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. This astonished White Russians; many of those who had naturalized would join the French army. [35] It was made up, among others, of former members of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth (Bratsvo russkoi pravdy, BRT), an international anti-Soviet terrorist network that carried out attacks in the USSR: the BRT claimed responsibility for a tank fire; a kolkhoz fire; stopping a train, tying up its employees, and stealing its goods; etc. 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. In truth-we have nothing, we have lost everything. Another organization, the Russian National Unification, was founded in 1926 after the world congress held that year in Paris, and in 1937 it became the Russian Central Union, which had 80,000 members worldwide, including 10,000 in Paris, a strong presence in China and Yugoslavia, and sections in Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland. Among those who were opposed to the Weimar Republic were nationalists and former members of the imperial German army Adolf Hitler and Erich Ludendorff. In 2010, he formed a rival organization called Friends of the Russian Cathedral to assist the Russian Embassy in its efforts to retrieve local heritage. By the mid-1930s there were two Russian schools, as well as a variety of cultural and sporting clubs. 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. 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. During World War II, many white migrs took part in the Russian Liberation Movement. They met willing officers, many of whom felt that General Miller had become too much of a Francophile. . The city itself is located less than 40 kilometers from the Italian border. Nor were White Russians born in China eligible to be Chinese citizens. [43] Statuts du Pacte de la convention entre les hautes personnalits contractantes, July 18, 1930, 2 p., 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. [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. [34], Some secret societies attracted the attention of the French authorities. Of those, an estimated 100,000 settled in China. At this time of growing political polarization between anti-communism and antifascism, the French government sought to contain both the French Communist Party, perceived as a bridgehead of the Comintern,[1] and far-right groups agitating the dangers of a Bolshevik revolution in France. 7 most famous Russian writers who migrated abroad Growing up at the court of tsar Nicholas II, Tatiana Botkina's childhood was one of splendour. He has fond memories of the dances, shows and parties where many sought comforting reminders of home. [30] But Prince Andrey Kuragin, the Russian secretary of the EIA and a naturalized French citizen, rejected Douillet as corrupt. [28] Similarly, in 1932, when Coty launched his Croisade des patries (Crusade of Fatherlands) from Belgium, his Russian representative was General Hartman, President of the Union of Russian Veterans in Belgium. The Russian Refugee Crisis of the 1920s - European studies blog Some Russian migrs in Paris enthused that the Third Reich sought to offer them a new state consisting of Slovakia, Ruthenia, and Bessarabia. [8] The prefect of the Maritime Alps to the Interior Minister, August 23, 1918, 2p., AN/20010216/282. White migr - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia But they eventually warmed to her. 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. [40] PP, Union des sportsmen Russes, February 1, 1939, AN/19940500/307. [7] The advent of Hitler strengthened their pro-Germanism, a dynamic that was reinforced by the Franco-Soviet Pact of 1935, seen as a betrayal of the Whites hopes for a tsarist restoration in Russia. The leader of the Young Russians preferred to look to Italy, from which he obtained funds.[52]. [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 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. [35] Internal Organization of the Society of the Faithful and Make-Up of Its Action Committee (translation of a German document), October 1920, 9 p., AN/F/7/13424. Most white migrs left Russia from 1917 to 1920 (estimates vary between 900,000 and 2 million). Life in these homes was often "psychologically very difficult", he adds. The Russian monarchists were convinced that such a partition would lead to a mass nationalist movement, allowing the Bavarian prince to carry out a coup dtat and establish monarchical rule over southern Germany, thus supporting the Kirillists campaign to pull Ukraine out of the Soviet Union and leading to the creation of a German-Russian restoration bloc. One of the important figures in this nomadic spy network was Jean Kologrivov, who was born in 1890 and arrived in France in 1922. 12, AN/20010216/282). The transition from a national anticommunist struggle liberating Russia from Soviet powerto a global one drew many Whites into the magnetic field of fascism. Pierre de Fermor, a dandy-like figure whose grandfather was a general in the White army, is one. Officially, the group was formed in 1938, but it was informally visible as early as 1922, when Kirill distributed honor medals. France 24 - International breaking news, top stories and headlines. They consider the period of 1917 to 1991 to have been a period of anti-Christian occupation by the Soviet regime. As the decades passed, emigres blended in with the locals. Her father, the tsar's doctor, would be executed alongside the royal family. The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of the late Nicolas I, liked to stay there to rest since her widowhood.She raised money in 1856 to build a church for the parish 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. Kirill seemed to entertain the hope that a restoration of the German monarchy would provide him with the tools to take the Russian throne. [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. The parties to the war migration in 1917 were neither Crimean Turks nor Caucasian Muslims. White migrs and International Anti-Communism in France (1918-1939) A significant percentage of white migrs may be described as monarchists, although many adopted a position of being "unpredetermined" ("nepredreshentsi"), believing that Russia's political structure should be determined by popular plebiscite. Karl Schlgel (ed. The term is often broadly applied to anyone who may have left the country due to the change in regimes. The fact that Nice was a crucial base for the Russian emigration had an immediate political consequence. Pre-World War I Paris had been a playground for Russia's idle rich. 25. The publication testified to the change in logic that was under way. Emigration (Russian Empire) | International Encyclopedia of the First Some migrs also fled to Portugal, Spain, Romania, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and Italy. [11] PP, La franc-maonnerie russe, August 1933, 2 p., AN/19940500/306. Exploring the White Russians' legacy in Istanbul | Eurasianet [5] Eventually, beginning in 1925, Nikolais cancerto which he would succumb in 1929gave the advantage to the Kirill camp. 'After the Romanovs' Review: From Czar's Palace to Taxi Stand Like the rest of the movement, the French section was clearly pro-Kirill. [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]. They were not only ethnic Russians but belonged to other ethnic groups as well. In addition, a significant proportion of the community were political migrants: 67.8%, compared to 0.9% of Poles and 17.9% of Italians. A significant part of the coveted property being domiciled in Italy, the pretender wrote to Mussolini asking him to intervene on his behalf. 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. [28] PP, report dated February 3, 1928, AN/20010216/168. O. Beyda, Re-Fighting the Civil War: Second Lieutenant Mikhail Aleksandrovich Gubanov. Chaired by Tyrkova-Williams, the organisation . After the October Revolution, France remained loyal to the fallen Romanov dynasty. [30] Tens of thousands of people who left their titles, money and palaces in Russia and came to Istanbul tried to hold on to life by dispersing all over the city. Both he and Melnik have visited Russia -- an experience they found exhilarating, though Melnik says that, at first, people were hostile when she explained her family history. In 1934, this policy was welcomed by the French Foreign Minister, Louis Barthou, and allowed for negotiations that led to the 1935 Mutual Assistance Treaty between France and the Soviet Union. When Belle poque Paris absorbed Russian migrs fleeing revolution Many, estimated as being between the hundred thousands and a million,[2] also served Germany in the Wehrmacht or in the Waffen-SS, often as interpreters.[3]. In 1926, a new organization, the Russian Legitimist-Monarchist Union, was founded in Munich to bring together all the movements that supported Kirill Vladimirovich. "They continued to speak Russian at home.". To support themselves and their families, some of the younger women became prostitutes or taxi dancers. 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. In Paris, its members were linked to the Russian Sportsmens Union, an organization that carried out paramilitary preparations under the guise of sports activities and was downright pro-Nazi. "France had lost millions of men in World War I, so French entrepreneurs were very happy to have this manpower," says Alexandre Jevakhoff, a senior civil servant, historian and author of a new book on the civil war. [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. 2023 Copyright France 24 - All rights reserved. The term is also applied to the descendants of those who left and who still retain a Russian Orthodox Christian identity while living abroad. 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. Nevertheless, the groups Russian members appeared to many of their compatriots to be too corrupt, which prevented the League from really taking off. 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. operation TREST and the Inner Line). [59] A/S dun nouveau journal russe, Autour du Monde, cr par Alexandre Sipelgas, 4 juillet 1935, 2p., AN/19940500/309. 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. 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. But while the famous Russian community of Paris--like those in Berlin and Riga--combined well-off . The French Riviera was a favorite spot, where the European aristocracy had launched the fashion of the rainy season. A large number also fled to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Iran, Germany and France. . They are our honor and our justification (opravdanie) before the world. The American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews said he frequented the "cafes of somewhat dubious reputation" with the explorer Sven Hedin and scientist Davidson Black to "have scrambled eggs and dance with the Russian girls."[29]. Issued on: 30/10/2017 - 10:00Modified: 30/10/2017 - 09:45. News Russian Shanghai, Belgrade and Paris. Le Combat des Russes blancs 19301940, p.18 (Geneva: Syrtes, 2007). [53] Faced with General Millers resistance to turning ROVS into a fascist organization, the Third Reich sought to set up its own Russian movement. Their wounds and suffering are for Russia. The church continues its existence to this day, acting as both the spiritual and cultural center of the Russian Orthodox community abroad. [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. 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 (. 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. On the French Riviera, migrs fight a Russian advance [43] Above all, his motivations were more pecuniary than ideological. "He really wanted to give something back to France, to thank the country for welcoming him," Melnik says. However, if dynastic competition was a matter that mobilized the diaspora globally, the debate over the succession essentially took place between Paris and Munich. [34] PP, Ligue Internationale Anti Communiste, 3 p., May 31, 1933; State police of Nice to the General Director of National Safety, A/S de la Ligue Anti Communiste, 2p., July 6, 1933; Central Commissioner of Bordeaux to the Interior Minister, Ligue Anti Communiste, May 10, 1933, 3p.; General Commissioner of Bordeaux to the General Director of National Safety, Ligue Anti Communiste, 2 p., May 4, 1934, AN/20010216/168. After the Bolshevik revolution, many returned seeking refuge and work. The contribution of the White Russian migr community to the global anticommunist struggle remains to be written. We are beginning to realise with horror that the Bolsheviks have dragged us down into an abyssWe have been duped by a past of . [8] Such monuments were also a way of commanding respect from the host communities with an migr newspaper saying in 1930: "Peoples honor heroes. After the withdrawal of US and Japanese troops from Siberia, some migrs traveled to Japan. [58] PA, report dated November 9, 1938, AN/20010216/283. [8] The sense of loss was not only for those the war monuments honored, but due to the sense of loss caused by defeat with a columnist in an migr newspaper in Paris writing about the dedication of a memorial to the REF in 1930: "We lost everything - family, economic situation, personal happiness, the homelandAre our sufferings good to anyone? [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 party affirmed that, ultimately, migrs must develop reconcilable orientations on a global scale and join in an international military intervention against Moscow. Raeff, Marc: Russia abroad. This Orders phantom political construction therefore seems to have been, above all, a hopeful means of influencing the Duce. [57] DRG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, pp. . Since the end of the 1980s, the term "first-wave migr" has become more common in Russia. Many shared the dream of an imminent German-Soviet war that would bring them to power quickly, and many heard the rumors that Japan would support an autonomous state in Eastern Siberia entrusted to the White Russians. 9, December 2020 Transnational History of the Far Right Series. Some sold books, some handcrafted souvenirs and some flowers. Montparnasse, the heart of bohemian caf society in Paris, was a far cry from the grand mansions of Boulogne-sur-Seine or the richer districts of Passy and Auteuil inhabited by the Russian denizens of Belle poque Paris. Alexandre Kazem-Beg, the movements guide, lived in Le Vsinet in the Paris region. [40] Indeed, after an initial Italian temptation, it was Germany that increasingly came to occupy the horizon of the Russian counterrevolutionaries. Karl Schlgel (ed. Their universe crumbled with the Russian old regime, and the memories of pre-1917 Russia came to dominate the themes of the Russian migr literature in the 1920s. 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]. Among these stillborn initiatives was the Unification Center for Russian Nationalist Organizations, comprising the Russian journal Tribune Libre (Free Tribune), the Friendship Union of Russian Veterans, the Patriotic Association of Young Russians in Paris, and the Russian Empire Union. [2] Police Prefecture (PP), A/S de luvre de Secours des Chmeurs Ukrainiens et du nomm Nikitukiv, AN/19940497/70. The exodus developed in . 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. An important part was also played by the local Russian Orthodox Church under the guidance of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. 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. In the summer of 1923, the French intelligence services observed these monarchists interest in the secessionist movement of the Rhine Republic. France la russe: a cosmopolitan guide to Russian Paris [60] A/S des nomms Kologriwov Hans, Oujitzky et Moussard, signals comme agents de la Gestapo, November 1937, 3 p., AN/19940500/308. Limiting themselves to international anti-communist agitation left them powerless in 1939. For the International Anticommunist Entente, the Pact was a ploy by Germany to destroy Western democracies and bring about world revolution. [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. Melnik's father -- the grandson of the tsar's doctor -- became a top French intelligence official, dedicating his life to fighting the KGB from abroad. The exchanges between the Finnish and French services led to the conclusion that the BRT was simply a bluff.[39]. [3] Thanks to the Bavarian connections of his wife, Victoria Melita, Kirill was surrounded by Germanophiles, had associations with pan-Germanists, and received German funds for his propaganda. 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. [1] This factor is more acute evidence than the electoral results of the French section of the Communist International (9.82% of votes in the legislative elections in 1924, 15.26% in 1936), which had long faced difficulties due to the isolationist strategy of Communism in One Country. Frances institutions functioned largely on a two-round electoral system, and it was traditional for left-wing candidates to stand down in order to place themselves in the best position. 1011, AN/20010216/282. Those who arrived in 1919 were better off economically. 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. [37] PP, A/S de la Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, August 1933, 10 p., AN/20010216/282. But this pro-German activism also raised concerns. 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. The International Congress of Russian Monarchists was held in Bavaria in 1921 and brought together 200 figures from 33 countries. If the Italian fascist model could not but attract emulators, it was National Socialist Germany that became the center of White migrs fascization. White migr - Wikiwand Aksyonov was one of the few emigres to return to Russia after Perestroika. says Igor Orobchenko, a former bank worker whose father came to France with a contract to clear World War I mines. The two rivals took different roads: Nikolai Nikolaevich fled to France and settled in his castle of Choigny near Paris, while Kirill Vladimirovich settled in Bavaria and made connections with the German monarchist and nationalist circles supported by his wife, Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Top 10 best Russian addresses in Paris | VisitParisRegion [56] The difficulty for Solonevich seems to have been Rosenbergs demand for radical anti-Semitic propaganda. 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. 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. [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. 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. Russian migrs, the first queens of the catwalk - Russia Beyond 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. [22] The economic success of the Russians in Harbin often surprised foreign visitors who assumed that they should be poor, leading one visitor in 1923 to comment that Russian ladies as well gowned as at the Paris races [who] strolled [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".