Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy
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15. Tennis, August 23, 1909. Prince Vladimir Trubetskoy and his future bride, Princess Eli Golitsyn (first and third from left), with Vladimir’s siblings. At far right stands twenty-year-old Valerian Yershov from the neighboring estate of Vorobyevo. He joined the White Army during the civil war and died of typhus in 1919. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
16. The family of the Menshovo estate manager Shutov, 1908. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
17. The coachman Yegor, his family, and Lukerya, the laundress (far left), Menshovo, September 1908. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
18. Peddlers, Menshovo, May 1890. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
19. Prince Vladimir Trubetskoy (far right) in camp with his fellow officers of the Blue Cuirassiers during maneuvers in 1912, the year of his wedding to Eli. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
20. An advocate of reform and a harsh critic of the tsarist state, Prince Vladimir Golitsyn was forced out of his position as governor of Moscow in 1891. He later returned to political life, serving several terms as the city’s mayor and earning praise as “the bright Champion of honor and truth” for his liberal agenda and urban improvements. (Courtesy of Alexandre Galitzine)
21. Countess Catherine “Katia” von Carlow (second from left), dancing with friends in the family palace on the Fontanka River in St. Petersburg. The daughter of Duke George of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, she married Prince Vladimir Emanuelovich Golitsyn in 1913. (Courtesy of George Galitzine)
22. Drawn from the highest ranks of the nobility, the officers of the Imperial Chevaliers Gardes Regiment gather around Emperor Nicholas II and the tsarevich Alexei. Among the officers is Prince Vladimir Emanuelovich Golitsyn (to right of Alexei, gazing at him), aide-de-camp to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and the husband of Countess Katia von Carlow. (Courtesy of George Galitzine)
23. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, grandson of Tsar Nicholas I and commander in chief of Russian forces in the Caucasus from 1915, and Prince Vladimir Emanuelovich Golitsyn (fifth from left, with goggles, staring at the camera). Prince Vladimir took part in the Russian victory at Erzurum in February 1916 and was sent by the grand duke to report the news to the emperor at Tsarskoe Selo. (Courtesy of George Galitzine)
24. A crowd gathers in the streets to watch the burning of the imperial coat of arms in the early days of the revolution. (Photograph © CORBIS Images)
THE CIVIL WAR
25. Members of the former elite forced to clean snow and ice from the sidewalks of Petrograd under the watch of a Soviet official. (Courtesy of Russian State Archive of Documentary Films and Photographs)
26. Burzhui made to shovel snow while guarded by Red Army soldiers in Petrograd, ca. 1918. (Courtesy of Russian State Archive of Documentary Films and Photographs)
27. A former tsarist officer selling matches on the streets of Petrograd, ca. 1918. (Courtesy of Russian State Archive of Documentary Films and Photographs)
28. Princess Katia Golitsyn with her sons George (left) and Nikolai during the civil war in the northern Caucasus. A Red Army soldier was so taken by George’s beautiful blue eyes that he gave him a fifteen-kopeck piece and called off the search of the family home. A grateful Katia spent the money on a church candle and prayed for the man’s safety. (Courtesy of George Galitzine)
29. The British battleship HMS Marlborough anchored off the Crimean coast waiting to take Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna and seventeen members of the imperial family into exile, April 1919. Among those present to see them off were Prince Vladimir Emanuelovich Golitsyn and his wife, Katia. Playmate of the tsarevich Alexei, Princess Sophy Dolgoruky, in hat and braids, stands staring at the camera on the right. (Courtesy of George Galitzine)
30. Golden wedding anniversary of Vladimir and Sofia Golitsyn, Bogoroditsk, spring 1921. Of the twenty-two pictured here, thirteen were to be arrested by the Soviet government, five died or were shot in prison, and five left the country.
Sitting, left to right: Maria “Masha” Golitsyn, Sergei Golitsyn, Grigory “Grisha” Trubetskoy, Alexei Bobrinsky, Nikolai Bobrinsky, Varvara “Varya” Trubetskoy. Middle row, left to right: Anna Golitsyn, Yekaterina “Katya” Golitsyn, Mikhail Golitsyn, Sofia Golitsyn, Vladimir Golitsyn (the mayor), Yelena Bobrinsky, Vera Bobrinsky, Alexandra “Tatya” Trubetskoy (fingers in mouth), Yelizaveta “Eli” Trubetskoy, Andrei Trubetskoy. Standing, top row, left to right: Alexandra “Lina” Golitsyn, Sofia “Sonya” Golitsyn, Vladimir Golitsyn, Vladimir Trubetskoy, Sofia “Sonya” Bobrinsky, Alexandra “Alka” Bobrinsky. (Courtesy of Alexandre Galitzine)
NEP
31. The wedding reception of Varvara Gudovich and Vladimir Obolensky, Ostafievo, August 7, 1921. Among the guests at the reception table are the groom and bride (seated middle left), flanked by Maria Obolensky (Vladimir’s mother) and Pavel Sheremetev. Across from them are Yekaterina Sheremetev (peering out at the camera) and Boris Saburov (extreme right with cigarette, gazing downward). Standing (in back from left) are Dmitry Gudovich, Nikolai Sheremetev, and Yuri Saburov (partially obscured). Yelena Sheremetev stands in white at the far end of the table, just to the right of the centerpiece. (Author’s collection)
32. The wedding party on the front steps at Ostafievo. The bride and groom are flanked by Maria Gudovich and Pavel Sheremetev. Bottom row, left to right: Yevgeny Lvov, Dmitry Gudovich, Boris Saburov (smoking, legs crossed), Nikolai Sheremetev (in bow tie with head turned). Middle row, left to right: Yuri Saburov (smoking, in white), Pyotr Sheremetev (in sailor suit), Lilya Sheremetev (behind him, in white), Praskovya Obolensky (future wife of Pavel Sheremetev, next to Pyotr in large hat with black bow). (Author’s collection)
33. A photograph of Vladimir Golitsyn and Yelena Sheremetev taken around the time of their wedding in 1923. “It’s as if we were born for one another!” Vladimir said of Yelena the previous year. “There’s no way I cannot love her!” (Courtesy of Alexandre Galitzine)
34. Vladimir Trubetskoy and the writer Mikhail Prishvin hunting near Sergiev Posad, 1920s. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
35. Vladimir and Yelena Golitsyn with Yelena’s mother, Lilya, and three of her siblings (Maria, Natalya, and Pavel) shortly before they left Russia in 1924. (Courtesy of Andrei Golitsyn)
STALIN’S RUSSIA
36. Vasily, Pavel, and Praskovya Sheremetev at the Novodevichy Monastery, ca. 1930. (Author’s collection)
37. Pavel Sheremetev in the Naprudny Tower alongside a photograph of his late mother and surrounded by the remains of the family archive and library that he fought to preserve. (Author’s collection)
38. Vasily Sheremetev in the Naprudny Tower, 1936. (Courtesy of Russian State Archive of Literature and Art)
39. The Sheremetevs and Obolenskys at the Naprudny Tower to celebrate Vasily’s name day, January 14, 1937. Seated, left to right: Yelizaveta Obolensky, Nikolai Obolensky, Vladimir Obolensky, Andrei Obolensky, Pavel Sheremetev. Standing, left to right: Varvara Obolensky (b. Gudovich), Olga Prutchenko, Maria Gudovich (b. Sheremetev), Yevfimiya Obolensky, Vasily Sheremetev, Praskovya Sheremetev. Shortly after this photograph was taken, Varvara and Vladimir Obolensky were arrested and never seen again. (Courtesy of Russian State Archive of Literature and Art)
40. Vladimir and Yelena Golitsyn with their children—Illarion, Mikhail, and Yelena—in Dmitrov, ca. 1930. (Courtesy of Andrei Golitsyn)
41. The mayor and his granddaughter Irina Trubetskoy, late 1920s. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
42. Maria Golitsyn, her mother, Anna, and her grandfather Vladimir Golitsyn (the mayor) in Dmitrov shortly before his death. (Courtesy of Alexandre Galitzine)
The nobility mocked in the pages of the Soviet press
43. Count Naryshkin shown sucking up to Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra. The caption reads: “FROM THE BIOGRAPHY OF A GOLD CHASER IN HIDING . . . AND NOW UNDER THE SOVIET REGIME—WITHOUT ANY REGULAR OCCUPATION.” (Leningradskaia Pravda, March 24, 1935)
44. Another cartoon from Leningradskaia Pravda during the Operation Former People campaign of 1935. Pu
blished together with a collection of articles under the headline WE WILL CLEAN THE CITY OF LENIN OF THE TSARS’ REMAINING MEN AND THE LANDOWNING AND CAPITALIST RABBLE, THE CAPTION READS: “CLEANING UP THE CITY.” (Leningradskaia Pravda, March 22, 1935)
45. The nobleman as dirty layabout. The caption is a play on words that means both “on noble mattresses” and “on noble layabouts.” Quoting Mikhail Kalinin’s “Report on Communist Education” and Ivan Goncharov’s classic novel Oblomov, the cartoon suggests that despite their books and learning, former nobles are indolent, uncultured, and filthy, perfectly content to live in apartments swarming with bedbugs and too foul even for cats. (Komsomolskaia Pravda, November 2, 1940)
The Saburov children, 1935
After several years of exile and imprisonment, the Saburov family—Anna, Xenia, Boris, and Yuri—were reunited in Vladimir in 1932. Several months after these photographs were taken, Boris and Yuri were arrested for the last time. “The time of the vultures is at hand,” Anna wrote. “Soon the land, every home, the waters, everything will have to give up its corpses.”
46. Xenia, aged thirty-five. (Author’s collection)
47. Boris, aged thirty-eight. (Author’s collection)
48. Yuri, aged thirty-one. (Author’s collection)
49. The actor Alexander Golitsyn was arrested in Tomsk during the Great Terror and shot on July 11, 1938. The charges against him included portraying Soviet heroes onstage in a “perverse light.” (Courtesy of Alexandre Galitzine)
50. Alexander’s sister Olga was arrested in Tomsk on New Year’s Eve, 1937, a week after her husband, Pyotr Urusov. Charged with spreading “defeatist” and monarchist propaganda, she was shot on March 5, 1938. She was twenty-six. (Courtesy of Alexandre Galitzine)
51. The final prison photograph of Vladimir Trubetskoy. He was shot on October 30, 1937, the same day as his daughter Varvara. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
52. Of all the Trubetskoy children, Varvara (“Varya”) made the greatest effort to fit into the Soviet system. Regardless, she was arrested in July 1937 and charged with having taken part in the plot to kill the Leningrad boss Sergei Kirov. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
53. The final photograph of Varya Trubetskoy. It was more than half a century until the surviving family members learned that she and her father had been shot in the autumn of 1937. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
54. Arrested around the same time as her father, her sister Varya, and her brother Grigory, Alexandra “Tatya” Trubetskoy was charged with plotting to kill Stalin and sentenced to ten years in the gulag. The harsh regimen destroyed her health, and she died in 1943 at the age of twenty-four. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
55. The final photographs of Eli Trubetskoy, taken shortly before her death from typhus in Moscow’s Butyrki prison on February 7, 1943. (Courtesy of Mikhail Trubetskoy)
ALSO BY DOUGLAS SMITH
Working the Rough Stone
Love and Conquest
The Pearl
First published 2012 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York
This electronic edition published 2012 by Macmillan
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Copyright © Douglas Smith 2012
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Maps and family trees copyright © David Cain 2012
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Table of Contents
Title page
Dedication page
Epigraph page
Contents
Note on Dates and Spelling
Principal Figures
Family Trees
Maps
Prologue
PART I: BEFORE THE DELUGE
1. Russia, 1900
2. The Sheremetevs
3. The Golitsyns
4. The Last Dance
PART II: 1917
5. The Fall of the Romanovs
6. A Country of Mutinous Slaves
7. The Bolshevik Coup
PART III: CIVIL WAR
8. Expropriating the Expropriators
9. The Corner House
10. Spa Town Hell
11. Bogoroditsk
12. Dr. Golitsyn
13. Exodus
PART IV: NEP
14. School of Life
15. Noble Remains
16. The Fox-trot Affair
17. Virtue in Rags
PART V: STALIN’S RUSSIA
18. The Great Break
19. The Death of Parnassus
20. Outcasts
21. The Mouse, the Kerosene, and the Match
22. Anna’s Fortune
23. Happy Times
24. Poisonous Snakes and the Avenging Sword: Operation Former People
25. The Great Terror
26. War: The End
Epilogue
Note on Sources
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
List of Illustrations
Copyright page