White migrs and International Anti-Communism in France (1918-1939) 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]. The contribution of the White Russian migr community to the global anticommunist struggle remains to be written. Veteran circles were particularly sensitive to Hitlers influence, and Nazi agents regularly visited the RNSUV in Paris. The White Russians who had settled in Germany pushed to mobilize for the Reich: General Pavel Bermondt-Avalov, who was the leader of the Nazi-controlled ROND in 1932-1933, sent his emissaries from Berlin to Paris. [30] But Prince Andrey Kuragin, the Russian secretary of the EIA and a naturalized French citizen, rejected Douillet as corrupt. 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. During this meeting, a public letter from Paul Taittinger, then-leader of the Jeunesses Patriotes, was read. 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. [54] RG, report dated April 13, 1936, 2 p., AN/19940500/305. [25] PP, report dated September 3, 1930, 4 p., AN/19880206/7. In truth-we have nothing, we have lost everything. [49] Alexandre Jevakhoff, Les Russes blancs (Paris: Tallandier, 2011). [11] In 1927, the Orthodox Metropolitan Evlogii At the demographic level, the Russian community in France was sizable. This astonished White Russians; many of those who had naturalized would join the French army. [30] Rapport gnral du Bureau permanent de lEntente internationale contre la IIIe Internationale pour 1938, Geneva, 1939, p. 9, AN/20010216/170. 74-78). Life in these homes was often "psychologically very difficult", he adds. Some Russian migrs in Paris enthused that the Third Reich sought to offer them a new state consisting of Slovakia, Ruthenia, and Bessarabia. 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. [37] Although the BRT succumbed to internal quarrels and Soviet infiltration in 1932, it actually kept running, albeit rather weakened. [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. [33] PP, Comit dinitiative international anti-bolchvique, January 12, 1933, 4p.; Ibid., Comit dinitiative international anti-bolchvique, August 1933, 2p., AN/20010216/168. 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]. The U.S. government, foreign policymakers, and the intelligence community quietly forgot about the Russian emigre community. But this pro-German activism also raised concerns. In 1924, the Chinese government recognized the government of the Soviet Union and the majority of White Russians in China who refused to become Soviet citizens were rendered stateless, thus subject to Chinese law unlike other Europeans, Americans, and Japanese living in China who enjoyed the principles of extraterritoriality. [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. 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]. [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. The BRTs leader in France was General Piotr Krasnov, former Ataman of the Don Cossacks, who would be hanged by the Soviet regime in 1947 for having joined the Axis forces. 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. Karl Schlgel (ed. Various youth organizations, such as the Scouts-in-Exile became functional in raising children with a background in pre-Soviet Russian culture and heritage. [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. 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. 12, AN/1988206/7; A/S de Wladimir Krassinksy et de lUnion des Jeunes Russes, April 1932, 6 p., AN/20010216/283. [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. 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 . [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? 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]. White migr - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia One of the important figures in this nomadic spy network was Jean Kologrivov, who was born in 1890 and arrived in France in 1922. [40] Indeed, after an initial Italian temptation, it was Germany that increasingly came to occupy the horizon of the Russian counterrevolutionaries. Tens of White Army veterans (numbers vary from 72 to 180) served as volunteers supporting Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. [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 publication testified to the change in logic that was under way. Alexandre Kazem-Beg, the movements guide, lived in Le Vsinet in the Paris region. These people formed organizations such as the Mladorossi, the Evraziitsi, and the Smenovekhovtsi. 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. 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. That is our Russian passport". The situation was considered serious enough to warrant close police surveillance of all Russian immigrants on the Cte dAzur. News Russian Shanghai, Belgrade and Paris. 9 October 2020 09:00. A group of Russian expatriates in Paris, ca. [11] According to the White Russian newspaper Vozrozhdenie (Renaissance), Russian Freemasons actively worked to steer their French brothers in an anti-Soviet direction. 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. France 24 - International breaking news, top stories and headlines. 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). As the decades passed, emigres blended in with the locals. Since they assumed the Soviet regime would last a few years at most, few worried about integrating. Sasha Sokolov (born in 1943 . 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. The Refugees Who Built Modern Belgrade | Balkan Insight 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. O. Beyda, Re-Fighting the Civil War: Second Lieutenant Mikhail Aleksandrovich Gubanov. White migr - Wikipedia Those who arrived in 1919 were better off economically. In the summer of 1923, the French intelligence services observed these monarchists interest in the secessionist movement of the Rhine Republic. 1920. [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. 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. 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. There were Russian-language newspapers and a radio station. White migrs were, generally speaking, anti-communist and did not consider the Soviet Union and its legacy to be representative of Russia but rather of an occupying force. They met willing officers, many of whom felt that General Miller had become too much of a Francophile. [23] RG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, pp. [8] The prefect of the Maritime Alps to the Interior Minister, August 23, 1918, 2p., AN/20010216/282. 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. However, in the meantime Barthou had died following the attack of Ustashe terrorist Vlado Chernozemski. "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. They made connections with several factions of the French extreme right, including the largest far-right organization at the time, Action Franaise. Montparnasse was for the hoi polloifor rebels and misfits and down-and-outs, for creative artists long on talent but . This fragmentation among migr associations had its share of attempts at unification. [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". [31] Marc Swennen, Les mouvements anticommunistes dans les annes 1920,Courrier hebdomadaire du CRISP 2059, no. [64] Au sujet de la propagande allemande auprs des Russes tablis en France, May 27, 1940, AN/20010216/283. [12] PP, La rsurrection de la franc-maonnerie en Russie, June 13, 1935, 2 p., AN/19940500/306. Aksyonov died and was buried in Moscow. If the choice between the descendants of Nicholas II had not yet been made, the HCM clearly leaned toward Nikolai,[22] only to later reconsider by postponing the choice of king until after the fall of the USSR. 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. [22] Nicolas Glady, Les partis monarchistes russes migres Paris 19191939, Bulletin de lInstitut Pierre Renouvin 9 (2000): 84100. . Thanks to their shared anticommunism and antisemitism, friendly relations between the two parties developed quickly. 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. [5] Besides for the war dead, other monuments were put up. The Russian Refugee Crisis of the 1920s - European studies blog [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. It was from this community of Germanophile veterans that the approximately 700 White Russians who volunteered to fight in Spain for General Franco originated. She worked in occupied France and was considered to be the main . 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. Preserving Russian Culture through Education and Religion in France 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). He has fond memories of the dances, shows and parties where . [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. When it became abundantly clear the Whites would never take back Russia, France switched sides, recognizing the Soviet Union in 1924. One of the clear signs of the tendency to recreate an imperial Russia on the banks of the Seine River was the constitution of a Union of Knights of the Russian Imperial Military Order of St. George in Paris. Second and third-generation White Russians married locals and spoke French at home. The 1917 Russian Revolution led to an exodus of two million " White Russians " escaping the Bolshevik "Reds". [9] The neo-classical style which typically adorned war memorials in Imperial Russia was consciously avoided as building a war memorial in that style was viewed as expressing support for restoring the monarchy. He was replaced by the very anti-communist Pierre Laval, who became in 1940 the second-in-command of the collaborationist Vichy government. The county of Nice only came under French sovereignty in 1860, giving birth to the administrative department of the Maritime Alps. After the withdrawal of US and Japanese troops from Siberia, some migrs traveled to Japan. [18] The political weakness induced by the crumbling of the Russian migr community in France strengthened monarchists and fascists capacity to work together. Aksyonov was one of the few emigres to return to Russia after Perestroika. Like the rest of the movement, the French section was clearly pro-Kirill. [41] From 1940 to 1942, the Italian army occupied the eastern part of the department; Nice was fully absorbed when the occupation zone was extended to Switzerland. The history of Russian "expansion" into the foreign fashion market began with the break-up of the Russian Empire following the revolution of 1917. Claiming to be the last representative of the Stroganoffs, the false nobleman sued the widow of Sergei Stroganoff, who had died in Nice in 1923 and whose estate was estimated in the French press at several hundred million francs. 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. [46] PP, report on the Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, undated, p. 5, AN/20010216/282. Some migrs also fled to Portugal, Spain, Romania, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and Italy. 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. [25] After the death of its founding father, General Wrangel, Grand Duke Nikolai appointed General Kutepov as the new head. [38] Wim Coudenys, Activisme politique et militaire dans lmigration russe : ralit ou sujet littraire? Even before proclaiming himself tsar, Kirill appointed personal representatives throughout Europe (Germany, Austria, America, England, Bavaria, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Serbia, and Switzerland). 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 [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. And Tatiana would become a factory worker's wife in France, part of a huge wave of aristocrats, intellectuals, military officers and others fleeing the brutal civil war after the revolution. 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. Since the end of the 1980s, the term "first-wave migr" has become more common in Russia. Among them were members of the French Parti populaire of Jacques Doriot, a former communist leader who had turned to fascism. [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. 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. 2023 Copyright France 24 - All rights reserved. The main reason that pushed the Whites to support the German power with action was the concept of a 'spring offensive', an armed intervention against the USSR that must be exploited in order to continue the civil war. According to a German document that circulated in French diplomatic and police circles in 1920, the Socit des Fidles (Society of the Faithful) was an esoteric, subversive organization that, based in Germany, claimed to have members from Paris to Moscow. Berlin and Paris developed thriving migr communities. Paris provided support to the Whites by supplying them with military equipment and, notably, participated in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War on the side of the Whites. [24], White migrs fought with[clarification needed] the Soviet Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang and the Xinjiang War of 1937.[25]. 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. 9, December 2020 "Transnational History of the Far Right" Series. [18] Interior Minister to the Foreign Affairs Minister, November 5, 1937, AN/19880206/7. says Igor Orobchenko, a former bank worker whose father came to France with a contract to clear World War I mines. After the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his brother Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich in 1918, the Russian line of succession became disputed. 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. Russian Shanghai, Belgrade and Paris. [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. 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. Having lost Paris support, France-based White Russians turned to the political opposition for support. 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. [45] The Young Russians allegedly had contacts with fascist Germany and Italy, whose style they adopted. [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.
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