Author Topic: Olga's Letters  (Read 152169 times)

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Antonina

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #210 on: November 04, 2011, 08:39:44 AM »
Yes, it’s my mistake, based on “Sisters of mercy”, sorry.  It was the 57th Modlinsky (модлинский) infantry regiment. First Olga wrote in her diary(20/091916): “3 wounds came to us. Warrant officer Dzhurkovitch from the 57th Liublinskiy (I by mistake translated it like Lubljana’s) regiment …(Montenegrin).”
Then Tatiana wrote in her letter(23/09/1916): “One wounded officer – Montenegrin was brought to us. He has been in the military school (or: corpus) of Kiev during 7 years, and now he is in 57th Madlinsky regiment. <…>
(More full quotes in Russian:
О: К нам прибыло 3 раненых. Прапорщик Джуркович 57-го Люблинского полка, ранен в грудь, руку и ногу (Черногорец).
Т: Привезли к нам одного раненого офицера черногорца. Он был 7 лет в Киевском корпусе, а теперь в 57-м Мадлинском полку. Не знает, конечно, где его родные. Спрашивает нас, где Король Николай и Король Петр, а где он, мы не знаем, а он беспокоится, так как его брат адъютант Петра. Тяжело он ранен, бедняжка. В спине большая рана, левая рука не движется, правая ранена и правое бедро. Маленький, худенький).

Offline Janet Ashton

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #211 on: November 05, 2011, 05:36:44 AM »
Yes, it’s my mistake, based on “Sisters of mercy”, sorry.  It was the 57th Modlinsky (модлинский) infantry regiment. First Olga wrote in her diary(20/091916): “3 wounds came to us. Warrant officer Dzhurkovitch from the 57th Liublinskiy (I by mistake translated it like Lubljana’s) regiment …(Montenegrin).”
Then Tatiana wrote in her letter(23/09/1916): “One wounded officer – Montenegrin was brought to us. He has been in the military school (or: corpus) of Kiev during 7 years, and now he is in 57th Madlinsky regiment. <…>
(More full quotes in Russian:
О: К нам прибыло 3 раненых. Прапорщик Джуркович 57-го Люблинского полка, ранен в грудь, руку и ногу (Черногорец).
Т: Привезли к нам одного раненого офицера черногорца. Он был 7 лет в Киевском корпусе, а теперь в 57-м Мадлинском полку. Не знает, конечно, где его родные. Спрашивает нас, где Король Николай и Король Петр, а где он, мы не знаем, а он беспокоится, так как его брат адъютант Петра. Тяжело он ранен, бедняжка. В спине большая рана, левая рука не движется, правая ранена и правое бедро. Маленький, худенький).


No problem! I was wondering if there were Prisoners of war in the hospital or something - or, I guess there might have been a Russian regiment which called itself "The Laibach Regiment" in honour of the congress there which Alexander I attended after Napoleon's defeat - but I guess not!
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thelastimpofrussia

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #212 on: December 02, 2011, 06:38:47 PM »
More news on the "Papa asks.." quote. While flipping through "The Complete Wartime Correspondance of Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra", I noticed that page 8, the quote, with a note. The note says "Romanov Family Album pg. 126", which in the bibliography it states that the into is by Massie, picture research and the like done by Marilyn Pfeifer Sweezey, and photos done by Vyrubove, published in 1982 by Vendome Press. Can anyone check this??

Offline Sarushka

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #213 on: December 02, 2011, 07:51:41 PM »
More news on the "Papa asks.." quote. While flipping through "The Complete Wartime Correspondance of Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra", I noticed that page 8, the quote, with a note. The note says "Romanov Family Album pg. 126", which in the bibliography it states that the into is by Massie, picture research and the like done by Marilyn Pfeifer Sweezey, and photos done by Vyrubove, published in 1982 by Vendome Press. Can anyone check this??

The quote does appear on that page, but no information regarding its provenance is given.

As far as I've been able to determine, the first publication of Olga's quote was in the July 1968 issue of Православная Жизнь (Orthodox Life). Unfortunately the article does not state who the letter was written to, when it was written, nor does it quote any other portion of the letter for context.
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Offline Inok Nikolai

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #214 on: January 16, 2012, 09:19:44 PM »
As far as I've been able to determine, the first publication of Olga's quote was in the July 1968 issue of Православная Жизнь (Orthodox Life). Unfortunately the article does not state who the letter was written to, when it was written, nor does it quote any other portion of the letter for context.


This is one of many questions which I wish that I had asked dear Mr. Alferieff while he was still alive!

In his book Mr. Alferieff featured this excerpt, supposedly taken from a longer letter from Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna:

Фрагменты письма:
(Тобольск)

Отец просит передать всем тем, кто Ему остался предан, и тем, на кого они могут иметь влияние, чтобы они не мстили за Него, так как Он всех простил и за всех молится, и чтобы не мстили за себя, и чтобы помнили, что то зло, которое сейчас в мире, будет еще сильнее, но что не зло победит, а только любовь...

As you know, this excerpt has become famous and has been cited many times, both in print and on the Internet.

Since Mr. Alferieff gave Правосланая Жизнь as his source for the quote, I had always assumed that the original printed source would contain an explanation of the primary source for this letter. Thus, I never asked him about this matter at the time.

But years later, when I finally checked that issue of П. Ж. (July 1968, No. 7, pp. 3-4), I saw that no further source is listed. I am not doubting the authenticity of the extract at this point, but I had always expected that the full letter, from which it was taken, would one day surface. In the course of our many years of research, this has, alas, not happened. I did look at all the issues for П. Ж. for 1968, in case a source was mentioned elsewhere, but none was.

Do bear in mind that in issue No. 7 that excerpt is followed by two authentic letters from captivity: one from Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna to her aunt, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna; and the other one from Grand Duchess Maria Nicholaevna to Z. S. Tolstaya. (If that means anything.)

As I said, I wish that I had addressed this question to Mr. Alferieff and the editors of П. Ж. at that time! Recently I did write to the fathers at Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York, to ask them to look into this matter. They said that they would, but, of course, most of the fathers involved with that publication have passed away already years ago.

To avoid any possible confusion, let me point out that Holy Trinity Monastery publishes *two* magazines called "Orthodox Life" — one in Russian, and one in English. But they are totally separate journals, with differing content.

(BTW: The quote itself is a paraphrase of a passage from St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans 12:17-20.)
инок Николай

Offline Inok Nikolai

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #215 on: January 16, 2012, 10:03:43 PM »
Olga letter from April 1918

From the Southey auction catalog.







For the record, this letter is, in fact, from Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna (to Z. S. Tolstaya's daughter), and *not* from Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna. We alerted Sotheby's to that fact, but the catalogue had already been printed and distributed.

The handwriting is definitely Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna's, and the contents reflect the mind of a younger girl, not of someone G. D. Olga's age.

Sotheby's made that mistake because Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna, in signing this note, did not bring the "tail" of the capital initial "A." all the way down to the line, so it appears at first glance to be a loop, making the letter look more like an "O.".
инок Николай

Offline Inok Nikolai

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #216 on: January 16, 2012, 10:23:52 PM »
Yes, it’s my mistake, based on “Sisters of mercy”, sorry.  It was the 57th Modlinsky (модлинский) infantry regiment. First Olga wrote in her diary(20/091916): “3 wounds came to us. Warrant officer Dzhurkovitch from the 57th Liublinskiy (I by mistake translated it like Lubljana’s) regiment …(Montenegrin).”
Then Tatiana wrote in her letter(23/09/1916): “One wounded officer – Montenegrin was brought to us. He has been in the military school (or: corpus) of Kiev during 7 years, and now he is in 57th Madlinsky regiment. <…>
(More full quotes in Russian:
О: К нам прибыло 3 раненых. Прапорщик Джуркович 57-го Люблинского полка, ранен в грудь, руку и ногу (Черногорец).
Т: Привезли к нам одного раненого офицера черногорца. Он был 7 лет в Киевском корпусе, а теперь в 57-м Мадлинском полку. Не знает, конечно, где его родные. Спрашивает нас, где Король Николай и Король Петр, а где он, мы не знаем, а он беспокоится, так как его брат адъютант Петра. Тяжело он ранен, бедняжка. В спине большая рана, левая рука не движется, правая ранена и правое бедро. Маленький, худенький).


Ha! You post-Soviet Union, Internet-using researchers have it easy!

For years (decades?) no one could determine who this was: "Mal. Cher." Was it a surname, or a nickname, etc.?
I had a hunch that it meant "Little Montenegrin", but we had no way to confirm it.
Then in Stanford's Hoover Institution's archives we found letters from M. S. Khitrovo in which she called him just that.

Further question: Does anyone happen to know his full name?
Guessing from the text and context of many other letters, we thought that he might be the same as Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna's friend, Eugene Apollonovich.
Anybody know anything definite?
инок Николай

Offline Inok Nikolai

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #217 on: January 16, 2012, 10:41:16 PM »
Another letter mistakenly attributed to Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna:

In Steinberg's "Fall of the Romanovs", p. 154, is a letter purportedly from Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna to her aunt, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna.

However, an examination of the original manuscript in GARF shows that it is actually in Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna's handwriting, and it was written to her aunt and godmother, the Dowager Queen of the Hellenes, Olga Constantinovna.

Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna's godmother was Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, whom she would never have address as "Godmother", but rather, as "Grandmother".

Once the true author of this letter has been established, the contents make much more sense.

"Mama" = Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, with whom Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was planning to flee to the Crimea soon.

"Nieces and their parents" = NAOTMAA

And Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna had written "matrosiki" (sailors), *not* "matroshki" (dollies)!

It was a cry from her heart over the role that their beloved sailors were playing in the revolutionary events. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna knew that Queen Olga would share her intense grief, since they both were patrons of the Russian navy and very fond of its sailors.

For the record, the archivists at GARF agreed with the above analysis. They have now moved this letter from Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna's file to that of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2012, 09:28:10 AM by Sarushka »
инок Николай

Offline Inok Nikolai

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #218 on: January 16, 2012, 11:02:19 PM »
Newbie's error!

In my last posting I accidentally included the new portion of text inside the quote box.

Please do take the time to read about the letter in Steinberg's book which is *not* from Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna.

Sorry to cause confusion.

инок Николай

Antonina

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #219 on: January 17, 2012, 02:16:03 AM »

Ha! You post-Soviet Union, Internet-using researchers have it easy!

Sorry, Nikolai, what do you mean? Is it a praise or a blame?))
Thank you very much for you work!
unfortunately I can't find Dzhurkovich's full name, and I don't know anything about  Eugene Apollonovich. In one Olga's letter there was mentioned ''Lubom. Andr.", and I thought it could mean Lubomir - a Yugoslavian name, probably his,  but I have not got any confirmation.

Offline Sarushka

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #220 on: January 17, 2012, 09:28:36 AM »
Newbie's error!

In my last posting I accidentally included the new portion of text inside the quote box.

Please do take the time to read about the letter in Steinberg's book which is *not* from Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna.

Sorry to cause confusion.

I fixed it.
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Offline Inok Nikolai

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #221 on: January 17, 2012, 10:06:18 AM »

Ha! You post-Soviet Union, Internet-using researchers have it easy!

Sorry, Nikolai, what do you mean? Is it a praise or a blame?))
Thank you very much for you work!
unfortunately I can't find Dzhurkovich's full name, and I don't know anything about  Eugene Apollonovich. In one Olga's letter there was mentioned ''Lubom. Andr.", and I thought it could mean Lubomir - a Yugoslavian name, probably his,  but I have not got any confirmation.

Dear Antonina,

Forgive me. The comment was neither praise nor blame. I was just reflecting aloud on how much faster and easier some aspects of research have become in the Internet age, as opposed to how much sifting and searching it used to take us in the "old days" to discover even small nuggets of information.

And thank you for the tip. "Lubom. Andr." is a good lead. That reference occurs in Grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna's letter of November 29, 1917, to M. S. Khitrovo.
Usually, however, G. D. Olga would simply refer to him directly as "Little Montenegrin".
But it is definitely worthwhile keeping in mind. Thank you again. Let's see what more might come up.
инок Николай

Offline Inok Nikolai

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #222 on: January 17, 2012, 10:29:37 AM »
I find it interesting that Nicholas & his family adhered to the new spelling forms. Granted, it was law, and as prisoners their letters were probably subject to inspection. On the other hand, at that point in their captivity, what did they have to lose?  :-/
I wonder if the Imperial Family followed the new spelling conventions in their own diaries? I've only seen photos of Alix's last diary, and she wrote in English...

Actually NAOTMAA all used the old orthography.
They found the "reforms" to be ugly and clumsy.

The members of the Imperial family would, however, put both Old Style and New Style dates on their letters after the Feb. 1918 calendar change.
But they were not always consistent, and they sometimes made mistakes computing the corresponding N.S. date.

It is the more modern publishers who have simply printed their letters using the new orthography. Of course, the publishers had little choice, since, before the digital age, few of them still had the older fonts available.

FYI: Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Monastery, in Jordanville NY, is the only publishing house that still regularly prints books, journals, calendars, etc., using the pre-Revolutionary orthography.

(That does not count the publishers of church service books in Church Slavonic.)
инок Николай

Offline Inok Nikolai

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #223 on: January 23, 2012, 10:59:01 AM »
The fact that the phrase "little soul" comes up so often is an indicator that some portion of the letter was written in Russian.

"Little soul" is a literal translation of the Russian word "dushka." When writing in English, the IF used common English endearments like darling, dear, and dearie -- I've never seen the English phrase "little soul" in the IF's letters.

IMO, it's most likely that the letter was written in a mixture of languages. Alexandra in particular had a habit of rendering Russian names and words in their original cyrillic, even in her English letters and diaries. "Dushka" is exactly the kind of word that members of a multi-lingual household would NOT translate themselves -- it loses something when translated literally.

Also, to my knowledge the use of foreign languages was not banned until the IF's arrival in Ekaterinburg. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Alexandra had been writing to Anna Vyrubova in English while in Tobolsk.

Here's another "For The Record" comment based on our research:

These letters (between the members of the Imperial family while separated in Tobolsk and Ekaterinburg) were originally written in Russian. Of course, they may have contained a few words in other languages, as often happens in the Imperial family's correspondence.

The letters were translated into French for Princess Eugenie by Nicholas Komstadius, whose family had been acquainted with the Grand Duchesses in Tsarskoe Selo.
(He and his family likewise received a few letters from captivity in 1917-1918.)

We corresponded with N. Komstadius when he was already living in an old folks home near Paris. He died there in April of 1989.

Princess Eugenie herself also died in 1989; her book containing the letters was published posthumously in 1990. The footnotes are those of Princess Eugenie.

According to her introduction to the book, Princess Eugenie found the letters in a cookie tin in the cellar of her parents' home (near Paris) after her mother's death! Pr. Eugenie stated that she had no idea how they got there, and that her parents never told her about them. In her book she theorizes about how they may have come to them — but most of her ideas are pretty far-fetched and inconclusive.

Her father was Prince George of Greece ("Big Georgie"), the one who accompanied the future Tsar Nicholas II on his tour of the Orient when he was still just the Heir.
It was Pr. George who parried the second sword-blow aimed at the Tsarevich in Otsu, Japan, in 1891. George and Nicholas were first-cousins.

Here is how the letters might have ended up with Pr. George:

It is a known fact that in 1922 a Russian peasant, who had escaped from Soviet Russia, showed up in Riga with a packet of letters and photos from the Imperial family from captivity. These letters and photos were forwarded to some Princess in Paris. One letter from that packet is now at Yale — we have a copy, plus an explanation of how it got there. Other letters from that same packet ended up in the hands of some of the Romanov princes (Mikhailovichi) here in America, which they have shared with us. While the letters were still in Paris, most likely some of them were given directly to Prince George, or perhaps someone else who received them at that time later gave them to Pr. George — since he was N II's cousin.


The biggest problem with these letters is that Princess Eugenie and Nicholas Komstadius did not always fully understand the rather cryptic text and abbreviations of the original Russian, and thus, both the French translation itself and the footnotes contain errors and misconceptions. This is evident if one attempts to reconstruct the Russian text from the French translation. Then too, researchers now have access to much more information concerning the sixteen months of the Imperial family's imprisonment than Princess Eugenie and N. Komstadius did twenty years ago.

Members of this forum who also read French, and have a knowledge of the events of 1917-18, can themselves, no doubt, detect some of these errors in the French versions of these letters.

Mr. Alferieff, the compiler of the original collection of letters from captivity, knew Princess Eugenie, and he requested that she allow him to include her eighteen letters in his book.
She declined because she wanted to publish them first in her own proposed book, which, as stated above, was finally printed posthumously in 1990.

As you know, the eighteen letters contained in Princess Eugenie's book are unique in that they were written by the members of the Imperial family to one another during the period of their separation in the spring of 1918. That is what makes them so moving.

Obviously, for our own book, we would much prefer to translate from the Russian originals into English. Therefore, for many years we have been asking Princess Eugenie's heirs for photocopies of those eighteen letters and permission to publish them. So far, we have not been successful.

An acquaintance of Princess Eugenie's pointed out to us that perhaps her archives have simply not been put in order, and therefore, it may be that no one knows where the originals are located. Nevertheless, we feel that it is very worthwhile to keep trying to locate copies of the original Russian texts. Perhaps Mr. Komstadius had a set of photocopies when working on the translation? We certainly hope that this matter can be resolved before we have to go to print with our own book.

инок Николай

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Re: Olga's Letters
« Reply #224 on: January 23, 2012, 12:24:07 PM »

According to her introduction to the book, Princess Eugenie found the letters in a cookie tin in the cellar of her parents' home (near Paris) after her mother's death! Pr. Eugenie stated that she had no idea how they got there, and that her parents never told her about them. In her book she theorizes about how they may have come to them — but most of her ideas are pretty far-fetched and inconclusive.

Inok Nikolai
this is really interesting. I have Eugenie's book in original french (Le tsarevitch - enfant martyre) and always wondered why the letters ended up in her home from Ekaterinburg. What princess Eugenie and Nicholas Komstadius did publishing these letters translated is such a great thing - they made it possible to the world to know so many things.
I've worked a lot on these letters, translating them in my mothertongue and yet studying the french original i have in the effort to deeply understand them. They're such a treasure to me and to all those who are interested in the IF.


The biggest problem with these letters is that Princess Eugenie and Nicholas Komstadius did not always fully understand the rather cryptic text and abbreviations of the original Russian, and thus, both the French translation itself and the footnotes contain errors and misconceptions. This is evident if one attempts to reconstruct the Russian text from the French translation. Then too, researchers now have access to much more information concerning the sixteen months of the Imperial family's imprisonment than Princess Eugenie and N. Komstadius did twenty years ago.

Members of this forum who also read French, and have a knowledge of the events of 1917-18, can themselves, no doubt, detect some of these errors in the French versions of these letters.

Yes - I noticed that they sounded different from the IF's letters i had already read, expecially in original russian, and understood that something in the translation went wrong. Nowadays, it should be revised, because so much more about the IF style of writing and cryptical code is known. Still, i'm happy to have them at least in French, rather than don't have them at all!

Mr. Alferieff, the compiler of the original collection of letters from captivity, knew Princess Eugenie, and he requested that she allow him to include her eighteen letters in his book.
She declined because she wanted to publish them first in her own proposed book, which, as stated above, was finally printed posthumously in 1990.

What a pity! I really hoped to read them in original...

As you know, the eighteen letters contained in Princess Eugenie's book are unique in that they were written by the members of the Imperial family to one another during the period of their separation in the spring of 1918. That is what makes them so moving.

Obviously, for our own book, we would much prefer to translate from the Russian originals into English. Therefore, for many years we have been asking Princess Eugenie's heirs for photocopies of those eighteen letters and permission to publish them. So far, we have not been successful.

An acquaintance of Princess Eugenie's pointed out to us that perhaps her archives have simply not been put in order, and therefore, it may be that no one knows where the originals are located. Nevertheless, we feel that it is very worthwhile to keep trying to locate copies of the original Russian texts. Perhaps Mr. Komstadius had a set of photocopies when working on the translation? We certainly hope that this matter can be resolved before we have to go to print with our own book.

I hope it too. So there's still hope! I perfectly understand your need to have the original - as i said, i've studied philology enough to share your feelings.
Thanks again for the great job you're doing - i've already translated them but having another translation, and another set of explication notes is wonderful!


« Last Edit: January 23, 2012, 12:34:06 PM by Sunny »