An important part was also played by the local Russian Orthodox Church under the guidance of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. [12], Eventually, traditions lost in Soviet Russia were reconstituted abroad, as was the social and political dominance of military veterans and clergy members. The White emigration was the first and biggest of the four waves of Russian emigration, with nearly two million people leaving the country between 1917 and 1923. "She used to say she had lived completely different lives, and that each was rich in its own way," says her granddaughter Catherine Melnik, an art dealer whose elegant Paris apartment is crammed with Russian paintings. [8], Both left-wing and right-wing migr who otherwise passionately disagreed came together to honor the war dead of World War I, which was virtually the only occasions when overseas Russian communities could all come together, explaining why such memorial services were so important to the migr communities. [11] According to the White Russian newspaper Vozrozhdenie (Renaissance), Russian Freemasons actively worked to steer their French brothers in an anti-Soviet direction. 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. [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. . Those who arrived in 1919 were better off economically. Pierre de Fermor, president of Nice's Friends of the Russian Cathedral, a pro-Moscow group. 9, December 2020 Transnational History of the Far Right Series. [29] PP,La Croisade des patries, May 18, 1933, 2 p., AN/1994500/240. [citation needed] By slow degrees, and despite the many difficulties, the community not only retained a good deal of cohesion but did begin to flourish, both economically and culturally. For the International Anticommunist Entente, the Pact was a ploy by Germany to destroy Western democracies and bring about world revolution. Munich was a strategic choice, since the Bavarian monarchists also filled up the coffers of Kirills cause, making it possible for General Vasily Biskupskythe first White Russian to give unqualified support to Hitler and who also helped Kirill finance his rise to powerto organize this funding from Germany. [37] PP, A/S de la Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, August 1933, 10 p., AN/20010216/282. With the White Russians in Paris. During World War II, many white migrs took part in the Russian Liberation Movement. 12, AN/1988206/7; A/S de Wladimir Krassinksy et de lUnion des Jeunes Russes, April 1932, 6 p., AN/20010216/283. The civil war scattered between one and two million White Russians -- nicknamed after anti-Communist forces -- from China to Brazil, creating diaspora communities that in some cases endure to this day. In truth-we have nothing, we have lost everything. The fact that Nice was a crucial base for the Russian emigration had an immediate political consequence. [26] A/S darticles de presse signalant la dcouverte dun complot tsariste Moscou, May 1927, 3p., report dated May 15, 1928, AN/F/7/13975/1. She learned firsthand the stories of White Russian emigres who fled the Bolshevik revolution. [5] PSC, report dated October 8, 1924, 4 p.; Les monarchistes russes et lItalie, November 9, 1922, AN/F/7/15943/1. [15] When the memorial was opened in 1936, the Patriarch Varnava of the Serbian Orthodox Church declared in a speech opening it: "The Russians bore great sacrifices on our account wishing to defend Serbs at a time when powerful enemies attacked tiny Serbia from all sides. [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. 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. 12, AN/20010216/282). In 1926, a new organization, the Russian Legitimist-Monarchist Union, was founded in Munich to bring together all the movements that supported Kirill Vladimirovich. [57] DRG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, pp. In 1936, when the Committee of Russian migr Organizationsthe umbrella group for the vast majority of White Russian groups in Franceappointed its members, they included 20 generals, four colonels, two admirals, a frigate captain, an archbishop, and 23 archpriests. They consider the period of 1917 to 1991 to have been a period of anti-Christian occupation by the Soviet regime. [54] RG, report dated April 13, 1936, 2 p., AN/19940500/305. Officially, the group was formed in 1938, but it was informally visible as early as 1922, when Kirill distributed honor medals. M. V. Nazarov, The Mission of the Russian Emigration, Moscow: Rodnik, 1994. No one knows how this rumor arose, but it reveals the temptation to work with the French far right to defend the White cause. Some began new lives in . [55] Les migrs russes de France et le pacte germano-sovitique, October 26, 1939, p. 3, AN/20010216/282. Put another way, Russianswho accounted for 9.3% of foreigners in France at that timecomprised 90% of the countrys political immigrants. The French section was created in 1925. [19], The city of Harbin in China was founded by the Russians in 1896, becoming known the "Moscow of the Orient" due to its Russian appearance, and after the Revolution its Russian population was further reinforced by migrs, through the majority of the Russians living in Harbin were people who had come before World War I. [1] Most white migrs left Russia from 1917 to 1920 (estimates vary between 900,000 and 2 million). His regular trips to Berlin linked him to the Nazi party, and in particular to Paul Schulz, who came to be one of the Nazis main recruiting agents among Russian migrs from 1934.[60]. 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. After the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich in 1918, the Russian line of succession became disputed. At 90, Orobchenko considers himself "the last White Russian of Clichy", a northern Paris suburb once home to a vibrant emigre community. The French Riviera was a favorite spot, where the European aristocracy had launched the fashion of the rainy season. [4], One of the most notable forms of activities by Russian migrs was building monuments to Russian war dead of World War I, which stood in marked contrast to the Soviet Union, which did not build any monuments to the 2 million Russians killed between 1914 and 1917, as the war had been condemned by Lenin as an "imperialist war". [16] Karel Kram, a wealthy conservative Czechoslovak politician and a Russophile worked together with Russian migrs to build an Orthodox church in Prague which Kram called in his opening speech "a monument of Slavic connection" and to "remind Russians not only of their former sufferings but also about the recognition on the side of the Slavs". Leben im europischen Brgerkrieg, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1995. In East Asia, White Russian ( Chinese: , Japanese: , ) is the term most commonly used for such Russian migrs, although some have been of Ukrainian and other ethnicities, and were not culturally Russians. Some would flee a Europe at war; others would remain loyal to a defeated France led by Marshal Ptain; and still others would venture into the world of collaborationism. It was a front that brought together right-wing monarchists and pro-Hitlerites.[23]. 25. [11] PP, La franc-maonnerie russe, August 1933, 2 p., AN/19940500/306. with men faultlessly garbed by European standards, leading him to wonder how they achieved this "deceptive appearance". [52] PP, March 23, 1934, AN/19940497/70; A/S de lactivit de lmigration russe en France, September 1934, 9 p., AN / 20010216/282; August 1934, 2 p., AN/19940500/307; Note de renseignements: affaires russes, February 7, 1940, 5 p., AN/19940500/305; September 11, 1937, AN/19940500/309; DRG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, p. 3; Attitude des principales organisations dmigrs russes en prsence des vnements, September 28, 1938; A/S de lopinion des nationalistes russes de Paris aprs la confrence de Munich, September 30, 1938; A/S dune propagande des Russes blancs en faveur de lAllemagne, October 3, 1938, AN/20010216/282; Nicolas Ross, De Koutiepov Miller. [42] Les monarchistes russes et lItalie, November 9, 1922, AN/F/7/15943/1. [4] Police spciale des Chemins de fer et de la frontire (PSC), report dated October 8, 1924, 4 p.; Les monarchistes russes et lItalie, November 9, 1922, AN/F/7/15943/1. According to the French intelligence services, the Reich hedged its bets on the prestigious thinker Ivan Solonevich, whom Alfred Rosenberg is said to have received in person in Berlin to offer him the leadership of a potential international philo-Nazi union of ex-Russian officers. [30] Rapport gnral du Bureau permanent de lEntente internationale contre la IIIe Internationale pour 1938, Geneva, 1939, p. 9, AN/20010216/170. [56] The difficulty for Solonevich seems to have been Rosenbergs demand for radical anti-Semitic propaganda. When perfumer Franois Coty, a financier of the French far right and of some international anti-communist initiatives, proposed a Bureau Politique International in 1928, his inaugural event attracted many Parisian Russians, including General Wrangel. Many symbols of the White migrs were reintroduced as symbols of the post-Soviet Russia, such as the Byzantine eagle and the Russian tricolor. [56] Police Administrative (PA), A/S du journal Civilisation et bolchevisme, May 16, 1939, 3 p., AN/20010216/283. [15] PP, A/S de effervescence dans les milieux croyants de lmigration russe, January 14, 1930, 3 p., AN/19940500/35. [10] PP, A/S de lUnion des chevaliers de lOrdre militaire imprial russe de Saint-Georges, November 6, 1939, 3 p., AN/19940497/70; Ibid., Un entretien avec le Grand-duc Cyrille, November 9, 1922, AN/F/7/15943/1. The contribution of the White Russian migr community to the global anticommunist struggle remains to be written. [44] Commissaire Divisionnaire de police spciale to the Prfet des Alpes maritimes, A/S de lOrdre des Chevaliers des Patriotes Fascistes Nationaux Russes, October 16, 1930, 2 p., AN/19880206/7. 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. 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." 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. [18] Interior Minister to the Foreign Affairs Minister, November 5, 1937, AN/19880206/7. 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. 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]. [25] After the death of its founding father, General Wrangel, Grand Duke Nikolai appointed General Kutepov as the new head. Other women took work as dressmakers, shop assistants and hairdressers. At 90, Orobchenko considers himself "the last White Russian of Clichy", a northern Paris suburb once home to a vibrant emigre community. Some 958,000 people travelled from Russia on ships through Constantinople to Europe, and roughly a quarter were accepted as refugees in France. 89, AN/20010216/282. [24] SN, Le Grand-duc Cyrille, June 15, 1922; Monarchistes russes (parti du grand-duc Cyrille), January 30, 1923; Ibid., February 8, 1924; Le gnral Biskoupsky, agent principal du Grand-duc Cyrille, June 5, 1923; Les monarchistes russes et la Rpublique rhnane, August 20, 1923; Manifeste de lEmpereur de la Russie, September 1924, 2p.; Action des monarchistes russes, December 16, 1924, AN/F/7/15943/1. Life in these homes was often "psychologically very difficult", he adds. Most white migrs left Russia from 1917 to 1920 (estimates vary between 900,000 and 2 million). [47] Tranlation given by La Cte dmeraude, October 25, 1935. Karl Schlgel (ed. "Every day they had to think, how are we going to eat?" [13] PP, A/S du Comit des organisations dmigrs russes, July 9, 1936, 2p., AN/19940500/307. The city itself is located less than 40 kilometers from the Italian border. The Cimetire de Liers was created as the second communal cemetery on February 8, 1879 in the city of Sainte Genevive des Bois in France, 25 km south from Paris. According to the French intelligence services, on September 22, 1933, a meeting took place in the ROND headquarters in Berlin-Wilmersdorf between a delegation from ROND, led by Bermondt-Avalov; a delegation from the Mladorossy, led by Alexander Kazem-Beg; and Anastasy Vonsiatsky, leader of the All-Russian Fascist Organization (Vserossiiskaia fashistskaia organizatsiia, VFO). Various youth organizations, such as the Scouts-in-Exile became functional in raising children with a background in pre-Soviet Russian culture and heritage. Its goal was allegedly to restore the Russian political and territorial order that had existed prior to February 1917 by forming an alliance with Germany, Japan, and Turkey. [37] Although the BRT succumbed to internal quarrels and Soviet infiltration in 1932, it actually kept running, albeit rather weakened. Having lost Paris support, France-based White Russians turned to the political opposition for support. In East Asia, White Russian (Chinese: , Japanese: , ) is the term most commonly used for such Russian migrs, although some have been of Ukrainian and other ethnicities, and were not culturally Russians.[1]. The U.S. government, foreign policymakers, and the intelligence community quietly forgot about the Russian emigre community. However, in the meantime Barthou had died following the attack of Ustashe terrorist Vlado Chernozemski. [19], The link among White migrs was also ensured by a high volume of publications highlighting the religious dimension of emigration. [citation needed]. [13] Many noble titles were usurped, a fact that underlined both the social weight of the Russian nobility and its decomposition. As being temporarily deprived of our Motherland let us save in our ranks not only faith in her, but an unbending desire towards feats, sacrifice, and the establishment of a united friendly family of those who did not let down their hands in the fight for her liberation, The migrs formed various organizations for the purpose of combatting the Soviet regime such as the Russian All-Military Union, the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, and the NTS. Sometimes the term is used to describe . At the demographic level, the Russian community in France was sizable. The historical, geographical, and political situation was therefore particularly conducive to the production of transnational far-right connections. Approximately 150,000 White Russians, including princes, princesses, generals and senior officers, fled to the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Revolution. Many white migrs believed that their mission was to preserve the pre-revolutionary Russian culture and way of life while living abroad, in order to return this influence to Russian culture after the fall of the USSR. The Union of the Russian Empire, founded in 1928 as the discreetly pro-Kirill Russian Empire Union, had only 200 members spread across Paris, Nice, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, the United States, and Poland; some of its members went to fight for General Franco. The latter was perceived by many Russian officers as an ongoing case that was never finished since the day of their exile. After the October Revolution, France remained loyal to the fallen Romanov dynasty. [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. Kirill had lived in France since 1921, with the exception of four years spent in Coburg, Germany, between 1924 and 1928 and occasional tours to meet supporters (in the winter of 19301931, he traveled to Greece, Serbia, Palestine, and Italy). [41] RalphSchor, Le Parti Populaire Franais dans les Alpes-Maritimes (19361939),Cahiers de la Mditerrane3334 (1986): 99125. The International Congress of Russian Monarchists was held in Bavaria in 1921 and brought together 200 figures from 33 countries. [48] Union des Young Russians, August 1933, 10 p., AN/20010216/282. Russian American Immigration [ edit | edit source] Between 1820 and 1870 only 7,550 Russians immigrated to the United States, but starting with 1881, immigration rate exceeded 10,000 a year: 593,700 in 1891-1900, 1.6 million in 1901-1910, 868,000 in 1911-1914, and 43,000 in 1915-1917. 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. Among the emigres were Lolita author Vladimir Nabokov, . "Riches to rags" tales of ex-aristocrats scraping by as Paris taxi drivers, cabaret performers or seamstresses became legendary. A large number also fled to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Iran, Germany and France. [5] Besides for the war dead, other monuments were put up. Raeff, Marc: Russia abroad. [46] PP, report on the Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, undated, p. 5, AN/20010216/282. Some sold books, some handcrafted souvenirs and some flowers. Constantinople would serve as one transit point for the estimated one million people who fled the Bolsheviks after 1917, but it was to Paris and Berlin that many were headed as they scrambled to . By 1921, Kirill Vladimirovichs wife, Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was funding Hitlers emerging NSDAP; hence, she indirectly facilitated the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. I am, like all the members of the Young Russian party, at your entire disposal.[63] German propaganda tried to stage a counterattack through a paper written by Ivan Solonevich and printed in Bulgaria, which promised, among other Nazi war goals, the accession of Grand Duke Kirills German son-in-law to the Russian throne.[64]. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois Russian Cemetery, withdrawal of US and Japanese troops from Siberia, Act of Canonical Communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, Russian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, Patriarchal Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe, Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, Russian All National Popular State Movement, Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, National Association of Russian Explorers, Organization of Russian Young Pathfinders, Union of Young Fascists Vanguard (boys), Union of Young Fascists Vanguard (girls), "Beyond China: Migrating Identities, Centre for the Study of the Southern Chinese Diaspora", "Istanbul's Russian history is fast fading into distant memory", "White Russians in Istanbul, Smirnoff and a Black Russian", https://m.bianet.org/biamag/siyaset/191155-ekim-devrimi-sonrasi-istanbul-a-beyaz-rus-gocu, Russia Abroad: A comprehensive guide to Russian Emigration after 1917, Exploring the White Russians legacy in Istanbul | Eurasianet, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=White_migr&oldid=1151516505, Russian Imperial Union-Order (the oldest organization representing the monarchist White Russians), High Monarchist Union ( ), National Organization of Rangers (or "Knights") (, ), Orthodox Organization of Russian Pathfinders (), Russian Christian Students Movement (), Cohen, Aaron "'Our Russian Passport': First World War Monuments, Transnational Commemoration, and the Russian Emigration in Europe, 1918-39" pages 627-651 from, Franois Bauchpas, L'migration blanche, Paris, 1968. [33] PP, Comit dinitiative international anti-bolchvique, January 12, 1933, 4p.; Ibid., Comit dinitiative international anti-bolchvique, August 1933, 2p., AN/20010216/168. [64] Au sujet de la propagande allemande auprs des Russes tablis en France, May 27, 1940, AN/20010216/283. [8] The design of Orthodox churches at the war memorials was done in the style of medieval Orthodox churches in Novgorod and Pskov as this architectural style was seen as politically neutral and hence able to bring the communities together better. [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. At 90, Orobchenko considers himself "the last White Russian of Clichy", a northern Paris suburb once home to a vibrant emigre community. Dedicated to Vladimir Ivanovich Labounsky, the last White officer of Meudon (1900-1994) We are the grandchildren of Red Army soldiers and commissars. 74-78). 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. 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. [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 colony in France, to use the terminology of the time, was made up of different and even conflicting political communities: monarchists hoping for a restoration of tsarism, social-democrats hoping to preserve the legacy of the February revolution, and later different groups of communist dissidents, in particular Trotskyists. The immigration, which started with small groups at the end of 1917, grew with the loss of Crimea to the Bolsheviks in 1920. However, if dynastic competition was a matter that mobilized the diaspora globally, the debate over the succession essentially took place between Paris and Munich. White migrs and International Anti-Communism in France (19181939), IERES Occasional Papers, no. 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. This provoked an internal upheaval in the White Russian migr community, with some groups suddenly supporting the Ukrainian and Georgian separatists. 16, AN/20010216/282. Pierre de Fermor, a dandy-like figure whose grandfather was a general in the White army, is one. In 1935, Vonsiatskys personal representative in Paris, Alexandre Sipelgas, together with a former journalist from Le Tocsin and another journalist who had previously published the daily Les Dernires Nouvelles, ultimately set up an agency whose role was to translate articles from German and organize the migration of Russians in France to the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. [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. Lud Fedoseyeva was the best-paid Russian model, an migr supermodel. [27] Koutepoff: psychose Paris, February 3, 1930; Meeting organis pour protester contre lenlvement du gnral Koutepoff, sous le patronage du journal La Libert et avec le concours du Bureau International Contre-rvolutionnaire, February 12, 1930, 6p., AN/F/7/13975/1. In a way, she says, "it felt like I never left.". For his part, Nikolai Nikolaevich enjoyed the sympathy of the House of Bourbon. They are our honor and our justification (opravdanie) before the world. He has fond memories of the dances, shows and parties where . Tens of White Army veterans (numbers vary from 72 to 180) served as volunteers supporting Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Among them were members of the French Parti populaire of Jacques Doriot, a former communist leader who had turned to fascism. Limiting themselves to international anti-communist agitation left them powerless in 1939. [26] During the war, the white migrs came into contact with former Soviet citizens from German-occupied territories who used the German retreat as an opportunity to either flee from the Soviet Union, or were in Germany and Austria as POWs and forced labor, and preferred to stay in the West, often referred to as the second wave of migrs (often also called DPs displaced persons, see Displaced persons camp). The county of Nice only came under French sovereignty in 1860, giving birth to the administrative department of the Maritime Alps. Many white migrs also believed it was their duty to remain active in combat against the Soviet Union, with the hopes of liberating Russia. The publications of the Young Russians testify to a shift in 1938: if the consolidation of Germany had once appeared to be an asset to White Russians, the Reichs territorial ambitions over Ukraine now aroused concerns, with some Whites calling for an understanding between the USSR and the West. Karlinsky, Simon Freedom from Violence and Lies: Essays on Russian Poetry and Music, Boston, Academic Studies Press, 2013.
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