Mr Charles Sydney Gibbes

[nena]

Found the answer in Tsesarevich: it's V. I. Voiekov.

Correction: it is Vladimir Nikolaevich Voeikov, writer of book S Tsarem i Bez Tsara or With Tsar and without Tsar, Count of Court and friend of Tsarevich and Tsar. 
Voeikov with Heir.
Count Voeikov with Tsar,Tsarevich,OTMA and Joy at GHQ,1916

[Sunny]

Hello everybody,
i hope this' the right place for my topic; actually i've a little (maybe simple for u) question for you all: do you know wheter Sidney Gibbes spoke Russian?
I really didn't find it, and i'm writing about him, so i'll need to know.
Thank you everybody 
Sunny

[Rodney_G.]

  Excellent question. I've wondered about this for a while as well as about the language abilities of the other Imperial children's tutors. My thinking is that he had to have known some, a fair amount, but that he wasn't totally fluent He went to St. Petersburg as a young man without any Russian, basically to work , to tutor, for a little adventure. I believe he taught English to at least one family's children prior to the IF job. He needn't necessarily have had to speak Russian well to do this. You can teach a foreign language to a student without knowing his or her language. Also, you might know a third mutual foreign language, say French in this instance. ,though I get the sense Gibbes' French wasn't more than adequate.

Gibbes lived among a circle of English citizens and interacted with the Imperial Family as the children's tutor. In these venues he could have gotten by with almost no Russian. Of course he couldn't count on being understood by the Russian populace when speaking English. But in the end at the point he left Russia after being on hand in Ekaterinburg for the White investigation of the Romanov murders I think he was basically competent in Russian. I forget how long he was in Russia, (at least about eight years?) and it's almost impossible to live in a foreign land that long without learning the language reasonably well. And of course Gibbes was fairly intelligent and well educated, if not exactly sophisticated.

The above  doesn't represent any more than reasoned speculation, but I think it characterizes CSG' Russian skills.

Good luck with your Gibbes project, Sunny!

[Sarushka]

From The Romanovs and Mr Gibbes, by Frances Welch:

"Eventually [Gibbes] decided to go to Russia. It was an odd decision: he spoke no Russian and had no connection with Russia." (pg 22)

[Alexander1917]

in "An Englishman at the court of the tsar" is written that he arrived in Russia without any Russian. but he lernt it. make of course sense. when he was about 10 years in russia before he was addet to the court.
there was a large english community in st. pb, so it would not necessary to speak russia - but I think when you are so long in a country you speak some of the language.

later he changed to orthodoxy and founded back in england a russian church (that was totally new for me)

[Sunny]

Well, thank u very much to everybody!
I agree with you all: he could have learnt it. Since what i'm writing  takes place AFTER the murder of the imperial family, it's far more easy to think he actually speak russia - at least a little. I tought he spoke in french, for example, with Gilliard; but i think it's quite impossible not to learn a word of a language, in which country you live for a long time.
Moreover, i was thinking about the fact, that Gilliard and Gibbes stayed in Russia for a while after the if's murder, collaborating with the White Army; we all know in the army there's not only learned people; it's possibile that most of them knew French... but english? Only aristocrats, In imperial russia, knew english, as i know; so, i think he spoke a little russian, just to make himself understood...

[Ian (UK)]

A picture of St Nicholas House Oxford, the one time home of Charles Sydney Gibbes & the elusive Ipatiev House treasures. Note the link may go down once the house is sold.
http://www.zoopla.co.uk/property-history/4a-marston-street/oxford/ox4-1ju/17265736    .....Link by Zoopla

Charles Sydney Gibbes at find a grave
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=75368143

[Inok Nikolai]

A new detailed article on C. S. Gibbes' life as a Russian Orthodox priest:
https://www.rocorstudies.org/2020/03/26/archimandrite-nicholas-gibbes-from-the-russian-orthodox-church-in-exile-to-the-moscow-patriarchate/

[EmHarms]

Hoping to resurrect this thread; I'm trying to locate Gibbes's collection of photos. Does anyone know where they might be stored, displayed, etc.? Private collection?

[Inok Nikolai]

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