From St. Petersburg to the West: One Family's Personal Account

Copyright 1999 to present:

Alexander Obolensky
Michael Obolensky
Elizabeth Obolensky
Barbara Obolensky

A CENTURY OF TRIBULATIONS
First-Hand Accounts by Members of the Obolensky Family
Compiled, arranged and edited by Alexander Obolensky, the son and grandson of the authors

The materials presented here consist of memoirs of their experiences written by three members of one branch of the Obolensky family. My grandmother, Princess Aleksandra Nikolaevna Obolensky, nee Topornin (1861-1945); her daughter, my mother Princess Olga Ivanovna Obolensky (1891-1983); and my father, Prince Peter Aleksandrovich Obolensky (1889-1969), who was my mother's second cousin as well as her husband, died in London, New York, Moscow respectively.

The events described in these memoirs cover the period extending from the last quarter of the 19th century through the end of World War II. Swept away from their moorings by the tornado of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the authors of these memoirs left Russia at different times-my grand-mother in 1921, and my mother in 1941. Both recorded their recollections while they were living in exile.

These memoirs are organized in chronological order and each is autobiographical in character. But each writer has an individual style and approach, for each had to endure and overcome independently the shattering events that befell him or her in life.

My grandmother's memoirs provide a natural introduction to the other two. They consist largely of her personal impressions of the pre-Revolutionary years. She portrays the life around her in a series of colorful, often poignant images; for example, in describing the attempt on her husband's life in 1902 when he was Governor of Kharkov Province. She also recalls the turbulent historical events of his tenure as Governor of Finland, from 1904 to 1906. In England, where my grandmother lived from 1921 until her death, she was awarded a small "Grace and Favour" pension from the private funds of the Dowager Queen Mary, the Consort of King George V.

My father wrote his memoir in a more methodical manner, almost like that of a diary. While living in France from 1929 to 1957, he recorded his life experiences in a flowing narrative, noting in detail day-to-day events from his childhood years through High school and the University Law School (Pravovedenie) until he volunteered for the Horse Guards Regiment. He goes on to tell of his painful struggle for survival under the Soviet regime until his escape in 1929, where periods of imprisonment alternated with a miserable existence even when he was "free" but an outcast in his own country. Ironically, he found himself thrown into the very same prison cell that had been occupied almost a century earlier under the Tsars by one of his forebears, the Decembrist Eugene Obolensky. However, my father was ultimately unable to adapt himself to the ways of the Western world, and in 1957 he returned to live in the Soviet Union from Paris where he had been living since 1929. Thanks to the cultural initiative he had shown long before as a teenager when he organized a "people's orchestra" made up of factory workers from his estate, he was awarded a tiny government pension when he returned to his native land.

While the reminiscing of both my grandmother and my father end when they left Russia for life in exile abroad, my mother's narrative continues after her flight from German-occupied Soviet territory. She describes her emigration to the United States via Germany and gives a vivid account of her experiences living through the air bombardment of Berlin. She tells how she miraculously escaped before the surrender of Berlin by boarding the last available transport train that left the city for Northern Germany. Later, after reuniting with my brother Ivan whom she had not seen far 23 years, my mother finally made her way across the Atlantic.

My mother's descriptions of pre-Revolutionary times are limited to only two chapters of this material. Apparently, the almost insurmountable hardships she had to undergo in the Soviet Union, whether in solitary confinement or as an exiled political prisoner, had almost entirely erased her memories of earlier and happier times. Only the first chapter, entitled "The Happy Years," deals with this period. Immediately thereafter, she was engulfed by the turmoil of revolution, and both she and my father were repeatedly imprisoned and banished. During those tormented times, she saw her mother off to England, while we, her children were entrusted to unknown intermediaries and smuggled out of the country to France via Finland. She does not address the years between the mid -1920s and the late 1930s. Her narrative resumes only in the days immediately before the declaration of war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in June 1941. At that time she was working as Head Nurse in the hospital of Kalinin, northwest of Moscow, under an assumed name, "Zvezdina."

Owing to the fragmentary nature of her notes, my mother's memoir cannot be viewed as an analysis or definitive chronicle of the period. Nevertheless, it constitutes a unique record of horrifying experiences that were typical of those that befell so many of her aristocratic contemporaries who were either unable to record their sufferings or did not live long enough to do so. It is narrated with full fidelity to the truth in spellbinding scenes sketched by a first-hand witness who had to confront the turbulent, destructive circumstances that prevailed under the Soviet regime in the aftermath of the Revolution.

Recorded by the three articulate memoirists, these recollections are abundantly illustrated with hitherto unpublished family photographs which have miraculously come to light abroad as part of the summertime memorabilia that was packed away in secluded nooks and crannies before the wars came in the opulent houses and villas which had once been owned by members of this illustrious and wealthy family. The photographs survive as precious testimony to a bygone era of carefree elegance and happiness.

Scenes of splendor at Court and encounters with the Tsar, memories of private performances by Fedor Chaliapin at the Obolensky mansion, bargaining with Maxim Gorky to obtain his help in saving the lives of my parents - these are only a few examples of the kaleidoscope of changing situations, from the most tragic, oppressive, and unbearable to the rarest experiences of joy and beauty, which all three memoirists lived through in this century of turmoil and tribulation.

Additional documentation written by other members of the family and relatives supplements and helps to clarify certain portions of this fascinating family saga.

Listed below are chapter headings for the material by the authors:

1. Princess Aleksandra Nikolaevna Obolensky: Introduction

I. Three Encounters
II. At the Ball
III. Two Tales of Country Life
IV. My Husband
V. Finland
VI. The Waves Struck our Shore... (in English)
VII. The Search
VIII. Two Meetings with Maxim Gorky
IX. Escape - 1921
X. Vania's Account

2. Princess Olga Ivanovna Obolensky: In Lieu of an Introduction