After the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris from the Belle Époque Through Revolution and War

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Petersburg his wife might be a shamed woman, a persona non grata, but in Paris Olga would become the meteoric star of French high society. The top-notch historian Helen Rappaport brings to life the world of the Russian aristocrats, artists, and intellectuals who sought refuge in belle époque Paris. So many were now traveling to Paris on a regular basis that Tsar Alexander II donated 200,000 francs to help build a new and dedicated place of worship for them—the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which opened on the rue Daru in the 8th arrondissement in 1861. Many of the elite Russians fled with only what they could carry with jewelry being the most portable valuable but doomed to be sold into an oversupplied market. During that hectic “Russian Week,” Paris’s population, then 2 million, swelled with 930,000 visitors.

Aside from Grand Dukes Vladimir and Alexis, Grand Duke Mikhail (Mikhailovich)§ visited regularly with his wife, the Countess Torby; Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolaevich came in 1900 and demanded guards be posted throughout the hotel for his protection. Throughout the visit security was very tight, for the tsar was the number one target of Russian revolutionaries and anarchists. But it has also been a place of refuge for those fleeing persecution, never more so than before and after the Russian Revolution and the fall of the Romanov dynasty. There was much gossip about money destined to fund the construction of new battleships and cruisers for the Imperial Navy making its way into Alexis’s pockets during his tenure as commander in chief of the Imperial Fleet—but he was not alone in his brazen siphoning off of money from the treasury; this was but one of many “gigantic swindles” that helped boost the revenues of the unscrupulous Russian grand dukes. The Russian Revolution in the early 20th Century brought forward a welcoming new world for many and tore down a comfortable one for others.He had remained utterly inconsolable until he met and fell in love with a notable beauty at the Russian court—Olga von Pistohlkors.

It also goes to explain that although they survived the revolution many truly were left with nothing and living out a miserable existence, unable to turn home or to the passive aggressive French. Throughout the tour the Romanov couple’s every move was closely followed and described in detail in the French press; Alexandra’s fashion sense and beauty were widely commended. Others became trapped in a cycle of poverty and their all-consuming homesickness for Russia, the homeland they had been forced to abandon. But the brutality of the Bolshevik takeover forced Russians of all types to flee their homeland, sometimes leaving with only the clothes on their backs. He invited her to a tête-à-tête dinner later at Maxim’s, where they ate Beluga caviar and celebrated the Franco-Russian alliance in style.Dr Helen Rappaport is the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including Magnificent Obsession, Four Sisters, and Caught in the Revolution.