white russian emigres in paris

In 1926, a new organization, the Russian Legitimist-Monarchist Union, was founded in Munich to bring together all the movements that supported Kirill Vladimirovich. [6] PP, report dated August 1933, 15 p., AN/19880206/7. After 1933, there were attempts to copy the NSDAP and cozy up to the German National Socialists, thus the short-lived parties such as the ROND (Russian Popular Liberation Movement) came into existence in Germany. [7] Monuments for the war dead were often a way to symbolically recreate Russia abroad with example at the monument for those Russians killed while serving in the Russian Expeditionary Force (REF) in France at village of Mourmelon-le-Grand having a hermitage built near it together with transplanted fir trees and a Russian style farm to make it look like home. Five years earlier, the estimated number of members was 90,000, including 20,000 in Yugoslavia and France, concentrated in the Paris region and the Moselle-Maritime Alps axis; 50,000 in China; 5,000 in Prague and Sofia; 3,000 in New York; 500 in Berlin; 400 in Brussels and Charleroi; 200 in Lausanne and Geneva; and 100 in Vienna (PP, Union Centrale russe, August 1933, pp. These people formed organizations such as the Mladorossi, the Evraziitsi, and the Smenovekhovtsi. [53] Les migrs russes de France et le pacte germano-sovitique, October 26, 1939, p. 2, AN/20010216/282. When Kirill negotiated with a far-right French parliamentarian (whose name is unknown to us) for financial support for his cause, the pair agreed that in order to avoid getting into any trouble with the French authorities, the funds should be paid to Munich. [42] A key concern for the French intelligence services was the potential rapprochement between Russian and Italian emigrants to the benefit of fascist Italyfor a fascist dynamic was sweeping through the various Russian groups, thanks first to their attraction to Italy and then to the polarizing effect of Nazism. "Every day they had to think, how are we going to eat?" 74-78). With the arrival of the railway in 1865, the city became a seaside resort popular with wealthy English and Russian visitors, leading to strong economic and demographic development. Since they could not find allies in the German government, they began to build themselves an entourage among the political opposition of the time. By 1937 this White Russian presence--in particular the glamorous taxi-dancing Russian girls who populated the city's cabarets--already loomed large in the neon-lit Shanghai of the popular imagination. Having lost Paris support, France-based White Russians turned to the political opposition for support. Couples who had lived through a world war and a civil war now found themselves in a foreign land, often having gone from a comfortable bourgeois existence to working lowly jobs. Overall, Hitlers advent was met with enthusiasm among those Russians in France. Some managed to leave during the 1920s and 1930s, or were expelled by the Soviet government (such as, for example, Pitirim Sorokin and Ivan Ilyin). During World War II, many white migrs took part in the Russian Liberation Movement. [40] PP, Union des sportsmen Russes, February 1, 1939, AN/19940500/307. [43] Statuts du Pacte de la convention entre les hautes personnalits contractantes, July 18, 1930, 2 p., AN/19880206/7. [6] The popularity of monuments for the war dead reflected not only sadness over the war dead, but also a way to bring together the often badly divided migr communities shattered across Europe, Asia and North America. It is in this tense context that one can observe a gradual linking of White Russian communities with international anti-communist networks. That he left for the United States in 1941, where he provided information about the Russian opposition to the U.S. intelligence services, and then returned to Soviet Russia to promote the ecumenical relations of the Moscow Patriarchate,[49] may lend support to this hypothesis. [14] PP, report dated August 1933, 2 p., AN/19940500/306. Supporters of the Grand Duke Kirill and far-right-oriented Russians recognized as their spiritual guide Archbishop Antony of Serbia, who had proclaimed himself independent of the Moscow Patriarchate. Nevertheless, the groups Russian members appeared to many of their compatriots to be too corrupt, which prevented the League from really taking off. [27], Although some of the White Russians arrived with their fortunes intact, most were penniless and due to ethnic prejudices and their inability to speak Chinese, were unable to find jobs. The Russian Monarchist Party was a rather inactive French branch of the HCM (with 250 members, including about 100 in the Paris region). Here, in a bucolic and romantic setting, lie some of the greatest names in Russian art and culture, such as the writer Sergei Bulgakov, the artist Serge Poliakoff, and the ballet stars Serge Lifar and Rudolf Nureyev. It enabled the establishment of the High Council of the Monarchy (HCM), which organized its first congress in Paris the following year. The most important of the emigres in Serbia was Baron Pyotr Wrangel, who led the White Russian Army in the South of the Russian Empire and, after their defeat in 1920, fled to Sremski Karlovci, a . [37] PP, A/S de la Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, August 1933, 10 p., AN/20010216/282. The place, formerly known as Hristaki Passage, became known as iek Pasaj after the Russian flower girls took up residence. Factories welcomed Russian ex-soldiers as they tended to be hard-working and non-unionised, says Jevakhoff, himself the grandson of an imperial officer turned Parisian train station porter. "He really wanted to give something back to France, to thank the country for welcoming him," Melnik says. The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore. He naturalized as a French citizen in 1927 and was then ordained as a Catholic priest there. [5] Eventually, beginning in 1925, Nikolais cancerto which he would succumb in 1929gave the advantage to the Kirill camp. Orobchenko, shuffling through faded photographs, fears there will soon be little left of the community he loved -- just the 10,000 buried in the Russian cemetery in the southern Paris suburb of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois. Ludmila Fedoseyeva, Paris, 1938. For the International Anticommunist Entente, the Pact was a ploy by Germany to destroy Western democracies and bring about world revolution. The White Russians in France were also involved in the proliferation of initiatives aimed at forming anti-Comintern organizations, which were closer to shadow business schemes than well-oiled ideological efforts. For the French authorities, this White question was a particularly sensitive issue primarily because of the tendency of the first wave of tsarist refugees to have pro-German feelings. Five stories of White Russian migrs. Russians quickly became the third-largest contingent of immigrants in Paris: at 51,578 individuals in 1929, they lagged behind only Italy and Poland. [46] PP, report on the Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, undated, p. 5, AN/20010216/282. Masha's interviews and video footage . Karlinsky, Simon Freedom from Violence and Lies: Essays on Russian Poetry and Music, Boston, Academic Studies Press, 2013. [51] Report dated July 27, 1937, 2p., AN/20010216/283. "But it was extremely hard," adds the 62-year-old, part of a small community of "White Russian" descendants still keeping their heritage alive, a century later. He was thus quickly deemed to be a Soviet agent. When they arrived in France, such newcomers brought with them a profound and deep sense of loss and nostalgia. During the First World War, the Russian Empire and France were allied against the Triplice concluded between the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy. This time, those who took refuge in Istanbul were the 'nobles' and soldiers of Tsarist Russia, who had fought the Ottomans for centuries. The productivity of the Russian press in France demonstrates real vitality, yet its offerings were divided into multiple small print runs. White Russian migrs were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917-1923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik communist Russian political climate. [17] A service at the Russian war memorial in Terezin in 1930 turned into "a Russian-Czech political demonstration in a manifestation of Slavic mutuality" with the theme that the Russians had died so that the Czechs might be free. [17] Prague had a large community of Russian migrs, and by constantly linking the Russian experience of World War I to the experiences of the Czechoslovak Legions was a way of asserting that the Russians had helped to make Czechoslovakia possible. The contribution of the White Russian migr community to the global anticommunist struggle remains to be written. The IABIC maintained links with the Ukrainian Anti-Bolshevik Committee, which aimed to have the Soviet republics join the League of Nations and participate in establishing a European Confederation. [39] RG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, pp. To support themselves and their families, some of the younger women became prostitutes or taxi dancers. On 17 May 2007, the Act of Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate reestablished canonical ties between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Russian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, after more than 80 years of separation. [11] According to the White Russian newspaper Vozrozhdenie (Renaissance), Russian Freemasons actively worked to steer their French brothers in an anti-Soviet direction. They met willing officers, many of whom felt that General Miller had become too much of a Francophile. [12] In Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, war memorials to the Russian war dead were presented in Pan-Slavic terms, as a symbol of how Russians had fought together with the Czechs and Serbs in the war. A significant part of the coveted property being domiciled in Italy, the pretender wrote to Mussolini asking him to intervene on his behalf. A Russian monastery in Mount Athos is registered as the owner, while the Turkish government recognizes only the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate as the authority over all Orthodox denominations in the country. [11] In 1927, the Orthodox Metropolitan Evlogii 7. [53] Faced with General Millers resistance to turning ROVS into a fascist organization, the Third Reich sought to set up its own Russian movement. [18] The political weakness induced by the crumbling of the Russian migr community in France strengthened monarchists and fascists capacity to work together. When it became abundantly clear the Whites would never take back Russia, France switched sides, recognizing the Soviet Union in 1924. He was also supported by General Piotr Wrangel, who had agreed to proclaim Nikolai leader of the Russian All-Military Union (Russkii obshchevoinskii soiuz, ROVS).[4]. But just as Evie arrives, her grandmother becomes very ill. [42] Les monarchistes russes et lItalie, November 9, 1922, AN/F/7/15943/1. In 1932, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxim Litvinov, urged Stalin to attempt a rapprochement with France and the United Kingdom to contain the advances of Nazism. As the decades passed, emigres blended in with the locals. Some migrs also fled to Portugal, Spain, Romania, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and Italy. In a way, she says, "it felt like I never left.". [12] The fact that the crosses of the Russians buried in France were painted white-the color of the French war dead and allies-while the crosses of the German war dead were painted black was widely noticed within the Russian community in France as a sign that the French regarded them as allies. When Kirill published a manifesto proclaiming himself tsar, he clearly kept in mind this potential German-Russian bloc, stating that the Third International constituted the government of the USSR and that his cause of restoring a national government in Russia was in fact a genuine European question.[24]. They were popular with both foreign men, there being a shortage of foreign women, and Chinese men. (Taittinger would later, in 1934, play a critical role in trying to constitute a unified National Front, a group whose central notion would be revamped, this time successfully, by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972.) An enchanting, suspenseful novel of love, art, music, and family secrets set among the Russian migr community of Paris in 1937 The White Russian by Vanora Bennett begins as Evie, a rebellious young American, leaves New York in search of art and adventure in Jazz Age Paris, home to her long-estranged bohemian grandmother. White Russian migrs were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (19171923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik communist Russian political climate. Many White Russian migrs participated in the White movement or supported it. He was replaced by the very anti-communist Pierre Laval, who became in 1940 the second-in-command of the collaborationist Vichy government. Their tendency to seek to establish a miniature Russia in exile sometimes provoked tensions with the French authorities: for example, the French administration had to ask Grand Duke Kirill to stop awarding decorations that competed with those of the French state. In Brussels, Seattle, and Harbin, monuments were built to honor the executed Emperor Nicholas II while a monument was put up in Shanghai to honor Alexander Pushkin, Russia's national poet. Aksyonov died and was buried in Moscow. White migr ( ) is a political term used to describe Russian people who left Russia because of the Russian Revolution or Civil War. "That explains why there were few mixed marriages, why few Russians demanded French nationality," says Jevakhoff. The latter was established in 1924 as the International Entente against the ThirdInternational and maintained close links with the Russian Labor Christian Movement (Russkoe trudovoe khristianskoe dvizhenie, RTCD), itself financed by the Swiss and Dutch governments. [58] PA, report dated November 9, 1938, AN/20010216/283. On January 19, 1938, in Moscow, one of Stalins main aides, Andrei Zhdanov, fulminated against the protection that the French government was providing the White Russians and their criminal organizations, which are in reality nests of terrorist vipers, openly practicing their anti-Soviet work under the protection of the French authorities.[61] In reality, even if France constituted a central base for the White Russians, their transnational networks were more polarized by and oriented toward Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo than they were geared toward organizing seditious activity on Soviet territory. She worked in occupied France and was considered to be the main . [20] PP, report dated February 6, 1930, AN/F/7/13975/1. One faction pledged for Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, the eldest surviving son of Alexander III; another faction supported Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, a grandson of Emperor Nicholas I. This smaller second wave fairly quickly began to assimilate into the white migr community. 2021, AN/20010216/282. At 90, Orobchenko considers himself "the last White Russian of Clichy", a northern Paris suburb once home to a vibrant emigre community. White army veteran Captain Vasili Orekhov, publisher of the "Sentry" journal, encapsulated this idea of responsibility with the following words: There will be an hour believe it there will be, when the liberated Russia will ask each of us: "What have you done to accelerate my rebirth." Officially, the group was formed in 1938, but it was informally visible as early as 1922, when Kirill distributed honor medals. The succession of official names ran as follows: Association des Jeunes Russes, then Union des Associations des Jeunes Russes, and lastly Union des Jeunes Russes. White migrs and International Anti-Communism in France (19181939), IERES Occasional Papers, no. [29], In France, the Coty-funded organization also relayed the documentation of the International Centre for the Active Struggle against Communism (CILACC), founded in 1929 by Victor and Joseph Douilletwhose successful 1928 book was the reference used by Herg for his volume Tintin in the Land of the Soviets. Some Russian migrs, like Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, were opposed to the Bolsheviks but had not directly supported the White Russian movement; some were apolitical. The French Riviera was a favorite spot, where the European aristocracy had launched the fashion of the rainy season. [23] The extent of Russian economic dominance of Harbin could be seen that Moya-tvoya", a pidgin language combining aspects of Russian and Mandarin Chinese which developed in the 19th century when Chinese went to work in Siberia was considered essential by the Chinese merchants of Harbin. [8] Such monuments were also a way of commanding respect from the host communities with an migr newspaper saying in 1930: "Peoples honor heroes. with men faultlessly garbed by European standards, leading him to wonder how they achieved this "deceptive appearance". The White Russians who fled to Germany, led by Kirill Vladimirovich, disapproved greatly of this newfound cordiality with the Soviets who had brought about their downfall. While we know about the role some Russian emigres played in supporting the U.S.-led anticommunist struggle during the Cold War period, we still know very little about their connections with the first anticommunist organizations in the interwar period. 16, AN/20010216/282. [31] Marc Swennen, Les mouvements anticommunistes dans les annes 1920,Courrier hebdomadaire du CRISP 2059, no. Many military and civil officers living, stationed, or fighting the Red Army across Siberia and the Russian Far East moved together with their families to Harbin (see Harbin Russians), to Shanghai (see Shanghai Russians) and to other cities of China, Central Asia, and Western China. They used the pre-revolutionary tricolor (white-blue-red) as their flag, for example, and some organizations used the ensign of the Imperial Russian Navy. [33], The Committees profile was moderate, setting it apart from another, more radical organization, the Ligue Internationale Anti-Communiste, which claimed to have sections in Argentina, Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and the United States. 2023 Copyright France 24 - All rights reserved. Russian counter-revolutionary migrs in France participated both in transnational organizations specifically dedicated to their national cause and in those that took a more global view of the fight against communism. France 24 - International breaking news, top stories and headlines. His children and grandchildren all speak Russian; Orobchenko married a Frenchwoman, but she proudly shows off pictures of the Russian cakes she bakes every Easter. The exchanges between the Finnish and French services led to the conclusion that the BRT was simply a bluff.[39]. The party affirmed that, ultimately, migrs must develop reconcilable orientations on a global scale and join in an international military intervention against Moscow. A religious mission to the outside world was another concept promoted by people such as Bishop John of Shanghai and San Francisco (canonized as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad) who said at the 1938 All-Diaspora Council: To the Russians abroad it has been granted to shine in the whole world with the light of Orthodoxy, so that other peoples, seeing their good deeds, might glorify our Father Who is in Heaven, and thus obtain salvation for themselves. In the Soviet Union, white migr (, byeloemigrant) generally had negative connotations. 89, AN/20010216/282. Globally, however, the rise of minorities secessionism was seen with suspicion; many White Russians believed that only Germany would protect the territorial integrity of Russia. [25] PP, report dated September 3, 1930, 4 p., AN/19880206/7. Solonevichs message enjoyed wide circulation: when Solonevich and his brother Boris went to France in 1937 to hold six talks, the RNSUV periodical Signal published their texts. [56] The difficulty for Solonevich seems to have been Rosenbergs demand for radical anti-Semitic propaganda. [27] Following the kidnapping of Kutepovs successor, General Miller, in 1937, ROVS leaders stopped establishing themselves in Paris: General Abramov took up residence in Sofia in 1938, while General Arkhangelsky went to live in Brussels. Source: Open source. [45] PP, A/S dune propagande en faveur des doctrines sovitiques qui serait faite parmi les membres de lAssociation des Jeune Russes, January 1932, pp. A large number also fled to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Iran, Germany and France. Internal processes of socio-political control were also developed: in 1935, a popular restaurant was opened in Paris for all unemployed Ukrainian workers in need, with the notable exception of communists.[2]. Despite benefitting from the wealth of his American wife, the mythomaniac tendencies of this former U.S.-based leader of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth led to his downfall. [10] Similarly, Russian Freemasonry, which had been proscribed in Soviet Russia, was re-established on French soil and came to include a large number of lodges: by 1933 there were two Russian lodges in Paris in the Grand Orient de France, six in the Grande Loge de France, and one in Le Droit Humain. Cover photo: Made by John Chrobak using: Boulevard Courcelles Paris 20060503 1 by Georges Seguin CC BY-SA 3.0. [60] A/S des nomms Kologriwov Hans, Oujitzky et Moussard, signals comme agents de la Gestapo, November 1937, 3 p., AN/19940500/308. [34], Some secret societies attracted the attention of the French authorities. The Russian National Union of Participants in the War (Russkii natsionalnyi soiuz uchastnikov voiny, RSNUV), a ROVS splinter group, attracted 1,000 membersa number that, when compared to the general population, is sufficient to demonstrate the special weight of these military circles. [13] Serbian King Alexander of Yugoslavia was a Russophile who welcomed Russian migrs to his kingdom, and after France, Yugoslavia had the largest Russian migr community, leading to Yugoslavia to have almost as many war memorials to the Russian war dead as France. After the withdrawal of US and Japanese troops from Siberia, some migrs traveled to Japan. . [26] In 1930, the kidnapping of Kutepov on the streets of Paris by Soviet agents generated a state of psychosisin 36 hours, 200 people went to the police to reveal the truth about the caseand gave rise to a meeting organized by the French far right, including Action franaise. Some 958,000 people travelled from Russia on ships through Constantinople to Europe, and roughly a quarter were accepted as refugees in France. At 90, Orobchenko considers himself "the last White Russian of Clichy", a northern Paris suburb once home to a vibrant emigre community.
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