Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy

by Douglas Smith

  17. SH, 2:148–49; ABM; “Nekrolog,” Moskovskie vedomosti, June 5, 1914; YPS/V, 34–35.

  18. YPS/V, 36.

  19. Ibid., 15.

  20. Skipworth, Sofka, 28.

  21. Krasko, “Graf”; ABM; KhiG 1, pt. 1 (1997): 116; Kovaleva, Staraia Moskva, 98–100; Karnishina, “Zhizn’.”

  22. Krasko, Tri veka, 365.

  23. RGIA, 1088.2.312, 74ob–76; Krasko, Tri veka, 364–65.

  24. P. Sheremetev, Zametki, 9, 37, 40, 53–53, 55, 57, 60–67, 99–100, 109.

  25. Iu. B. Solov’ev, Samoderzhavie, 18.

  26. Ibid., 19; Solov’ev, Kruzhok, 31, 40–41, 89, 137–38, 178–79, 210–11, 226–31; V. Obolenskii, Moia zhizn’, 177–81, 237, 261–62; Emmons, “Beseda Circle”; Polunov, Russia, 208–09; MVG/MV, 262–63, 272–74, 288.

  27. Pares, Memoirs, 86.

  28. ABM.

  29. Ibid.

  30. TAS, 78–80.

  31. Ibid., 78–80; ABM; NIOR RGB, 340.6a.32; SVS, 279; Krasko, Tri veka, 384.

  32. SVS, 300–01.

  33. Ibid., 302–05; RGIA, 1088.2.627, 8ob.

  34. SVS, 287; ABM.

  35. SVS, 279–80; Krasko, Tri veka, 384; TAS, 78–80; Lieven, Russia’s Rulers, 9, 14–15, 118–19.

  36. ABM; SH, 2:151.

  37. ABM.

  38. Krasko, Tri veka, 404–405; ABM; SH, 2:151–52.

  3: THE GOLITSYNS

  1. PG, viii–x; KNG, 7–8.

  2. PG, 31–56; MVG/M, 43.

  3. “Moskva i ee zhiteli,” 10 (1991): 23, and 11:25–28; ZVG, 4:78; Prishvin, Dnevniki, 1930–31, 23–24.

  4. “Moskva i ee zhiteli,” 10 (1991): 18–23; PG, 393.

  5. PG, 393.

  6. KhiG 4, pt. 1 (1997): 70.

  7. KhiG 8, pt. 2 (2002): 171.

  8. KhiG 4, pt. 1 (1997): 67–69; KhiG 5 (1998): 113–14.

  9. KhiG 5 (1998): 116.

  10. KhiG 4, pt. 1 (1997): 57–67; PG, 393–94.

  11. ZU, 23–27; S. N. Golitsyna, “Iz vospominaniia,” 4:26–29; KhiG 6 (1999): 198.

  12. PG, 422–31; KNG, 25–28.

  13. MVG/MV, 31, 90–93; KhiG 6 (1999): 191–99.

  14. MVG/MV, 196, 199, 262–63, 272–74, 288.

  15. MVG/MV, 5–7, 86, 292–94, 321, 329, 338, 340–44; ZU, 63–64, 89; Raevskii, Piat’ vekov, 53.

  16. ZU, 15; KhiG 9 (2002): 109–10; KhiG 11, pt. 1 (2004): 134–35; PG, 431; V. V. Golitsyn, “Letter.”

  17. S. N. Golitsyna, “Iz vospominaniia,” 35.

  18. PG, 402, 428; ZU, 14–15.

  19. See A. E. Trubetskoi, Rossiia vosprianet; Schmemann, Echoes, 151–52, 156–57.

  20. V. S. Trubetskoi, “Zapiski kirasira,” in Rossiia vosprianet, 482, 487.

  21. Trubetskoi, “Zapiski kirasira,” 498.

  22. ZU, 91, 95–96, 102–103.

  23. Ibid., 75–76.

  24. Ibid., 66–74, 87–88; Raevskii, Piat’ vekov, 120.

  25. ZU, 115–16; MVG/MV, 39.

  26. KhiG 6 (1999): 191–99.

  4: THE LAST DANCE

  1. King, Court, 414–18; Vyrubova, Memories, 8.

  2. SH, 2:141; Alexander Mikhailovich, Once, 211.

  3. Rogger, Russia, 33, 94–95, 107, 114; Lincoln, War’s Dark Shadow, 224; Riasanovsky and Steinberg, History, 378–79.

  4. Rogger, Russia, 177–80.

  5. Ibid., 208–15; Lincoln, War’s Dark Shadow, 270–303.

  6. Once, 189, 223. See also Moia russkaia zhizn’, 144–45; Elizaveta Isaakova, “A Testimony,” BA, 58–59; Wassiltschikow, Verschwundenes Russland, 120.

  7. Seed, 163–74. On anti-Jewish violence, see Klier and Lambroza, eds., Pogroms.

  8. MVG/MV, 357–71.

  9. Krasko, Tri veka, 203.

  10. SVS, 201–202, 216–17.

  11. P. S. Sheremetev, Zametki, 111; Nicholas II, Dnevnik, 205; Kovaleva, Staraia Moskva, 98–100; Iu. B. Solov’ev, Samoderzhavie, 162, 171; G. A. Hosking and R. T. Manning, “What Was the United Nobility?,” in Politics, ed. Haimson 144–47; V. Levitskii, “Pravyia partii,” in Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie, ed. Martov, 366–69; s.v. “Soiuz russkikh liudei,” in Chernaia sotnia comp. Stepanov; Gurko, Features, 386; Rawson, “Union”; “Soiuz russkikh liudei,” at www.hrono.info/organ/rossiya/soyuz_ru_ludey.html, accessed April 1, 2009; Kireev, Dnevnik, 66–67.

  12. Rogger, Russia, 23–24, 95; Emmons, “Russian Nobility,” 177–78, 210–11; on the noble reaction, see Haimson, ed., Politics.

  13. Marullo, Russian Requiem, 1–4.

  14. Ibid., 93–100, 104; Baboreko, Bunin, 95–99; Bunin, Cursed Days, 5.

  15. Marullo, Russian Requiem, 180. Recent scholarship supports Bunin’s assessment. See Lieven, Aristocracy, 224–27.

  16. Marullo, Russian Requiem, 6–7.

  17. Bunin, Collected Stories, 18–73.

  18. Marullo, Russian Requiem, 101; and see Woodward, “The Decline of the Peasantry and Landed Gentry,” in Ivan Bunin.

  19. Figes, Peasant Russia, 18–19; and see Barinova, Vlast’.

  20. Rogger, Russia, 95.

  21. Anonymous, “An Appreciation,” 6.

  22. Geifman, Thou Shalt, 18–21, 112, 138.

  23. Krasko, Tri veka, 232–33.

  24. Lincoln, War’s Dark Shadow, 205–206, 271.

  25. Geifman, Thou Shalt, 50, 55.

  26. Lincoln, War’s Dark Shadow, 347–48.

  27. Billington, Icon, 500–14; Lincoln, War’s Dark Shadow, 385–88.

  28. Zubov, Stradnye gody, 7.

  29. Meiendorff, Through Terror, 26.

  30. Gagarin, Reminiscences, 114–16; see also M. Buchanan, Dissolution, 72–73; M. Gagarine, From Stolnoy, 32–36.

  31. Once, 254.

  32. Rogger, Russia, 255–56; Lincoln, Passage, 41–50; Lobanov-Rostovsky, Grinding Mill, 17.

  33. Rogger, Russia, 256.

  34. B. A. Tatishchev, “Na rubezhe dvukh mirov,” Aleksei B. Tatishchev Collection, HIA, 199.

  35. KhiG 8, pt. 2 (2002): 167–68.

  36. Rappaport, Conspirator, 259–60; Rogger, Russia, 255–56.

  37. Schapiro, Communist Party, 153, 184.

  38. The exact number will never been known. See the discussion in Mawdsley, Russian Civil War, 285–87.

  39. Lincoln, Passage, 89, 145, 255–56; S. Volkov, Tragediia, 8.

  40. Rogger, Russia, 257.

  41. V. S. Trubetskoi, Russian Prince, xi–xii; idem, Zapiski kirasira; Smirnova, “. . . pod pokrov,” 250.

  42. ZU, 106–107, 126–28; AVG/M, 40–41; KhiG 4, pt. 3 (1997): 78–85.

  43. RGADA, 1287.1.5955, 174–80; SH, 2:139; RGIA, 1088.2.627, 7–10; Karnishina, “Blagotvoritel’naia deiatel’nost.”

  44. YPS/V, 39–41.

  45. Kleinmichel, Memories, 217–18; Almedingen, Tomorrow, 89; and see M. Gagarin, From Stolnoy; M. Gagarin, Reminiscences; Carlow, “Memoirs,” 22–23.

  46. Nabokov, Speak, 47.

  47. Lincoln, Passage, 11, 56, 61, 90–91, 103–104; Riasanovsky and Steinberg, History, 392; Rogger, Russia, 257–58.

  48. Lincoln, Passage, 93, 94, 107–10, 147.

  49. Ibid., 175.

  50. D. S. Sheremetev, Iz vospominanii; Nicholas II, Complete; Fedorchenko, Svita, 2:421; ABM.

  51. Lincoln, Passage, 194; Rogger, Russia, 264–65; Fuller, Foe; Krasko, Tri veka, 206; SVS, 201–202, 217.

  52. Krasko, Tri veka, 350–51; “V ianvare i fevrale 1917 g.,” 114; Blok, “Poslednye dni,” 18; and see Lincoln, War’s Dark Shadow, 202; Nabokov, Speak, 186–88.

  53. Barinova, Vlast’, 140–41; Alexander Mikhailovich, Once, 196–97.

  54. Fuller, Foe, 262.

  55. Podbolotov, “Monarchists.”

  56. Kir’ianov, Pravye partii, 99, 409–10; and see Bibin, Dvorianstvo, 220, 263–66.

  57. Cockfield, White Crow, ix–x.

  58. Grinding Mill, 167, 193–94.

  59. Marullo, Russian Requiem, 229; Bunin, Cursed Days, 40–41.

  60. Lincoln, Passage, 215–27.

  61. Bashkiroff, Sickle
, 27.

  62. Grinding Mill, 193–94; and see Paléologue, Ambassador’s Memoirs, 3:164.

  63. On Rasputin, Varlamov, Grigorii Rasputin-Novyi.

  64. Lincoln, Passage, 311.

  65. KNA, 16.1916, 1–2.

  66. Pokrovskii, ed., “Politicheskoe polozhenie,” 4, 6, 11.

  5: THE FALL OF THE ROMANOVS

  1. Lincoln, Passage, 321–23; Rogger, Russia, 266–67.

  2. Lincoln, Passage, 323–25; Rogger, Russia, 266–67; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 274–75.

  3. Lincoln, Passage, 327–31; Rogger, Russia, 266–67; Figes, People’s Tragedy, 311–20.

  4. The details are drawn from: RGIA, 1088.2.492, 1–3; 1088.2.307, 34–34ob, 97–98ob; 1088.2.537; RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 24–35; ABM; Krasko, Tri veka, 376–77.

  5. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 31ob.

  6. Ibid., 32–33.

  7. ABM.

  8. Pipes, Russian Revolution, 280.

  9. Lincoln, Passage, 331–33; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 279–81; Figes, People’s Tragedy, 320–21.

  10. Lincoln, Passage, 334–36; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 286–87; Figes, People’s Tragedy, 323–27.

  11. Lincoln, Passage, 334–36; Figes, People’s Tragedy, 323–31; Riasanovsky and Steinberg, History, 441–43.

  12. Figes, People’s Tragedy, 334–35; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 320–23.

  13. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 33–34.

  14. Ibid., 34–35; YPS/V, 47–48.

  15. YPS/V, 47–48.

  16. RGADA, 1287.1.iv.5137, Materialy I–II, 1917; ABM. Family lore has it that after his abdication, Nicholas invited Dmitry to accompany him to Tobolsk, but that his wife refused to let him go, knowing it would mean his certain death. No contemporary sources corroborate the story, nor is there any evidence the two ever saw each other again after Dmitry left headquarters.

  17. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 39; YPS/V, 47–48.

  18. Krasko, Tri veka, 385–86; ABM; SH, 2:151.

  19. Accounts of persons who lived through the February Revolution in Petrograd expose the lie of this claim. See, for example, Arbenina (Meiendorff), Through Terror, 39–40; Elizaveta Issakova, “A Testimony,” BA; Paley, Memories, 76–77; Poutiatine, War, 51.

  20. Grabbe, Windows, 131–35; Francis, Russia, 62–65. See also Elizaveta Issakova, “A Testimony,” BA, 164–65; Robien, Diary, 17; M. Buchanan, Dissolution, 171–72.

  21. Figes, People’s Tragedy, 321; Chamberlin cites a figure of 1,315 in Russian Revolution, 1:85. See also Pipes, Russian Revolution, 303–304.

  22. Grabbe, Windows, 85; Pushkarev, Vospominaniia, 52–53, 58; Glenny and Stone, eds., Other Russia, 55; Sollohub, Russian Countess, 93; Vasil’chikov, “Petrograd, 1918,” 128.

  23. Figes and Kolonitskii, Interpreting, 167–86; Kolonitskii, “Anti-Bourgeois Propaganda”; Smirnova, Byvshie liudi, 31–33; Fitzpatrick, Tear Off, 3–5.

  24. Steinberg, Voices, 9, 13, 17–19; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 308.

  25. Grabbe, Windows, 135. It is not clear from Grabbe’s book which Countess Sheremetev this was.

  26. Ignatieff, Russian Album, 115.

  27. Sayn-Wittgenstein, Dnevnik, 84, 143–46; Rendle, “Symbolic Revolution”; Bashkiroff, Sickle, 29–31; Fen, Remember, 63.

  28. Count E. P. Bennigsen, “Zapiski,” BA, 488–89.

  29. Mohrenschildt, Russian Revolution, 104. For a similar story, see Purishkevich, Dnevnik, insert between pp. 64–65.

  30. Kleinmichel, Memories, 225–38, 258–59; Robien, Diary, 19, 54–56, 66–67.

  31. Kleinmichel, Memories, 70–71; Volkov, Tragediia, 11; Wrangel, Always, 16; Robien, Diary, 55–56; Fel’shtinskii and Cherniavskii, “Krasnyi terror,” 9:10–12.

  32. Pipes, Russian Revolution, 307–17; Lincoln, Passage, 337–45.

  33. Lincoln, Passage, 344; Figes, People’s Tragedy, 344–49.

  34. Igritskii, 1917 god, 206.

  35. Cantacuzène, Revolutionary Days, 159, 175–76; Arbenina, Through Terror, 42; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 322.

  36. Rendle, Defenders, 52.

  37. Dolgorukov, Velikaia razrukha, 11, 15; Tarasov-Rodionov, February, 92; Poutiatine, War, 60; Lobanov-Rostovsky, Grinding Mill, 203–204; Coles and Urusova, Letters, 270; Paléologue, Ambassador’s Memoirs, 3:232, 259; Rendle, “Symbolic Revolution.”

  38. IDG, 57.

  39. Issakova, “A Testimony,” BA, 164.

  40. Krasko, Tri veka, 262; RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 39–40.

  41. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 41.

  42. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 38.

  43. Krasko, Tri veka, 261–62.

  44. RGADA, 1287.1.510, 254–55ob.

  45. Ibid., 260–63.

  46. Ibid., 260–69ob.

  47. RGADA, 1287.1.I.1943, 31–32; 1287.1.5062, 39, 52; YPS/V, 48; Krasko, Tri veka, 263, 352, 356.

  48. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 44–45.

  49. Paléologue, Ambassador’s Memoirs, 3:258, 337; Cockfield, White Crow, 213–15; Perry and Pleshakov, Flight, 148, 154–55, 165–66, 207–209.

  50. Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 1:85; Figes, People’s Tragedy, 345–48; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 330–31.

  51. Perelomy, 39–40. See, for a similar reaction, Rodzianko, Tattered Banners, 224.

  52. Marie Kastchenko, “A World Destroyed,” HIA, 128–29.

  53. Menzies, “Certain Vision,” 50.

  54. Russian Sketches, 183–84.

  55. ZU, 135–38.

  56. MVG/MV, 562–66.

  57. KhiG 1 (1996): 143.

  58. ZU, 139.

  59. AVG/M, 36–39, 42–44.

  60. ZU, 15, 142–44; KhiG 1 (1996): 143; MVG/MV, 571–72.

  61. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 50, 55.

  62. RGADA, 1287.1.5966, 6; 1287.1.6083, 75–76ob.

  63. RGADA, 1287.1.6108, 46–46ob; 1287.1.5966, 6.

  64. RGADA, 1287.1.6135, 1–3; 1287.1.6115, 28–29.

  65. Ambassador’s Memoirs, 3:256, 281, 339.

  66. Ibid., 3:227–29.

  67. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 59; Krasko, Tri veka, 421–22.

  68. Krasko, Tri veka, 421.

  69. Barinova, Vlast’, 304–306; Rendle, Defenders, 1–3, 52–53, 186; Krasko, Tri veka, 262–63.

  70. OR RNB, 585.4626, 13.

  71. RGADA, 1287.1.1555, 160–61ob; Krasko, Tri veka, 253, 263.

  72. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 64.

  6: A COUNTRY OF MUTINOUS SLAVES

  1. Lincoln, Passage, 361–65; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 392–94; Schapiro, Communist Party, 162–66.

  2. Lincoln, Passage, 368. On Lvov, Figes, People’s Tragedy, 355–56; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 300–01.

  3. Kerensky, quoted in Lincoln, Passage, 371.

  4. Figes, People’s Tragedy, 379–80.

  5. Igritskii, 1917 god, 34–37, 45–49, 86–88.

  6. Novoe vremia, 14736, p. 3.

  7. Den’, no. 11, p. 4.

  8. Novoe vremia, nos. 14744, 14751, 14752, 14753, 14758, 14764; and see Igritskii, “Bor’ba,” 85–97.

  9. Novoe vremia, no. 14767, p. 4–5; and May 4/17, no. 14768, p. 4; May 7/20, no. 14771, p. 4; Den’, May 6, 1917, no. 52, p. 4; no. 53, May 7, 1917, p. 3.

  10. Cursed Days, 80.

  11. Igritskii, 1917 god, 130–33.

  12. Den’, June 25, 1917, no. 94, p. 5.

  13. Ibid., July 25, 1917, no. 118, p. 6; and see Figes, Peasant Russia, 55.

  14. Sollohub, Russian Countess, 115.

  15. TAS, 307.

  16. Perelomy, 40–41.

  17. On “strolling players,” see The Other Russia, 59–63; Igritskii, 1917 god; “Mart-Mai 1917 g.,” 44; “Soiuz zemel’nykh sobstvennikov,” 97–121; Gill, Peasants, 163–64.

  18. “A World Destroyed,” HIA, 129–33.

  19. “Crossing the Field,” 90–92.

  20. Baboreko, Bunin, 223–25; Marullo, Russian Requiem, 238.

  21. Marullo, Russian Requiem, 238.

  22. Ibid., 246–47; Ustami Bunina, 163, 168.

  23. ZU, 146.

  24. Ibid., 146–47.

  25.
Ibid., 147–48; MVG/MV, 581–83.

  26. Revolutionary Days, 213.

  27. “Otryvki iz dnevnika, 1917–1920,” BA, 10–11.

  28. Robien, Diary, 161.

  29. Krasko, Tri veka, 264, 386; ABM; RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 68.

  30. RGADA, 1287.1.510, 271–76, 279–82ob.

  31. Obolensky, “Semeinye zapiski,” 175:177, 179.

  32. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 76; 1287.1.3500, 87–90.

  33. Ibid., 1287.1.2843, 71–72ob; 1287.1.1490, 44–44ob.

  34. ABM; RGADA, 1287.1.I.3568; SH, 2:153–56.

  35. Krasko, Tri veka, 422; ABM; SH, 2:140.

  36. Carlow, “Memoirs,” 6; Aleksandrovskii, Iz perezhitogo, 103–104.

  37. RGADA, 1287.1.5938, 68–68ob, 71, 75.

  38. Den’, April 14, 1917, no. 33, p. 1.

  39. Ibid., May 17, 1917, no. 61, p. 4.

  40. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 85–100.

  41. Den’, October 1, 1917, no. 178, p. 3.

  42. Pravda, vechernyi vypusk, December 24, 1917, no. 33, p. 2.

  43. RGADA, 1287.1.5960, 73–73ob.

  44. Ibid., 72; YPS/V, 48–49.

  45. RGADA, 1287.1.5955, 183–83ob, 190–90ob, 195–95ob.

  46. Ibid., 193–94.

  47. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 85–100, 111; 1287.1.3500, 1–3ob; 1287.1.2849, 175–76ob.

  48. YPS/V, 48–54; SVS, 318.

  49. Reminiscences, 1:166–67.

  50. Browder and Kerensky, eds., Russian Provisional Government, 2:608–609; Rendle, Defenders, 84–114; Channon, “The Landowners,” in Society, ed. Service, 120–46.

  51. Compare Pipes, Russian Revolution, 419–38; Rabinowitch, Bolsheviks, 1–38; Figes, People’s Tragedy, 423–35.

  52. SVS, 220–21.

  53. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 68, 79–80.

  54. Rendle, Defenders, 158–73.

  55. VMG/D, 39–40, 50–51, 54–58, 84.

  56. Rendle, Defenders, 173–80.

  57. Ibid., 180–86; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 439–67; Riasanovsky and Steinberg, History, 445–57.

  58. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 64–66; Wassiltschikow, Verschwundenes Russland, 299–314; Osipova, Klassovaia bor’ ba, 226–28.

  59. Igritskii, 1917 god, 55–59.

  60. Wassiltschkow, Verschwundenes Russland, 332–33.

  61. Igritskii, 1917 god, 55–59.

  62. Den’, August 26, 1917, no. 146, p. 4; August 27, 1917, no. 147.

  63. RGADA, 1287.1.5062, 112–13.

  64. Ibid., 1287.1.1980, 150–50ob.

  65. Wassiltschikow, Verschwundenes Russland, 333; “K istorii provedeniia v zhizn’,” 48–49; GARF, 5918.1.5, 122.