Restitution?

[TampaBay]

OK!  Now my question!!

Assets & Income less debts, who were the riches families/people in pre 1917 Imperial Russia?

TampaBay

[james_h]

OK!  Now my question!!

Assets & Income less debts, who were the riches families/people in pre 1917 Imperial Russia?

TampaBay

TampaBay,

There in lays our dilemma. We have ready access to their assets. Information about their debts is not readily available. It would be grossly ignorant to assume there were none. Presumably Feilx et el. are more inclined to reminisce about their lost riches, rather than their lost debts.

J

[Robert_Hall]

The point being that amongst other claims, those that may want "restitution" should as well pay  the indebtedness they left.
 AND the point of the confiscations to begin with being that the wealth was gained to begin with by serf/SLAVE labour, unrecompensed for generations. That is- the wealth belonged to the people- not the elite.
Who enjoys this now? Who pays for the upkeep now?  Certainly not those that left and found other lives in other countries.
 

[jacqueline]

But still, this does not mean that the Ysupovs had many, if any, debts... Only communists would try to convince people that the Yusupovs owe more than what should be restored to them.  Felix did not exaggerate his fortune.... in fact, besides family documents and archives, there there are also many pictures that prove it.


p.s. "wealth belonging to the people" is another communist lie .... the people became poorer during communism!

[Robert_Hall]

Nonsense...slave labour makes you rich. Do you not repay that labour to keep your wealth, in debt or otherwise. Do you not recompense the caretakers  of the heritage whilst you are away ?
 Communist or otherwise there is a matter of simple justice and "noblesse a la scaffold" is one justice. Others justice may simply be leave well enough alone.

[Belochka]

Who enjoys this now? Who pays for the upkeep now?  Certainly not those that left and found other lives in other countries.
 

Indeed, the present Russian government will never acknowledge that the soviets were "unjustly enriched".

Margarita

[james_h]

It appears we are trying to gauge which exploitative regime was best! The correct answer is of course neither! Both were bad, this is as silly as awarding the death Olympics to Stalin, Hitler or Mao... who cares.

"But still, this does not mean that the Ysupovs had many, if any, debts... Only communists would try to convince people that the Yusupovs owe more than what should be restored to them.  Felix did not exaggerate his fortune.... in fact, besides family documents and archives, there there are also many pictures that prove it." - jacqueline

Thank you Jacqueline, the photo's you post and references you use (Ferrand) have been posted Ad infinitum  Ad nauseam on this forum before. You've not added anything new the esteemed posters of this forum weren't aware of before hand. I'll not say this again, choose to accept or disprove with evidence, the Yusupov HAD debts! They were manageable and not much, but if you absorbed my post without just reading it you would see that a small amount of debt can be compounded exponentially over a century!!!!
 Secondly as a descendant of aristocratic Russia your opinions are likened unto me as the opinions shared by most new forum users regardless of their genealogical provenance. I’m shocked you seem to have no real understanding of the society you appear to miss so much. Shocked more still, in that you seem to have nothing academic to add just dogmatic hearsay. IMO. And no I am not a communist, that's perhaps the most interesting thing I've been called.


"Nonsense...slave labour makes you rich. Do you not repay that labour to keep your wealth, in debt or otherwise. Do you not recompense the caretakers  of the heritage whilst you are away ?
 Communist or otherwise there is a matter of simple justice and "noblesse a la scaffold" is one justice. Others justice may simply be leave well enough alone." - Robert_Hall

Correct Robert. Which is why my grandmothers family choose to ignore the prospect of restitution (Jamaica).
1. What we would get back would barely be worth the effort.
2. Why steal from one of the worlds poorest nations to re-enrich ourselves again, at expense of the poor and disenfranchised. Emancipation happened, it’s gracious to accept it and move on.

J

[jacqueline]

Even if the nobility obliged serfs to work their land, this does not make the theft of their life and culture acceptable.  There is no excuse for cultural genocide.

However, let me address the lie about serfdom. First of all, serfdom was abolished in Russia before slavery was abolished in America. But feudal serfs were not slaves... serfdom in Russia was an entirely different concept than the western concept of slavery. It was more of a social than economic institution. Of course it was economically beneficial to the serf owners but it was maintained from within the serf societal structure.

Serfs in Russia:

• Were mostly self governing
• Had better health care than so-called free people anywhere else in the world at that time.
• Wives and widows were not obliged to work
• their families were entirely supported by the estate
• they received a small salary for non-food purchases
• raised livestock as a form of savings for purchases
• leased additional land outside of their estate  to grow crops to sell

I could go on but I am not advocating serfdom...  I just want to refute the lies that are often perpetuated in the west. Westerners have a view of the Russian Revolution as an uprising of downtrodden peasants against their rich landlords, like a replay of the French Revolution. The push to communism did not originate in the countryside but in the city and any claim otherwise is bogus. Therefore, your argument that the Yusupovs don’t deserve to be restituted because they used “slave labor” is also bogus. There were never slaves in Russia. Serfdom was not the cause of the revolution and should not be a reason for stopping restituion.

[james_h]

"theft of their life and culture acceptable.  There is no excuse for cultural genocide." - jacqueline

Their culture was pseudo French to begin with pseudo English to end with, nothing about the Russian aristocracy was endemically Russian.
Religion     = Greek
Alphabet   = Influenced by Greek
Heritage    = Self appointed Eastern Roman heirs.
Language  = French

It's amusing to note as well virtually all Russian aristocracy were not even ethnically Russian.

Rurikovich       = Scandinavian
Guedimine      = Lithuanian
Tartars           =Turkic Mongols
Georgians        = Trans Caucasian
Germans         = Germans

That should cover virtually all the old aristocracy.

Plus, that's not getting into the rampant sexual escapades of the aristocracy, so rampant in fact it's unlikely a pre-Revolutionary prince was genetically descended from his namesake but that was continent wide.


 

[David_Pritchard]

However, let me address the lie about serfdom. First of all, serfdom was abolished in Russia before slavery was abolished in America. But feudal serfs were not slaves... serfdom in Russia was an entirely different concept than the western concept of slavery. It was more of a social than economic institution. Of course it was economically beneficial to the serf owners but it was maintained from within the serf societal structure.

It would seem that you do not understand the intricacies of Russian Serfdom. Serfs for the most part were connected to the estate on which they lived. Not in the same way as a horse or a pig as that would make them equal to slaves but rather like trees or very large rocks, things which are not removed from the estate or sold off. The upside of these circumstances is that they had a more stable family life then the slave however there was also a downside to serfdom, as the serf was not partible property from the estate, the lord had no incentive to maintain the health and welfare of the serfs in times of famine, war and natural disaster. A slave on the other hand had inherent value and was therefore clothed, fed and had medical needs met because the slave was an investment rather than a feudal obligation.

While serfs were legally not to be sold from the estate to which they were attached, in the late 18th century the institution of industrial serfdom did spring up in the larger cities. The life of an industrial serf was that of a Dickensian nightmare. There are also many cases of rural serfs being sold between estates, though of course this was technically illegal.


David

[james_h]

the Russian Law Institute was made up almost entirely of aristocrats. Technically Illegal would doubtless not have mattered. 

[jacqueline]

This is slightly off-topic from Yusupov restitution.... but if anyone is interested in more information on serfdom in Russia, I recommend reading "Serfdom and Social Control in Russia: Petrovskoe, a Village in Tambov" by Stephen L Hoch.

[Valmont]

Then, if there are many free translators on the web... May I ask why you do not use one?.. My mother told me once that good manners were not only eating with your mouth closed and your elbows off the table.. It is also  making the other people feel the most comfortable possible, also as a sign of respect to them...

I hope one day you will find a meanning to this advise..
Best Regards,

Arturo Vega-Llausás

Our two Francophone might find the online  computer translators to be as lacking as I find them. One would have to rewrite every sentence to correct the errors of the computer translator. As it is, the French language can communicate certain thoughts, perceptions and emotions much more effectively than English. Had your mother been truly concerned with good manners, you should have been taught to speak French as a child.

If you speak Castilliano how hard can it be to read French?

David

David,
I was not speaking for myself. I have no trouble reading French. but as you may infer I am not the only person who enters  this forum and it would be really foollish of me (Not to talk about selfish) to think that everybody else would have no trouble reading it either...some of us are not as gifted as others regarding foreign lenguages....

Best Regards,

Arturo

[Casterov]

Sorry to say it but it's maybe not the place to argue as children...

[Casterov]

About this question of slavery in the origin of y the Yusupov fortune, I think that it is not important at all. Many very famous families as the "béké" in the French Caraiba or in the South of the US did the sa

This question of debts in the Yusupov assets seems really strange. According to the memories of Great-Duke Sandro, the 1915 yusupov income was $ (gold) 4,5 millions. It's obvious that they were in huge deficit because they were helping (and backing) the Russian war effort. But never forget that Princess Zenaida assets as stocks, gold and bonds were at least $ (gold) 100 millions...So I don't understand WHY she needed to borrow money from the Morozov Bank...Particurlaly because she owned a few stakes as banks as the Russo-asiatic bank or Bank of Azov and Don...