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239
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239. A group of documents, correspondence, and photographs r…
239
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239. A group of documents, correspondence, and photographs r…
Estimate €8,000 - €10,000
Voluntary lot
Description
239. A group of documents, correspondence, and photographs related to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (1856 - 1929), dating from 1924–1929, documenting his life in exile in the South of France and his prominent role within the Russian émigré community
Comprises telegrams concerning his move to the South of France, financial records, checks and a checkbook bearing the Imperial crown relating to loans and donations granted to the Grand Duke, lithographic full-length portrait of the Grand Duke in military uniform as Supreme Commander of the Russian Imperial Army during the First World War. Photographic material comprising original prints and reproductions, including portraits of the Grand Duke in military uniform, on horseback, at Choigny, with Emperor Nicholas II, and at the inauguration of the memorial to Russian soldiers in Valenciennes.
The correspondence includes sixteen letters addressed to the Grand Duke, several with Croatian and Slovakian postal stamps, letters from Anastasia Nikolaevna accompanied by her photograph, and exchanges with Empress Maria Feodorovna, signed appeals and salutations by the Grand Duke to the Russian people in Russian, French, and English, issued for Christmas, New Year, and Easter, encouraging hope, patriotism, and faith in Russia's future. Also included is a copy of his letter to U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, dated 30 March 1925, condemning the oppression of Soviet rule.
As well as letters from supporters of the White movement and railway workers in Russia, who viewed the Grand Duke as a potential saviour of Imperial Russia and appealed to him for financial assistance and leadership in the struggle against the Bolshevik regime.
Languages: French, Russian, and English.
various sizes
Provenance
Private collection, France
Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1856–1929) was one of the most prominent military figures of the late Russian Empire and a leading member of the Romanovs during the First World War and the Russian Revolution. He was the elder son of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich the Elder and Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Oldenburg, making him a grandson of Emperor Nicholas I and a first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II.
The Grand Duke was educated for a military career from an early age, Nicholas graduated from the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff and served in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. Later he was appointed Inspector-General of Cavalry and helped modernize the Imperial Russian Army as well as became one of Russia's most respected senior officers. Nicholas married Princess Anastasia of Montenegro in 1907 but the couple had no children. In 1914, Tsar Nicholas II named him Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armed forces during the First World War. After early military difficulties, he was reassigned in 1915 to command Russian forces in the Caucasus, where he successfully led the army against the Ottoman Empire.
During the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas was briefly reappointed Supreme Commander by the Tsar, however, the Provisional Government cancelled the appointment almost immediately. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, he and his wife lived under house arrest in Crimea, from where they escaped to Europe, eventually settling in exile in France.
In 1922, anti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian Far East proclaimed him Emperor of all the Russians, but Nicholas neither accepted the title publicly nor exercised any authority, and the movement soon collapsed.
After fleeing Russia in 1919, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich settled with his wife at the Château de Choigny near Paris. There Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich became one of the most prominent figures of the White émigré movement because many Russian exiles viewed him as the ideal leader who could unite the anti-Bolshevik cause and eventually restore Russia as had military prestige and was widely respected by people. Unlike Tsar Nicholas II, who embodied the collapse of the empire, Nicholas Nikolaevich was seen as a patriotic and honorable figure who remained above political divisions. Moreover, his appointment in 1924 as the head of the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), the largest organization of former White officers in exile, further strengthened his image, as the organization was able to carry out several terrorist attacks in Soviet Union. For many White émigrés, Grand Duke embodied the hope that Bolshevik rule was temporary and that a restored Russia—Orthodox, national, and anti-communist—would one day require a unifying leader capable of "saving" the nation.
While in exile in France, Grand Duke not only had ideological followers as veterans of Wrangel's army who formed the Gallipoli movement and Russian military colonies in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) and Bulgaria, but also devoted friends and acquaintances. Doctor Boris Zakharyevich Malama played a critical role in the Grand Duke's and Grand Duchesses' lives in exile. As he was their attending physician and treated both in their sickness before deaths.
Grand Duke remained living in France, although from Choigny he moved to Cap d'Antibes by the late 1920s to escape harsh winter conditions, where he died of natural causes on 5 January 1929 in Antibes, France, at the age of 72.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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