Read Online Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy by Douglas Smith - Free Book Online Page A

(m. Veselovsky)—“Masha”
Vsevolod Veselovsky, her husband—“Vsevolod”
    Princess Yekaterina Golitsyn—“Katya”
    Child of Nikolai and Maria Golitsyn
    Prince Kirill Golitsyn—“Kirill”
Natalya Volkov, his wife—“Natalya”
    Children of Alexander and Lyubov Golitsyn
    Princess Olga Golitsyn—“Olga”
    Princess Marina Golitsyn—“Marina”
    Princess Natalya Golitsyn—“Natalya”
    Prince Alexander Golitsyn—“Alexander”
    Prince George Golitsyn—“George”
    Children of Vera and Lev Bobrinsky
    Countess Alexandra Bobrinsky (m. Baldwin)— “Alka”
Philip Baldwin, her husband
    Countess Sofia Bobrinsky (m. Witter)—“Sonya”
Reginald Witter, her husband
    Count Alexei Bobrinsky—“Alexei”
    Countess Yelena Bobrinsky
    Children of Vladimir Vladimirovich and Tatiana Golitsyn
    Prince Alexander Golitsyn—“Alexander”
Darya Krotov, his wife—“Darya”
    Princess Yelena Golitsyn—“Yelena”
    Princess Olga Golitsyn (m. Urusov)—“Olga”
Prince Pyotr Urusov, her husband—“Pyotr”
    Children of Yelizaveta (Eli) and Vladimir Trubetskoy
    Prince Grigory Trubetskoy—“Grisha”
    Princess Varvara Trubetskoy—“Varya”
    Princess Alexandra Trubetskoy—“Tatya”
    Prince Andrei Trubetskoy—“Andrei”
    Princess Irina Trubetskoy—“Irina”
    Prince Vladimir Trubetskoy—“Volodya”
    Prince Sergei Trubetskoy—“Sergei”
    Prince Georgy Trubetskoy—“Georgy”
    Their Great-grandchildren
    Children of Vladimir and Yelena Golitsyn (b. Sheremetev)
    Yelena Golitsyn (m. Trubetskoy)—“Yelena”
Andrei Trubetskoy, her husband
    Mikhail Golitsyn—“Mishka”
    Illarion Golitsyn—“Lariusha”



 

     

PART I

Before the Deluge

    Were we all, the whole upper crust of Russian society, so totally insensitive, so horribly obtuse, as not to feel that the charmed life we were leading was in itself an injustice and hence could not possibly last?
    —Nicolas Nabokov,
    Bagázh: Memoirs of a Russian Cosmopolitan

PART II

1917

    Arise, lift yourselves up, Russian people,
    Arise for battle, hungry brother,
    Let the cry of the people’s vengeance ring out—
    Onward, onward, onward!
    We’ve suffered insult long enough,
    And submitted too long to the nobles!
    Let us straighten our powerful backs
    And show the enemy our strength . . .
    Altogether now, mighty army,
    Let’s plunder the palaces of the rich!
    Let’s take back Mother Russia,
    And be done with paying rent.
    So arise, brothers, arise and be bold,
    And then shall the land be ours once more,
    And from the bitter aspens shall we hang
    Every last lackey of that Vampire-Tsar.
    —“The Peasant Song” (1917)

PART III

Civil War

    The path of history is beyond the understanding of those who have been consigned to the routine of capitalism, of those who have been deafened by the mighty crash of the old world, by the cracking, the noise, the “chaos” (or apparent chaos) of the collapse of the age-old structures of tsarism and the bourgeoisie, of those who have been cowed by class warfare taken to its most extreme, by its transformation into civil war, a true holy war—and not in some priestly sense of the word, but in its most humane understanding: a holy war of the oppressed against their oppressors, a holy war for the liberation of the workers from all oppression.
    —Lenin, December 1917
    Yes, long live civil war! Civil war for the sake of the children, the elderly, the workers and the Red Army, civil war in the name of direct and ruthless struggle against counterrevolution.
    —Leon Trotsky, May 1918
    We are heading for a total civil war, and it seems that the war will be a savage one . . . Oh, how hard it is to live in Russia! We are all so stupid—so fantastically stupid.
    —Maxim Gorky, July 1918

PART IV

NEP

    We’ll drink, we’ll carouse, and when death comes, we’ll die.
    —Dmitry Gudovich, Kaluga, 1927

PART V

Stalin’s Russia

    In our days tears and blood flow like two big rivers and apparently, for some unknown