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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Ä
after all she's the sister of the Queen Mother of England Ä, 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.
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 - on a voluntarily basis - 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 maŚtresse, 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.
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.
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 - 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 Ä
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 Czetwertinsky 's 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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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 accompa- nied 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 - 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.'
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.
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