He also appeared in some films, like as Rudolph Valentino in Ken Russell's Valentino (1977). In 1979 he made the choreography of Manfred, and in 1982 of The Storm, both ballets to the music of P.I. Chaikovsky. Film roles: Exposed (1982). In 1982 Nureyev became the Austrian nationality and in 1983 he became a director of the Paris Opéra Ballet. In 1987 he visited his homeland for the first time in 26 years. He went to see his mother. When journalists asked him about this trip, he said that his heart was in Paris and New York. `That's where you can be well known, notorious and anonymous, all at the same time,' he said. On Wednesday January 6, 1993 Rudolf Nureyev died, at the age of 54, of AIDS. He was unique, charming, aristocratic and captivating, but also boyish, inconstant, arrogant and rude. My good friend Christian Orlov has known Nureyev well. Christian, `He was very particular when it came to photographs of himself. One day I sat next to him, when he after a performance auditioned in his dressing-room in the Metropolitan. While he took off his make-up, he received his fans, who were waiting for their turn in a long file in the corridor. An elderly man, who did not conceive that he admired Rudolf, showed him a series of photographs of Rudolf, which he had taken from the auditorium. Nervous, like an insecure child before his school teacher, he showed the photographs one by one, and Rudolf tore them to little pieces, one photo after another Ä which he threw into the waist-basket. The man was very disappointed. Sure, it was Nureyev's second performance that evening, and later, at a reception in a nightclub, there would be a third and a fourth performance, but I thought it was rather cruel.' Rudolf Nureyev's death covered almost every front page. Newsweek, `Aids and the arts Ä a lost generation. Rudolf Nureyev 1938-1993.' Paris Match, `NOUREEV POUR L'ETERNITE Ä Le prince charmant du Kirov refugié a l'ouest etait devenue le Tsar mondiale de la dance.' Le Point, `Noureev: une étoile s'éteint.' USA Today, `GIANT OF THE ARTS - Rudolf Nureyev 1938-1993. He brought grace to the stage and glitz to the world of ballet.' The funeral procession left from the Opéra Garnier, on January 12, 1993, and attracted a great deal of attention. Among the interested were Prince Aga Khan, Jack Lang, Rudi van Dantzig, Flemming Flindt, John Taras, Carla Fraci, Hugues Gall, Bob Wilson, Jane Hermann, Yoko Morishita, Lynn Seymour, Zizi Jeanmaire, Pierre Lacotte, Nina Vyrubova, Marika Bersobrassova, Serge Golovine, Dominique Khalfouni, Cyril Atanasoff, Stavros and Victoria Niarkos, Baron and Baroness Guy de Rotschild, Count and Countess Guy and Marina de Brantes, Baron Alexis de Redé, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Briony Brind and Ivan Nagy. Rudolf Nureyev was burried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, tomb 8328, plan III, about a hundred feet from his artistic predecessor Serge Lifar de Kiev.
Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) was the legendary prima-ballerina of the Imperial Russian Mariinsky Ballet (1906), who later danced with the Ballets Russes of Diaghilev. Pavlova resigned with Diaghilev because she thought he was too progressive. In 1910 she left for the United States, where she performed in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. In 1912 she married the Englishman Victor Sandré and went to live in London, and in 1913 she left the Mariinsky Ballet. In 1914 she founded her own company and did many international tours. The legendary Anna Pavlova was without any doubt the greatest dancer of her time. In 1973 Oleg Kerensky wrote her biography. She died of pneumonia on January 23, 1931 in Hotel des Indes in The Hague, Holland, and was cremated in London. The urn with her ashes was added in the gardens of the Golders Green Crematorium, not far from her beloved Ivy House, where she lived from 1912 and kept many animals, including swans.
Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976) was a Russian-American cellist. He and Horowitz gave concerts all over the world. Prokofyev and others wrote cello concerts for him.
Georges Pitoëff (1884-1939) was a Russian-French actor and director. He was one of the most influential French actors after World War I, who in 1919 founded his own company. In 1922 the `Compagnie Pitoëff' moved into the theatre Comédie des Champs-Elysées. He played renewing works of playwriters like Anouilh, Claudel, Cocteau and introduced the French public to the work of Russian playwriters like Chekhov.
Ludmilla Pitoëff, née Smanov (1895-1951) was a Russian-French actress and the spouse of Georges. They married on July 14, 1915 in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris. After his death she took charge of the company.
Olga Preobrazhenskaya (1871-1962) was a famous ballet dancer and dance teacher. In 1900 she was promoted prima-ballerina in the Mariinsky Ballet. From 1914 she taught in the ballet school of the Mariinsky Theatre and in 1923 she opened her ballet studio in Paris, where she trained numerous dancers until 1960. Two of her pupils, Irina Baranova and Tamara Tumanova, were discovered by George Balanchine. Olga Preobrazhenskaya was burried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
Serge Rakhmaninov (1873-1943) was a famous Russian composer, piano player and conductor. He was opera conductor in Moscow for a while. Rakhmaninov left Russia in 1917, lived in Switzerland and the United States since 1919, and became an American citizen shortly before he died. He composed symphonies, opera's, chamber music and piano pieces, and was one of the greatest piano virtuoso's of his time.
Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960) was a Russian dancer who danced leading parts with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1911, but she became especially famous by her performance in Ravel's Boléro and Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade, in which she danced with Nijinsky. She was the protégé of Léon Bakst. Fokine wrote for her the choreography of Salomé's dance with the seven veils (1908) and The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (1911). Ida Rubinstein was burried in Vence, near Monaco.
Tamara Tumanova (1919-) is a Russian ballerina who was trained by Olga Preobrazhenskaya. She worked with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo for years and danced numerous guest performances in America and Europe. She worked with directors like Gene Kelly, Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder.
Nicholas Nikolaevich Cherepnin (1873-1945) was a Russian composer and conductor. He accompanied the Ballets Russes of Diaghilev on their tours and from 1925 to 1929 and from 1938 to 1945 he was director of the Russian conservatory Rakhmaninov in Paris. Work: opera's, ballets, orchestra- and choirwork, which at first were inspired by Rimsky-Korsakov. Father of Alexander Nikolaevich Cherepnin (1899-1977), American composer and piano player, professor of music in Paris and Chicago.
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Writers and poets
The Librairie Russe in Paris doesn't exist anymore. From 1924 to 1990 this publishing-house/book-store in the Rue éperon was the haunt of Russian writers and poets. Michael Kaplan was born in 1894 in Odessa, where he also went to high school. In 1916 he came to France as an ordinary soldier, through Murmansk, to fight in the Russian expeditionary force against the Germans. After the October Revolution he and most of his comrades-in-arms did not want to return to Russia. In 1924 Michael Kaplan founded the Librairie Russe, and at first he only published Russian books. Later he risked publishing French books as well. Michael's son, Boris Delorme, has seen many celebrities in his parental house, not just writers and poets, but also ballet dancers, choreographers, musicians and politicians, who had written their autobiographies or wanted to disseminate their professional knowledge. Although he was born and raised in Paris, Boris spoke, wrote en read Russian most of his life. He grew up between Russian artists in exile and knows the pain and the homesickness of the Russian refugees like no other. He could tell endless stories about it, if he wouldn't be so moderate. Since the book-store and the publishing-house have closed down, he has all the time in the world to write of his memoirs, which I await anxiously. `Don't rush me,' he recently told me, `I'm not dead yet.' Mark Aldanov was the pseudonym of Mark Alexeevich Landau (1889-1957), a Russian writer and essayist who after the Revolution escaped to France. He's also called the Russian Anatole France. Aldanov wrote acute, authentic essays, which belong to the best non-fiction of Russian literature. His main themes were the Russian Revolution and the irony of fate.
André Alexeevich Amalrik (1938-1980) was a Russian writer and historian. In university he had the guts to write a thesis about Rurik's Vikings in Kievian Russia, and from that moment on he was a dissident. Due to his criticizing the regime he was bannished to Siberia 1965. Two years after he was convicted once more. In 1976 he went to the West. André Amalrik died in the neighborhood of Guadalaya- ra, Spain, and is burried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
A. Anatol was the pseudonym of Anatoli Vasilievich Kuznetsov (1929-1979), a Russian writer who `emigrated' to England in 1969.
Constantin Dmitrievich Balmont (1867-1943) was a poet of the first generation of Russian symbolists, who in the beginning of this century were very popular with the Russian youth. He escaped to Paris after the October Revolution.
Yurgis Kazimirovich Baltrushaytis (1873-1944) was a lithuanian poet, who also wrote in Russian and belonged to the Russian symbolists. He wrote in the style of Alexander Blok. After the October Revolution he was the Ambassador of Lithuania to Russia, until 1939. When Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet-Union he escaped to Paris.
Nicholas Alexandrovich Berdiaev (1874-1948) was a Russian philosopher. Initially he was a marxist, but gradually he developed in the direction of an idealistic, religious philosophy. In 1922 Berdiaev was bannished from Russia, after which he settled down in Paris.
Vladimir Constantinovich Bukovsky (1942-) is Russian poet, who since 1963 was imprisoned several times due to his opposition against the Soviet regime. In 1976 he `emigrated' to Western Europe.
Ivan Alexeevich Bunin (1870-1953) was a Russian writer and prosaist. He belonged to Maxim Gorki's writers' group Znanie (Knowledge), and escaped to Paris in 1920. In 1922 he married Vera Muromtsev, with whom he lived together since 1907. His poetry is of a high standard, but he became famous by his prose, which had a somewhat conservative character. In 1933 he became the Nobel Literature prize, very much against the will of the Soviet Russian critics, who considered Bunin an aristocratical, non-realistic poet.
Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodassevich (1886-1939) was a Russian poet and literature critic of Polish origin. In 1922 he escaped via Berlin to Paris. Ilya Grigorievich Ehrenburg (1891-1967). At first he rejected communism, and that's why I mention him, but later he bowed to it, and in 1924 he returned to Russia, where he called himself a `Soviet citizen with the Jewish nationality'. For years his work had a strong propagandistic character, and he was widely considered a camp follower. Only after Stalin's death he carefully tried to stimulate a liberalization of the Soviet literature. Most of his works are translated into English.
Boris Andreevich Filippov (1905-) is the pseudonym of Boris Andreevich Filistinsky, a Russian poet and literature critic. As immigrants in the United States he and Gleb Stroeve published books of Russian writers whose work wasn't allowed to be published in Russia.
Zinaida Hippius was the pseudonym of Anton Krayni (1869-1945), a Russian poet and writer. She was the spouse of Dmitri Merezhkovsky (1865-1941). Her Petersburg salon was the center of a literary circle of friends. In 1919 she escaped via Warsaw to Paris. She was the most important poet of Russian symbolism. Zinaida Hippius was a passionate, impulsive woman. Trotsky called her a `witch'.
My great-uncle Grigori Vladimirovich Ivanov (1894-1958) was a Russian poet. After the October Revolution he escaped to Paris. He is considered the best poet of the Russian emigration. Every time great-uncle George came from Hyères, where he lived in poverty in an old folks home, to Paris, he visited us, and the next morning when he was gone I had to tidy up far more bottles than usual. One day my uncle Nikolai received a letter from the old folks home in Hyères, where great-uncle George was `imprisoned', like he used to say. The letter said that Monsieur Georges Ivanov had died. I have never seen uncle Nikolai cry like that. We didn't attend the funeral though, and neither did great-uncle George's `best friend', Nina Berberova. Some years later, when uncle Nikolai had sold one of his paintings, he had great-uncle George's mortal remains reburried in Paris.
Dmitri Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (1865-1941) was a Russian philosopher and writer. He was the husband of Zinaida Hippius, and is considered the father of Russian symbolism. In human history he saw a continuing struggle between the flesh and the mind, which he worked out in the novel trilogy The Antichrist, consisting of: Yulyanus Apostata (1893), Leonardo da Vinci (1896) and Peter and Alexis (1902). The Merezhkovsky's are burried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899-1977) was a Russian-American writer. His father was a member of the first Duma and escaped in 1919. From 1919 to 1922 Vladimir studied zoology and French literature in the university of Cambridge. He married a Jewess and lived in Berlin until 1937. In that year he emigrated to Paris and in 1940 he and his wife managed to reach the United States. In 1945 he became an American citizen. Vladimir Nabokov translated Pushkin's Evgeni Onegin into English.
André Donatovich Siniavsky (1925-) is a Soviet Russian writer who used the pseudonym `Abram Terts'. He married Maria Rosanova. Because of his book What is socialist realism? (1959) he was put in a hard labour camp from 1966 to 1971. In 1973 he escaped to Paris, where he founded the literary paper Syntaxis in 1978.
Alexander Isaevich Solzhenitsyn (1918-) is a Russian writer who in 1970 became the Nobel Literature prize. Solzhenitsyn grew up in Rostov on the Don, where he started studying mathematics in 1936. In 1941 he left to the front as an officer. Early 1945 he was arrested in Eastern Prussia because in his letters to a school friend he had written critical words about comrade Stalin. He stayed many years in Russian hard labour camps. In 1969 Solzhenitsyn was thrown out of the Writers Union, and in 1974 he left for Switzerland. In 1976 he settled down in the United States, and in 1994 he returned to Russia, setting himself up as the Messiah.
Gleb Petrovich Stroeve (1898-) is a Russian historian of literature. He escaped to the United States, where he and Boris Filippov published books of writers like Achmatova, Gumilyov, Mandelstam and Pasternak. Stroeve wrote the standard work History of Soviet Literature.
Alexis Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1882-1945) was a Russian novelist, poet, playwriter and journalist. During the Civil War he worked for Denikin's `White propaganda'. Escaped to Paris in 1919, where he wrote fierce pamphlets against communism. Later he returned to the Soviet-Union, where the `Red Count' was welcomed with open arms. He became one of the most obedient Stalinist writers.
Plastic artists
Georges Annenkov (1890-1974) was a Russian-French painter and illustrator. He settled down in Paris in 1911; exhibited inter alia in the Salon des Indépendants. He returned to the Soviet-Union but escaped in 1925 once more to Paris. In 1945 he definitive restricted to abstract art.
Alexandre Benois (1870-1960) was the pseudonym of Alexander Nikolaevich Benua, a Russian painter and art historian, who since the 19th century contributed much to the development of Russian art. Benois settled down in Paris, where he worked for years with people like Serge Diaghilev, Strawinsky and Léon Bakst.
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was a Russian-French painter, sculptor, stained-glass artist, lithograp- her, etcher and ceramic artist. From 1910 to 1914 he lived and worked in Paris. After the Revolution he was director of the Academy of Arts in Vitebsk and a theatrical designer in Moscow. From 1922 he lived permanently in Paris, except during World War II, when he stayed in the United States, in view of his Jewish background. His wife died in New York. Chagall became famous with his bible illustrations, his fantastic colours, and his intuitive feeling for rhythm and harmony. He made stained-glass windows for a synagogue in Jerusalem, the ceiling paintings of the Opéra in Paris and a glass plate for the secretariate of the United Nations in Paris. He illustrated Gogol's Dead Souls and even made wall hangings. His symbolism is based on Jewish folklore and he developed a characteristic mixture of Christian and traditional Jewish iconography. Since 1973 the work of this versatile artist is exhibitioned in the Chagall Museum in Cimiez (Nice). He died in 1985 and is burried in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
Naum Gabo was the pseudonym of Naum Pevsner (1890-1977), a Russian-American sculptor. He was a brother of Antoine Pevsner, and one of the most important representatives of constructivism. After the publication of the Realistic Manifesto, which he wrote with Antoine, he was forced to leave Russia. He had a preference for abstract-geometrical constructions of metal, glass, synthetics, gold wire and nylon yarn.
My uncle Nikolai Ivanov (1920-1984), who took care of me after my mother died, was a well known painter in the Parisian artists scene. Our house was frequented by famous painters and sculptors like Tristan Tzara and Ossip Zadkine. In 1958 we moved from Paris to Amsterdam, where he found a job as a restorer. He worked for several European museums.
Vassily Vasilievich Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian painter and graphic artist. Since 1896 he worked in Munich. In 1901 Kandinsky founded the artists' union `Phalanx' and in 1909 the Neue Künstlervereinigung. From 1922 to 1933 he was a teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar, after which he went to France. Since 1939 Kandinsky was a French citizen. Because of his Erstes abstraktes Aquarell (1910) he is considered one of the founders of the abstract art of painting. He and Franz Marc founded Der Blaue Reiter in 1911. His work belongs to the most important artworks of the first half of this century. In 1911 he wrote the book über das Geistige in der Kunst.
Antoine Pevsner (1884-1962) was a Russian-French sculptor. He and Naum Gabo were brothers. Antoine studied in the Academy of Arts in Kiev and St. Petersburg. He left for Paris in 1911, where he and his brother were influenced by cubism. In 1917 they returned to Russia, but in 1923 Antoine once more showed up in Paris. He worked a lot with plastic materials, but also with copper and bronze. He was burried in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.
Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967) was a famous Russian-French sculptor, who was born in Smolensk. His first work is characterized by cubistic constructions, in which he respects the singularity of his materials (tree- trunks, blocks of stone). After 1940 his work became more loose, because since then he abandoned his closed forms. Zadkine also made gouaches and watercolours, and was a teacher of art in Paris. Much of his work is in the United States and France. He was burried in Paris, in the cimetière du Montparnasse. In 1909 and 1910 Zadkine worked in the studio d'Injalbert, of the école des Beaux-Arts, 14 Rue de Bonaparte, after which he left for La Ruche. Until his death he lived in France, except for the period of 1941-1945, when he, in view of the war, lived in the United States. For a long time he worked and taught in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, 14 Rue de la Grande Chaumière. From André Maurois' Women of Paris (1956), `Every Monday morning, Rue de la Grande Chaumière, market of models. In the world of art Montparnasse remains the seat of the école de Paris, and the studio's of la Grande Chaumière are the vivid center of Montparnasse. From the outside la Grande Chaumière only looks a small building, however on the inside one finds numerous holes and corners, skillfully used, so that there is room for several studio's of painters, sculptors and draughtsmen. Othon Friesz teaches there, and also Picart le Doux, Aujame, Auricoste, McAvoy and Zadkine.'
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Other well known emigrés
Paul Borisovich Akselrod (1850-1928) was a Russian politician. At first he was a follower of Bakunin, but later he became a marxist. He and Plekhanov founded the `Union for the Liberation of the Working class'. Subsequently he became a menshevik, and after the October Revolution he escaped abroad.
Nicholas Alexandrovich Berdiaev (1874-1948) was a Russian philosopher, who during the October Revolution was appointed professor of philosophy in the university of Moscow. He was the founder of the Religionsphilosofische Akademie in Berlin (1922) and Paris (1924).
Efim Dmitrievich Bogolyubov (1889-1952) was a Russian-German chess grand-master, who worked out several theoretical systems. For several times he was chess champion of Germany. From 1925 to 1929 he was the world champion. One day a press photographer made a picture of Bogolyubov and some of his less famous opponents. The next day a beautiful picture was published in the newspapers, only... Bogolyubov, the principal person, wasn't in it! It seemed to be a misunderstanding, `The stout gentleman in the corner with a glass of milk in his hand? I cut him off. I thought he wasn't one of them.' George Gamow (1904-1968) was a famous Russian-American nuclear physicist, who also wrote and illustrated non-specialist literature.
Georges Gurvich (1894-1965) was a Russian-French sociologist and philosopher, who worked as a professor in Paris. Gurvich tried to create a depth sociology and engaged with the philosophical problems of sociology. In 1946 he founded the Cahères internationaux de sociologie.
Vladimir Yabotinsky (1880-1940) was a Russian-Jewish writer, journalist and politician. He was the founder and leader of the Hagana, the corps of Jewish volunteers which in World War I fought at the Palestinian front against the Turks. In 1925 he founded the Revisionist Party, and in 1935 the New Zionist Organization.
Wassily Leontief (1906-) is a Russian-American economist, who worked as a professor in Harvard University. He became world famous with his input-output analysis (specification of the relation between production and production factors) and in 1973 he received the Nobel Economy Prize.
Michael Rostovzeff (1870-1952) was a Russian-American historian and archeologist. After the Russian Revolution he escaped to the United States. Rostovzeff was a professor in St. Petersburg, Madison and New Haven, and published a lot of specialist literature.
Paul Vinogradov (1854-1925) was a Russian-English legal historian and professor in Moscow and Oxford. He was an authority in the field of English feudal law.
Serge Voronoff (1866-1957) was a Russian-French surgeon who tried to reach rejuvenation by transplanting glandular tissue of apes into the human body. Although the theory didn't work, it opened new perspectives for surgical science.

Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 3 - After The Revolution - Chapter 8 - Have A Good Cry And Start All Over Again

2006-03-16T06:29:00.000-08:00

8. Have a good cry and start all over again
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More than a million immigrants
During it's first year the Reign of Terror of the bolsheviki lead to a significant increase of refugees, who were called `White emigrants'. The following groups of Russians came to France, to settle there temporary or permanently: -The Russian soldiers of the French and Macedonian front, who did not want to return to their native country; -The soldiers of Denikin's and Vrangel's White Army, who were embarked in the ports of the Black Sea, and looked for political asylum in the West, particularly in France, the only country that had recognized the Vrangel administration; -Russian citizens who rightly feared for the measures of the new authorities: people with property, people who could read and write, industrialists, professionals, the landed gentry, high officials, clergymen, Ukrainian nationalists, mensheviki (or members of other non-bolshevist parties, like Social Revolutionaries and Constitutional Democrats - KaDets).
The majority of these refugees had left Russia by way of the Southern borders. Many people travelled via Constantinopel and hesitated to go to the West, because they kept hoping that the Revolution would end soon, so that they could return to their native country. One group took recourse in the Côte d'Azur, where the climate much resembled the weather conditions in the Crimea, which before the war was the popular holiday resort of many wealthy Russians. Some very rich refugees even possessed villa's in the Côte d'Azur, or they rented one. The physicians, lawyers, photographers, writers and artists tried to practice their old professions in France, but the majority was forced to look for odd jobs in Paris (like cab driver, waiter, office clerk, et cetera). Many former soldiers enlisted the Foreign Legion.
Almost everyone had a hard time of it. Misery was increasing and many Russians, who in their home land had known comparative wealth, lived in bitter poverty. Most members of the intelligentsia (writers, artists), who had given the development of the Soviet- Union a fair chance, but absolutely rejected the fact that state officials controlled their work, arrived from halfway the 1920s until and the early 1930s. The majority of the Russian élite grouped in Paris, which in the interbellum became the cultural and political center of the Russian diaspora. Until 1940 this group led a very active social existence. They founded schools, churches, unions and social institutions, and organized conferences, concerts, fund raising balls and theatrical performances.
Paris might have been the capital of the Russian emigration, but initially Berlin was the literary capital, while Prague became the most important academical city of the Russian emigrants. In these cities, but also in Sofia, Belgrade, Warsaw, Tallin and Riga, lived thousands of Russian refugees. In Berlin was a large Russian writers' colony, and there was a House of Arts, where Soviet writers and emigrants could meet. In the 1930s these activities receded significantly. Eastern Europe became unsafe, communism and fascism were pressing onward, and once more many Russians had to flight. The only Russian emigrants' paper that was left in Berlin, was Petropolis.
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Cultural and intellectual life
The Committee of the Zemstvo's was founded in 1921. This committee was engaged in various forms of assistance to Russian refugees, like the education of Russian children, financial aid of agricultural projects of Russian refugees, and scholarships to adults. In the scholastic year 1929-1930 the committee administered 65 institutions (schools, boarding-schools, orphanages and recreation grounds), for the benefit of 2,500 children. In 1930 the committee was merged with the `Union of Zemstvo Members Outside of Russia', which was resided on the address 6 Rue Daviel, and was headed by chairman Nicholas Avksentiev. The union was the umbrella organization of 102 Russian social institutions.
In the early 1920s Montmartre was the quarter where one Russian cabaret after another was established. On October 22, 1922 the Chateau Caucasien was renamed Caveau Caucasien (54 Rue Pigalle), with a new interior, the gipsy choir of Dmitri Poliakoff, and the singer Nastia Polyakova. Tout Paris visited the establishment. The example was soon followed by the Yar (63 Rue Pigalle) and La Troïka (26 Rue Fontaine), which opened their doors for the public in 1923. In 1926 there were more than a hundred Russian cabarets, restaurants and cafés in Paris.
On the address 79 Boulevard Saint-Michel in 1923 the Committee for the Protection of Juvenile Russian Students Outside of Russia was founded, in which some existing organizations for Russian emigrants were merged. In the academical year 1929 360 scholarships were subjected to Russian youngsters, and they had two apartment-houses, in which 75 students were put up. Chairman of the committee was Michael Feodorov. In the same building the National Russian Committee was resided, of which Antoine Kartashev was chairman. From 1921 more than forty Russian professors were engaged by the University of Paris. Professor Nicholas Kuhlman (1871-1940) was chairman of the Russian department of the literary faculty. In 1941 this department was closed down by order of the Germans.
In the early 1920s, on the corner of the Closerie des Lilas, resided the Café de Port-Royal (22 Avenue de l'Observatoire), where the literary and artistic circle `Right Across' gathered. Many young Russians were member of this group, among them the poets Ginger and Poplavsky, and the plastic artists Krémègne, Lanskoy, Pougny, Tereshkovich and Zadkine.
The ACER (Christian Union of Russian Students) was founded in 1923, by Vasili Zenkovsky, who was appointed chairman. In 1926 the union moved into a part of the premises of the YMCA, 10 Boulevard du Montparnasse. In 1928 the garage was rebuild into a Russian-Orthodox chapel. The ACER was a center of cultural and religious activities. In December 1931 the Russian study center KIR was founded in the building, and until 1939 it organized many conferences. The Russian culture center (KRK) functioned there from 1933 to 1939. The building also put up the Russian Institute of Technology, and a cafeteria for needy Russian unemployed. In 1935 the ACER moved to 91 Rue Olivier-des-Serres, where the activities were widened. A magazine was found, Le Messager de l'ACER, which started a campaign with the name of `Aid to the Religious Population of the Soviet-Union'. In October 1936 the church Présentati- on-de-la-Très-Sainte- Vierge-au-Temple was opened in the building, which inspired Vladimir Volkoff, son of a Russian emigrant, to write his novel Le retournement (1979).
Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanoff lived from July 1923 to October 1929 in Santeny (Val-de- Marne), in the Chateau de Choigny. There he founded a Russian-Orthodox chapel, where the Cossacks of his former regiment sang on Russian-Orthodox feasts.
Late 1923, early 1924, a group of former teachers of the Imperial Russian conservatories founded the Russian Conservatory of Paris. At first the conservatory was resided in the Rue de Douai, and later in the Avenue de Tokio, but in 1932 they moved into the present premises on the address 26 Avenue de New York, where the institute was renamed Conservatoire Serge Rakhmaninov. On May 7, 1933 there was a reception in honour to the 60th anniversary of Rakhmaninov. Rakhmaninov himself, the honorary chairman of the conservatory, was welcomed by the director, Prince Serge Mikhaïlovich Volkonsky, a friend of Diaghilev. Before the Revolution Volkonsky was director of the Imperial theatres; he came from a family of Decembrists.
The Committee of Russian Organizations was founded in 1924, to see after the legal and financial interests of many Russian unions and foundations. The committee was resided on the address 3 Rue Nicolo. At first the committee was the umbrella organization of 67 organizations. In 1929 175 institutions were part of the committee, but in 1936 this number had risen to 325.
On July 18, 1924, the day of St. Sergius, the protestant church on the address Rue de Crimée was bought for the amount of 321,000 francs, and renamed `Colline Saint-Serge'. The money was gathered by the Russian community of Paris. On March 1, 1925 the Russian-Orthodox church was consecrated by Metropolitan Evlogi, and at the same time the Russian-Orthodox Theological Institute of Paris was founded. On April 30, 1925 the first lectures were given. Professor Antoine Kartashev, who before the Revolution was engaged by the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg, spoke about the history of the primitive Church. Saint Sergius is a world famous theological institute,and it did pioneering work, particularly as an intermediary between Orthodox and non Orthodox people. Three professors of the institute, father Grigori Florovsky, father Alexander Shmeman and father Johan Meyendorff, emigrated to America, where they played an important role in the development of American Orthodoxy.
From 1925 the Society of Young Russian Writers and Poets, also known as the `Russian Club', weekly, and sometimes more often, organized literary evenings on the address 79 Avenue Denfert-Rochereau. Numerous Russian writers held lectures there, among them: Teffi, Zayitsev, Khodassevich, Shestov, Shmelev, Berberova, Grigori Ivanov, Terapiano, Tsvetaeva and Prince D. Sviatopolk-Mirsky.
The last enters of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris were from 1926 to 1929, in the Théatre Sarah Bernhardt, 12 Place du Chƒtelet, nowadays the Théatre de la Ville. From June 27, 1927 Pas d'acier of Serge Prokofyev and Grigori Yakulov was performed, with Lyubova Chernisheva and Serge Lifar in the leading parts. From June 12, 1928 there was the performance of Strawinsky's Apollon musagète. The choreography was done by George Balanchine, and Serge Lifar interpreted the part of Apollo. On May 21, 1929 was the première of Le fils prodigue, with music by Prokofyev and the choreography once more by Balanchine. Serge Lifar was in brilliant form in the leading part. `Rakhmaninov was sitting on the first row and showed his appreciation several times,' Prokofyev wrote proudly in his memoirs. In 1933 Balanchine left for the United States; Strawinsky settled down there in 1939. Diaghilev died in 1929.
Late 1929 the Union of Russian Cab Drivers, which had more than 1,200 members, took residence in the premises 65 Rue Letelier. Many Russian cab drivers had been officers in the Imperial Army. Just before World War II there were more than 3,000 Russian cab drivers, but in 1945 less than 1,500 were left.
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Café des Deux-Magots. The painter Natalia Goncharova often visited this café when she had dined in the restaurant Le petit Saint-Benoit, in the Rue Saint-Benoit. Bella Reine wrote, `One day I walked into the Deux-Magots, as I saw Goncharova sit at a table with a strange woman. She gesticulated that I should come towards her, and after a little chat we stood up and sat down at another table. I asked her who the woman was. ``She is Russian, a prostitute who's specialized in elderly, cultivated gentlemen. I talk to her, now and then, because no Russian wants to be seen in her company.'''
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Le Dôme. This café was often visited by the sculptor Arshipenko and the painters Kandinsky and Survage. Picasso once said, `You can see Utrillo drunk everywhere, but Modigliani only gets drunk in the Rotonde or in the Dôme.'
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Café de la Rotonde. This café was opened in 1911, and was, early this century, the haunt of Russian artists like Arshipenko, Chagall, Shterenberg, Goncharova, Kikoyin, Krémègne, Larionov, Mané-Klatz, Marevna, Shana Orlov, Soutine, Maria Vasiliev and Zadkine. One could also meet the following writers there: the poet and art critic Maximilian Voloshin, the poet Khodassevich and his companion Nina Berberova, and Ilya Ehrenburg. Trotsky came there in 1915 and 1916, to copy his articles for a Kievian newspaper from the French and English newspapers. Vladimir Mayakovsky mentioned the café at the end of his poem Verlaine et Cézanne (1924), and in May 1925, after a soirée of the Union of Young Russian Poets and Writers, the members settled down in the Rotonde, together with Khodassevich, who hadn't been there before. The writer Yuri Terapiano (1892-1980) wrote, `Khodassevich knew everyone. Within an hour he had told us everything about Berlin, Moscow, Blok, the famine in St. Petersburg, the House of Writers, Biély and Maxim Gorki. It was too much to recall. Khodassevich was a great story teller.' The patron of the Rotonde was called Libion, a fat, jovial, fatherly man with grey hair. During the last years of his life the poet Poplavsky was also part of this group of regular visitors of the Rotonde. Ilya Ehrenburg: `It was a café of a dime a dozen. At the bar stood coachmen and cab drivers. Officeclerks drank their coffee and aperitifs. In the back was a dark room, with numerous small tables, and it was very smoky. This room was crowded every evening, and extremely noisy. (...) Every minute or so someone who had too much to drink was thrown out. From 2 to 3 a.m. the Rotonde closed it's doors, after which the business opened again and the visitors could continue their conversations.'
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Café Le Sélect. In the thirties this café was frequented by the Russian poets Adamovich, Ginger, Odarchenko and Anna Prismanova.
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Closerie des Lilas. This café, which was rebuilt and modernized in 1925, has always been a haunt of writers. Nicholas Stepanovich Gumilyov, who in those days still studied in the Sorbonne, met in 1907 the poet Jean Moréas there. From 1911 Ilya Ehrenburg spent his days there writing. Marevna, who came to Paris in the fall of 1912, met him one evening in the Closerie. `He had very long hair, hanging on his shoulders, and it was greasy. He was dressed very sloppy, and looked in every way like the nihilists about whom one can read in foreign novels. But his eyes were compelling and beautiful. His way of speech was very mordant.' A postcard from Alexis Tolstoy, sent to the address of the café, directed towards `The badly cut gentleman', was handed over to Ehrenburg without any hesitation. Before he returned to Russia in 1923, Alexis Tolstoy often visited the Closerie. He wrote his L'enfance de Nikita there, and the first part of his trilogy Le chemin des tourments.
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1921 February 14: Because Evgenia Demidova's husband has friends in the United States, it's not difficult to become affidavits. They emigrate to New York, where her husband finds work in a hospital.
March 1: Moshe Goldstein's newspaper Posledniya Novosti (The Last News) was initially independent, but since today it is the official organ of the Constitutional Democratic (KaDet-) Party. The historian and politician Paul Nikolaevich Milyukov, one of the founders of the party, is now editor-in-chief. He can count on the cooperation of almost all Russian writers and journalists who reside in Paris. On the ground floor of the premises is the café Dupont, where the staff of the newspaper often drinks a cup of coffee or a beer.
March 17: Bloody oppression of the Kronstadt rebellion. In 1917 the bolshevists promised the navy men in Kronstadt economical, political and social reforms, if they only would take part in the Revolution, but after the Revolution the navy men saw that Lenin was just another dictator, a Pugachov, and that they had been fooled. During their rise hundreds of sailors are executed. From June 5 to June 12 300 persons take part in the European Conference of the National Russian Union in Paris, and Antoine Kartashev is elected chairman. He gave a lecture, titled `Free Russia of the Communist Slavery' and a National Committee for this purpose was founded on the spot. The Conference takes place in the H“tel Majestic, 19 Avenue Kléber, where many Russian writers read from their own work.
July 21: Count Anatol Feodorovich Buxhoeveden (1844-1921), member of the former Imperial Council, who lived in exile in Helsinki, Finland, since 1918, dies. His son Alexander and his family move to Paris. He takes his mother, Countess Maria Buxhoeveden, née J”ggiges, with him.
August 2: Famine strikes thirty million Russians. Lenin asks the world for help.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: August 14, 1921: It was difficult to say goodbye to Omsk.
August 15, 1921: The train moves slowly, passing endless deportation trains from the famine areas of the Volga and the North. The cattle trains are crowded with people, piled up like coal: men, women, children. But are this still people? Many of them lost their teeth, their gums are bleeding, their faces are green and ash-gray.
August 21: The poet Alexander Blok has passed away in Petrograd! In the café Camél&e- acute;on, 146 Boulevard du Montparnasse, Paris, the gathering of the Putskamer, a group of Russian poets of the new generation, in which particularly Alexander Ginger (1897-1965) plays a creative part, is entirely dedicated to the Russian poet.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: August 22, 1921: In the early morning we returned to the city we left in a panic on June 9, 1919.
August 24: The bolsheviks accuse Patriarch Tikhon and the other leaders of the Church of having contact with the emigrés, which is strictly forbidden by Soviet legislation. At the invitation of the Patriarch of Serbia, escaped Russian bishops hold a Council at Sremsky-Karlovci in Yugoslavia, at which a temporary ecclesiastical administration for Russian Orthodox in exile is worked out. The Synod is headed by Anthony Khrapovitsky, formerly Metropolitan of Kiev, and adopts a resolution to restore the rights of the Romanoffs to the throne of Russia, by which the speakers hint that the leaders of the Russian Church in Moscow share this opinion. That's why the bolsheviki accuse Patriarch Tikhon of treason.
September 15: Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg is sentenced to death. This so-called `White' General conducted a veritable reign of terror in Mongolia, from January to July. He was financially supported by the Japanese government, which appreciates the anticommunist points of view of the `White' General. After he conquered Mongolia, he crowned himself `Tsar of all Russians', and braced himself to crush the Red Army. That didn't turn out as well as he planned, because his troops rose in mutiny and the Red Army brought him to Novosibirsk, to be tried. During the trial the Baron stated, `For thousand years the Ungerns have been in command. We have never taken orders from others. I refuse to acknowledge the authority of the working class.'
September 18: John Mott founds the YMCA-Press in Prague. His publishing-house is specialized in Russian literature.
October 26: The Russian writer Zinaida Hippius (1869-1945) and her husband Dmitri Me- rezhkovsky (1865-1941) write the anticommunist pamphlet The Empire of the Antichrist.
November 5: Birthday of my grandmother Princess Alexandra Constantinovna Obolensky, née Countess Mussin-Pushkin. Nobody heard anything of her since November 1917. This day she would have become 36.
December 23: Prince Michael Feodorovich Obolensky, my grandfather, is murdered by the bolsheviks in a Moscow prison.
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1922 From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: January 10, 1922: I'm now in the maternity ward, for the third day... It's a boy, we named him Jurka-Alexander... I am still much too weak and it's hard to write.
January 11: Metropolitan Anthony asks the Synod to openly choose the side of the Whites. The Soviet government accuses Patriarch Tikhon of having contact with the Synod and demands that he excommunicates the members of the Synod, amongst who bishop Evlogi of Paris. The Patriarch replies that he's not competent to excommunicate people who are outside the territory of his Patriarchate.
February 23: The bolsheviki order to confiscate all ecclesiastical objects within a month and to turn them over to the People's Commissionary of Treasury.
February 28: The Patriarch reacts with an appeal, in which he calls the ukase of the government an act of sacrilege. He calls upon all believers to resist. This appeal of the Patriarch is heard in the entire country. In many cities, towns and villages the believers resist the confiscation of ecclesiastical treasures, which results in bloody confrontations; thousands of people are persecuted, many are executed.
February 28: The Russian poet Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), who is befriended with writers like Rilke and Pasternak, escapes from the Soviet-Union, to join her husband Serge Efron in Prague. During the Russian Civil War Serge fought with the Whites against the bolsheviki.
When the direct funding from Russia dries out because Holland doesn't recognize the Soviet-Union, ad- interim chargé d'affaires Paul Poustochkine and his wife, Nathalie Likhachev (1889-1969), try to make a living as art painters. Nathalie is a skillful portrait painter, who was a student in the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Paul earns a little money on the side by selling antiques, while Nathalie designs dresses for the ladies of the Dutch high society. But even with that it's hard to make ends meet, especially because Paul is still the representative of Russia, and has to pay for all official ceremonies that belong to the obligations of his office, out of his own pocket. Paul Poustochkine: `On behalf of the Dutch government we see after the interests of Russian prisoners of war in Turkey and Bulgaria. In Belgium this task is performed by my Spanish colleague Marquis de Villalobar.' After Paul's father Constantin passes away in Genoa in 1922, Paul's mother, Lydia Vasilievna Poznansky (1864-1957), moves to The Hague.
Initially Paul Poustochkine is appointed the diplomatic representative of the Denikin administration, and later of the Vrangel administration. February: The communist member of the Dutch parliament Willem van Ravesteyn utters his displeasure about the fact that Paul Poustochkine is invited to a banquet of Queen Wilhelmina. Jonkheer F. Beelaerts van Blokland, the head of the department of Diplomatic Affairs, tries to persuade Poustochkine into closing down the Russian legation in The Hague, but Poustochkine answers, `Most monarchies in Europe still have Russian delegations with diplomatic statusses. I have always tried to do my work as low profile as possible, without making any fuss. Possibly there will be a day in which one will have to recognize the short-lived administration of the bolsheviki Ä I am however convinced that Holland will do so as the last country.' Beelaerts van Blokland yields to this argumentation, and to avoid any criticism from the parliament he no longer puts Poustochkine on the accreditation list as a temporary chargé d'affaires, but as the first secretary. This way he is suspended of the diplomatic obligation to put him qualitate qua in the limelight at every official affair.
Queen Wilhelmina is glad to see the back of the Soviet Russians. She says, `You may recognize as much as you like, as long as you don't expect me to receive the envoy of Soviet-Russia.' The government understands this point of view. `We don't want to force the Queen to receive a representative of the ones who brutally killed her relatives - Her Majesty's grandmother was a Romanoff.'
May 1: Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanoff moves into the Villa Thénard, 66, Boulevard du Cap, Antibes. He uses the name of `Borissov', which was the name of his estate in Russia. Nicholas Nikolaevich is married to Princess Anastasia of Montenegro.
May 5: Patriarch Tikhon officially declares the ecclesiastical supreme council abroad abolished, but the charges of collaboration with the Whites aren't dropped.
May 17: Patriarch Tikhon and his locum tenens Agafangel are arrested.
May 18: The traitor Vedensky and his obnovlentsi (`innovators of the Church') are permitted to visit Patriarch Tikhon in prison, to force him to turn over the leadership of the Church to them. After an hour and a half Tikhon gives in. The 34 bishops who went into exile in Constantinopel, together with a part of the White Army, found a new Churchly administration, the Russian-Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, by means of the Synod of Sremsky-Karlovci. This happens at Patriarch Tikhon's request. They know that Tikhon has fallen into the hands of the bolsheviki, and they don't even think about obeying the order of Serge, the new Metropolitan of Moscow, which says that every Russian abroad has to refrain from anti Soviet activities.
May 19: The membership of a Scouting Club is officially prohibited. Although hundreds of scouts and leaders are murdered, the organization continues its existence in illegality, waiting for better times, that will not come. All cub scouts, brownies, scouts, and cub mistresses are considered Enemies of the Revolution.
New York, May 20: The first edition of Kuzbas, a `Bulletin devoted to the Affairs of the Industrial Colony Kuzbas (5 cents)', `Kuzbas, an effort to strengthen Soviet Russia, by S.J. Rutgers (Engineer and Member of Management Board). Workers of the World, Unite! KUZBAS is being surrounded by so much romanticism that many workers are likely to lose sight of the solid foundation and practical importance of the project. To clear the ground of the glamour that has arisen around a rather sober ``Prospectus'' it would be well to state briefly what Kuzbas is NOT.
(...)KUZBAS is no place for theorists nor for dreamers nor is it a place to try out the plans for a future society. It is a place to work and to work hard in order to strengthen the Worker's Soviet Republic's economic front against capitalism. (...) KUZBAS is no solution for unemployment in America. Unemployment will last as long as capitalism rules. (...) KUZBAS is no co-operative, no productive association with possibilities for those who participate to get rich amid a starving population. The products belong to the RSFSR and the Americans will only receive a higher standing of living for the time being, because they require this standard to work with the highest efficiency. (...) Those who do not believe in the Soviet Republic should stay home. There must be close co-operation and mutual understanding with the Soviet Government. Antagonism would only help the ``Whites'' and the Allied property owners. (...) Soviet Russia needs foreign engineers and workers with their skill, tools and machinery. Here is an opportunity for only those who are willing to support in PERSON by THEIR LABOR Soviet Russia.' About 600 Americans leave for Kuzbas and Nadezhdensk.
June 10: Metropolitan Benjamin has to appear before a tribunal.
July 6: Metropolitan Benjamin is executed. The trial and the execution cause anger and dejection among all believers.
August 8: Grand Duke Kiril Vladimirovich Romanoff (1876-1938), grandson of Alexander II, who since 1921 lives in the villa Ker Argonid, 33 rue de Pleurtuit, in Saint-Briac sur Mer, Brittany, signs a manifesto in Saint-Briac in which he proclaims himself `chief of the Imperial House of Russia and administrator of the crown'.
August 21: After two years of forced stay in Constantinopel, Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov and her family leave for Bulgaria. Bulgaria is a very poor country, and life there is extremely difficult. Tatiana Nikolaevna meets and marries her Vladimir, a young Russian officer who fought in the White Army.
Moscow, December 30: Since today Russia is officially named `Union of Socialist Soviet Republics' (USSR). Stalin is appointed Secretary General of the Communist Party.
1923 Paris, February 23: The dancer Isadora Duncan (1880-1927), and her husband, the Russian poet Serge Andreevich Esenin (1895-1927), take up their residence in the H“tel de Crillon, in the Place de la Concorde. Esenin is the artistic leader of the imaginists and, especially to young people, one of the most popular poets of the 20th century. Isadora Duncan is an American with Scottish-Irish parents. During a European tour, as a dancer in the group of Loie Fuller, she was discovered by an impresario. In 1905 she performed in Russia, where she met dancers, which later, from 1909, would become famous with the Ballets Russes of Diaghilev. Particularly Fokine was influenced by her. In 1904, in Berlin, Isadora got acquainted with the English director and stage designer Edward Gordon Craig. Isadora had three children. The father of her daughter Deirdre was Gordon Craig. Her son Patrick died in 1913, together with his sister Deirdre, as the car in which they were waiting drove into the Seine. Isadora's third child died at birth.
From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: June 7, 1923: Arnulf has left the house without me. The philosophical club has its debate night and I can't come, because my boy Jurka-Alexander needs me. He's a little ill.
Paris, June 13: Première of Strawinsky's ballet Noces, in the Théƒtre de la Gaite-Lyrique. The choreography was done by Bronislava Nijinsky (a younger sister of Viachlav), while Natalia Goncharova was responsible for the décors and the costumes.
July 14: Igor Sikorsky manages to gather 800 dollars in cash and 2,000 dollars in doubtful promises, and with twelve Russian refugees, who work for him without being payd, he begins to build his first aeroplane in the United States. His `factory' is in the open, behind a chicken farm in Long Island.
From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: November 17, 1923: Professor Beloborodov suffers terribly under the mental pressure of the bolsheviki. He visited us tonight, pale, emaciated, in short: a man on the brink of the precipice.
1924 Moscow, January 22: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin dies.
Paris, January 24: The yearly Russian writer's ball in the Salle Bullier, for the benefit of colleague's in need. The play-bill says, `This yearly ball is known in all Paris as the most quaint ball of Montparnasse. Who doesn't remember the ball of last year, in which the quality and the quantity of the public rivaled with the beauty and the originality of the costumes? But we're through with the eternal search for originality. Away with it! This year we want a banal ball!'
September 13: Grand Duke Kiril Vladimirovich Romanoff, who lives in Brittany, adopts the title of `Tsar of all Russians'.
1925 April 7: Patriarch Tikhon dies.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: April 16, 1925: Arnulf is over the moon! He was offered a chair abroad! I am so afraid. We're leaving Russia in about a month.
May 11, 1925: Tomorrow we travel to Moscow. We want to stay there as long as necessary to get hold of all the paperwork.
June 1, 1925: Two suitcases with linen, two pillows and two blankets. That's how we leave the country of the proletarians. We have sold everything, and with the profits we will try to start a new life abroad.
June 18, 1925: Because it took so long before we could leave Russia, the faculty who invited Arnulf has hired someone else.
Paris, August 4: The painter Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin and his wife Alexandra Shchekotikhin Pototskaya move to the address 25 Boulevard Pasteur. Bilibin, a pupil of Ilya Efimovich Repin (1844-1930), escaped from Russia in 1920, after which he had lived in Egypt for five years. His wife Alexandra blandly exhibits her work in the pavillion of the Soviet-Union, on the World Exhibition of Decorative Art. Every Wednesday she entertains escaped Russian writers, journalists and artists. The Soviet Russian journalist Ivan Mozalevsky wrote, `Ivan Yakovlevich friendly took my arm, and led me to the middle of the studio, where he announced in his high-pitched voice, ``May I introduce you to my former pupil and friend Ivan Ivanovich Mozalevsky. Sure, he's a bolshevik, but he's not a bad kid.'' Many guests left the studio, while the others maintained a sinister silence. Only some young writers and journalists looked at me inquisitive. One of them asked me a provocative question, ``When do these bolsheviki pop off the hook?'' ``You shouldn't ask that question to me, but to the People's Commissioner of Public Health,'' I answered. ``Unfortunately I'm not completely familiar with the state of health of all Soviet citizens.''
October 17: Choreographer George Balanchine, pseudonym of Grigori Melitonovich Balanchivadze (1904-1983), who carries on the Petersburg tradition, succeeds Bronislava Nijinska as house choreographer of the Ballets Russes in Paris.
November 1: The writer Marina Tsvetaeva, who has just arrived from Prague, together with her daughter Ariadna and her son Grigori, moves in with Russian friends, on the address 8 Rue Bouvet, Paris. November 23: her husband Serge Efron joins his family. Marina is very depressed. December. Marina writes, `The quarter in which we live is horrifying, it looks like a London slum out of Dickens' time. There is an open sewer and the air is polluted by the smoke of the chimneys, not to mention the soot, and the noise of the trucks. No neighborhood to go for a nice walk, no parks. (...) Nevertheless we walk - along the canal with the dead, taint water. (...) The four of us live in one room, and I can't manage to write in peace.'
Paris, December 5: The Soyuz Dvoryan (Union of Russian Aristocrats) is founded. (The union still exists and is resided in Paris, 1 Square the Chatillon. The present President is Prince Serge Sergeevich Obolensky.)
From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: December 22, 1925: Arnulf just returned from one of his rambles through the city. Tired and low-spirited he dropped on the bed, in which Jurka-Alexander is sleeping. His face is tensed and gloomy. It is absolutely impossible to get a job, whatever you try. Living of the pen is completely out of the question. The editors don't know which way to turn with all the manuscripts that are dropped on their desks every morning.
December 23: John Mott's YMCA-Press moves from Prague to Paris (where it still is resided on the address 11 Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève).
December 28: The French railroads hired 250 Russian emigrants, who are accommodated in barracks near the station of Clermont-Ferrand. One of these Russian workers says, `Every Sunday the whole population of the town comes to look at us. We feel like monkeys in a zoo. Yet civilization isn't completely strange to us, because we sing songs of Mussorgsky and others, conducted by a colleague who has been a musician in the Opera of Odessa.'
December 30: Igor Strawinsky visits the United States for the first time.
Count Paul Ignatieff, the director of the Russian Red Cross in Paris, is considered an important official and assembles with many important people, like President Herbert Hoover of the United States and other heads of state. His wife Natasha, who lives in Sussex, however keeps thinking of herself as a refugee and stays homesick for Russia. The children grow up as English lads.
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Paris in the interbellum
In the interbellum more than half of the Russian expatriates who went to France, lived in Paris. Paris, of course, had a enormous gravitational pull, but life there often didn't come up the expectations of the refugees at all. Eight adults living in one tiny room wasn't exceptional. Ilya Ehrenburg: `Instead of a blue sky there was a filthy, wadding smoke, which absorbed all greasy odours and the smell of human excrements. No, this Paris didn't look at all like paradise. (...) In the Rue Morillon is a lovely abattoir, and around it spring up hundreds of small businesses, where wine is sold at the counter. Fattened up cattle-traders, whose aprons are covered with ox blood, come in. They poor the blood red wine inside, as a result of which their cheeks turn purple. (...) They gorge down the white wine in gallons, and bite in pieces of cheese, which give out a smell that reminds me of soldiers' feet. (...) The rag-pickers gather on the Boulevard Pasteur, at 5 a.m. From time to time they disagree over a broken plate, often the bitches even scuffle. They grab each other's sweaty hairs, which are full of lice, after which they go through the dust-bins once more. On the address 38 Rue Falgier is a brothel, with beautiful boys. Right across the brothel is a police-station. (...) Furthermore one can find pharmacists here, without diploma's, who sell drugs which are supposed to cure the clap. (...) All this crawls about the streets and does its work. It swallows a hot potato, right out of the frying-pan, without even masticating it; it drinks miserable wines, it smoothes out crumpled, greasy paper francs; it sings its sentimental, tear jerking songs, in short it suffers (sic) from its rich and shaded, joyful life. This is Paris.'
The expatriates' statusses differed. Some were naturalized French citizens, by request or by marrying a French citizen. Others kept the nationality of the first country they went to after they had escaped, for example Yugoslavia or Czechoslowakia. There were also Russians who preferred to keep the refugee status, and they were holders of an identity-card which was called the `Nansen passport', after the United Nations High Commissioner for the Refugees. In view of these different statusses it is hard to tell how many Russian refugees there were in France during the 1920s. In 1924 the United Nations estimated the number of Russian refugees in France 400,000. In those days there were living about 100,000 Russian refugees in Berlin.

Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 3 - After The Revolution - Chapter 7 - Flight Abroad

2006-03-16T06:17:00.000-08:00

7. Flight Abroad
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From 1917 to 1922 more than a million people succeeded to escape Russia. Hundreds of thousands were less successful; they were imprisoned, executed or shot without any form of trial. The stream of refugees moved eastward, to Manchuria and China, or via Vladivostok to Canada and the United States, and westward, via the Balkans and the Baltic states, to Western Europe, particularly France. In 1917, after the February Revolution, the stream was still a rippling creek, but when the Southern White Army of General Denikin was defeated in the spring of 1920, and the troops of General Vrangel could just in time escape to Romania and Turkey, the stream became a wide, wild, swirling river. The stream of refugees wasn't just composed of people of aristocratic descendence, but mainly of military men, artists, writers, doctors, professors, lawyers and musicians.
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1918 From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: August 18, 1918: Everybody's waiting for the Whites. Everybody expects that they know a way out of this misery.
Moscow, August 30: Lenin is severely wounded in an assault on his life by Fanya Kaplan. As a reprisal hundreds of innocent civilians are executed: 512 in Petrograd, 41 in Nizhni-Novgorod, 29 in Moscow and 40 in Smolensk.
September 6: Count Paul Ignatieff is arrested at home. He kisses and blesses his wife and children and goes with the drunken bolsheviki. Natasha runs after the car and shouts, `When do I see him again?' `Early tomorrow-morning at the station,' says one of the bolshevists.
The next morning Natasha finds her husband in a stinking goods carriage. He and some other prisoners lay on the floor, huddled in their overcoats. Natasha is chased away by a guard.
The next day the train with the prisoners leaves for Piatigorsk, a place of execution for opponents of bolshevism. Natasha is mortally afraid.
Paul Ignatieff also thinks that his final hour has come, but thanks to the fact that some Ukrainians in Piatigorsk know of his merits as Minister of Education, he is released. He immediately calls Natasha, who subsequently wakes up her children and calls, `He's free! He's free!' The following day the Vinogradnaya Allya publishes a list of 140 people who were executed in Piatigorsk the day before. When the Ukrainians wouldn't have recognized him, Paul Ignatieff would have been one of the 140 dead, because his name is on that list.
After Paul's return, the house of the Ignatieffs is robbed 17 times, by armed gangs, which are looking for food and jewelry. The contents of the cupboards and drawers are scattered all over the floor, servants are raped, the Ignatieffs themselves are insulted and humiliated.
Due to the fact that they run out of money, the servants have to be dismissed. The poplars in the garden are chopped down, to have firewood for the winter. The Ignatieffs keep themselves alive with moldy bread and dried fruits.
September 8: A Soviet delegation of twelve men, headed by Friedrich Rosin, enters the Dutch consulate in Moscow. They are to be the new legation of the Soviet-Union in The Hague. They force the staff of the consulate to hand over the visa's they need. Willem Jacob Oudendijk is acting Envoy of Holland in Petrograd. He calls the bolshevist administration the `bayonetocracy of Ulyanov and Bronstein' (Lenin and Trotsky). On account of the incident with Rosin and his pack Oudendijk lets the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs know: `There's no doubt that this is a dispatch of the most dangerous persons, which is meant to bring revolutionary propaganda to Holland.'
September 12: The White Army returns to Gnachbau to secure the coffin with General Kornilov's body, but they are told that the Red Army has digged it up, stripped it, dragged it about the town, flung it on to the pavement, and hung it on a tree. After having had their fill of insulting the corpse, now turned into a shapeless mass, they took it to the slaughter-house, where in presence of the bolshevist authorities the remains were burnt for two days. General Denikin: `Trampled on and burnt! The madmen! The name of dishonoured Russia's champion is inscribed in the chronicles in letters of fire. No filthy hand can tear it out of the nation's memory.'
Due to the fact that the communists aren't supported by the majority of the population, they called in the political police. Some bolshevist leaders are murdered and in the South the counterrevolution is becoming more fierce. The Red Terror comes to a head. The Cheka systematicly kills every opponent of its cruel methods, and this way they establish the `elite of the proletariat', their base of power. The Red Terror is an acknowledged and integrating element in the process of the oppression of the nation. Lenin himself states, `Without terror and violence the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be established.' In theory the activities of the Cheka are only directed against the bourgeoisie, but the actual practice is that the Cheka extirpates every individual and every group that is suspected of resistance against the Soviet Government; every aristocrat, shopkeeper, farmer, soldier or worker that doesn't like the communists. The Cheka is a merciless instrument of the communists. When a community isn't cooperative enough, they take as many hostages as necessary to convince the community that it's better to obey the communists. Their means of exercising power are torturing, taking hostages and mass murder. The legal order has to make place for a system in which suspicion of a crime is enough to execute the suspect. Resistance against the dictatorship is the most serious crime and thousands of innocent people, who never have been involved in any political activities, are killed. Rations are about half a pound of bread per day. Without ration cards it's hard to become food. Someone without ration cards will certainly die of famine, so in the cities the communists are able to decide about live and death. In the country they violently confiscate the grain of the farmers. They who resist are murdered.
September 16: Count Alexander Buxhoeveden, his wife Olga Olensky, and their children Anatol (Alec), Elisabeth and Marianna, escape to Helsinki, Finland, where grandfather Anatol Buxhoeveden lives in exile since a couple of months.
October 1: Serge Yuryevich Daniloff embarks the French liner Chicago in Bordeaux, to go to New York. All he wants is to forget the past and to become an American citizen. He has US$ 900 in his wallet and with the help of the Carnegie Foundation he is able to go to Harvard University. Some weeks after he's arrived in New York his brother Michael joins him.
October 3: Princess Tatiana Dolgorouky reaches the lines of the White Army, as a result of which she's safe for the time being. Subsequently she works as a nurse in a field hospital of the Whites. When the Whites have to withdraw, she reaches the Crimea, after a foul, terrible trek. More dead than alive she's found by a Polish patrol, which immediately takes her to a hospital in Odessa. Odessa is a chaos. The French take refugees aboard of their ships, but they are treated badly. There are much too little ships to transport all refugees. The Brits are more polite, but they also don't have enough ships. At the quays refugees fight for a place on a ship, but every day thousands of them stay behind, and they all hope to be able to leave the next day. Tatiana Petrovna has no more possessions, but her friends from Petrograd try to help her out as good as possible.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: October 5, 1918: We are all so tired, so provoked... so hungry... Are there still countries where one can live, just live, where one has not to fear every minute for being tortured, harassed, or killed? Are there still people who can eat whatever they like? People who are able to say what they think? Ekaterinburg is already in the hands of the Whites. Ah, everyone awaits liberation-day! Will it ever come? And if it doesn't come, what will happen then? How long will we endure this? October 25, 1918: Celebration of the Revolution. All over the city are red flags. Demonstrations, speeches. We also attended, everyone is forced to join them. The people keep silent.
October 26: Patriarch Tikhon has raised his voice before, but today he once more sends a letter to the Council of People's Commissionars, in which he writes, `Nobody feels safe anymore. Hundreds of defenseless people are thrown into dungeons, where they suffer for many months; people are executed, often without a trial. Bishops, priests and monks, who are completely innocent, are being shot. You have instigated the people to these shameless actions, you are befogging the conscience of the people... Especially cruel and painful is the violation of religious freedom. You deride the servants of the altar, you force the bishops to work in the trenches and the priests to do all kinds of filthy work. You have confiscated the property of the churches, which was gathered by many generations, you are destroying the churchly organization, you take away the spiritual nourishment of the children, which is essential for the Orthodox education...' The believers admire Patriarch Tikhon's courage, but they fear for his life and believe that the Cheka will kill him, like it kills hundreds of people every day. This however doesn't happen. The bolshevist leaders are careful, because they are afraid that the Patriarch's arrest will cause a rebellion, which will drive the people into the arms of the Whites. Moreover many bolshevist workers and soldiers are still believers, who often go to church. The bolsheviki cannot yet afford to force the issue with the Patriarch; that will only happen a couple of years later. There are clergymen who are favourably towards the new regime, and to weaken the Church the bolsheviki decide to play these clergymen off against the Patriarch. Directly after the February Revolution of 1917 a couple of priests, deacons and laymen founded the republican `All-Russian Union of Democratic Orthodox Clergymen and Laymen', but due to fact that the goals of the union were too radical for most of the progressive clergymen, the union became little influence, and that's why the leaders of the union decide to separate from the Church. This plan however meets with opposition of the remaining members, and has to be abolished.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: October 28, 1918: almost every family in the intellectual life of our city has at least one member who was shot by the bolsheviki. But nobody wears mourning. Wearing mourning for the victims of terror is strictly forbidden.
October 29: In Samara and Omsk anti-communist governments were formed, which are supported by the Czechs. Now the communists only are in power in a part of European Russia; the rest of the vast old Russian Empire is split up in independent states, which are divided between themselves.
November 1: Admiral Kolchak, the commander of the Siberian White Army, orders to have Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, Grand Duke Serge Mikhaïlovich Romanoff, his secretary F. Remez, the Grand Dukes Ivan, Constantin and George Constantinovich and Prince Vladimir Paley burried in the Cathedral of Alapaevsk.
November 1: Jonkheer Dr Herman Adriaan van Karnebeek (1874-1942), the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, states, `As we have not recognized this new Russian state, we cannot admit an envoy.' November 9: Envoy Oudendijk leaves Russia, very much against the will of the Communist Party in Holland (CPH).
November 11: Germany surrenders, which puts an end to World War I. The Germans clear the occupied areas and the Whites expect that the Allied Forces will not allow the communists to establish their power there. The Allied Forces however don't show themselves. General Denikin: `In Ekaterinburg Sir Charles Eliot solemnly declared that the Allied troops were already on their way to Siberia, and that they soon would fight on the front. Help was also coming from another quarter, from Kotlas (on the northern front). Everything was being done to speed things up. That help never came.' Petlyura, the leader of the Ukrainian socialists, chases away the German puppet Skoropadsky.
November 13: The Davidoffs return to Kiev. When the Red Army advances and the Germans withdraw, many refugees go into hiding. Anarchy returns with great fierceness.
November 15: A Russian sailor finds himself in an awkward position. His shipmates blame him for being a friend of the royal family of Obolensky, and they suggest that he owes them a loyalty pledge. `Okay, okay,' says the sailor, `come on, I'll show you that I'm a real revolutionary.' A minute later a horde of excited, murderous sailors hurries to the domicile of Dowager Princess Hélène Constantinovna Obolensky (1862-1918), the widow of Prince Alexis Alexeevich Obolensky (1856- 1906). As the Dowager Princess seems not to be in, her godson first kills three female servants, one of them the old kitchenhelp that always took care of him like a mother. While the corpses are being dragged to the lawn and other servants try to run to a place of safety, the Dowager Princess arrives. Her godson and his gang walk towards her with a warlike appearance. When they have neared her within some yards, the Dowager Princess asks her godson what the meaning of this event is. He smiles nervously, aims his revolver at her, and fires four bullets into his godmother. While she hits the ground, she mumbles his name in astonishment. Princess Hélène Constantinovna Obolensky is murdered by her godson. Four people of her staff also are shot. The bodies are piled up with the other corpses in the lawn, gasoline is poored over them and they're set on fire. The sailor has proven his loyalty and is celebrated a Hero of the Revolution. The children of Prince Alexis Alexeevich and Princess Hélène Constantinovna Obolensky escape in a hurry.
November 19: Princess Elisabeth Alexeevna Obolensky, née Countess Teplov, my great-grandmother, is murdered by the bolsheviks.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: November 20, 1918: Today we had to fill in a questionnaire in the library. Many questions, like: which political party do you belong to? Everyone who writes down anything else than `communist', is arrested immediately. This also happened to someone in the office where my sister works. He wrote down, `social democrat'. He was arrested and nobody heard of him ever since.
November 21, 1918: We can't imagine anymore how it's like to sleep undressed, talk without whispering, live without fearing to be shot. Are there really people in the world who still know what white bread is, and sugar - real, genuine sugar?
December: The Scout Shop in the Nevsky Prospect in Petrograd has to close down. On September 8, 1914 the Ruskii Skautizm, the Russian National Scouting Organization, was founded in St. Petersburg, by Oleg Pantuchov (1881-1973) and his wife Nina. Initially the bolsheviki left the scouts in peace. On April 23, 1918 more than 2,000 scouts in uniform could still undisturbed celebrate St. George's day, in St. Petersburg.
December 18: French troops capture Odessa, but in the mean time the communists have reinforced their troops in such a way that Southern Russia can't be taken. Moreover the Allied Forces are weakened by World War I, so they're not able and motivated to fight a long battle in a strange country.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: December 25, 1918: Christmas! The Whites have captured our city! December 26, 1918: The Whites are here! And still we cannot realize our luck and happiness! We can eat, drink, sleep, we can speak, and we don't have to think of death every minute!
December 27: The Davidoffs escape to Odessa by train. During the trip they constantly realize that they can be arrested any moment.
1919 January 15: In Berlin the German communists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg are murdered by soldiers. Grigori Yevseevich Zinovyev (1883-1936) takes bloody revenge by executing a large number of hostages in the Peter and Paul Fortress, among them four Grand Dukes: Nicholas Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (1859-1919), George Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (1863-1919), Paul Alexandrovich Romanoff (1860-1919) and Dmitri Constantinovich Romanoff. Subsequently Lenin appoints his old friend Zinovyev chairman of the Komintern.
January 22: Since four days the Russian Civil War is discussed in the Peace Conference of Versailles. Today President Wilson of the United States invited `the organized group which now in Russia has political and military power' to send representatives to a conference on the isle of Prinkipo in the Sea of Marmora, and in the mean time to maintain an armistice. The Soviets favour this option, because it gives them the opportunity to regain their strength. As long as the communists and the anticommunists are discussing Russia's future, they aren't able to fight, so in the mean time new strategies can be developed. The anticommunists however refuse to sit at one table with people who unlawfull had seized political power in Russia, by means of violence, intimidation and murder. The battle continues and Denikin acknowledges Kolchak's supreme command. The Whites become material support of Great-Britain, in the form of 200,000 rifles, 6,200 machineguns, dozens of tanks and 168 airplanes. Kolchak and Denikin's successes are spectacular, and the Allied Forces don't doubt that the Whites will win the war.
January 25: The health resort of Kislovodsk, the city in the Caucasus where the Ignatieffs live now, is liberated by the Whites. The White government asks Paul Ignatieff to become Minister of Agriculture, but he turns down the offer.
January 29: Kislovodsk is once more besieged by the Red Army, but the Ignatieffs have the luck to be able to travel in the train of General Vrangel's wife, who came to Kislovodsk to recover from an attack of typhus.
February 2: Igor Sikorsky leaves from London to the United States, where he, just like thousands of other refugees, will try to build a new existence. After he arrives in New York, he tries to sell his aeroplane-designs, and when this doesn't work out he decides to start his own aeroplane factory.
February 4: The train, jammed with refugees, leaves for Novorossiisk, at the Black Sea, where the Ignatieffs rent a house. They have been in the train for three days, only to cover a distance of less than 250 miles. In the harbour of Novorossiisk are two ships: the Grafton, a cruiser of the British navy, and the Huanchaco, an old steamer, but to be able to leave they need visas from the White government. Due to the fact that Paul Ignatieff refused to become Minister of Agriculture in the Whites' administration, they're not at all in a hurry to oblige him, but in the mean time the Crimea is occupied by the Red Army, which advance fast in the direction of Novorossiisk. There isn't much time left. Only after Peggy Meadowcroft, the English governess of the children Ignatieff, travels to Ekaterinodar to teach the Whites a lesson, the visas are handed over. That night the Huanchaco weighs anchor. After three weeks the ship reaches Constantinopel. The Ignatieffs end up in a shabby hotel, where the eight of them have to share two small rooms. When the Russian Consul-General hears of their miserable circumstances, he invites the Ignatieffs to live with him for the time being. The Brits refuse to issue visas to Paul Ignatieff and his family, but they are welcome in France. It will however take a long time before they can embark a ship which will take them to France.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: March 4, 1919: Kolchak was in our city! It was an unforgetable feast; all classes of the population thanked him for the liberation, which freed us from the bolsheviki. Everyone is so enthusiastic, hundreds of volunteers join the army.
March 13: When the horrors of communism become widely known, the French try to intervene once more. Today they appointed themselves the supreme power in the Odessa area, and with the help of local Russian units of the White Army the communists are chased back a little now and then, but that doesn't get the Whites anywhere. In Sevastopol the Allied Forces put some Russian warships under embargo. When the Whites claim the ships, the Allied Forces refuse to turn them over, because they can do a lot of damage when they fall into the hands of the bolsheviki. Subsequently the Allied Forces bring all Russian warships to the Turkish port of Izmit. The French soldiers are influenced by the communist propaganda, after which they refuse to fight against the Red Army. That's why the communists can easely chase the French troops from Southern Russia.
Halfway through March 1919 it becomes known that the resistance of the White Army can be broken within some days, as a result of which the Crimea once more will be occupied by the bolsheviki. Not everyone decides to escape to the West. Many want to go to the Caucasus, which still is in the hands of the White Army. Prince Ilarion (Lari) Vasilchikov and his wife Princess Lydia Viatzemsky also hesitate for a while. The steamship Possadnik is ready to leave for Novorossiisk.
While the Possadnik leaves the harbour, Lydia, her mother, her husband and her children embark the HMS Stuart, a torpedo-ship of the British navy. They're only allowed to bring two suitcases each, which is uncomprehensible, because the hold of the ship is empty and stays empty, as a result of which the Stuart pitches and yawes much more than it would have with more cargo in the hold. The torpedo-ship sets course for Constantinopel. All passengers are impressed by the kindness of the British navy men. The behaviour of the crew makes the children think that the trip is a nice excursion, and they don't realize that they are escaping. At daybreak the ship approaches the Bosporus. The view is splendid. Constantinopel is brightly illuminated by a March morning sun, and the pointed minarets rear up into the sky above the `City of the Tsars', like optimistic Russians once used to call Constantinopel. Nobody knows where the refugees will end up next. Lydia enquires of possibilities to leave Turkey, but World War I is only just over and good rail connections are still very rare. In the Pera Palace Hotel, where all who need information go to, she meets an old friend, Countess Bobrinskoy, who worked in the field hospitals at the French front and is on her way to Southern Russia, where she wants to join the White Army. (One month later the Countess dies of typhus.) During their stopover in Constantinopel Lydia and her family sleep on the Nicholas, a Russian ship that has anchored in the harbour. Every day they're taken to and from the British ship Sagitta, by motor launch, so that they don't have to stay in the refugee camp. The saturday before Easter the Vasilchikovs leave with the Bermudian, a large British liner, to Marseille. They know they're leaving Russia forgood; ahead of them is nothing but an uncertain future.
In Odessa life is miserable and monotonous. All refugees are depressed and angry, because they had to leave everything behind. At first the city is in the hands of the French troops, but when they hear that the French are planning to withdraw, and the Crimea is occupied by the bolsheviki in the second week of April 1919, the situation becomes even more chaotic; many refugees are panic-stricken. All refugees want to leave for Constantinopel at once. This however is rather difficult, and takes a lot of time. Finally the Davidoffs get hold of the necessary visas, and on May 15, 1919 they embark the Alexander III, which only will leave the next night. The tension increases by the minute. Will they be able to get away, or will they after all be imprisoned and shot? When the Alexander III unmoors the next evening, many passengers heave a sigh of relief. Mariamna Davidoff, `It was still light when I was on deck and I saw Russia disappear slowly. It was strange, I felt that a weight was taken off my shoulders, and I became more at ease. When the coast was out of sight, I crossed myself. Farewell Russia!'
The British battleship HMS Marlborough comes to the Black Sea to save Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna - after all she's the sister of the Queen Mother of England - but Maria Feodorovna refuses to leave as long as not all refugees are evacuated. Subsequently the Brits send more ships to Yalta, and in May 1919 Princess Tatiana Petrovna Dolgoroukaya is welcomed aboard by the captain of the English troop-ship that will take her and thousands of other refugees to Constantinopel. Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanoff (1856-1929), grandson of Nicholas I, supreme commander of the Russian army from 1914 to 1915, escapes just like most of the other surviving Romanoffs with the Marlborough to the West. While the ship weighs anchor, the Russian national hymn sounds.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: May 24, 1919: The Whites are withdrawing. Buguruslam, Buguljma and Belebei have fallen. They say that there's an enormous panic in Ufa. Refugees have already arrived in our city.
May 30, 1919: The Reds capture one city after another; our city is really full of refugees. All layers of the population try to escape, not just the intellectuals, but also many workers and farmers. They remember very well what the Red Terror meant to them.
June 10, 1919: our city is captured by the Reds! We're in a cattle train and moving in the direction of Siberia.
June 11, 1919: One station after another lights up and disappears again. Mountains, rocks, lakes, plains... Emerald green. The sweet smell of blooming flowers and trees. (...) Today father gave us all a small bottle. He said, `Cyanide. If the Reds catch us. It's better to die than to fall into their hands.' June 13, 1919: The bolsheviki must be right on our heels. All refugees are disappointed in the Whites. Why did they liberate us, only to drive us back into the arms of our torturers? June 15, 1919: Delay! Everyone leaves the train. We have to wait here until the Whites have advanced.
June 17, 1919: The city we left yesterday is now captured by the Reds. Our train suddenly halted. Ahead of us is another train, and another, and so on, as far as the eye can see. An endless row of cattle trains, overcrowded with unfortunates, who fear for their lives.
June 21, 1919: our linen is dirty and we have no change. We couldn't even bring a set of underwear. The air in the carriage is horrible. The surgeon's daughter suffers from dysentery. I think I was bitten by a louse!
June 22: The cruise ship Buenos Aires arrives from Marseille in the harbour of Sevastopol to repatriate 2,200 Russian soldiers and former prisoners of war. However, most Russian soldiers choose to stay in Marseille. They find work in the harbours and are temporarely Ä on a voluntarily basis Ä put up in the camp `Victor-Hugo'. The first Russian-Orthodox church of Marseille is a Russian freightcarrier, which has anchored in the harbour. The first priest is Peter Brilev, a brother of the captain, who left Odessa just for this purpose.
June 25: Count Paul Ignatieff and his family embark the troop-ship La Flandre; they are relieved to be able to leave infernal Constantinopel. In Marseille they take the train to Paris, where they are welcomed on the Gare de Lyon by Colonel Alexis (Alyosha) Ignatieff, the former Military Attach&eacu- te; of Imperial Russia in Paris. Alexis, a cousin of Paul, lets them live in the apartment he shares with his maŒtresse, and treats them to several Russian delicacies, which they haven't tasted for over a year.
July 1: The White Army is forced to withdraw. The bodies of Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, Grand Duke Serge Mikhaïlovich Romanoff, his secretary F. Remez, the Grand Dukes Ivan, Constantin and George Constantinovich and Prince Vladimir Paley, which were burried in the Cathedral of Alapaevsk, are brought to Irkutsk.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: July 1, 1919: Every day people die in our train. The bodies are unloaded at the stations. If it takes long before the train stops somewhere, the bodies start to decompose by the terrible heat and fill the carriage with a horrible smell. And next to them are the still living! July 5, 1919: Once more we have stopped in the middle of a field. Ahead of us and behind us trains crowded refugees. (...) I noticed that among the refugees also are lot's of common people, even workers. All are hunted by the phantom of the Red Terror.
July 13: The Whites manage to fool the Allied Forces, and they get hold of a battleship, five torpedo- boats, four submarines and several smaller ships, who are brought to Novorossiisk. However, due to the fact that the oppositional powers are divided between themselves and due to the absence of foreign help, Denikin and Kolchak have to taste defeat everywhere.
July 16: Ekaterinburg returns into the hands of the Red Army.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: July 19, 1919: Our carriage is vermin-ridden, so at night we sleep under the carriage. If we only could find a small room here in Irkutsk!
July 22: Count Paul Nikolaevich Ignatieff, the last Minister of Education of Nicholas II, has finally become the visas for England for him and his family, and towards the end of July they will moved into a house in the London quarter of Putney. Count Paul tried hard to emigrate to England with his family, but initially the Brits refused to let them in the country. In Paris he once more requested visas for England. For the time being he and his family were accommodated in a boarding house, because Paul didn't want to disturb the love-life of cousin Alyosha and his mistress any longer.
Paris is the capital of the Russian emigrants colony and it was obvious that the Ignatieffs would settle there, but Paul has set his heart on England, because he wants his sons to go to a good English boarding school.
From 1907 to 1913 the journalist/writer Peter Dmitrievich Ouspensky (1878-1947) wrote for some Russian newspapers, usually about foreign subjects. After a long journey through Egypt, Ceylon and India he returned to Russia. World War I was raging. After the bolsheviki seize to power in 1917, Ouspensky waits a while to see which way the cat was jumping, but soon he sees that the Red Terror uses means that don't sanctify any goal. With a great deal of effort he manages to escape to the south, which alternately is in the hands of the Whites and the Reds.
As a refugee in his own country he writes five articles in letterform for the English literary weekly paper New Age, which he smuggles out of Russia. I quote parts of these articles:
Letter 1: Ekaterinodar, July 25, 1919. It is now two years since I last saw the New Age, and I do not know what is being said and thought and written in England and what you know. I can only guess. (...) I honestly pity everybody who has not been here, everybody who is living in the old way, everybody who is ignorant of what we now know. You do not even know the significance of the words `living in the old way'. You have not the necessary perspective; you cannot get away from yourselves and look at yourselves from another point of view. But we did so long ago. To understand what `living in the old way' means, you would need to be here, in Russia, and to hear people saying, and yourself too, from time to time, `Shall we ever live again in the old way?...' For you this phrase is written in a quite unintelligible language Ä do not try to understand it! You will surely begin to think that it is something to do with the re-establishment of the old regime or the oppression of the working classes, and so on. But in actual fact it means something very simple. It means for example: When shall we be able to buy shoe-leather again, or shaving- soap, or a box of matches? But no, it is no use. I feel sure that you will not understand me. You are used to considering questions on a much wider basis; the question of the box of matches will seem to you excessively trivial and uninteresting. I see perfectly clearly that we have lost utterly and forever the ability to understand one another. (...) We know too much to be able to speak to you on equal terms. We know the true relation of history and words to facts. We know what such words as `civilization' and `culture' mean; we know what `revolution' means, and `a Socialist State' and `winter', and `bread', and `stove', and `soap', and many, many more of the same kind. You have no sort of idea of them. (...) To travel from Mineralny Vody to Rostov and thence to Novorossiisk, you pass through four States, each with different laws, different prices, different sorts of police, united only by a single common quality, namely, that without bribes (and such enormous bribes as were never ever dreamed of in the old Russia) you cannot go far. For example, for a railway ticket that costs 100 roubles, you have to pay a bribe of 200 or 300, or even 500 roubles. (...) Everyone knows about it. Everyone talks about it. And everyone accepts it as permissible and inevitable. (...) The prices of all products and necessities have risen by twenty, fifty, a hundred, or six hundred times. Workmen's wages have risen twenty, fifty, or even a hundred times. But the salary of an ordinary `brainworker' - a teacher, a journalist or doctor - has risen in the best cases by no more than three times, and very often has not risen at all, but has actually decreased. If you earn 2,000 roubles a month, you are considered to be doing well; but often one meets with earnings of 1,000, 800 or 600 roubles. But the cheapest pair of boots cost 900 roubles, a pound of tea 150 roubles, a bottle of wine 60 roubles, and so on. (...) You will ask how it is possible to live under such conditions. And this is the most occult aspect of the whole question.
I will answer for myself: I personally am still alive only because my boots and trousers and other articles of clothing - all `old campaigners' - are still holding together. When they end their existence, I shall evidently end mine. (...) You will ask what else we live for. Russian was once famous for its literature and its art. Yes, but that all disappeared long ago. Literature, art and science have all been abolished by the bolsheviks, and the remain abolished.
Ah, but I forgot! The bolsheviks, I said. I quite forgot that you do not know what this word means. Even if you have seen bolsheviks in England, believe me they are not the real thing. In my next letter I hope to tell you what the bolsheviks are.
Letter 2: Ekaterinodar, September 18, 1919. I recently succeeded in obtaining several copies of English newspapers for the months of July and August. (...) You people do not know or see anything, just as two years ago we did not see or know anything ourselves. I And I wished I could shout to you, `Look at us, look at the present state! Then you will understand the meaning of what is happening to you, of what is awaiting you if you fail to see in time where you are being led.' (...) You advice liberated Russia to make peace with the bolsheviks, to draw a frontier and to live peacefully without disquieting Europe. I would like you to understand how we feel when reading this news. Imagine that robbers have broken into your house. They have got hold of almost the whole house, killed half your family, and are starving the rest to death and shooting down people from time to time. At the moment when you have begun to fight the robbers and succeeded in liberating some of the people, you are advised to make peace with the intruders, to give them half of your house, leave the rest of the family in their power and live peacefully yourself without troubling your neighbours. (...) Many of those who are now in the South have left their fathers, mothers, wives and children there. We do not know who is still alive and who is already dead. In any case, there are not many of them left. (...) Hunger, cholera, typhus, cold, violence, murder and suicides - this is the life of the North. (...) I am sincerely convinced that, could England realize the true meaning of bolshevism, neither the weariness with the war nor the dislike of being mixed up in foreign matters, nor the urgent necessity for reforms at home, would have prevented the British people from helping Russia. I am quite sure that a regular crusade would have started in England against bolshevism could the British nation only realize the meaning of events in Russia, their causes and the goal they are leading us to. (...) Bolshevism of the 20th century has one peculiarity - it is `made in Germany', and Germany knows how to make use of it. Employing bolshevism in 1917 to break up the Russian Army, Germany destroyed the danger menacing her Eastern front. You were in great peril, and you know it. But now you have decided that the peril has gone, and you are mistaken. Germany is not annihilated or even weakened. She is energetically and cleverly preparing a revanche. Her chief enemy is England, and the chief trump in her pack is Russian bolshevism.
Letter 3: Ekaterinodar, September 25, 1919. (...) The Russia that existed before is gone, and gone long ago. There is a bewildered and hungry country, where people are thrown out of railway carriages; where every conception of cultural values is gone; where any intellectual life ceased long ago; where, at the same time, the number of people under the command of somebody or other is continually increasing. And the sole aim of these persons who command is to improve their own position at the expense of those who are deprived of all rights. (...) In the beginning the bolsheviks were still friendly towards the public. The time had not yet come; everybody was still getting bread and shoes. But it was quite clear that as soon as there should be no bread and shoes, those with guns would get bread and shoes from those without guns. While this process of `deepening the Revolution' was taking place, the leaders of bolshevism were making their way to power. At last, thanks to murder, lies, unrealisable promises, and using all criminal elements available in Russia, they succeeded in reaching their object. (...) Russian life no longer existed. All that has happened since is nearer to death than to life. In fact, Russian life was brought to a standstill from the first moment of the revolution. This moment meant the destruction of any possibility of cultural work. Unhappily, only a few understood its real meaning. (...) There are idiots, even among cultured people, who feel happy in the Revolution, who believe it to be a liberation of something. They do not realize that, if it means liberation, it is liberation from the possibility of eating, drinking, working, walking, using tramways, reading books, buying newspapers, and so on. (...) Bolshevism assimilated itself to robbery. The masses wanted to have their share in the general plundering of Russia. Bolshevism sanctioned this plundering and gave it the name of Socialism. (...)
Letter 4: Ekaterinodar. (...) Officially the struggle was directed against the `bourgeoisie'. But this term in its bolshevik interpretation embraced the whole of the intelligentsia. All persons belonging to the professions, professors, artists, doctors, engineers, and generally all specialists were proclaimed bourgeois indiscriminately and subjected to the control of their own workmen and servants. In a way their position was worse than that of the journalists. The latter were left alone, but doctors, engineers, and civil servants were forced to work under the most incredible conditions. Workmen and guards controlled their engineers; doctors were superseded by councils of patients and porters. This is not a joke - it is real life and obtains at this moment in Soviet Russia. (...) But the intelligentsia could not be deceived for long. It would soon have discovered the underlying lies of bolshevism. To render the intelligentsia harmless, to prevent its explaining the truth to the people, it was proclaimed bourgeois, its members declared outlaws, and purposely confused with the bourgeois against whom the struggle was originally directed. This was logically inevitable. The intelligentsia, being inclined, generally speaking, to believe in revolutionary phrases, would have otherwise joined bolshevism and driven it to another line of development. It would have insisted on meeting the debts to which bolshevism had attached its signature without dreaming of paying anything. In other words, the intelligentsia would have insisted on the fulfilment of the promises given by the bolsheviks to the people, which the bolsheviks themselves considered only as a bait thrown to make fishing easier. Had the intelligentsia not been so decidedly denied participation in the Revolution it would have spoiled the game of bolshevism. The bolsheviks would never have been able to humiliate Russia to the degree they have.
Letter 5: Ekaterinodar. (...) Ekaterinodar is the capital of the Kuban region, and is one of the richest towns in Russia in terms of natural wealth. It is situated on the bank of the Kuban River, in the plain of the Northern Caucasus. It has practically no history at all, its reputation being based only on the fevers which rage there. It was founded in the 18th century, as can be guessed by its very name, and its appearance bears traces of its origin. (...) In short, it is the most God-forsaken place one can imagine. Hardly anyone of my acquaintance has ever been in Ekaterinodar before. (...) The town is more filthy than you can imagine. I do not think there exists a worse smelling spot on earth. (...) At times you walk through a symphony of smells. Nowhere in Europe, Asia, or Africa have I met with such a variety of odours, or ones of such power. I bitterly regret the fact that three years ago I recovered completely from catarrh. What a blessing nasal catarrh would be now! (...) Every word has to be explained. So far away are we from each other, that one might say we were almost on different planets. Only may there be none of our bolsheviks on your planet!
In Rostov on the Don Ouspensky is visited by his English colleague C.E. Bechhofer. Ouspensky's only possessions are the clothes he's wearing (a rather ragged frock-coat, a remnant of former fortunes), a couple of extra shirts and pairs of socks, one blanket, a shabby overcoat, an extra pair of boots, a tin of coffee, a razor, a file and whetstone, and a towel. He assures Bechhofer that he considers himself exceptionally fortunate to have so much left. Bechhofer wants to take Ouspensky with him to Novorossiisk, where they can try to embark a ship to Constantinopel, but Ouspensky wants to stay in Ekaterinodar, to wait for his wife. Some months later he reaches England.
In New York Aleksandr Feodorovich Kerensky publishes his book The prelude to bolshevism; the Kornilov rising, a `Who's Who' of people occuring in the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War.
October 1: Two strangers appear at the gate of General Frolov's datcha in the Crimea. They ask him, `Are you General Frolov?' Had he only said that he was the gardener, then most likely nothing would have happened, and he would have had the chance to escape, but the retired officer straightens his back and answers proudly, `I am General Frolov.' He is stabbed to death on the spot.
October 1: In Constantinopel Princess Tatiana Dolgorouky works as a nurse in the British military hospital. There she meets Alexis Czetwertinsky, a Polish physician who studied in St. Petersburg. However, he works as a dish washer in a restaurant. Tatiana is not qualified as a nurse and her chances to become a visa for France are small. She is holder of a Nansen passport, a certificate of statelessness, issued by the League of Nations, especially for refugees. Alexis however has a Polish passport, and writes letters of application to several hospitals and universities in France. His prospects are fairly good. Tatiana falls in love with Alexis and they get married in the refugee camp.
Alexis is invited to work in a private hospital in Paris, which entitles him to a visa for France. The Czetwertinskys hesitate: shall they await the results of the White Army in the Crimea, or shall they grab this chance with both hands? They decide to go to Paris.
Late August 1919 they are vaccinated against smallpox, typhus and cholera, after which they join the long file of Russian refugees in front of the French consulate. Early October 1919 they leave the refugee camp forgood, and take the Orient Express to Paris, where Tatiana finds a part time job as a nurse in Alexis' clinic.
October 2: First Secretary Henri de Bach of the Russian legation in The Hague, Holland, leaves for Washington and appoints Paul Poustochkine, who since March 30, 1913 worked as a Russian diplomat in The Hague, ad-interim chargé d'affaires.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: October 2, 1919: After a battle of four weeks the Whites finally managed to throw back the Reds behind Tobolsk.
October 30, 1919: The White Army is completely defeated. Omsk is being evacuated. Our refugee lodgings are getting fuller and fuller. November 20, 1919: Irkutsk is flooded by refugees. It's the most terrible thing one can imagine, all those people in their shabby clothes, pale, hollow-cheeked faces, feverish eyes, terrified of the Reds, who keep chasing them! What have they done wrong, these thousands, these women, these children???
November 14: Omsk, the government center of the Whites, is captured by the Red Army. With the knowledge of the Czechs and the French General Janin the revolutionary committee of Irkutsk arrest Admiral Kolchak. The weapons and ammunition Kerensky would have used at the Brusilov Offensive of July 1917, were only partly used, and that's why the Red Army have enormous reserves at its disposal. As a result of this the White Army has to retreat more and more.
1920 January 15: Denikin is defeated and hands over the supreme command of the remains of his army to General Vrangel, in the Crimea, Vrangel decides to reorganize his troops for a spring offensive. If he wants to be strong enough to fight the communists and uphold discipline, then the troops have to rest. Everyone who in future takes food from the population, will be severely punished.
February 6: The bodies of Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, Grand Duke Serge Mikhaïlovich Romanoff, his secretary F. Remez, the Grand Dukes Ivan, Constantin and George Constantinovich and Prince Vladimir Paley are transferred to China. Near the Chinese border the convoy is attacked by the communists. They push Grand Duke Ivan's coffin from the cart, but the Chinese soldiers arrive just in time to put an end to this disgraceful show.
February 7: Admiral Kolchak is executed by the bolsheviks.
February 20: Sokolov, the investigator of the Whites, is in Paris when he reads in the newspapers that in Berlin a young woman has turned up, who claims to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanoff, one of the Tsar's daughters. Because this is at odds with the conclusions in his report (all Romanoffs are murdered and burned, there is no grave) he is forced to contradict her. This woman cannot be Anastasia.
Tatiana Botkin, the daughter of Evgeni Botkin, the personal physician of the Tsar, knew the Imperial Family well, and even volunteered to go with her father when he went to Siberia with the bannished Romanoffs. She recognizes Anastasia immediately. Medical and forensic examinations also show that `Anna Anderson' is Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanoff. Anastasia herself hates being forced to prove who she is, time after time. She doesn't mind if others call her Anna Anderson, as long as she knows who she is.
But `Anna Anderson' is a threat to the other living Romanoffs, and not just financially. One of the few Romanoffs who are an exception to this rule is Grand Duke André Vladimirovich (1879-1956), the husband of Mathilde Kshessinskaya. `For two days I have had the opportunity to observe her, and I can tell you that I have no doubts whatsoever: she is Grand Duchess Anastasia. It is impossible not to recognize her. Of course she is marked by the years of suffering, but not so much as I had expected. Her face is sad, but when she smiles she is Anastasia, no doubt.'
March 2: General Daniloff and his wife Anna escape via Yalta and Serbia to Paris, where he becomes a professor in the French military academy.
March 10: Princess Tatiana Dolgorouky has to give up her job as a nurse in a Paris hospital, because she's pregnant. The firstborn son of Tatiana and Alexis Czetwertinsky is named Peter, after his grandfather Dolgorouky, who was executed by the bolsheviki in the Peter and Paul fortress.
March 13: Grand Duke André Vladimirovich Romanoff (1879-1956) and his wife Mathilde Kshessinskaya move into the Villa Alam in Cap-d'Ail, France, which he bought in 1913.
March 27: Prince Felix Yussupov and his spouse, Grand Duchess Irina Alexandrovna Romanoff, granddaughter of Alexander III, buy a house in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), on the address 27 Rue Gutenberg. One wing of the building is rebuild into a theatre and furnished by the painter Alexander Yakovlev. There they organize a soirée, every Saturday.
After he arrived from London in Paris, the Prince was surprised about the fact that the French still made such a fuss about his part in the murder of Rasputin. In his book En exil he wrote, `Those astonished and inquisitive gazes, the whispering when I pass along, that indignity was spared me by British aloofness. (...) And what to think about the hostess, who during a dinner party, with numerous guests, could not help saying, ``Yussupov will go down in history as the man with the face of an archangel and the hands of a killer!'''
April 3: The bodies of Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, Grand Duke Serge Mikhaïlovich Romanoff, his secretary F. Remez, the Grand Dukes Ivan, Constantin and George Constantinovich and Prince Vladimir Paley are burried in the cemetery of the Russian mission in Peking. (Later Princess Victoria makes sure that the Grand Duchess is brought to Palestine, were she is burried in the church of St. Maria Magdalena in Gethsemane, which is built in remembrance of Tsaritsa Maria (the wife of Tsar Alexander II). In 1888 Elisabeth and Serge Alexandrovich had attended the consecration of this church.)
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: April 8, 1920: The Reds have arrived in Irkutsk and we're still alive.
April 24: The French and British government acknowledge that the situation of the Polish army is hopeless, and with the help of French officers the Polish army conquers the Russian Red Army at the Weichsel, near Warsaw. More French troops arrive in Warsaw, and in a second offensive the Poles force back the Red Army to Minsk.
May 20: Paul Poustochkine's father in law, Ivan Alexandrovich Likhachev, dies during his escape from Russia. His spouse, Olga Nikolaevna Markov, and his daughter Pauline (aunt Pasha, 1891-1967) arrive in Constantinopel.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: June 3, 1920: Omsk! We once more live in a cattle train, an entire city of cattle trains.
General Vrangel's act of June 7, 1920 sees to it that the farmers receive land in possession, and with this measure he hopes to become the support of the population of Southern Russia. But the people prefer to believe the fabulous promises of the communists in stead of General Vrangel's realistic plans for the future. The French government however sees that the General can hardly defend himself against the communists.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: June 15, 1920: The food of the Soviets is really uneatable. July 17, 1920: We could not even say goodbye to father, we weren't allowed to give him underwear and clothes. My God, why do we have to suffer so much?
July 21: Olga Nikolaevna Markov-Likhachev and her daughter Pauline arrive in The Hague, Holland, where the Likhachevs are reunited in the house of Paul Poustochkine.
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: August 9, 1920: A case of cholera in our transport! The day before yesterday the sick has died, his death has caused severe panic. The physician who treated him was immediately arrested and shot the same day.
August 12, 1920 France recognizes the Vrangel administration as the government de facto of Southern Russia. That is however nothing more than a beau geste, because the French have already evacuated their troops from Southern Russia on April 28. The inadequate support of the Allied Forces stems from political dissension. Winston Churchill and the French Supreme Commander Ferdinand Foch are bursting to put down the Soviet regime, but the American President Thomas Woodrow Wilson and the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George are determined to withdraw the Allied Forces from Russia.
October 12: Poland and Soviet Russia call a truce, after which the communists have their hands free to use all of the Red Army against General Vrangel.
October 17: The Ignatieffs move to a farm at the coast of Sussex. Their children Dima and Nick are in the boarding school of St. Paul's; Alec, George and Lionel are still too young for boarding school and got to St. Paul's day school. During the school period they live with their old teacher Peggy Meadowcroft. The farm of the Ignatieffs has become a sanctuary for Russian refugees, like aunt Sonia Vasilchikov and uncle Sasha Meshchersky. Paul is the manager of the Russian Red Cross, which has it's headquarters in Paris, and he goes more often to France to see to the interests of this organization. The Russian Red Cross not only works for the thousands of Russian refugees abroad, but also for medical help to the White Army, which still fight the bolshevist troops.
Sevastopol, October 31, 3 p.m. Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov (1901-) is nineteen years old when she and her parents, her brother and her two sisters escape from Russia.
November 3: A fierce battle between the Red Army and General Vrangel's troops starts in the isthmus of Perekop, which connects Southern Russia with the Crimea.
November 15: Realizing that he has no chance to win the battle, Vrangel orders all anticommunist forces to evacuate from the Crimea. More than 130,000 soldiers and civilians with their families embark 126 ships and go to Constantinopel. The remaining 20,000 men, for whom evidently is no place on the ships, have to flee to Romania. The Civil War in European Russia has come to an end. In Central-Asia and Siberia the Civil War continues. Tatiana Nikolaevna Masalitinov, her family and 3,000 other refugees embark the French ship Cejet. After passing the Bosporus the ship anchors in the Sea of Marmara. Soon the ship is accompanied by several other ships, with many soldiers of the White Army aboard. The Cejet is a cargoship transporting coal, and the passengers who are disembarked in Constantinopel, are all black because of the coal dust. Tatiana Nikolaevna stood the trip well, but her parents, her brother and her sisters are ill. They have typhus and are placed in Turkish barracks. In view of this illness they're not able to continue the trip. The soldiers of the White Army are transported to several other Balkan countries. General Baron Peter Nikolaevich Vrangel leaves for Brussels.
General Denikin, `The swords have been turned into ploughs and lathes, and the exploits of war have given place to those of toil. Only a small minority of the Russian emigrés succeeded in finding intellectual work or lighter jobs. The greater part work at the plough, the pick-axe, or the lathe. All are united in a common brotherhood of poverty and toil - old and young, the general who once commanded an army, the officer, private, and Cossack. They are building roads in the wilds of the Balkans, digging coal at Pernik (Bulgaria), in the mines in France and in Belgium; cultivating coffee in South America, carrying loads in the Paris goods stations; working in factories in all the industrial centers of the world, tilling the fields in France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. There is not a corner in God's earth whither destiny has not cast some Russian refugee, and whither he has not brought his toil, his Russian tongue, Russian song, holy prayer, and Ä his profound longing for his lost home. The younger ones are still studying and waging a bitter war against hunger and poverty, those inseparable companions of their youth, earning their daily bread by giving lessons for a pittance, or wielding a cobbler's hammer or a spade on an underground railway, working at night to be able to study by day. And should destiny never allow them sword in hand to serve their country's liberation, in any case when Russia's doors reopen to them, they will return to her as capable workers in all branches of toil, erudition, science, and art. They will return as men tempered by dangers, hardships, and the struggle for life, who amid untold and exceptional duress kept alive their spirit, energy, and patriotism. Reader, if ever you come across a Russian White warrior with toil-worn hands and wearing shabby clothes, but with the open gaze of a man who has the right to look you straight in the eyes, remember that in shedding his blood for his own country, he was also saving your home from the Red Terror.'
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From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: November 17, 1920: When father returns Arnulf and I want to get married. `Marriage', what a peculiar word! I don't doubt for a minute that I'll be happy.
November 20: Patriarch Tikhon, doubtless foreseeing that he will be imprisoned and deprived of the free exercise of his office, issues a decree authorizing Russian bishops to set up temporary independent organizations of their own, should it become impossible to maintain normal relations with the Patriarchate. The Soviet administration does everything to prove that the leaders of the Russian- Orthodox Church are involved in contra-revolutionary plans.
November 22: Princess Ekaterina Meshcherskaya and her mother loose all their valuables, three estates and two palaces. Everything is confiscated by the bolsheviki. Subsequently they even have to leave their apartment in the Povarskaya Street (nowadays Vorovsky Street) in Moscow. Ekaterina, `On our search for a roof over our heads we went from door to door. (...) We ended up in railway stations. Nobody was interested in our valuables. Hunger and typhus afflicted Russia. People gave their piano in exchange for some broom corn or potatoes.' Although there's plenty of work, particularly for people with a good education, she and her mother don't find a job. `No work for princesses,' they are told every time. `We're not allowed to employ princesses.' Shortly afterwards an employee of the Employment Exchange is willing to register them as unskilled labourers. The Meshcherskaya's are housed in some barracks in Rublevo, where Ekaterina's mother has found a job as a cook. Two weeks later she becomes head of the cafeteria, due to the fact that she can read and write. Ekaterina becomes a music teacher in the local highschool.
November 24: The writer Dmitri Merezhkovsky and his wife, Zinaida Hippius, settle down permanently in their pied-à-terre on the address 11bis Rue du Colonel-Bonnet, Paris. Every Sunday, from 4 to 7 p.m. they entertain old and young Russian writers in their salon. These gatherings are extremely vivid, and many reminiscences of St. Petersburg are brought up. Zinaida encourages the young writers to read from their own work, and to ventilate their ideas. There are also weekly gatherings of Russian poets in the Café de la Bolée (at present Caveau de la Bolée), 25 Rue de l'Hirondelle. The established poets invite their young Russian colleagues in Paris to read from their work. After the lectures the poets discuss each others work.
November 26: Moshe Goldstein, who has been a lawyer in Kiev, founds his Russian newspaper Posledniya Novosti (The Last News). The editorial office is on the second floor of the premises 51 Rue de Turbigo, Paris, and the paper has correspondents in Berlin, Prague and Warsaw.
December 7: Evgenia Demidova celebrates her 22nd birthday, while she and her husband are on their way to Constantinopel.

Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 3 - The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War

2006-03-16T06:07:00.000-08:00

Part III: After the Revolution
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6. The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War
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1917 November 21: The new patriarch Tikhon is enthroned in the Assumption Cathedral of Moscow. Patriarch Tikhon is a good-natured and approachable man, who is aware of the responsibilities of his position and his obligations towards the Church and the country.
November 22: The bolsheviks capture the Smirnoff Company. Vladimir Smirnoff escapes, but is arrested in the Ukrain, for collaboration with the Tsarist regime.
General Yuri Daniloff's son Serge was a cadet in Tenishev, the elite military academy in St. Petersburg, where only sons of generals and field marshalls were allowed to study. In March 1917 General Daniloff advised Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. When Nicholas refused, the General made sure that his three children could leave for Paris; he could see the storm coming. After his arrival in Paris Serge Yuryevich Daniloff, the eldest son of General Yuri and Anna, served as a second lieutenant in the Russian Embassy in Rome. After the October Revolution he and his fellow officers of the embassy divide the money, after which they all go their own way.
November 26: Vladimir Smirnoff is taken before a firing squad. No one orders to shoot. Vladimir is scared to death.
November 27: Svekhin, the Russian Envoy in the Netherlands, moves from The Hague and leaves the legation in charge of his First Secretary Henri de Bach.
November 27: Numerous prominents and high officers are executed, as enemies of the state or oppressors of the working class. Among them are some pilots of the Ilya Muromets-squadrons, who are shot because of the simple fact that they are officers, and as such represent the Tsar's regime. Igor Sikorsky understands that he's no longer safe, especially as some very good friends of him are executed without any form of trial. He escapes to Murmansk, where he embarks the English freighter Oporto. One week later he disembarks the ship in England, as a free man. In England Sikorsky tries to sell his plans, but nobody is interested in them, most likely because of the biases against the aviation in `backward' Russia. In France he has more success. The French government orders him to build heavy bombers, but a week before the prototype goes up in the air the French blow up the project.
November 28: Vladimir Smirnoff is once more taken before a firing squad. Once more nothing happens, once more he's scared s...less.
Shortly before the banks are closed by the bolsheviki, Count Paul Nikolaevich Ignatieff (1870-192- 6), the last Minister of Education under Nicholas II, is able to transfer his money to a local cooperative society, and some hours before the society is nationalized, he cashes the complete amount. He and his wife, the former Princess Natasha Meshchersky, hide the money in an earthenware jar.
Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Meshcherskaya, a cousin of Princess Natasha, chooses not to escape. `I'm not going anywhere,' says her mother, `I'm not going to sit in the doorway of some foreign embassy, like a beggar, to ask for protection against my own motherland.' Ekaterina stays with her mother; her brother and uncles escape abroad.
There are more aristocrats who want to stay in Russia. Ekaterina sees them becoming isolated and lonely. They sell all their valuables in the black market, and when nothing is left they become beggars, who in perfectly French ask for charity. `It is a sorry and disgraceful sight,' she writes in her diary.
November: The last Ambassador of Russia to France is Vasili Maklakov, who is appointed by the Kerensky administration. He only arrives in Paris after the October Revolution, and although the bolsheviki have dismissed him from his office in the mean time, he and his staff keep manning the Embassy in the Grand H“tel d'Estrées, as if nothing had happened. (Until 1922 the French government will consider him the Ambassador of Russia.)
From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: December 1, 1917: a lamentation from Aunty. Grandfather is dying, the house has been plundered.
December 4: The farmlands of the churches and monasteries are confiscated.
From Alexandra Rakhmanova's diary: December 10, 1917: Grandfather died. Gorbunov came to tell us that we are allowed to burry him wherever we want; he even allowed a clergyman to be present. Grandfather was hardly dead, when the soldiers came to confiscate the entire house. We were allowed the use of only one room. They sing and shout all day. Today they killed the time by shooting with their revolvers at the icons and mirrors in all rooms.
December 11: The government closes the churches, seminaries and theological academies.
December 17: 3,000 mutineers of the Russian expeditionary force in France are shipped via Marseille to North Africa. 89 mutineers, the leaders of the pack, are imprisoned in Bordeaux. Among them is soldier Rodyon Malinovsky, 19, who later will become Marshall and Minister of War of the Soviet-Union, and even more later will be convicted and sentenced to death.
December 18: The Church looses the right to register births and marriages.
December 20: The institution of civil marriage is introduced. Lenin founds the Special Commissi- on for the Oppression of the Counterrevolution (Cheka), and Felix Dzherzhinsky becomes its first director. The Red Terror gives short shrift to all `enemies' of the new administration.
The Davidoffs own a house in Kiev, where more and more refugees find a shelter. Shortly before Christmas 1917 they hear that the bolsheviki are preparing an attack on Kiev.
1918 January 20: The subsidies to the Church are abolished. Patriarch Tikhon hastens to condemn all these proceedings against the Church, and he calls on all believers to defend the Church and the religion. What right do the bolsheviki have to call themselves `warriors for common welbeing' and `creators of new life'? Tikhon orders the clergy everywhere in the country to found religious unions and to organize the believers to defend the rights of the Church with all means. Tikhon explicitly calls on passive resistance. The same day the Council approves of the appeal of the patriarch, but the members worry about the future. They decide to organize a procession to the Red Square, to find out how large the following of the Church in Moscow is. The procession becomes an overwhelming demonstration, hundreds of thousands of people join the parade. Lenin and his lot are still not confident and strong enough to put down this massive ostentation heavy- handed. They restrict to proclaiming the separation of Church and State.
January 23: The bolsheviks abolish religious education at all schools. That ukase becomes the starting point of the Soviet legislation regarding the Church.
January 23: The Civil War reaches Kiev. Kiev is bombarded severely. After 15 days of defending the city the Ukrainian nationalists have to withdraw; the bolsheviki capture the city. One refugee after another is caught and taken hostage. The Davidoffs, who live in a common suburb of Kiev, notice relatively little of the terror of the bolsheviki, but they fear for it all the time. They hear that Kamenka is completely plundered. During the battle between the Reds and the Whites many churches and monasteries of the city are bombed and destructed. The famous Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra Monastery is bombed heavily by the communists, because they suspect that the bell tower is used as a military watchtower. In fact the bell tower is closed, and there are virtually no troops in sight. The bombing of churches and their bell towers is a matter of course during the communist actions.
The communists capture the monastery, and from that moment on the inhabitants of the Lavra Monastery witness an accumulation of violence and barbarism. Armed soldiers of the Red Army force an entry into the churches. Cursing and screaming they search the premises, even during services. Old monks are dragged outside, undressed in the court yard, and beaten merciless.
January 24: Vladimir Smirnoff is `officially' sentenced to death, without a trial that is. He is brought before a firing squad. He prays. Nothing happens.
January 25: A night of terror in the Lavra Monastery. Four armed men and a woman, dressed up as members of the Red Cross, force an entry into the chambers of the abbott, search everything and take everything valuable with them. In the middle of the night three of them rob the bursar. Later that day three armed soldiers search the rooms of the Metropolitan and because they can't find anything else valuable, they take a golden medal from the safe. At 5.30 p.m. the doorbell rings three times. Five men, dressed in military uniforms and headed by a sailor, come in and demand to see `Vladimir the Metropolitan'. They are led downstairs, to the cell of the archpriest. The Metropolitan is tortured and beaten with the chain of his Cross. They also demand money. Twenty minutes later the Metropolitan comes upstairs, surrounded by his torturers. On the steps he is approached by his old servant Philip, who asks for his blessing. The sailor pushes him aside and screams, `Stop showing respect to these leeches, we're through with them!' The Metropolitan goes to Philip, blesses and kisses him, shakes his hand and says with tears in his eyes, `Farewell Philip.' Eyewitnesses see how Metropolitan Vladimir is carried off through the gates of the monastery to the place where he will be executed. When the car has reached an open spot, he asks, `Do you want to kill me here?' One of the murderers answers, `Why not? What makes you think we're gonna make a fuss of your execution?' The Metropolitan asks permission to pray before he is executed. `But make it quick!' snarls the sailor. Four shots are heard in the night, then another two, and three...
`They are executing the Metropolitan,' says one of the monks in the Lavra monastery. `Too many shots for one execution,' answers another. At the sound of the shots about fifteen sailors with torches and revolvers enter the court yard. One of them asks, `Have they taken the Metropolitan with them?' The monks says, `They have taken him outside the gate.' The sailors run outside and come back after about twenty minutes. `Have you found the Metropolitan?' ask the monks. `Sure, we found him,' the sailors answer, `and we'll take each one of you the same way.' Nearby Metropolitan Vladimir's corps is lying in a pool of blood. The next day the monks communion decides to bring the Metropolitan's body to the monastery. They need however permission from the communist authorities. At 9 a.m. Archimandrite Anfin and four infirmarians go to the place of the murder. Metropolitan Vladimir is lying on his back, covered with a soldiers coat. His clothes, his cross, his boots and his golden watch are missing. The medical examination shows a bullet wound next to his right eye, a wound on his head, a knife wound under his right ear, four knife wounds on and next to his lips, two bullet wounds in his right collarbone, a large open bayonet wound in his chest, and a knife wound in his stomach.
After a short prayer the body is layed on a stretcher and brought to the monastery chapel, where Metropolitan Vladimir has spent the last days of his life. When Archimandrite Anfin lifts the body, he is surrounded by ten armed men who shout, `Do you want to burry him!? He doesn't deserve any better than to be thrown in a ditch! You want to make a place of pilgrimage out of his grave, that's why you take him from here!' In Moscow a special memorial service is held, and the entire clergy of Moscow, headed by Patriarch Tikhon himself, attends the mass. Metropolitan Vladimir is the first martyr of a series of Russian bishops, who during and after the Revolution are tortured and murdered. He was born on January 1, 1848 in the province of Tombovsk. After the death of his wife and child he retreated to a monastery, where he adopted the name of Vladimir. In 1892 he was enthroned Archbishop and in 1898 he was appointed Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, which position he held for fifteen years. In 1912 he was appointed Metropolitan of Petrograd, but in 1915 he fell into disfavour with the Tsar, because of a discord regarding Rasputin, after which he was transferred to the Metropoly of Kiev. .
February: The most important center of the anti-communists is in Southern Russia, where this month the Volunteer Army is formed by the Generals Alexeev and Kornilov. In the beginning the Volunteer Army composes of a small group of officers, cadets, students and even boys from highschool, who are badly armed, but very motivated. The murder of the Romanoffs is not the most important cause of the Civil War, but it certainly contributes to it. Most Russians weren't satisfied with the tsar, but only few find it justified that he was executed. Why did he have to die? Didn't he abdicate? Wasn't he imprisoned? The common people never say, `The times of the tsar were much better.' One could hear them say, `Even under the tsar it wasn't as bad as this.' While the Civil War is raging in Southern Russia, the leaders of the White Army in the South and the administration of the Russian-Orthodox Church in Moscow work close together. Once it is clear to Patriarch Tikhon and the Church Council how explicitly anti-religious the new regime is, the Church chooses the side of the Whites. The resistance against the communists increases, and more and more resistance groups are formed, which gradually associate with each other, until real armies come to being, which feel strong enough to fight the communists in the open. The White Army - `White' by analogy with les Blancs, their French counterrevolutionary predecessors - needs weapons. Sometimes they are seized from the communists, but often the communist troops sell their weapons to the Whites, in exchange for some Kerensky roubles and some bottles of vodka. The soldiers of the White Army sign on for four months and pledge implicit obedience to the commanding staff. Initially the total army does not exceed 4,000 men, dwindling at times to absolutely insignificant proportions, but when they hear that some of the White soldiers are captured by the bolsheviks and shot after horrible tortures, all of them know that it's a matter of life or death. In Southern Russia enormous hotbeds of resistance against the bolsheviki come into being, and the population places al its hopes in the counterrevolutionaries. The Whites however miss the opportunity to assure themselves of the support of the `new' farmers. As soon as they chase away the Reds, the White government reinstalls the laws of before November 1917. The landed gentry returns to their estates and the new farmers, who have taken the land with the help of the communists, are driven away.
The new farmers, who are a large part of the population, now fall between two stools, between the Reds, who rob and murder them, and the Whites, who chase them from `their' land. So a `Green' government is formed, which has to protect the farmers against the two other parties. The Greens are not very steady. Sometimes they side with the Whites, only to side with the Reds a week later, who they subsequently have chased away by the Whites. No White government tries to reinstall tsarism. After all the tsar has abdicated and there are no suitable candidates to succeed him. Many feel that tsarism is an old fashioned institution. Contrary to what some people say, most Whites are even explicit republicans. They are however anti-communists. The two most important leaders of the White army, General Denikin in the south and Admiral Kolchak in Siberia, are planning a transition period of some years, with a strong military administration, after which a National Assembly has to be gathered, which has to decide which form of government Russia will have in the future.
February 1: Lenin asks General Daniloff to join the Red Army. The General turns down the offer and leaves for Kiev, to join the White Army. General Peter Alexandrovich Frolov, the uncle of General Yuri Daniloff's wife, withdraws, to cultivate roses in his estate in Issar, south of Yalta. One week later the German troops are on their way, and the bolsheviki make themselves scarce.
February 2: This time it's for real. Vladimir Smirnoff is taken before a firing squad. He waits and waits... Nothing happens. It's torturous!
Petrograd, February 14: All Russians have become 13 days older today, because the old Julian calendar is replaced by the new Georgian calendar, which is used in Western countries.
Halfway through February 1918 the Germans and the Ukrainian nationalists enter Kiev. Piece is restored immediately.
Subsequently these troops occupy the southern provinces, as a result of which Kamenka returns into the hands of the Davidoffs. The local population is forced to return all stolen goods and cattle. The Davidoffs will never return to Kamenka, but work in the estate is resumed.
February 18: Vladimir Smirnoff is freed by the White Army. He escapes to Paris, via Poland.
February 28: Patriarch Tikhon calls on the believers to found parochial unions, which should not call themselves `religious groups'. This way the unions can call themselves the legal owners of the church properties, to prevent that the `raiders' (the bolsheviki) will take possession of it. The appeal of the patriarch to the people is followed in many cities and towns, which leads to counterblows of the bolsheviki. Processions of believers are shot at and scattered, hundreds of clergymen and lays are arrested and dozens are wounded and killed.
March 1: The Davidoffs leave for Odessa, where they have rented a house.
March 2: Because Germany uses the Civil War to claim certain areas for itself, and the German troops are on their way to Murmansk, in the north, the Allied Forces are forced to intervene. Moreover particularly France and Great-Britain have invested large sums in Russia's economy, especially in the Ukrain, and they want to secure these interests.
March 3: Signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russia and Germany.
March 6: An American force appears in Vladivostok; 130 British marines land in Murmansk, Russia's only ice-free port, and shortly afterwards British marines are stationed in Arkhangelsk. In Odessa, in the south-west, French ships put ashore 80,000 French, Serbian, Polish and Greek troops. The Allied Forces have no univocal policy regarding the purpose of the intervention. At first they came to prevent that the Germans would get hold of their military supplies, but now both the Brits and the French establish friendly relations with the anti-bolshevist groups in Russia. The American troops have mainly come to Siberia to prevent that the Japanese will expand their territory. The American President urges his troops to remain neutral in the Russian Civil War. They are only allowed to support the Czech troops. Among the Austrian soldiers who before the revolution were taken prisoners of war by the Russians, are a large number of Czechs, who were sent to the front as subjects and soldiers of the Austrian Emperor. In the summer of 1917 they sided with the Russians, hoping to found an independent Czechian state. Because Russia has withdrawn from the war three days ago, and the communists want to intern the Czechs once more, they fight their way out and join the White Army.
Since 1917 Prince Ilarion (Lari) Sergeevich Vasilchikov, his wife Lydia, who before her marriage was called Princess Viatzemsky, and their children Alexander, Irina, Tatiana and Missie, live in the Crimea. The bolshevist reign of terror in the Crimea reaches its climax. One afternoon, it is late March, Lydia walks in the garden with her mother, when they suddenly see a large group of panicing people run towards the sea. Among them are Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Romanoff (sister of Nicholas II), her husband, who carries their baby in his arms, as well as servants of the nearby villa's. Lydia never has witnessed such a panicing mass before. She's surprised that everyone is running towards the coast, because it's strictly forbidden for civilians to be there. The bolsheviki have killed offenders of this ban before. Lydia and her mother hurry home and are relieved when they find the children in the dining room with a cup of tea. There they hear that a train loaded with bolsheviki with machine guns have arrived, and that they are planning to shoot all the inhabitants of the villa's. Evidently someone has stopped them at the very last moment, because nothing happens. Yet Lydia and Lari alternately stand guard that night. The children are allowed to sleep with their clothes on, so that they can leave in a hurry. The next morning the children are disappointed, because nothing has happened; they obviously don't realize that they escaped from a catastrophe.
April 20: the Germans arrive, as a result of which the peace in the Crimea returns. Only then they hear what happened that day. The Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, her daughters Olga and Xenia and their families were interned by the bolsheviki in the villa Duelber, at the coast. They would certainly all have been killed, when Sadoroshni, a sailor of the Black Sea fleet, hadn't been in charge of the Duelber villa. When the bolshevist gang arrived at the villa and demanded to see the prisoners, Sadoroshni fobbed the men off. He and he alone was responsible for the Imperial Family, and nobody but the administration in Moscow could deprive him of his responsibilities. At first Sadoroshni had about 60 guards, but later this was reduced to 20, and when the train with the bolsheviki arrived to kill the Romanoffs, he armed all his `prisoners', so they would be able to defend themselves against the rebellions. Thanks to Sadoroshni's courage the bolsheviki had nothing to show for their pains. Weeks later the sons of Grand Duchess Xenia still boast about the fact that they have carried firearms. In fact only the eldest boy was given a revolver.
April 23: The Germans conquer the patheticly bad organized Red Army and capture Kiev, while the Austrians occupy Odessa.
Paris, May 2: Vladimir Smirnoff buys a small distillery to produce vodka. In a country full of wine drinkers...
May 8: Rostov on the Don falls into the hands of the Germans. Subsequently General Paul Skoropadsky, a puppet of the Germans, is appointed head of the new Ukrainian government. The Red Army consists largely of the military of the Tsar's army. Forced by the Cheka they enter the Red Army, and from that moment on they have to fight for their lives, because if they are captured by the White Army, they very likely are killed. When they defect to the Whites, the Cheka will take revenge on their relatives. The soldiers' relatives are in fact hostages of the Cheka. (This system is later also applied to civilians, and maintained in the Soviet-Union until the late 1980s.)
May 13: General Kornilov is mortally wounded by a grenade. General Denikin makes sure that he is burried in the German colony of Gnachbau.
May 14: When the last diplomatic train leaves from Petrograd, Tatiana Dolgorouky misses this last opportunity to leave legally. She is drafted in a brigade of snow clearers and receives a pittance for it. She also has to check in weekly with the Cheka.
May 17: Prince Peter Dolgorouky smuggles a letter to his daughter out of the Peter and Paul fortress, in which he begs Tatiana to escape. She can't do anything for him, he writes.
Tatiana Petrovna escapes from Petrograd with false identity papers, but with that she still isn't safe. Once the Cheka knows that she has escaped, they will search for her. She tries to escape to Finland, but this plan fails, because her helpers are shot.
May 20: Grand Duke Serge Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (1869-1918), his secretary F. Remez, the Grand Dukes Ivan, Constantin and George Constantinovich (the sons of Grand Duke Constantin) and 22 years old Prince Vladimir Paley arrive from Perm. They are accommodated in a dirty hotel in Ekaterinburg.
They are put in one room, badly treated and almost starve. Sometimes they are however allowed to leave the hotel, to meet people and even to visit old acquaintances. At the end of May all of them are brought to Alapaevsk, near Ekaterinburg, where they are accommodated in an old school. June 5: The White Army fights a battle against the Reds, less than 70 miles from Moscow. Count Paul Ignatieff uses this opportunity to transfer part of his money behind the lines. With the help of the Kuban Cossacks and the Don Cossacks the White Army is able to drive the communists from the areas of the Don and the Northern Caucasus.
June 12: The Czechs occupy all important towns between Samara and Vladivostok, and shortly afterwards they chase the Red Army from entire Eastern Russia and Siberia.
The Allies are in the north and in the Far East, the Czechs control the area of the Trans Siberian Railroad, and the Germans occupy the south-west. They can do that unpunished, because the communists acknowledged the independence of the Ukrain in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
June 13: At night three Cheka agents show up in a hotel in Perm, and with them a warrant for the arrest of Tsar Nicholas' brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich Romanoff. Outside three other Cheka agents are waiting with two carriages.
Michael's secretary, the Englishman Brian Johnson, also stays in the hotel, just like Michael's valet and driver. The Cheka agents wake up Michael. The Grand Duke has no intentions to leave with them and demands to speak to Malkov, an important bolshevik. `Him I know, you I don't know.' The leader of the gang curses and grabs the former Grand Duke at his shoulder.
`We are sick and tired of you Romanoffs!' Michael gets dressed without saying a word. His valet says, `Don't forget your medicines, Your Highness.' The leader of the pack curses once more and doesn't allow that the medicines are taken. The men outside grow impatient. Michael Romanoff is pushed into the first carriage. 3 miles from the village of Motovilikha they go into the woods. After a mile one of the Cheka agents says, `Get out!' As soon as Johnson gets out of the carriage he is shot in the temple; he staggers and falls down. Michael Romanoff is wounded, but he runs towards his secretary and begs to say goodbye to him. The request is not granted. Michael is shot in the head. After the murder one of the killers takes Johnson's watch. `A souvenir,' he says proudly. It is the murderers' habit to steal the watches of their victims.
July 12: Picasso marries Olga Khoklova, a young dancer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and daughter of a colonel. The marriage is celebrated in Paris, in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and the ushers are: Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob.
Originally article 12 of the constitution of July 6, 1918 adjudges the citizens the right to make both religious and anti-religious propaganda, but the right to make religious propaganda is limited soon, while the government does everything to stimulate anti-religious propaganda. The state for example paints slogans like, `Religion is opium for the people' on church walls. The churches and their possessions are nationalized and given in loan to the parish councils; every parish has to contract to maintain the church building and to pay the taxes which the Soviet-regime impose on the parishes. The higher ecclesiastical councils are not recognized by law and the parishes are strictly forbidden to do charitable work. All religious educational establishments are abolished. Offenders of this ukase risk hard labour. Initially the Soviet administration states that it is neutral in religious matters, but soon it chooses openly for militant atheism. The Soviet leaders promise to fight religion with all means, obviously because this is an integral part of the class war against bourgeoisie and capitalism. In the opinion of the bolshevik theorists Church and religion are no more than means by which the bourgeoisie chains and oppresses the working class. This fierce anti-religious policy makes many Russians decide to leave their motherland. The Church council lets the people know: `Even the Tatars had more respect for our holy religion than our current legislators, who are changing our holy Orthodox Russia into the land of the Antichrist.'
July 18: Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna Romanoff (1864-1918), Grand Duke Serge Mikha&i- uml;lovich Romanoff (1869-1918), his secretary F. Remez, the Grand Dukes Ivan, Constantin and George Constantinovich (the sons of Grand Duke Constantin) and Prince Vladimir Paley are cruelly murdered, not far from Ekaterinburg. That's where they lived until this fatal night, in which all of them are suddenly taken to a place about 8 miles from Alapaevsk, where they are murdered. This happens near the mine `Nizhnaya Selimskaya'. Grand Duke Serge Mikhaïlovich is the only one who is shot; the others are blindfolded and thrown into the mine, while they're still alive, after which the murderers throw down some hand grenades and a lot of flammable wood. The mine is about 200 feet deep, but the bodies of the Grand Duchess and Grand Duke Ivan Constantinovich are found on a ridge, only 40 feet below the edge. The Grand Duchess must have been alive for a long time. The next day a passing farmer hears her singing hymns. He's terrified and hurries to the camp of the White Army, which is in the neighborhood. The soldiers start to rant and rave because he did not help her at once. When the White Army finally reaches the spot, the soldiers can only recover the bodies. An investigation shows that the Grand Duchess, mortally wounded herself, still has managed to bandage the wounds of Grand Duke Ivan. Near her body two hand grenades are found, and on her chest an icon of Christ. Elisabeth Feodorovna was the eldest sister of the Tsaritsa. She was eight years older than the Tsaritsa and contrary to the Tsaritsa she was raised by her mother, and not by her grandmother, Queen Victoria of England. She was very popular among the Russian people because of her numerous charitable deeds.
After she was engaged to Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich Romanoff, the young Grand Duchess enthousiasticly started to study the Russian people, and particularly its religion, Russian Orthodoxy, which had so much influenced Russian culture. Serge Alexandrovich was Governor of Moscow, where the Grand Duchess soon became involved in several social and charitable activities. On February 4, 1905, while Elisabeth was preparing to go to work, she was startled by the sound of an exploding bomb. She rushed towards the place the sound came from, and arrived still in time to see how a soldier covered the mutilated corpse of her husband with his coat. The soldier tried to spare her the horrifying sight of her unfortunate husband. Elisabeth sank on her knees and embraced the human remains. The murder of Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich made Elisabeth decide to withdraw from social life. The shock and the terror she had witnessed left a wound in her heart, and from that moment on she ordained her whole life to the organization of a congregation and taking care of the poor. The congregation grew fast and attracted many nuns, both from the highest circles and the common people. Life in the congregation was like in a monastery. After the revolution, which raged like a storm over Russia, she stayed in her monastery, where she nursed the wounded and fed the poor. To everyone's surprise the communists at first granted the Grand Duchess and her sisters all freedom, and they even gave her all kinds of material necessities and extra food. But on Easter 1918 all that was suddenly finished. The communists ordered the Grand Duchess to leave Moscow at once and to join the Imperial Family in Ekaterinburg. The suffering she awaited could have been avoided when she had only listened to the words of the Swedish Prime Minister, who at the request of the German Emperor had come to Moscow to help her to leave the country. She said that he was right by saying that horrible times would break, but she wanted to share the fate of her country and her people. This decision would be her death sentence. The communists told the Grand Duchess that she would be able to work for the Red Cross in the South. Elisabeth looked forward to see her sister, the Tsaritsa, but when she arrived in Ekaterinburg she was refused to have any contact with the Imperial Family. The Grand Duchess was temporarely placed in a monastery, where she was welcomed by the nuns and was allowed to attend all services.
Grand Duke Ivan Constantinovich Romanoff always had been a lover of singing in church; he directed the church choir of the palace in Pavlovsk, and even in his place of bannishment Perm he kept singing in the church choir. The young Prince Vladimir Paley, son of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich Romanoff (1860-1919), was a talented poet. Some of his poetry regards his bannishment, `All my loved ones are so painfully far away and all my enemies so painfully nearby.' Two of the murderers become insane shortly after this terrible murder.
The Pravda of July 18, `On the morning of July 16 the ex-tsar was transferred from his prison to a parade ground outside of the city of Ekaterinburg, where ten soldiers of the Red Guard were waiting for him. The chairman of the Soviet read the death sentence, after which the ex-tsar asked permission to say a few last words to his wife and children before he was executed. This request was turned down. Without any resistance and completely poised the tsar stood in front of the firing squad; the execution was carried out. His body was taken away by car.'
July 18: Countess Sophia Karlovna Buxhoeveden, who was lady in waiting to Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna and went voluntarily in exile with the Imperial Family, escapes from Russia with the help of the German Kaiser.
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The end
Oche! Prosti jim, ibo nye znayut, chto dyelayut. (Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Luke 23:34.)
Nicholas II Alexandrovich (1868-1918), the last Emperor of Russia and the last Tsar of the House of Romanoff (1894-1917), was the eldest son of Alexander III. On March 2, 1917 Nicholas was forced to abdicate. He and his family were interned. All of them were shot in Ekaterinburg, in July 1918, at the command of the local soviet administration.
That's what it says in most encyclopaedia's, and that still is the official version of the death of the Romanoffs. But what happened really? Nicholas and Alexandra (Nicky and Alix) had four daughters (Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia) and one son, Alexis, who suffered from haemophilia. How did they come to an end? Until now all official institutions based their story on the report of Nicholas Alexeevich Sokolov, an investigator of the White Army. Romanoff expert Robert K. Massie:
Nicholas was instantly killed. This was the sign for all the other men to start shooting. Alexandra only had time to cross herself before she was mortally wounded by the first shot. Olga, Tatiana and Marie were hit and died within seconds. Dr. Botkin, Kharitonov and Trupp were also killed instantly. Demidova survived the first volley and in stead of reloading their revolvers the men got their rifles from the room nextdoor and pursued her with their bayonets. (...) Suddenly it was quired in the room, which was full of powder-smoke. Blood ran over the floor. They heard someone moan. Alexis, still in the arms of his father, tried to hold on to his father's coat. One of the men cruelly kicked the head of the boy with his heavy boot. Yurovsky walked towards them and shot the Tsarevich twice in the head. At that very moment Anastasia, who only had fainted, regained consciousness. She started to scream. The entire gang pounced on her with bayonets and rifle butts. Then she also stopped moving. It was all over. (...) The bodies were wrapped up in sheets and carried to a truck which was waiting outside. Before daybreak the truck and it's sinister cargo drove to the `Four Brothers', where the destruction of the mortal remains began. All corpses were cut to pieces with axes and saws and subsequently burned, after being dowsed with gasoline. (...) The larger parts of the skeletons were not destroyed by the fire and had to be treated with sulphuric acid. (...) Finally the ashes were thrown into the pool down under in the mine. The murderers were so satisfied with their work that Voysov, the member of the Ural Soviet who had purchased the gasoline, proudly said, `The world will never know what we did with them.'
Harrison E. Salisbury: `Immediately after that the members of the Cheka opened fire. (...) Alexis didn't die instantly and Yurovsky shot another two bullets into his body. The bodies were brought to a deserted mine. They were chopped into pieces, burned, dowsed with acid and disappeared so completely, that only small pieces of bone could be found later.'
Elisabeth Heresch: `The same day he orders large quantities of sulphuric acid, to make the faces of the corpses, which already are lying in an open spot in the forest, unrecognizable. (...) The bodies were cut into pieces and burned, the faces were made unrecognizable with hydrochloric acid. (...) May 1992: the skeletons of the in 1918 murdered ex-Tsar and his family have been found.'
In numerous novels that are enacted in this period, the murder of the Romanoffs is described alike. It all comes down to the same: the whole family has been murdered in the House of Ipatiev in Ekaterinburg, in the night of July 16, 1918.
Even Edvard Radzinsky, a Russian playwriter who investigated the murder of the Romanoffs for more than 25 years, comes to the conclusion that it must have happened this way. He hesitant takes into consideration that Anastasia and Alexis might have survived the massacre, but does not share this point of view. In fact he also blindly trusts the report of Sokolov. Radzinsky had one problem: he was a Russian in Russia and as such he was not trustworthy to any other Russian in Russia, never mind how good his intentions were. Anthony Summers & Tom Mangold, two reporters of the BBC, didn't have this handicap when they in the 1970s, more than 15 years before Radzinsky's book was published, investigated the case thouroughly, in Russia and abroad. Others have broken new grounds relating to the identity of Anna Anderson, the woman who all her life kept saying that she was Anastasia. The bodies were treated with hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid and quicklime, riddled with bullets, run through with bayonets; skeletons were chopped and sawed to pieces, the remaining small pieces were burned... Initially nothing was left of the corpses, afterwards small bone pieces were found back, and in 1979, April 1989, 1991 and May 1992 complete skeletons - of the entire Imperial Family, including Anastasia and Alexis - were found near Ekaterinburg. A real miracle... Only recently was announced that some of the corpses belong to the Romanoffs, and that Alexis and one of the daughters are missing. How strange, but one thing's for sure: the official story that's been told for almost 75 years, is wrong. So what happened?
I'll start with the facts: Nicholas II abdicates on March 16, 1917. The Imperial Family is placed under house arrest in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Some months later, on July 31, 1917, they are deported to the city of Tobolsk in Siberia, where their freedom of movement also is limited. The following persons volunteer to be bannished with the Imperial Family: General Ilya Leonidovich Tatistcheff (aide de camp), Prince Vasili (Valia) Alexandrovich Dolgorouky (marshall of the court), Pierre Gilliard (governor of the children), Sydney Gibbes (Alexis' English teacher), Evgeni Sergeevich Botkin (personal physician), Anastasia Gendrikova (personal lady in waiting to the Tsaritsa), Ekaterina Adolfovna Schneider (reading lady and former Russian teacher of the Tsaritsa) and Countess Sophia Karlovna Buxhoeveden (lady in waiting). On April 26, 1918 Nicholas, Alexandra and Marie are taken away from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg. The rest of the Imperial Family will follow them in May. On May 10, 1918 the Romanoffs are together again. Until July 16 that is. What happened from that day on never completely became clear. From July 16, 1918 there are several theories and even more conflicting testimonies. I will restrict to Sokolov's report and the theories of Edvard Radzinsky and Anthony Summers/Tom Mangold.
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Sokolov's disappeared box
For years it was only known that Sokolov had smuggled his evidence to France. Only few knew who did the actual smuggling and where the contents of Sokolov's box ended up. General Yanin, the commander of the French military mission in Siberia, brought back a box and some suitcases with him to France, in which the files of investigator Sokolov and evidence regarding the investigation on the murder of the Imperial Family in Ekaterinburg, in 1918. All this material Sokolov entrusted to General Diterichs on March 19, 1920, when the General was about to leave from Harbin. In his book Ma mission en Sibérie (Paris 1933) Janin wrote, `He had gathered about 30 charred bone fragments, as well as some human tissue which was found in the stake, human hairs, a cut finger, which the experts recognized as a ring finger of the Tsaritsa, (...) some small icons, (...) the buckle of a belt that belonged to the Tsarevich, bullets of a revolver etcetera.' At the end of June 1920 Janin wrote a letter to Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanoff, who was considered the spokesman of the Russian emigrants, in which he asked to whom he should entrust the evidence. On October 22, 1920 Janin was invited by the Grand Duke. Michel de Giers, the eldest former ambassador of Imperial Russia, was present. The jewelry and other objects of the victims were handed to Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, who divided them among several members of the Imperial Family. The human remains were also entrusted to the Romanoffs. Nobody has seen anything of it ever since. It is quite remarkable that Sokolov, who lived in Paris since 1921, didn't try to have this evidence analyzed by the forensic scientists in the French capital. Today the Sokolov files are kept in the Houghton Library of Harvard University.
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Sokolov's Romanoff files
Nicholas Alexeevich Sokolov (1882-1924), 36, was appointed examining magistrate of the district of Omsk (which was in the hands of the White Army), on February 7, 1919, by Admiral Kolchak, and as such his task was the continuing of the investigation on the murder of the following eleven persons: Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanoff, Alexandra Feodorovna Romanoff, Alexis Nikolaevich Romanoff, Olga Nikolaevna Romanoff, Maria Nikolaevna Romanoff, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanoff, Tatiana Nikolaevna Romanoff, Dr. Evgeni Sergeevich Botkin, Alexis Trupp (lackey), Anna Stefanova Demidova (servant) and Ivan Kharitonov (cook). His conclusion that all of them were killed in the night of July, 16, 1918 in the basement of the House of Ipatiev, is based on five `facts': 1. A telegram was intercepted in which the bolsheviki confirmed that the entire Imperial Family was murdered. 2. Several eye-witnesses stated that they had seen that the Romanoffs and their people were dead. 3. The bodies were burned, and on the spot where this had happened were found several clothes, jewels and other personal possessions. 4. Near this spot, on the bottom of a mine, in which permanently was three feet of water, Sokolov found the carcass of Tatiana's dog, dentures and a finger. There wasn't any grave, he solumnly stated. 5. Nobody has seen the Romanoffs alive after this night. Numerous investigations of forensic scientists show that Sokolov's conclusions were extremely debatable and most of the time wrong. Professor Francis Camps, pathologist of the British Home Ministry, analyzed Sokolov's material during a month, and concluded that the examining magistrate did an ill service to history, and that Sokolov obviously loved the fine art of self-deception. Dr. Edward Rich of the American Military Academy West Point confirmed professor Camps' conclusions. `Sokolov's conclusions are based on a series of presuppositions and not accurate.' On June 25, 1919 Sokolov took a picture of the carcass of Tatiana's dog, which was the only recognizable corpse. Professor Keith Simpson, pathologist of the British Home Ministry, `If you look at the picture with a magnifyer, you see very little loss of fur. (...) It is impossible that this carcass at first has been in the water for two or three months. (...) No dog could have had so much fur after being in cold water for two of three months. After the frost period the dog would have been in the water for another two months, and this picture doesn't show that at all.' It's not just the contents of Sokolov's report which can be disposed of as improper, the things he does not mention are also food for thought regarding his meticulousness. Why for example didn't he mention the fact that during the investigation the substitute district attorney Magnitsky found five bodies of Austrian men in a nearby mine? This information was important, because the interior guard of the House of Ipatiev partly consisted of former Austrian prisoners of war.
In April 1989 the Soviet Russian journalist Geli Riabov wrote that he had found the place where the eleven victims of the Ekaterinburg tragedy were burried. The mine that was discovered by Sokolov was only used to store the victims temporarely. Subsequently the human remains were brought to their definitive grave. Ten years before, in 1979, this grave was also discovered, by three geologists from Ekaterinburg (in those days the city was still called Sverdlovsk). In 1991 the grave was once more `discovered', and again in May 1992. Very peculiar, very confusing. Was it the same grave every time, or were it different graves? Which grave was the real one, and who were the people in the other graves? Have the Tsaritsa and the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana and Marie been murdered? Sure, but after reading the book of Summers and Mangold I doubt if that happened in July 1918. My guess is January 1919 or later, when Lenin was less depending on the Germans. This also explains why the carcass of Tatiana's dog was still in such a good condition when Sokolov found it in June 1919. .
Another remarkable fact: In October 1918 the English Sir Charles Eliot inspected the House of Ipatiev thouroughly. He found seventeen bullet wholes in the room in the basement . `There were no signs of blood visible,' he reported. Carl Ackerman, a reporter of the New York Times confirmed this. At the end of November 1918, when Sokolov wasn't on the case yet, Ackerman wrote, `There are no signs of pools of blood and I doubt it that seven persons (sic) died such a horrible, violent death with leaving no more behind than some blood in the bullet wholes and some bloodstains on the floor.' And what about the statement of Pierre Gilliard, the children's tutor, who at first identified Anna Anderson as Anastasia, but later changed his opinion dramaticly. In August 1918 Gilliard returned to Ekaterinburg. After having inspected the basement of the House of Ipatiev, he said, `I can not believe that the Imperial Family really died here. In the walls of the room I searched were so few bullet wholes that I find it hard to believe that everyone was executed here.' Two years later he said, `The atmosphere in the room was very sinister, indescribable. In the walls and on the floor were numerous visible traces of bullets and bayonet stabs. A first examination made clear that a terrible crime was committed there, that several people were killed in this room.' Sokolov, who only came to Ekaterinburg in February 1919, stated in his report, `There was so much blood, that it even had seeped through the floor and saturated the ground. Everywhere were large pools of blood. There were thirty bullet wholes in the wall.'
Edvard Radzinsky is the only one who wrote that not eleven, but nine carcasses were found. Only recently it was announced that some of the carcasses belong to the Romanoffs and that the boy and one of the girls were missing, which fits with the theory that Alexis and Anastasia survived the murder.
But my informer `Feodor' Romanoff told me that the Romanoffs still have every reason to keep things quiet, because there's still a considerable amount of money at stake, even though Anastasia died in 1984. In September 1994 Russian scientists stated that one of the skeletons found in the grave was Anastasia's, and that the remains of Alexis and Maria were not found. This statement is good for the Romanoffs's financial situation. Money talks, and there's no place where it talks better than in Russia, where a scientist would be filthy rich with US$ 200 a month.

Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 2 - Before The Revolution - Kerensky And The Bolsheviks

2006-03-16T05:54:00.000-08:00

5. Kerensky and the Bolsheviks

Vera Nikolaevna Figner (1852-1942), the murderer of Tsar Alexander II, was born in the province of Kazan on June 24, 1852. Her father belonged to the landed gentry. In her book Night over Russia (Moscow, 1930) she wrote, `Our parents treated their children equally, without any distinction.' Sure, but how did they treat their children? Figner, `On the dot we had to rise and on the dot we had to go to bed. Always the same clothes, always the same haircut... After every meal we had to cross ourselves and thank our parents. At dinner we weren't allowed to speak, everything had to be eaten without grumbling, even if it was too much or too little. We had to learn not to be fussy. We never became any tea, we always drank milk and ate rye bread. We weren't allowed to spoil our stomachs. We had to stand the cold without complaining. We weren't allowed to touch anything without permission, especially the things which belonged to my father; when one broke something by accident or put something in a wrong place, the anger of my father extended to all inmates. This was followed by punishment; one had to stand in the corner, ears were pulled, or one was flogged with a leather belt, which for that purpose always was ready for use in father's study. He punished cruel, without any compassion. When our little brothers were punished we all suffered with them.' Oh boy, how sad, another one with an unhappy childhood. No wonder that she has killed Tsar Alexander II, the most progressive Tsar of all times, who had absolutely nothing in common with her harsh father! Her book is one long lamentation at Russian prisons, full od selfpity. She has payd for her crime with 20 years of imprisonment, which I find very little, considering the penalties of those days and the fact that the son and the grandson of the murdered tsar-reformer ruled the country while she was in prison. I don't think that someone who today would kill the Queen of England or the President of the United States would spend less than 20 years in prison. The Dutch publisher Allert de Lange writes in the preface of the book, `When Vera Figner in 1904 is released from Schluesselburg prison Ä after twenty years Ä she hardly is able to cope with ordinary life.' Poor thing... Twenty years for murder; twenty years, in which she did nothing but pitying herself in stead of the Russian people, which would have been much better off when Alexander II would have been able to finish his job. Did she ever think about the grief of the victim's relatives? And what happened to the system she helped up? In 1929 she still was director of the Kropotkin Museum in Moscow. At the end of her book the publisher writes, `On February 3, 1930 we received a message from Moscow which said that Vera Figner has been bannished by the Soviet Government, because she protested against the maltreatment of punished women by officers of the `GPOe' in communist prisons. Vera Figner is now 78 years old.' When she would have restricted to protests, in stead of murdering the Tsar, she would probably not have ended up in prison, and history would most likely have had another course. Vera Figner, Hero of the Revolution, the communists may be grateful to you!
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanoff (1845-1894) (Alexander III) succeeded Alexander II, but cancelled many of his father's liberal measures. The constitution bill was withdrawn.
Alexander III has never been able to get rid of the impact the murder of his father had on him. In his time young, inexperienced monarchs hired elderly statesmen to advise them, and that was the biggest misfortune of Alexander III and his son Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanoff (1868-1918) (Nicholas II), because their `Nestor' was the ultra conservative Supreme Procurator of the Holy Synod, Constantin Petrovich Pobyedonostsev (1827-1907). He believed in the principles of autocracy and cultivated fear for the liberalism that finished (grand)father Alexander II. The political program of Alexander III was based on Pobyedonostsev's `wise' lessons - Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationalism - and took shape in his hatred of all liberal and revolutionary movements. These principles of state policy Alexander and his tutor Pobyedonostsev passed on to Nicholas II, who ascended the throne in 1894, the year in which his father died. Initially Nicholas was prepared to agree with a constitution, and he even signed the bill, but forced by his wife, his mother and his court clique, who - when it was convenient to them - appointed themselves the conscience of the obedient son in regard to his dead father, he retraced his footsteps. Nicholas was an incompetent tsar, but no child could have wished for a better father, and in other circumstances he would have been the ideal son in law. It is a fact that between 1881 and 1905 not many improvements were established, especially when this period is compared to the administration of Alexander II, but it is unjustified to say that nothing was improved in those years. Under Nicholas II financial reforms were established, and regarding the fact that his government was confronted with two costly wars, he didn't do a bad job. Many steps were taken to improve the social and economical circumstances, particularly those of the farmers. The State Inspectorate of Industry was introduced, the working day for children and women was limited by law and the Sickness Act and Industrial Injuries Act were established. Moreover many medical facilities were free. Both Nicholas and his father loved simplicity and hominess. They were exemplary husbands and fathers. But contrary to Alexander III Nicholas wasn't a domineering man, and he didn't succeed in compelling respect from his ministers and the other Romanoffs. Nicholas was introvert, and sometimes he even was a complicated man. Initially he wasn't motivated at all to become tsar, and towards the end of his career he was glad he got rid of the job. He just wasn't a statesman or a leader, and the only reason he became tsar, was because his ancestors and God had planned it this way. He had no choice. Shortly after the coronation his Ministers and the Grand Dukes started to manipulate him. That was partially his own fault, because he thought he wasn't competent to judge their competence. Politics went past him; he only thought about the essentials, he failed to notice the side-issues. Nicholas however knew what was expected from him. He played a role, the role of the autocratic ruler who knows what's going on in his empire. Lack of knowledge or authority meant loss of face, and that was something an autocratic ruler couldn't afford. The only one he could be small with was his wife. That was his mistake, because particularly with her he should have been more firmly. The more his problems as head of state amounted, the more he depended on her and the more her influence increased. The murder of Rasputin should have broken this spiral, and that would probably have happened if the changed political situation wouldn't have thrown a monkey wrench in the works.
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Prelude
1881 April 22: Alexander Feodorovich Kerensky is born.
1882 June 5: Igor Feodorovich Strawinsky (1882-1971) is born in Oranienbaum (nowadays Lomonossov), near St. Petersburg.
1892 September 2: Lenin's entrance exam for law school. He signs his exams with, `Dvoryanin (nobleman) Vladimir Ulyanov'. Lenin was born as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. According to Peter the Great's table of ranks his father was a hereditary Russian nobleman. When Vladimir's brother Alexander was executed in 1887 because he had tried to kill Tsar Alexander III, the title was automaticly passed on to Vladimir. Lenin's strong dislike of the nobility is still hard to notice. One has to trim one's sails according to the wind...
1895 May 25: P. Cubat, a former chef of the Tsar, opens his restaurant in the H“tel de la Païva, 25 Avenue des Champs Elysées, Paris. This hotel was founded in 1856, by the Marquise of Païva, Thérèse Lachman (1819-1884), who was born in Moscow. Théophile Gautier says that she was an illegitimate daughter of Grand Duke Constantin Pavlovich Romanoff.
1896 May 14: Nicholas II is crowned. Shortly afterwards several intrigues among his ministers and relatives are going on, and he never quite manages to suppress this phenomenon.
October 6: Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna arrive on the Gare du Ranelagh, Paris, where they are welcomed by the French President Félix Faure. The imperial landau is pulled by 6 horses and accompanied by a large cavalry unit. The procession goes via the Avenue du Bois (nowadays Avenue Foch) to the Champs Elysées, and is hailed by a cheerful crowd.
From October 6 to October 8, 1896 the Tsar and Tsaritsa are accommodated in the Russian embassy. October 6: The Tsar and Tsaritsa dine in the Palais de l'Elysée, 55-57 Rue du Faubourg-Saint Honoré, and they attend a mass in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, after which they attend a gala concert in their honour, in the Paris Opéra.
1898 May 28: Ivan Tsvetaev, the father of Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), and the director of the Art History department in the university of Moscow, founds the famous Pushkin Museum.
1901 February 27: Minister of Education Bogolepov is shot in the neck by a student named Karpovich.
March 15: Bogolepov dies in a Moscow hospital.
1902 March 24: Igor Strawinsky's father dies. Igor is `adopted' by the composer Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908).
Strawinsky, `Rimsky was a significant man, with bad eyes. He wore spectacles with blue glasses and sometimes he also wore spectacles on his forehead, a habit I inherited from him.'
April 28: The Russian Home Minister Sipyagin is murdered by Balmashev, a social-revolutionary student.
November 15: Gennaro Rubino (43) tries to kill the Belgian King Leopold, `because he's rich and we're poor'.
1903 February 25: Lenin holds a lecture in the Alcazar, 190 Avenue de Choisy, Paris, about the agricultural reforms in Russia. Trotsky, who assists him, admires the talented way Lenin shuts up his opponents.
April 20: Bloody pogrom against Russian Jews in Kishinev. 45 Jews are murdered, over 400 are wounded. Many Jews escape to the United States.
Belgrade, June 11: The Serbian King Alexander, his wife Draga and about 20 courtiers are murdered in the Royal Palace.
1904 February 9: Japan declares war on Russia.
July 28: The Russian Home Minister Plehve is murdered by Sazonov, a social-revolutionary.
Stockholm, December 11: Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, a professor in the military academy of St. Petersburg receives the Nobel Medical Science prize.
December 25: The Tsar announces reforms.
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Revolution
1905 January 14: The Russian Orthodox diocese in America of Archbishop Tikhon moves from San Francisco to New York. In 1872 the diocese was moved from Sitka, Alaska, to San Francisco.
St. Petersburg, January 22: Bloody Sunday. 4,600 casualties among over 140,000 protesters, who wanted to see the Tsar.
January 28: The Russian Home Minister Sviatopolk-Mirsky is dismissed.
Moscow, February 17: Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich Romanoff (1857-1905), a son of Tsar Alexander II and uncle of Tsar Nicholas II, Governor of Moscow since 1891, is murdered.
February 29: The draughtsman Caran d'Ache (karandash is Russian and means `pencil') dies in his house in the Rue de la Faisanderie, Paris. His real name was Emmanuel Poiré. He was the grandson of a French officer, who was wounded at the Battle of Borodino, and after his release became master armourer in Moscow. Emmanuel was born in Moscow in 1858, and studied there in the lyceum, after which he left for France. He made many humoristic drawings, but his main theme was the life of the military. Tsar Alexander III admired his work. (Nowadays the building on the address 79 Rue de la Faisanderie is used by the United States Embassy.)
The music of Alexander Skriabin becomes quite fashionable, but Igor Strawinsky doesn't like it and neither he likes Skriabin.
Ivanovo-Vosnosensk, May 25: About 70,000 workers strike for better conditions. The employers give in.
June 27: Mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin.
St. Petersburg, August 19: Tsar Nicholas allows the installation of the first Duma.
Portsmouth, September 5: Russia and Japan sign a peace treaty. The Russian-Japanese war is finished.
October 30: Tsar Nicholas promises democratical electoral suffrage, freedom of speech, freedom of gathering and other civil liberties.
Moscow, December 21: Revolution. After this Revolution Tsar Nicholas II is still prepared to agree to a constitution, but he isn't in it. Just like his father Nicholas finds it too dangerous to implement reforms; the assassination of Alexander II taught him a lesson. Nicholas' government publishes an ukase regarding the procedure of elections. The new parliament will consist of two Houses: the State Duma and the State Council. The State Duma consists of members who are elected by the Russian people, the State Council consists of appointed members: half of them are appointed by the tsar, while the other half is appointed by the nobility, the zemstvo's and the universities.
1906 Paris, March: Serge Diaghilev organizes a large exposition of Russian art in 12 halls of the Salon d'Automne of the Grand Palais in Paris. Léon Bakst is responsible for the décors, and the beautiful catalogue is illustrated by Alexandre Benois. More than 700 articles are displayed, and the exposition is a roaring success. Many Russian artists attend the opening.
May 5: Nicholas fires the highly competent Prime Minister Witte and replaces him by the diehard bureaucrat Ivan Goremikin. Skilled statesmen have to make place for bunglers and camp followers. Serge Witte found it important to keep the farmers satisfied, and that's why he suggested to expropriate the large estates and divide the land among the farmers. He let this plan work out by his minister Nicholas Kutler, but the landowners resisted these plans and Witte was forced to abolish them. This decision obviously caused even more agitation, this time from the workers and farmers, and since 1905 they burned down more than 2,000 estates. The rebellions were put down by Nicholas' troops, and `peace' returned. Lenin and his revolutionary friends escaped abroad.
Madrid, May 31: Dozens of civilians are killed by a bomb which was meant to kill the Spanish King Alfonso XIII and his young bride. They aren't hurt.
July 21: The first Duma is dissolved by the new Prime Minister Peter Stolypin.
August 25: A bomb attack on Stolypin fails. However, his daughter and son are severely wounded.
Igor Strawinsky marries his niece, Katarina Nossenko. He meets Serge Prokofyev. 1907 March 5: The second Duma gathers.
May 30: The last day of the five concerts of authentic Russian chamber music Diaghilev organized since May 16 in the Paris Opéra, co-operated by the composers Rimsky-Korsakov, Rakhmaninov and Glazunov, and in presence of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich Romanoff (1847-1909).
June 3: The second Duma is dissolved by the Tsar, because 65 representatives of the Social Revolutionary Party are accused of a conspiracy against the Tsar.
November 14: The third Duma opens.
November 20: The future Patriarch Tikhon, who was the Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in North-America since 1898, returns to Russia.
1908 Austria, January: Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky (1889-1972), the youngest child of the Kievian child psychologist Ivan Sikorsky, grows up in easy circumstances. His interest for helicopters is excited by Leonardo da Vinci, and when he and his father spend their holiday's in Austria, Igor for the first sees the moving pictures of the first successful flight of the Wright brothers, in 1903.
Lisbon, February 1: The Portuguese King Carlos I (44) and Crown Prince Luis Felipe are murdered.
November 18: A memorial service is held for Admiral Grand Duke Alexis Alexandrovich Romanoff (1850-1908), a younger brother of Alexander III, who passed away on November 14, in his house on the address 38 Avenue Gabriel, Paris. Alexis Alexandrovich was born in St. Petersburg, and joined the Imperial Navy. He became Commander-in-Chief of the Russian fleet, and after the defeat of Tsoushima, in 1905, during the Russian-Japanese War, he resigned. After that he did not aspire to any military of political function. After the memorial service the casket is accompanied to the Gare du Nord, by an infantry brigade, two artillery units and a regiment of cuirassiers. From there the mortal remains will go to St. Petersburg by train.
November 20: Igor Strawinsky starts to work for Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes, in Paris.
1909 Igor Sikorsky attends the Paris aircraft exhibition, where he meets numerous aeronautical pioneers, like Ferdinand Ferber, who advises him to go to a flying-school. He returns to Russia, studies in the Naval Institute of St. Petersburg, and builds his first helicopter in his parents' garden. This helicopter has a 25 h.p. Anzani-motor and too little power to lift the helicopter. Successively he designs his first aeroplane, the S-1, which soon is followed by the S-2, the S-3, the S-4 and the S-5.
Lenin works day and night, from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m., in the Bibliothéque Nationale, 58 Rue de Richelieu, Paris. His wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, writes, `When Ilyich works in the library, he usually stores his bicycle in the staircase of the adjacent premises, for which he pays the concierge ten centimes per day. The other day he looked for his bicycle, only to discover that it had disappeared. The concierge explained that she only was being payed for storing, not for guarding the bicycle.'
Serge Diaghilev presents Rimsky-Korsakov's opera La Pskovitianka in the Paris Opéra. (Later the opera was renamed Ivan the Terrible.)
July: Lenin moves to 4 Rue Marie-Rose, Paris, because he is sick and tired of his dictatorial concierge in 24 Rue Beaunion, Paris, where he since December 19, 1908 lived on the 3rd floor, together with his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, his mother-in-law and his younger sister, Maria Ulyanov, who studies French in the Sorbonne. Now he's more able to entertain people like Zinovyev and Kamenyev at home.
November 26: Lenin holds his first lecture about `the ideology of the contra-revolutionary liberalism and it's social significance', in the club house of the Society of Scientists, 8 and 8bis Rue Danton, Paris, where many revolutionary Russian writers and would-be politicians assert themselves.
1910 June 4: The debut of Diaghilevs Ballets Russes in the Paris Opéra. They show Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite Sheherazade, with Nijinsky and Ida Rubinstein in the leading parts. It's a roaring success.
When Pierre Smirnoff dies, the Smirnoff Company exists 95 years. He is succeeded by his son Vladimir. In the Moscow distillery of the Smirnoffs work 2,000 people, who produce over 4 million cases of vodka per year.
1911 January 18: Lenin speaks in the club of the Society of Scientists about `Tolstoy and Russian society'.
May 12: The French socialists celebrate the First of May in the Alcazar, together with 300 Russian political refugees. Lenin states, `The period of the contrarevolution has to be declared as terminated. Now it is time for something else: the Russian Revolution.'
September 14: Prime Minister Stolypin is murdered in Kiev.
October 31: Lenin appears in the club house of the Society of Scientists in Paris, to reveal his views about `Stolypin and the Revolution'.
1912 Igor Sikorsky's 6-B wins the first prize in a military design competition and Sikorsky becomes head- designer in the aeroplane factory of St. Petersburg.
April 15: Vera Figner, the `Venus of the Revolution' who in 1884 was sentenced to death for her part in several attacks on Alexander II, but was released in 1906, is the guest of honour at the 100st anniversary of the revolutionary Russian writer Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, in the Salle Wagram, 39 Avenue de Wagram, Paris. Maxim Gorki reads from his work, but Lenin, who also has planned a speech, keeps his mouth shut.
Lenin leaves Paris. Krupskaya writes, `France is a country with a monstrous bureaucracy.'
April 17: Over 300,000 people strike in Russia. In Andreevski, where the goldmines are situated, 270 protesters are killed and 250 are wounded by the police. Alexander Kerensky protests against it in the Duma.
May 2: Lenin founds the newspaper Pravda (The Truth).
June 22: The third Duma - the first Russian parliament which could finish its job - is dissolved by Nicholas. The Duma has done a good job: the legal position of the farmers is improved and more than half of the school-age children actually go to school. However, the third Duma had little influence on foreign policy.
November 15: The fourth and last Duma gathers. The new Prime Minister, Vladimir Kokovtsov, is told by Tsaritsa Alexandra that he must not bother to become the support of the political parties, because they are of no importance to her and the Tsar. `Have confidence in the faith of the ruler,' she says. Nicholas' empire goes downhill and fast; everyone sees it, accept he.
1913 London, February 24: Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested because she has tried to kill Minister Lloyd George, in Walton Heath, Surrey.
May: Igor Sikorsky's successful S-10-waterplane and his S-11-monoplane become the first and the second prize in the international aeroplane design competition in St. Petersburg. The first successful testflight of Sikorsky's Grand finds place. This is the first four engine aeroplane in the world; Sikorsky himself is the test-pilot. The West pokes fun at it, but the Russians are mighty proud of their aeroplane. Tsar Nicholas II comes to admire the Grand, and gives Igor a watch, to show his appreciation.
May 16: The theatrical season of the Théatre des Champs-Elysées, 13 Avenue Montaigne, Paris, starts with a re-enter of the world success The Firebird, which Strawinsky has written for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (debut in the Paris Opéra, June 25, 1910). The choreography was done by Fokine and the décors by Golovine, who - together with Léon Bakst - also is responsible for the costumes.
May 29: The première of Igor Strawinsky's and Viachlav Nijinsky's sensational Le sacre du printemps. The enter causes a huge scandal. Jean Cocteau writes in Le coq et l'arlequin, `Because pandemo- nium reigned the public, the dancers couldn't hear the music of the orchestra very well. Nijinsky and the English ballet master Mary Rambert had to beat time from behind the scenes, stamping and shouting. The public rose against the hot tempered and barbarian music and dance theme's. People laughed, shouted, hissed and imitated animal sounds. The row ended in a wholesale scuffle.'
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World War I
1914 January 16: The Russian writer Maxim Gorki returns to Russia, after he lived in exile for 7 years. Gorki was arrested because he took part in the revolution of 1905. He was released from prison in 1906.
February 9: Prince Felix Yussupov marries Grand Duchess Irina Alexandrovna Romanoff.
April: For the first time Le sacre du printemps is performed as a concert, without the ballet. Strawinsky: `A magnificent rehabilitation. The auditorium was crowded. The public, which wasn't distracted by theatrical effects, listened attentive and focused to my work.' Strawinsky becomes a standing ovation, the reviews are praising.
Strawinsky visits Russia for the last time. He moves from Paris to Switzerland.
May 24: Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Rooster is for the first time performed in the Paris Opéra, accompanied by the choirs of the Imperial Opera of Moscow. The choreography is done by Fokine.
May 26: Strawinsky's first opera, Le rossignol, is performed in the Paris Opéra. July 30: Sympathetic politicians point out to Tsar Nicholas that the interference of Russia in this war will end in a disaster, but in spite of this the Tsar proclaims general mobilization. World War I has begun.
August 1: Due to the fact that the Tsar not reacted to the German ultimatum to cancel the mobilization within twelve hours, the German Emperor declares war on Russia.
August 4: The conflict gains momentum: Germany invades Belgium.
August 21: This morning more than 9,000 Russian emigrants gathered on the Esplanade des Invalides, to become volunteers in the French army. More than 4,000 of them are recruted. Among them are many Social Revolutionaries (opponents of the communists!) who this way try to avoid imprisonment in Russia; they form the so called `republican troops'. After two months of training they will be send to the front.
August 23: Japan declares war on Germany.
August 25: The Germans invade France.
November 5: Great-Britain, France and Russia (the Entente) declare war on Turkey.
1915 Petrograd, September 16: The Tsar dissolves the Duma and leaves for the front, where he takes over the supreme command of the army from his uncle, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich. A fatal mistake.
December 29: A fund-raising gala concert for the Red Cross is organized in the Paris Opéra. Igor Strawinsky conducts his Firebird. The concert is a striking success and the organization raises over 400,000 francs.
1916 February 3: The first men of the Russian expeditionary troops, under the command of General Lokhvitsky, leave Moscow by train, and subsequently they sail from Egypt to France.
April 20: The Russian expeditionary troops are disembarked in Marseille. This first Russian brigade, which is put up in camp Mirabeau, consists of two regiments, totally 8,942 men, who will be send to the front in the Champagne.
July: Camp Mirabeau serves as a shelter for the 2nd and 4th Russian Brigade, which came from Arkhangelsk to Brest by boat, and from there by train to Marseille. They wait for transportation to the Macedonian front.
August 2: Some soldiers in Camp Mirabeau revolt. The officers of the 4th Brigade are in town, and the only officer present, Colonel Krause, is killed. The revolt is crushed; seven non-commissioned officers and soldiers are shot. The troops are moved to the army camp of Mailly. Trotsky admits that he was one of the provocators. Trotsky's expulsion from France. Until now he was a war correspondent for Kievian newspapers, and every day he came to the Rotonde to study the European newspapers, on which he based his articles.
Petrograd, December 29: Grigori Rasputin is killed by Prince Felix Yussupov, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanoff and Vladimir Purishkevich. From this moment on Nicholas displays an aversion to politics.
In the opinion of Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna the muzhik Rasputin was the only one who could save her son Alexis, who suffered from haemophilia, and Rasputin used this to increase his influence and power. This encountered resistance of the other Romanoffs and the court. Nicholas was very dependent on his wife and was not able to solve the Rasputin problem. Soon cartoons came into circulation, in which the Tsar and Tsaritsa were pictured as Rasputin's puppets. In fact this was not correct: Alexandra Feodorovna was Rasputin's puppet, while Nicholas was Alexandra Feodorovna's puppet.
1917 February 10: Grand Duke Alexander (Sandro) Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (1866-1933), Vice-Admiral, Former Minister of the Merchant Navy and aide-de-camp to Nicholas II, sees the country going to pieces. Sandro is an old friend of the Tsar and married to his sister Xenia. He writes his friend Nicky the following letter:
We are living through a most dangerous moment in Russia's history. (...) Everyone sences it: some with their mind, some with their heart and some with their soul. (...) Certain forces inside Russia are leading you, and consequently Russia as well, to irrevocable ruin. I say ``you and Russia'' wholly consciously, since Russia cannot exist without a tsar. One must remember, nevertheless, that the tsar alone cannot rule a state such as Russia. (...) The current situation, in which all responsibility lies on you and you alone, makes no sense.
Events have shown that your advisors are continuing to lead Russia and you to certain ruin. It leads one to utter despair that you do not care to heed the voices of those who know the state Russia is in and I advise you to take the measures necessary to lead us out of chaos. (...) The government today is the organ preparing the revolution. The people do not want it, but the government is taking every possible measure to create as many dissatisfied people as possible and is succeeding completely at it. We are assisting at an unprecedented spectacle of revolution from above, rather than from below.
February 22: The February Revolution. About 300,000 people strike in Petrograd. There are also strikes in Moscow, Baku and Kharkov.
February 24: Mariamna Davidoff goes to the estate of Matusov, which the Davidoffs have sold in 1915, to take some icons off the wall which are left behind. The icon of Jesus, with the gilded frame, finds a place in the corner of her own room; this icon belonged to her grandfather, Vasili Lvovich Davidoff, the Decembrist, who had it with him during all those years he was bannished in Siberia.
The World War doesn't really influence the Davidoffs' family life. In the country one hardly realizes that a war is going on. Late February 1917 becomes known that a revolution has broken out in Petrograd. Everyone saw it coming, everyone is happy, finally things will come to a change.
March 11: A Provisional Government is formed, with Prince Lvov as Prime Minister and Home Minister, Paul Milyukov as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Alexander Kerensky as Minister of Justice, Minister of War and Minister of the Navy.
March 15: Due to the February Revolution Tsar Nicholas II abdicated today. Nicholas doesn't want to abdicate the throne in favour of his ill son Alexis. His younger brother Michael will succeed him as Tsar of Russia.
March 16: Michael Alexandrovich Romanoff decides not to ascend the throne, which seals the fate of the Russian Tsar's dynasty. Russia is now in fact a republic.
March 17: The Military Attaché, Colonel Count Alexis Ignatieff, arrives in the Russian Embassy in the Rue de Grenelle, Paris, and announces that Tsar Nicholas II has abdicated. The portrait of the Tsar in his uniform of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, which he had become as a new years present, is immediately removed from the wall.
March 21: Ex-Tsar Nicholas II and his family are placed under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo.
March 22: The United States recognize the new Russian administration, followed by Great-Bri- tain, France and Italy.
March: 200 Russian soldiers from the Eastern front, who are captured by the Germans, arrive at the station of Montcornet, France. They are `parked' in the neighborhood of the wool mill and have to stay in the open for 40 days, even if it rains cats and dogs. Many of them succumb to the hardship. April: The Russian expeditionary troops from the French front are gathered in the army camp of Neufchƒteau, in the Vosges, because after the February Revolution the French army command doesn't trust the Russians any more. Russian professional revolutionaries from Paris come to Neufchƒteau, to incite the men. General Palitzin, the commander of the Russian troops in France, resigns and is replaced by General Zankevich.
April 6: The United States declare war on Germany, which encourages the Russian troops so much, that they are able to make a hole in the Austrian lines and rout the enemy. This Brusilov Offensive lasts some weeks, but when the Russian army counts almost 60,000 casualties, it becomes clear that the German troops can't be stopped. Kerensky prepares for a general Russian offensive and a democratical reorganization of the army leadership. He wants to force the Germans and their allies to yield the Russian areas they occupy. But Kerensky's reorganization only contributes to the chaos in the army. The officers loose their authority and the soldiers at the front start to fraternize with the enemy. The German army leadership no longer worries about a Russian offensive, because they are convinced that the Russian army is quite busy committing suicide.
April 16: Lenin arrives in Petrograd. The German Emperor Wilhelm II pays Lenin several million marks, not included the contributions of the German industry. The industrialist Emil Kirdorf alone transfers 315,000 marks to one of Lenin's accounts in Sweden. Apart from financial support Lenin can count on several logistic and technical facilities of the Germans. The German government hopes to use Lenin as a weapon to destroy Russia's military power.
May 8: The Military Attaché in Paris, Colonel Count Alexis Ignatieff, is appointed Major General of the Provisional Government.
June 4: The French General de Castelneau decides to move all Russian troops to La Courtine.
June 18: The first Russian units arrive in the army camp of La Courtine, so that the Russian expeditionary troops can be regrouped. Late June there are two brigades in the camp, and as a result of that General Lokhvitsky has 289 officers, 16,187 men and 1,718 horses at his disposal.
July 5: The 3rd Brigade, consisting of 6,613 men, joins the other Russian expeditionary forces in France. Due to the fact that also in La Courtine the revolutionary forces don't excuse theirselves, a mutiny breaks out.
Alexandra (Alya) Lvovna Rakhmanova was born in the Urals on June 27, 1898. She was nine when she was admitted in grammar-school. While she was studying psychology and literary theory she met Dr Arnulf Von Hoyer, a philologist from Salzburg. He was an Austrian prisoner of war, who after his release stayed in Russia. In 1921 they got married, during their flight through Russia; they were no longer able to cope with the terror of the Cheka.
From the day she became 17 Alya kept a diary, from which I quote:
July 5, 1917: our intellectuals are sure that Kerensky, `the man of superlatives', will save Russia. His portrait is everywhere. He's only 35, but he must be very energetic, diligent and competent.
July 12, 1917: The crowds plundered the monastery! The old, familiar monastery, the pride of our city!!! Most monks were murdered, the churchly valuables were thrown away.
July 16: Riots in Petrograd. Headed by the bolsheviki a group of navy men and some regiments of the Petrograd garrison try to topple the government. The Izmailovsky Regiment comes from the front to put down the rebellion. Trotsky is arrested and Lenin escapes to Finland. After the rebellion of the bolsheviki Prince Lvov resigns. Kerensky succeeds him as Prime Minister, but keeps the Ministry of War in his portfolio. The majority of the cabinet is now socialist.
(The crush of the first bolshevist rebellion could have been a turning point in Russian history. Kerensky could have made his administration permanent. Sure, he had some bolshevist leaders arrested, but he didn't ban the bolshevist party. Later he even released the bolshevist leaders, because he thought he could use them to prevent a coup d'état of the army.
Kerensky, `Lots of political prisoners were sent to Siberia by the Tsar. When my Provisional Government was in power, I released all enemies of the old regime Ä including Stalin, because I didn't think he was capable of anything. That was a mistake.' Why did he resort to the bolsheviki and not to others? Kerensky, `Because I was driven back on them. The allies didn't help us. If they only had given me as much help as they gave Stalin in World War II, then everything would have turned out differently.' (Bill Clinton's support of Boris Yeltsin shows that the West doesn't want to make the same mistake.))
July 30: General Brusilov is replaced by General Lavr Grigorievich Kornilov (1870-1918), who demands immediate reinstatement of military discipline and capital punishment for all deserters. The government commissionaries support his demands. Kornilov's decisive measures impress entire Russia. For the first time since the beginning of the Revolution forcible language is used. The people put him on a pedestal. During the first months of the February Revolution the supreme command of the army still follows the policy of the Provisional Government, but after General Kornilov is appointed supreme commander, the general staff becomes overconfident. Army headquarters turn into a political center of power. General Kornilov notices that his no-nonsense-policy is successful and makes three conditions: 1) the supreme commander has to become supreme power in all state matters, 2) the government is not allowed to poke its nose in his military orders; 3) military discipline has to be reinstalled (no more government commissionaries). Kerensky accepts these terms and it is clear that he now has to break off his relations with the Soviets, but that's not what he does. Before the July Rise there are virtually two authorities in Russia: the Provisional Government and the Soviets. The bolsheviki have seized the power in the Soviets and pretend to act in name of the Soviets. Kerensky could have prevented this by banning the Soviets, because they weren't democratic anymore, but that's not what he did. That's why he lost the support of the army leadership, which from that moment on acted on its own authority. Princess Tatiana Petrovna Dolgoroukaya wanted to become a physician, but had to be satisfied with a nurse's education. Boys became doctors, girls became nurses. When the bolsheviki seize to power, the Dolgoroukys don't escape immediately, because they expect a counterrevolution to take place any day. But when her father is arrested and thrown into the dungeons of the Peter and Paul fortress, 20 year old Tatiana has to face the facts: Russia isn't a safe place anymore.
Her bankaccount is frozen. Her non-aristocratic friends advise her to seek political asylum in the French Embassy in Petrograd. Coal are not for sale anymore, the electricity and water in their house is cut off, the servants have to be dismissed. Tatiana doesn't want to leave without her father and is given a small loan by the French Embassy to buy the bare essentials of life. When that money is spent, she is forced to sell the Dolgoroukys silver cutlery on the market. She becomes next to nothing in return and buys some herrings and potatoes.
July 30: Evgenia Demidova (1898-) marries a pathologist in the university of Moscow, the son of a pharmacist from Turkestan. Evgenia's sister-in-law Xenia is a surgeon in Moscow.
August 1: General Zankevich, the commander of the Russian expeditionary force in France, is forced to call in the help of the French army. That however also doesn't lead to a lasting solution; the mutineers refuse to give up, after which Zankevich calls on the 2nd Brigade of artillery troops in Orange, which is commanded by General Bielaev. This 2nd Brigade consists of volunteers from the Macedonian front.
August 27: The split between the Provisional Government and the army becomes visible, when in Moscow a State Conference is held under the aegis of the Provisional Government. The bolsheviki refuse to participate in this conference, because it only contributes to the counterrevolution. 2,414 representatives gather. Kornilov is welcomed by the conservative members, while the socialists give Kerensky a standing ovation.
When they hear that the bolsheviki tried to seize the power, the Davidoffs become frightened. Mariamna and her family leave for Kamenka, the estate of the Davidoffs, where they are welcomed by Alexandra Vasilievna Davidoff, Mariamna's aunt Sasha. The servants greet them friendly, like always, and at first there are no signs of a revolution.
But when Mariamna the next day sees after one of her cows, the coachman Sidor comes to her and asks, `Who gets the cow when the cattle becomes divided?' Mariamna is dumbfounded. She needs a moment to regain self-control, and then answers calmly, `The cow goes to the one who according to the Provisional Government has the right to claim her.' In Verbovka, a village nearby, power is assumed by the bolshevist teacher Elisaveta Petrovna, who's completely hysterical and shouts that the land of the Davidoffs has to be divided among the local population. `What could you possibly do with such an immense dominion?' asks Mariamna. `The same as you,' Elisaveta replies haughty. `You'll never manage it,' says Mariamna. `You absolutely don't know how to operate a large estate like Kamenka. Moreover, what sort of behaviour is this: taking away someone's estate and giving it to someone else? Have you ever heard of buying things? That's the way decent people purchase their goods, you know.' Elisaveta Petrovna is furious. `Of course we will not buy it!' she screams. `You have taken it from the farmers and now you'll return it!' The situation gradually becomes worse. In August 1917 not a day passes without some muzhiks coming by, who say the authorities have ordered them to search the house and personal possessions. It is humiliating and blood-curdling. At evenings all doors and windows are bolted; the Davidoffs are afraid. More and more is stolen, the thieves become increasingly impudent. Aunt Sasha becomes ill. The Davidoffs want to leave for Kiev, where they will be safe, but they hesitate to leave aunt Sasha behind. She however can't be moved. Because the flight can't be postponed any longer, they leave aunt Sasha with two women, who promise to take care of her. The Davidoffs are not even out of sight, when the farmers load the furniture of Kamenka on their carts and triumphantly take it to their homes. The houses of the other refugees are also plundered. Some days later aunt Sasha dies.
September 9: Kerensky sends a telegram to General Kornilov, in which he says that the general is fired. He orders him to come to Petrograd immediately. Kornilov feels betrayed.
September 10: Kornilov lets the people of Russia know that he does not accept his dismissal as supreme commander, and that he asks for support against the Provisional Government. He lets General Krymov and his 3rd Cavalry Corps march on Petrograd. Kerensky appeals to the Soviet of Petrograd, which in the mean time is completely taken over by the bolsheviki, and becomes the support of 25,000 Red Guards and the executive committee of railroad workers, who make sure that the trains of Kornilov's troops go in the wrong direction. Krymov's troops finally surrender. The day after his arrival in Petrograd he commits suicide. After his coup d'état fails, Kornilov and his helpers, the Generals Anton Denikin (1872-1947) and Alexander Lukomsky, are arrested, by order of the Provisional Government. Kerensky thinks that his power is restored, but he's wrong. Without the army the Provisional Government is powerless. The real power is now in the hands of the bolsheviki.
September 19: As a new ultimatum of General Zankevich, the commander of the Russian expeditionary forces in France, didn't have any effect either, Zankevich had the mutineers shelled day and night, by Bielaev's artillery, since September 16, which restored quiet. On the side of the mutineers there are 9 dead and 49 wounded. The majority of the soldiers is spread all over France.
October 10: Prince Feodor Nikolaevich Obolensky (1853-1917), my great-grandfather, who was a member of the State Council and Governor of Gostynin, is murdered by the bolsheviks in Moscow, which makes him one of the first victims of the Red Terror.
October 15, 5.45 a.m.: The famous Dutch spy Mata Hari, who was under suspicion of espionage for the Germans, and successively Ä without any proof Ä sentenced to death, is shot in Vincennes, Paris. Her very young lover, Captain Vladimir Maslov, is one of the Russian soldiers who fight against the Germans in France. Their mutual love almost proved fatal to him, as the French suspected him as well.
The October Revolution
Contrary to what's often said, the communists were no political movement which could count on the support of a wide audience. During the election for the constitution the communists only got 25% of the votes. Many soldiers and workers joined the party, but the farmers, the intellectuals and the middle classes didn't trust the communists. It was common knowledge that Lenin and Trotsky were puppets of the German Kaiser. Almost everyone thought that the new government would not be in power for longer than two or three weeks, and the civil servants didn't think it was wise or necessary to commit their fate to that of a temporarely and very dubious regime. When the Soviets seized to power, they immediately started to fight freemasonry. During the 4th congress of the Communist International the following decision was made: `It is absolutely necessary that the leading organs of the party destroy all bridges to bourgeoisie, and that's why we have to ban freemasonry. The abyss which separates the proletariat from the bourgeoisie, has to become part of the awareness of every member of the Communist Party. Some leading elements of the party have tried to erect disguised bridges over the abyss to use the masonic lodges. Freemasonry is however the most stupid and outrageous deception of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. We are forced to fight it by all means.' The Russian freemasonry continued in Russian lodges and clubs in Berlin, London, Paris and Cairo. (See also appendix A: Russian freemasons who escaped abroad.)
The Grand is succeeded by the legendary Ilya Muromets, the giant bombing-plane which Igor Sikorsky builds for the Russian airforce since 1914. The Ilya Muromets is the largest, heavyest and farst flying bombing-plane in the world; more than seventy bombers are built. Sikorsky has gathered a staff of very talented designers around him, like André Nikolaevich Tupolev (1888-1972) and Serge Vladimiro- vich Ilyushin (1894-1977), who later will become famous Soviet Russian aeroplane builders.
1917 November 7: (October 26 on the Russian calendar) the bolsheviki know that Kerensky's government can only hope to keep the power until the Constituting Assembly of December 12. On November 25, 1917 the elections would be held. The bolsheviki also know that they can never win these elections and they call the 2nd Pan-Russian Soviet Congress, to cut off the pass of the Provisional Government. The failed Kornilov-coup makes the Revolution move rapidly, quite unsuspected.
At 1.30 a.m. the main postoffice is occupied. Soldiers and navy men occupy the railroad stations and telephone exchanges. At 3.30 a.m. the battleship Avrora moors at the Nikolaevsky Bridge. At 6 a.m. the offices of the large newspapers and the state bank are occupied. At 8 a.m. the entire city of Petrograd is in the hands of the bolsheviki, except for the Winter Palace and the headquarters of the general staff. Kerensky temporarely leaves the government in the hands of his colleague Konovalov and decides that he personally will get reinforcements against the bolsheviki. He rushes to Gachina, in a car of the American Embassy, but his mission is impossible. At 10 a.m. Lenin announces that the Provisional Government is deposed. The Pan-Russian Soviet Congress can still not be opened, because Lenin wants the Winter Palace to be beleaguered first. At 6 p.m. the Winter Palace is surrounded by the bolsheviki. At 9 p.m. the Avrora shoots some blanks in the air, to signal that the beleaguering of the Winter Palace can begin. In the mean time the Pan-Russian Soviet Congress gathers in the Smolny Institute. 649 represen- tatives are present, among them 390 bolsheviki. The mensheviki and social-revolutionaries protest against the bolshevist coup, which they call a `crime against the people'.
November 8: At 1.50 a.m. the Provisional Government is finally arrested. The government is now in Lenin's hands. Kerensky brings his family to safety and escapes the country, disguised as a sailor. For his headquarters Lenin chooses the palace of Mathilde Kshessinskaya in St. Petersburg. Mathilde, who used to be the mistress of the Tsar, is only allowed to take her little dog, her coat and everything else that fits in her handbag. The October Revolution of 1917 puts a timely end to Kerensky's Provisional Government, which should have become the beginning of the Democratic Republic of Russia. Lenin, who's atheist and anti-Christian points of view are common known in Russia, appoints himself leader of the new Soviet state. Because of the fact that the church leaders are afraid that the new rulers will scatter the council, they decide to enthrone a patriarch. This patriarch will only be the first bishop, a first among his equals, who just like all other organs of the Church can be called to account by the council.

Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 2 - Before The Revolution - Chapter 4 - Decembrists and Russian Freemasons

2006-03-16T05:40:00.000-08:00

Part II: Before the Revolution
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4. Decembrists and Russian Freemasons
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The Decembrists and freemasons played a very important role in Russian history, because they were the only `revolutionaries' that ever contributed something to the well-being of the people of Russia. Many Decembrists and freemasons were killed or imprisoned; some managed to escape abroad, where they lived in exile.
To be able to show what role Russian freemasons' lodges have played in Russian politics, it seems necessary to explain what freemasonry is. What is freemasonry? The notion `freemasonry' or `masonry' has several meanings, each in a different level. First of all freemasonry is an organization, a union of freemasons, of which one can become a member, just like every other club. Freemasonry is however more seclusive. After application one is only embraced after an examination, and the entering itself is a ritual inauguration, about which secrecy is kept. Not everyone is admitted, but the freemasons say that race or religion, social standard or status are of no importance. Second, the notion `freemasonry' is synonymous with a certain atmosphere, that is the spiritual climate in which freemasons live and work. He who wants to become a freemason has to be motivated to go into his Weltanschauung and philosophy of life. It is required that he independently wants to search for truth, meaning and harmony. The tools of the freemasons are symbols of notions like `justice' (carpenter's square), `radiation' (compass) and `equality' (spirit level). Another symbol is the rough-hewn stone, which the freemason has to tool into the cubic stone. The `manual' of freemasonry is the ritual with its symbols. The `subject material' is divided into three parts Ä inaugural degrees. Through these three degrees, which are connected and form one unity, one is inaugurated, from pupil to mate to master. Every freemason however realizes that he always will stay a pupil, always will make mistakes, so that he constantly has to refine himself.
The patron of the Order is St. John. The gatherings outside the temple are called `comparitions', in which certain subjects are discussed. Sometimes one of the brothers submits a paper, sometimes non- members are asked to read. Ideally in the lodge one doesn't speak about politics or religious differences, because these are subjects which usually lead to discord. Everyones point of view just has to be respected. Besides all serious matters one also finds cosyness in the lodge, because after the comparition the freemasons sit together, having a cup of coffee, a drink, or sometimes a meal.
It is said that freemasonry was brought to Russia by Peter the Great, but that's not true. The first freemasons in Russia were foreign merchants, who were attracted by Peter's new capital. In 1731 Captain John Philips of the English Grand Lodge was appointed Provincial Grand Master of Russia. In 1740 the same title was granted to the later Prussian Field Marshall James Keith, who served in the Russian army. This Scottish laird was one of the most interesting personalities of his time. Being a supporter of the Stuarts he had to go in exile, and Philips V introduced him to the Russian Court. The Russian freemasons' lodges consisted in those days of English seamen and merchants and some Russian aristocrats. A very important freemason was Laurentius Natter, the famous engraver and diamond worker at the European courts, who came from Florence to St. Petersburg.
Also an important role played Professor Johann Eugen Schwarz from Moscow, and the eminent writer Nicholas Ivanovich Novikov, who was the founder of Russian journalism. Two very enlightened men, who not just contributed very much to freemasonry, but also influenced spiritual life in entire Russia. Schwarz, a German and Philosophy Professor, founded adult education centers and teacher training colleges, published school books and founded hospitals. Novikov also wanted to fight illiteracy and barbarism. He opened a print shop, published non-specialist and religious works, and founded a library, which was used by all layers of society. He and his friends stimulated the education and development of poor, yet gifted young people. But Novikov was accused of misleading the people, for which he was imprisoned four years in the Schluesselburg Castle. Soon a new `Provincial Grand Lodge' was founded, which subsequently was called `National Grand Lodge'. In this and other independent lodges the high aristocracy set the tone. Well known freemasons of those days were Count Roman Vorezov, one of Catharina's protégé's, Lieutenant-General Melissino, the founder of an own lodge, Baron Von Ungern-Sternberg, the Princes Alexander and Nicholas Troubetzkoy, Gagarin, Dolgorouky, Golitsyn, Netvitsky and many, many others.
However, all these inspired works of the Moscovian nobility raised the mistrust of the courtiers in St. Petersburg. They said that progression was bad for the Church and the State, and that the Moscovian freemasons kept arsenals in their cellars, to equip entire armies. The Chief of the Moscow police was ordered to search everything thouroughly, and to look for weapons, but nothing was found of course. Yet all the new institutions were banned, and the founders were bannished to Siberia. Major Kutuzov's capital was confiscated; he happened to be in Berlin at the time, so he escaped bannishment. Novikov however was once more thrown into the dungeons of the Schluesselburg. After the French Revolution the anti-masonic sphere also reached Russia. Catharina II didn't ban the lodges, but she showed the gentlemen freemasons that she couldn't approve of their membership of the order, as a result of which the masonic works were limited. Paul I banned the lodges and in 1803 Alexander I permitted them again, after which once more lodges were founded. Grand Duke Constantin, Count Stanislav Potoki, Count Ivan Vorontsov, Alexander von Württemberg, the Chief Treasurer Alexander Narishkin and a large number of other courtiers entered.
In the first half of the 19th century some writers and poets, like Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol, became extremely popular. At first Pushkin sympathized with liberalism and the Decembrists, but later his political opinions became moderately conservative. Many aristocratic young men picked up their liberal ideas in Western Europe, and the plans for a palace revolution became more and more realistic.
Alexander I was a freemason and initially he introduced very important educational reforms and abolished corporal punishment, but less than twenty years later he himself was one of the most harsh opponents of all progressive movements. He banned freemasonry, after it had existed in Russia for 90 years. Due to the absence of the telegraph and the railroads the message of Alexander I's death only arrived in St. Petersburg on December 8, 1825. Grand Duke Constantin Pavlovich Romanoff (1779- 1831), the second son of Paul I, who should have succeeded Alexander, had much earlier decided not to ascend the throne, but this fact was not known to the people. Everyone expected that Constantin would be the next tsar, but then was announced that on December 26 the oath of allegiance had to be sworn to Tsar Nicholas I. The Decembrists didn't think of Alexander's much younger brother Nicholas Pavlovich Romanoff (1796-1855) as an acceptable Tsar. Nobody ever had bothered to tell the people that Constantin rejected his rights to the throne a long time ago. The disappointment and anger were great. The rebellions, who only later would call themselves Decembrists, chose this day for a rise. They convinced the soldiers of some regiments that nobody could force them to swear the oath of allegiance to Nicholas I and that they were entitled to a constitution. Some soldiers thought that `Constitution' was the name of Constantin's wife.
The rebellions occupied the Senate Square. All negotiations failed. The military governor of St. Petersburg also tried to persuade them, but he was killed. The rebellions were badly organized, and with the help of loyal troops Nicholas I routed the Decembrists. The military rise in Southern Russia also failed. Immediately afterwards the first Decembrists were arrested. Over 120 men, most of them aristocrats, were put on trial. 5 of the instigators of the rise, among them Colonel Pestel, were hanged. 31 Decembrists were sentenced to hard labour camps in Siberia and the others were bannished to Siberia or imprisoned. Nicholas I renewed the prohibition of freemasonry in 1826. The harsh measurements of Nicholas I forced the freemasonry in Russia to go underground. Now and then a modest masonic flame flared up in small circles. Alexis Feofilaktovich Pisemsky (1821-1881) wrote about it in his novel The Freemasons.
The lineage of Frolov has a military background and thanks it's nobility to Peter the Great's table of ranks. The Frolovs came from the Crimea. Philip Frolov was the commander of the military fortress in the Kerch peninsula. He had 6 children: Alexander, Nicholas, Peter, Elisaveta, Claudia and Pelageya. His son Alexander Filipovich Frolov (1804-1885) studied in the military academy of Sevastopol, to surpass his father's military career. In the summer of 1825 he was a 21 years old lieutenant of the Penzensky Regiment, but also a Decembrist, who in 1826, together with his brother, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in Siberia. In December 1825 Vasili Lvovich Davidoff was arrested for his part in the rise of the Decem- brists. Also arrested were his friends Michael Orlov and Giuseppe (Ossip) Poggio. In July 1826, some days after the execution of the most dangerous Decembrists (Colonel Pestel, Riliev, Muraviev-Apostol and Kachovsky), he and Prince Serge Volkonsky, Prince Evgeni Obolensky, Prince Serge Troubetzkoy, the brothers Peter and André Borissov, Yakubovich and Artamon Muraviev were bannished to Siberia. The gentlemen were to be kept busy, but not so much that it would damage their health. Nicholas I didn't need any martyrs. But the food was bad and Prince Evgeni Petrovich Obolensky (1796-1865) became scorbutic. On December 27, 1826 the chief guard of the political prisoners in the state mines of Nershinsk wrote in his report, `Obviously Troubetzkoy has a lung disease. He brings up blood.' The prison physician Dr. Vladimir wrote, `As the result of scurvy Obolensky suffers from severe tootheaches.' Single Decembrists often married local girls in their place of bannishment. Married Decembrists were usually accompanied by their wives and children. Prince Evgeni Obolensky, who once was a very popular guest in the Petersburg salons, married Varvara Baranov (1821-1894), daughter of the serf Samson Baranov, in Yalutorovsk, West-Siberia. Everybody opposed to the marriage, even the civil servant who had to marry them, and even the bride herself. `If Evgeni wishes me well, why doesn't he give me money, so that I can marry someone of my own class?' she asked. But the marriage was to be quite a success.
Besides showing the unlawfulness of Nicholas I's ascending the throne as Tsar of all Russians, the Decembrists protested against other serious abuses in Russian society, like serfdom. Alexander I had started to take the abolishment of serfdom into consideration, and Nicholas I was more or less forced to follow this policy, but since the rise of the Decembrists he didn't trust the nobility anymore. The government conceived the idea to leave the exploitation of the farmers to the landed gentry, only supervised by the government. The act of 1842 said that the landowners had to determine the duties of the farmers, but that's all what happened. In fact nothing changed.
Nicholas I hated consultations and mutual agreements, and soon he took refuge with the autocratical system. They who advocated a more democratic administration were considered traitors and were bannished to Siberia. The freedom of the press was limited, the universities were placed under control of the state, and the `Third Division' of the Imperial Chancellery, a special unit of the political police, was founded. This unit could at all times make an appeal to the also just founded Corps of Gendarmes. Everyone in military or civilian service who was in the slightest way suspected of political unreliability, was fired, which meant the end of their careers. This way the quality of the civil servants and the military decreased considerable, because everyone with deviant political views was arrested immediately and bannished after imprisonment. By the way he crushed the Decembrists' rise, Nicholas I showed that he was as harsh as his father. His motto was, `Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationalism.' Feodor Dostoevsky, one of the greatest writers Russia has ever known, was bannished to Siberia in 1849, because he was a member of a group which was interested in the backgrounds of French socialism. Because Nicholas I granted him a reduction of his punishment - he wasn't a real nobleman, so he probably could be trusted - Alexander Frolov was released on December 14, 1835. However, he was not allowed to leave Siberia. In the winter of 1846 he got married in Shusha, Siberia, to Yevdokia Nikolaevna Makarova. She was a daughter of the Cossack ataman Nicholas Makarov from Kaptirevo, 10 miles south of Shusha. They had 4 children: Nicholas, Nadezhda, Peter and Fedia. In February 1855 Frolov was a free man, as long as he didn't show his face in Moscow or St. Petersburg. The Frolov family left for the Crimea, where Alexander started a sheep farm, together with three serfs he had redeemed. Just like his companions in misfortune Vasili Davidoff was bannished for more than 30 years. 7 of his 13 children were born in Siberia. He died in 1854. Two years later Alexander II announced a general pardon, after which Vasili's family could return to Kamenka, the family estate. Prince Evgeni Obolensky and his Varvara became five children. Ivan (1850-1880) became a physician and Peter (1851-?) became a lawyer and District Attorney in Kiev. Evgeni lived soberly, and the irony of fate wished that he also died during the days in which Alexander II granted the bannished Decembrists general pardon. His wife has never noticed his homesickness and depressions; he didn't want to place that load on her shoulders.
Nicholas I wanted to limit Western influences at the cost of everything. He died in the Crimean War, on March 2, 1855. The official cause of death was a cold and a nervous shock, but there were rumours that he had poisened himself.
In April 1858 Nicholas Alexandrovich Frolov became a student in the military academy of St. Petersburg, and his brother Peter followed his steps some years later. In 1884 Nicholas and Peter were both colonels. Alexander was proud of his children. He died on 6 May 1885, a happy man. He was burried on the Vaganskovskoe cemetery in Moscow, and the inscription on his tomb says, `Decembrist. Alexander Philipovich FROLOV, 1804-1885.' His wife Yevdokia died in 1901. Nicholas' daughter Anna Nikolaevna Frolova married Captain Yuri Daniloff in 1895. They had three children, Serge, Michael and Serjoia, and spent much time at the Daniloff estate in the Ukrain. In 1904 Yuri Daniloff was promoted Colonel, and in 1914 he was a General and Substitute Chief of Staff of the Army, under General N.N. Yanushkevich.
In 1906 the freemasons in Moscow and St. Petersburg were organized once more. About 15 prominent Russians, most of them members of the Constitutional-Democrats Party (KaDets), became freemasons in France and subsequently founded new lodges in Russia. In St. Petersburg the lodge `North Star' was founded, and in Moscow the lodge `Renewal', both with the greatest caution. The prominent members of the innovative urban intelligentsia entered these and other lodges: representatives of the Duma, scientists, lawyers, writers etcetera. But 3 years later the Russian secret police discovered their activities, after which the brothers once more had to go underground. During World War I the monitoring of freemasons became less strict. In 1917 there were about thirty lodges all over Russia.