May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945.

Coming from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books April 15th, second of a four volume family history and archive distilled from a collection of 900 photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing. Available for pre-order now from your favorite bookseller.

This second volume presents the collection covering the volatile period from the end of World War I to the end of World War II, 1918 to 1945, and includes documents issued by Russia's post-Tsarist Bolshevik government, the Russian White Army, assorted military officials during the Russian Civil War, the French Consul of Constantinople, the British and French Red Cross Missions in Constantinople, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the German occupation government of Yugoslavia, the Nazi Third Reich, and the U.S. Military Government of Germany.

ISBN 9780578867533 8.5 x 11.0 hardcover. 184 pages.

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale

 

Coming soon from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books:

Years ago I inherited several boxes of family documents and photographs that my grandfather Vassilij (William) Yakovyevich Ostrogorsky collected during the last century. These documents passed down through the hands of my aunt Vera Vassilyevna and father Vassilij Vassilyevich, my mother Jadvyga Ivanuaskas, and my sister Helen Vassilyenva. Once the boxes fell into my hands they sat mostly forgotten gathering dust in a store room.

Over the years I always intended to pull the boxes out of storage to compile a family history. Or at the least investigate the contents. In the words of the great eighteenth century English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson, “Hell is paved with good intentions.”

The realization of one’s own mortality has a way of focusing the mind. I am now in the last year of my sixth decade riding this blue ball called Earth sailing through the outer reaches of the Milky Way. My grandfather died in the second year of his seventh.

I pulled out the boxes. The contents astonished me. Photographs dating to 1920. Letters. Orders. Official certificates. Nazi work permits. Reports. Post-World War II pleas for shelter and assistance to the International Refugee Organization and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Military passes. Job applications. Applications to countries around the world in search of a new home. Red Cross medical reports, and even x-rays of all things!

But what astonished me even more than the contents of the boxes, was the realization my grandfather carried these documents with him halfway around the world by train, foot, and steamship to a new life in America in the 1950s. By my count, these documents survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, a couple of military coups, a military invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and the Allied aerial bombing campaigns of World War II.

I am pleased to present to you the Ostrogorsky-Ivanuaskas family history as best I can distilled from the documents my grandfather saved from oblivion, as well as notes my mother compiled in her last years, and family lore. Surviving photos are presented with this history. I am photographing the documents to be published in their entirety in a subsequent volume. I am pleased to report the entire archive will be curated with the Pacific Northwest Collection of the Special Collections Department of the University of Washington’s Suzzallo Library.

May You Live In Interesting Times

Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine. As today is ‪#‎ThrowbackThursday‬ we thought we'd throwback to our favorite movie of all time, Casablanca, which is somewhat apropos to these times since the movie deals with war, refugees, greed and corruption, and the fight against Nazism. A subplot of the movie is the disposition of the coveted Letters of Transit, documents that in wartime Europe were worth more than life itself!

Well, these are actual Letters of Transit, signed by the French Consul of Constantinople, which my grandparents used in 1920 to escape the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. As an indication of how cherished these documents were, they were some of the few documents my grandparents preserved from that era. My grandparents were war refugees, the kind of people who today would be looked down upon by certain retrograde segments of American society.

Grandfather Vasily is the dapper cavalry officer wearing the riding boots, front right, in his White Army uniform, and Grandmother Maria sports her White Army nurse's uniform. Grandfather was wounded in battle fighting the Bolsheviks on the Crimea during the Russian Civil War and met Grandmother in the hospital. The rest, as they say, is history:

Grandfather Vasily is the dapper cavalry officer, front right, wearing the riding boots. Tall man standing in center of photo is Baron Wrangel, the last Russian White Army general.

This would have been his officer corps in the Crimea. Grandfather Vasily was a Captain of Engineers.

Grandmother Maria in her White Army nurse's uniform

The last surviving photo taken of Grandfather Vasily (or William as his name was Americanized) at his engineering office at the old Idaho Highway Department in Boise, circa 1960

Rick's introduction to the letters of transit

May You Live in Interesting Times

May You Live in Interesting Times: Family History

Great grandfather Yakov was an Adjutant General in the Russian Cavalry, 11th Dragoons.
Photo circa 1880s, pictured wearing a St. George's Cross on his chest, and a St. Vladimir's Cross on his neck.

We come from a long line of fervent monarchists. Our great grandfather (on our father's side) Yakov, was an Adjutant General in the Russian Cavalry, 11th Dragoons, at the end of the Nineteenth Century. He was personally acquainted with Russia's Czar Alexander III. The family lived on an estate somewhere near Moscow.


The general had at least two sons, one of which was our grandfather, Vasily Yakovich. As to be expected in that era, grandfather also joined the Russian Cavalry. A seventeen year old cadet in 1913, he received a commendation personally from Czar Nicholas II commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty.

Commemorative medal grandfather personally received from Czar Nicholas II in 1913 (penny for scale)

Grandfather rose to the rank of Captain of Engineers during World War I. He was awarded a St. George's Cross during the war for heroism in battle.

Grandfather's St. George's Cross, 4th Class (penny for scale)

Of course, the Russian war effort and the Russian monarchy ended badly. Following the Bolshevik (or October) Revolution, Russia descended into years of Civil War, from 1917 to the ultimate Bolshevik victory in 1923.


Grandfather eventually joined the officer corps of Baron Wrangel's White Army, based in the Crimea in southern Russia, part of the White Movement fighting the Bolsheviks.

Baron Wrangel, tall man in center of photo

Grandfather appears front right, wearing the cavalry boots
(He's wearing his St. George's Cross on his chest)

During one of Baron Wrangel's campaigns, grandfather was wounded in battle and entered a White Army hospital. There he met a nurse that he came to fancy:

Our grandmother Maria, in her White Army nurse's uniform, circa 1920

As they say, the rest is history. Grandfather married grandmother. They had a couple of kids: our aunt Vera, and our father, Vasily Vasilyevich.


When Baron Wrangel's White Army collapsed in 1920, Vasily and Maria, along with our newborn aunt Vera, fled from the Crimea to what was then still called Constantinople, using French Letters of Transit.

Grandfather's Letter of Transit, issued by the French Consul of Constantinople

Grandfather is pictured still wearing his White Army uniform

With the Turkish Revolution against Allied control of the old Ottoman Empire, our grandparents were forced to move once again, this time to the new state of Yugoslavia. They settled in Belgrade. Grandfather went to work as a royal engineer for King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, and they had another kid, our father, Vasily Vasilyevich. There they were able to live in peace until the Nazi invasion in 1941.

The lives of our grandparents bring to mind the old Chinese proverb: May you live in interesting times! They certainly did.