It claimed that the White Russians could not be satisfied with wanting to defeat Bolshevism in Russia but must fight it wherever they found themselvesthat is, allied with every enemy of the Soviet Union. [17] RG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, pp. "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. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, eventually infiltrated the emigre community and in 1937 kidnapped Gen. Yevgeny Miller, a former leader of the White Army, smuggled him from Paris to Moscow . 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 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. During World War II, many white migrs took part in the Russian Liberation Movement. Their program was not one of restoration: The Young Russians, while defending the idea of a social monarchy (tsar and soviets), seek to collaborate with Russian nationalists who are working towards national recovery and defense.[47] They considered Stalins regime despotic but also thought that it had awakened national forces against machinism. The Young Russians believed that the revolution could only end with a social monarchy, a federated empire, and a managed economy.[48] In fact, Kazem-Beg made it his specialty to present Soviet policy in terms that were conducive to adoption by the Russian far right. After the Bolshevik revolution, many returned seeking refuge and work. 12, AN/1988206/7; A/S de Wladimir Krassinksy et de lUnion des Jeunes Russes, April 1932, 6 p., AN/20010216/283. It enabled the establishment of the High Council of the Monarchy (HCM), which organized its first congress in Paris the following year. This provoked an internal upheaval in the White Russian migr community, with some groups suddenly supporting the Ukrainian and Georgian separatists. [5] PSC, report dated October 8, 1924, 4 p.; Les monarchistes russes et lItalie, November 9, 1922, AN/F/7/15943/1. The term is often broadly applied to anyone who may have left the country due to the change in regimes. Kirill Vladimirovich proclaimed himself tsar in London on November 5, 1924, to the irritation of the entire Romanov house. The term "migr" is most commonly used in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. [8] Such monuments were also a way of commanding respect from the host communities with an migr newspaper saying in 1930: "Peoples honor heroes. [17] In Germany, right-wing migrs found much to their own frustration that right-wing German veterans shunned their offers to participate in Totensonntag ("Day of the Dead") as German conservatives did not wish to honor the sacrifices of those who had fought against Germany, and it was left-wing German veterans, usually associated with Social Democratic Party, who welcomed having Russians participate in Totensonntag to illustrate the theme that all peoples in the nations involved in the First World war were victims. One of the Karaky churches, St. Panteleimon, is filled each Sunday by Russian emigres who have arrived since the Soviet Union's collapse. Tens of White Army veterans (numbers vary from 72 to 180) served as volunteers supporting Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. This study is based mostly on declassified archives from the French police and intelligence services, especially the National Security Directorate, the Police Prefecture for Paris, and the Administrative Policy and General Intelligence for the rest of the territory. White Russian migrs and International Anti-Communism in France (1918 [43] Statuts du Pacte de la convention entre les hautes personnalits contractantes, July 18, 1930, 2 p., AN/19880206/7. 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. 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. The White Russian: A Novel of Paris: Bennett, Vanora: 9781250079411 Masha's interviews and video footage . [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". On a personal level, Kazem-Beg entertained links with Krasnov and the Brotherhood of Russian Truth.[46]. 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. But this pro-German activism also raised concerns. [9] Personnalits politiques trangres qui furent victimes dattentats commis Paris au cours de ces dernires annes, March 20, 1930, 2 p., AN/F/7/13975/1. [14] PP, report dated August 1933, 2 p., AN/19940500/306. The term is also applied to the descendants of those who left and who still retain a Russian Orthodox Christian identity while living abroad. "In Russia you always hear that the emigres were extremely rich people who left to continue a life of luxury," she says. 25. [12] PP, La rsurrection de la franc-maonnerie en Russie, June 13, 1935, 2 p., AN/19940500/306. 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. [8] Moreover, the political assassinations of foreigners committed in Paris in the second half of the 1920s were mostly of Soviet refugees and Italian fascists[9]a phenomenon that was conducive to the rapprochement of these two groups. [20] Igor Zawadsky Krasmopolsky, Secretary of the All-Russian National Party, did actually garner support and subsidies from French far-right groups: Action franaise, Les Francistes, and Solidarit franaise all allegedly supported the All-Russian National Party at its inception.[21]. Emigration (Russian Empire) | International Encyclopedia of the First Cover photo: Made by John Chrobak using: Boulevard Courcelles Paris 20060503 1 by Georges Seguin CC BY-SA 3.0. 16, AN/20010216/282. 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. This made the white migrs a target for infiltration by the Soviet secret police (e.g. Indeed, the imaginaries of Russian and German monarchists were mutually reinforcing. The French branch of the Young Russians was proclaimed on March 30, 1927, and the Paris section was presided over by Prince Vladimir Krasinsky, officially the son of Grand Duke Andrei but whose paternity is rumored to be attributable to Nicholas II. [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. 9, December 2020 "Transnational History of the Far Right" Series. In the summer of 1923, the French intelligence services observed these monarchists interest in the secessionist movement of the Rhine Republic. 2021, AN/20010216/282. For a detailed examination of their identity, motivation and numbers, see Wladyslaw Anders and Antonio Munoz, "Russian Volunteers in the German Wehrmacht in WWII" at, sfn error: no target: CITEREFKarlinsky2013 (. And the great Slavic soul of the Russians did not allow it to be looked upon with indifference that a fraternal Slavic people should perish". With the White Russians in Paris - Orthodox England [37] PP, A/S de la Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, August 1933, 10 p., AN/20010216/282. Given the inability of the imperial dynasty to designate a single candidate for the Restoration, even the monarchist community was divided between the two exiled candidates fighting for the Russian throne: Grand Dukes Kirill Vladimirovich and Nikolai Nikolaevich. Of its 1,000 activists worldwide, about 300 resided in France, with about half in the Paris region and the other half largely spread between Lyon and Nice. Some white migrs, labeled "Soviet patriots," adopted pro-Soviet sympathies. Russian migrs, the first queens of the catwalk - Russia Beyond The moderates followed Archbishop Euloghi, who, being based in Paris, was neutral toward Soviet ecclesiastical institutions; ROVS leader General Aleksandr Kutepov demanded strenuously but in vain that Euloghi engage in anti-Soviet activities.[15]. When Belle poque Paris absorbed Russian migrs fleeing revolution had larger Russian emigre populations. [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. [59] The Gestapo thus found a ready pool of agents among the White Russians in France, enabling it to infiltrate broader migr circles. "Every day they had to think, how are we going to eat?" During this meeting, a public letter from Paul Taittinger, then-leader of the Jeunesses Patriotes, was read. [50] According to its call published in Signal, the RNSUV newspaper in France, this unification began with the agreement remotely sponsored by Berlin between the Russian Fascist Party (based in Harbin), the National Labor Union of the New Generation (Natsionalno-trudovoi soiuz novogo pokoleniia, NTSNP, based in Belgrade), the Russian Liberation National Movement (Rossiiskoe osvoboditelnoe natsionalnoe dvizhenie) (ROND, based in Berlin), and the RNSUV. The church continues its existence to this day, acting as both the spiritual and cultural center of the Russian Orthodox community abroad. The exodus also sparked an unprecedented international drive to give legal protection to refugees, resulting in the "Nansen passport", the first ever travel document for stateless people. With the White Russians in Paris. Founded in 1921, the BRT had bases in Germany, the United States, France, Manchuria, the Baltic states, and Yugoslavia. Cimetire russe de Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois : 4, rue Lo-Lagrange - 91700 Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois. They met willing officers, many of whom felt that General Miller had become too much of a Francophile. [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. 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. 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. "They continued to speak Russian at home.". "Riches to rags" tales of ex-aristocrats scraping by as Paris taxi drivers, cabaret performers or seamstresses became legendary. 12, AN/20010216/282). [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. Second and third-generation White Russians married locals and spoke French at home. The RRRA was established in late 1920, immediately after the White Army General Wrangel' s forces were evacuated from the Crimea and '200,000 refugees were added to the hundreds of thousands of the Russian migrs whom civil war had driven out of Russia [sic]' (Add MS 54466, ff. : [Z]. By the mid-1930s there were two Russian schools, as well as a variety of cultural and sporting clubs. Kazem-Beg was also allegedly offered 50,000 francs from Vonsiatsky to work toward the unification of Russian migrs, but he was reluctant to accept the money, as overly Nazifying his movement would make it very difficult to keep it going in France. The exchanges between the Finnish and French services led to the conclusion that the BRT was simply a bluff.[39]. Longing for home, emigres often described themselves as "sitting on our suitcases", ready to head back to Russia at a moment's notice. [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. Russians in France - Wikipedia [32] PP, Note confidentielle (sous les plus extrmes rserves) A/S du CILACC, May 3, 1933, 1p.; The special commissioner in Lille to the Prefect of the North, October 22, 1933, 2p., AN/20010216/168. Long favoured by Russian aristocrats who dotted balmy resorts like Nice with their holiday villas, France became a natural hub, with an emigre community numbering some 200,000. Montparnasse was for the hoi polloifor rebels and misfits and down-and-outs, for creative artists long on talent but . [25] After the death of its founding father, General Wrangel, Grand Duke Nikolai appointed General Kutepov as the new head. [11] PP, La franc-maonnerie russe, August 1933, 2 p., AN/19940500/306. [23] RG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, pp. The Russian section of this unified organization was tasked with liberating Russia by joining an Anti-Comintern International, meant to bring together the religious, national, fascist, national socialist, popular, cultural forces of all countries.[51]. When it became abundantly clear the Whites would never take back Russia, France switched sides, recognizing the Soviet Union in 1924. Kirill seemed to entertain the hope that a restoration of the German monarchy would provide him with the tools to take the Russian throne. [40] Indeed, after an initial Italian temptation, it was Germany that increasingly came to occupy the horizon of the Russian counterrevolutionaries. Ludmila Fedoseyeva, Paris, 1938. [11] In 1927, the Orthodox Metropolitan Evlogii 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. [33] PP, Comit dinitiative international anti-bolchvique, January 12, 1933, 4p.; Ibid., Comit dinitiative international anti-bolchvique, August 1933, 2p., AN/20010216/168. 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. [61] RG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, p. 1, AN/20010216/282. when he spoke at the war monument in Valenciennes: "Blood spilled on the soil of beautiful and glorious France is the best atmosphere to unite France forever with a Russia national and worthy". [10], This was especially the case in France, the home of the largest overseas Russian community, where services honoring the events of World War I were a major part of French life after 1918, and where by honoring the Russian war dead allowed the Russian migrs in France to take part in the ceremonials, letting the migrs feel like a part of the wider French community. [36], Together with other nationalist organizations, the BRT advocated for a unified anti-Soviet front on a global scale with the aim of establishing a liberation movement of peoples who had come under communist rule. [17], In the fall of 1937, the RSNUV attempted a new unifying process, this time at a meeting in Berlin with the leaders of the All-Russian Fascist Party and the Russian National Socialist Party. This time, those who took refuge in Istanbul were the 'nobles' and soldiers of Tsarist Russia, who had fought the Ottomans for centuries. Sasha Sokolov (born in 1943 . 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. 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. They were not only ethnic Russians but belonged to other ethnic groups as well. Lud Fedoseyeva was the best-paid Russian model, an migr supermodel. [39] RG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, pp. The U.S. government, foreign policymakers, and the intelligence community quietly forgot about the Russian emigre community. [45] The Young Russians allegedly had contacts with fascist Germany and Italy, whose style they adopted. As the decades passed, emigres blended in with the locals. . Russian Shanghai, Belgrade and Paris. Five stories of White Russian Overall, Hitlers advent was met with enthusiasm among those Russians in France. He divided his time between Russia and France. The Russian Monarchist Party was a rather inactive French branch of the HCM (with 250 members, including about 100 in the Paris region). The term is often broadly applied to . How White Russian ballerinas sparked a dance revolution in China A large number also fled to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Iran, Germany and France. Issued on: 30/10/2017 - 10:00Modified: 30/10/2017 - 09:45. The meeting featured no Russian speakers, but many White Russians were among the 4,500 people who showed up at the Salle des Socits Savanteswhich had a capacity of 1,500 people. A transnational nomadism therefore emerged in the service of international anti-communism. For the International Anticommunist Entente, the Pact was a ploy by Germany to destroy Western democracies and bring about world revolution. 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. [34], Some secret societies attracted the attention of the French authorities. [21] Le Parti national pan-russe et les partis politiques franais, May 28, 1934, 2 p., AN/20010216/283. Sign-Up For Our Institute and Program Mailing Lists, http://russie-europe.ens-lsh.fr/article.php3?id_article=62. At 90, Orobchenko considers himself "the last White Russian of Clichy", a northern Paris suburb once home to a vibrant emigre community. Life in these homes was often "psychologically very difficult", he adds. Among them were members of the French Parti populaire of Jacques Doriot, a former communist leader who had turned to fascism. We in a foreign land do not have a tomb of an 'unknown soldier', but we do have thousands of suffering people. 1011, AN/20010216/282. [48] Union des Young Russians, August 1933, 10 p., AN/20010216/282. [56] Police Administrative (PA), A/S du journal Civilisation et bolchevisme, May 16, 1939, 3 p., AN/20010216/283. But just as Evie arrives, her grandmother becomes very ill. [38] Upon the death of its leader, Prince Alexander Lieven, a meeting took place in Berlin in 1937 at which Anatole Toll, a Finnish resident who seems to have worked for the French intelligence services in the mid-1920s, was appointed president. In short, according to a detailed 1933 report by the French political police, Russians in France were integrated but not assimilated: their rate of ordinary crimes and misdemeanors was very low, and they commonly learned French, but they seldom asked to be naturalized. Dedicated to Vladimir Ivanovich Labounsky, the last White officer of Meudon (1900-1994) We are the grandchildren of Red Army soldiers and commissars. The nature of the link between the Whites in France and Germany is well encapsulated by the Russian Fascist Party (Russkaia fashistkaia partiia, RFP). These associations goal was to bring together all the groups, and especially to attract the most important association, ROVS,[16] which had 9,000 members in France and 35,000 worldwide. If the Italian fascist model could not but attract emulators, it was National Socialist Germany that became the center of White migrs fascization. Though Nicholas II had managed to ostracize Kirill after the latters marriage to Victoria, a divorced and non-Orthodox German woman, Kirills supporters did not recognize as legitimate any debate about the succession. It even affected the domain of worship, threatening the bond between the sword and the clergy. Nor were White Russians born in China eligible to be Chinese citizens. [28], The White Russian women mostly worked in the "Badlands" area adjoining the Beijing Legation Quarter on the east, centered on the alley of Chuanban Hutong. A League of Nations survey in Shanghai in 1935 found that 22% of Russian women between 16 and 45 years of age were engaging in prostitution to some extent. Some 958,000 people travelled from Russia on ships through Constantinople to Europe, and roughly a quarter were accepted as refugees in France. [46] PP, report on the Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, undated, p. 5, AN/20010216/282. In France, the Leagues Nice section was led by George Reno, the son of the former Nicaraguan consul in Odessa; the younger Reno had once acted as a strike breaker in Germany and dreamed of attracting both Action franaise militants and fascist Italians. France 24 is not responsible for the content of external websites. [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. Lenin in Paris: When the City Was a Refuge for Russian Artists and 'After the Romanovs' Review: From Czar's Palace to Taxi Stand 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. And despite having never lived there, she had the strange sensation of being somewhere familiar, thanks to her grandmother's vivid stories. A century on, White Russians cling to their roots - Gulf News During and after World War II, many Russian migrs moved to the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, South Africa and Australia where many of their communities still exist in the 21st century. In 1924, he even sent his wife, Grand Duchess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha,to the United States to petition funding from Henry Ford, the anti-Semitic car magnate. [53] Les migrs russes de France et le pacte germano-sovitique, October 26, 1939, p. 2, AN/20010216/282. 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. 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. migr enterprise: How Russian aristocrats became fashion pioneers They spanned all classes and included military soldiers and officers, Cossacks, intellectuals of various professions, dispossessed businessmen and landowners, as well as officials of the Russian Imperial government and of various anti-Bolshevik governments of the Russian Civil War period. This Orders phantom political construction therefore seems to have been, above all, a hopeful means of influencing the Duce. The anti-war and internationalist message at the Totensonntag ceremonies organized by the SPD did not sit well with right-wing Russian migrs found themselves rather out of place at these ceremonies. Their wounds and suffering are for Russia. Russian community life often followed the rhythm of rumors, such as, in 1930, whispers of an imminent attack on the Soviet embassy by joint commandos of White Russians and militants of the French royalist organization Action franaise. But they eventually warmed to her. We are beginning to realise with horror that the Bolsheviks have dragged us down into an abyssWe have been duped by a past of . "That explains why there were few mixed marriages, why few Russians demanded French nationality," says Jevakhoff. Having never succeeded in establishing a minimum of common aspirations or actions, White Russian migrs in France were bound to enter the war in a state of dispersion, more or less in accordance with the dynamics of previous transnational alliances. 74-78). [49] Alexandre Jevakhoff, Les Russes blancs (Paris: Tallandier, 2011). Those who arrived in 1919 were better off economically. 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. [7] The Nice special commissioner to the SN director, Au sujet des agissements germanophiles de quelques personnages russes officiels, dont Basile Lebedeff, August 7, 1918, 4 p., AN/20010216/282. Die russische Emigration und ihre Zentren 19171941, Mnchen 1994. [24], White migrs fought with[clarification needed] the Soviet Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang and the Xinjiang War of 1937.[25]. Russians quickly became the third-largest contingent of immigrants in Paris: at 51,578 individuals in 1929, they lagged behind only Italy and Poland. Sainte-Genevive-des-Bois Russian Cemetery - Wikipedia The historical, geographical, and political situation was therefore particularly conducive to the production of transnational far-right connections.
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